I have a number of questions:
1) Is there a printable guide to XBMC?
2) My understanding so far is that streaming TV sites are to be found by hunting through the "Add-ons" Is this correct?
3) Is there an efficient way of hunting for streaming TV sites?
4) Once I have identifiedapprox. 10 straming sites of interest I would like to place them in a handy menu. Is this possible?
5) ) If I identify a streaming site of interest to me and it is not contained within the add-ons, how can I view it? How can I add it?
chuck best to list the sites here, ppl can help and direct u if there is an add on or if its easy to create one for said site.
I am interested in:
CNN
History Channel
National Geographic
Discovery Channel
Nasa
Biography
CNN: CNN Live add-on
History Channel, Biography: Free Cable add-on; maybe some on Hulu and Amazon Prime add-ons?
National Geographic: National Geographic, Free Cable add-ons (however, currently broken); maybe some on Hulu and Amazon Prime add-ons?
Discovery Channel: maybe some on Hulu and Amazon Prime add-ons?
NASA: Nasa Videos, TV and Vodcasts add-on
Keep in mind that all these add-ons simply provide XBMC access to videos you can watch via a web browser freely on the respective sites or on a streaming service with paid subscription. If you are looking for live streaming content (to replace cable or satellite TV), you won't find that here. Think of it like using Hulu/Netflix/iTunes/Amazon Prime to view media content instead of live TV.
Thank you. The objective is to have available CNN live, with the others not necessarily live. The viewing will be done on a TV and I am planning to purchase the XIOS for this purpose. In the meantime I have been experimenting with XBMC on my computer. It seems that channel availabilty depends on the detection of the viewer's IP and it being within a certain country - in some cases.
The "CNN Live" add-on, despite its name, does not provide live feeds of CNN broadcasts. Again, it consists solely of video segments posted on the CNN website. What it does do is aggregate these segments into a playlist so that you can watch a continuous stream of videos that give the illusion you are watching "live" TV. Also, if new segments are added, this add-on will automatically add these to its playlist.
And, yes, many of these videos are geo-blocked by the content providers. A general rule-of-thumb is, if you can't watch the video via a web browser, you likely won't be able to watch it via an add-on either.