Kodi Community Forum

i am new to this forum and just what i have been trying to do for years i just stumbled on this forum and found it interested me very much
my first question would have to be why spend all that money on a htpc when you can just buy a media player
it does everything i need it to do it plays all movie types and music also
i just plug in my portable hard drive or external one with all my movies and music on them and play away
it also has wifi and ethernet so streaming isn't an issue either but i see how big this forum is and would have to assume there is more to this htpc thing then meets the eye
please feel free to comment and set me straight on any thing i might have missed because i truly do want the best home theater experience i can get or afford

I went down the htpc route to be able to connect to a satellite dish for dual freesat, be able to launch on demand sites as I think they offer a better experience than associated addons (also web browser is great for other things too), be able to run better skins that require more power and also to be able to do a bit of gaming. That's just me though others may have different reasons

thanks for that i am beginning to see more of what that entails but i live in the far reaches of the country that has no internet broadband i have to use a sat for all internet and bandwidth is very expensive 25 dollars a gig so i think i'll have to stay with the media player

Flexibility of your viewing experience, not being tied to one vendor, open source, playback of pretty well all codecs instead of what your vendor supports, lovely skins, metadata scraping, open addon system, choice of remote controls (including smart phones), integration with home automation, ambilight integration, whole house system, there is a lot to like, and none of what i mention requires any better internet than what you have. Each to their own of course.

By the way you refer to "the country" without mentioning one. We are an international community and its fun to be part of that too.