Hello there.
I want to use Kodi in a HTPC, but I'm not able to achieve even the most basic functionality... I'm not a TV guy, I just want to use an old computer to easily play media on my TV, and that computer is going to be offline (I'm going to update the media library either by ripping discs directly to it or by using a USB drive).
I just want a media center that works with local files natively, has a 10-foot interface, and is fast enough to run on a C2D E6600+HD5450. (NOTE: this is not the PC I'm using atm for tests)
I've installed the latest Kodi, but when I add the local videos folder using the "Add Videos..." buttton, I can only browse the videos by going to videos>files>myfolder, what's a lot of clicks just to display the few videos I have, and when Kodi scans the folder, it keeps popping the alert "Could not download information|Unable to connect to remote server|Would you like to continue scanning" what's very annoying, but even if I answer "Yes" on the unending stream of popups, nothing changes, the videos aren't added to the library. I can only play them by browsing their paths in the Kodi system.
Another annoyance is that there's no on-screen controls for pictures slideshow... perhaps there's an add-on for that?
Also, I don't understand why, but it seems Kodi is actually somehow 'streaming' the local files, like if it were running a server and connecting to it, because not only there's a 'loaded' indication in the progress bar, but also rwd is extremely slow (I'm testing on a i7+GTX580), and even when using DXVA, the processor is used a lot.
I think it's better to just list the few features I want and perhaps you guys could tell me if Kodi is appropriated or if I should look for another solution:
1-I'd like to have a list of all my videos right away or with one-click maximum. This can be achieved by using the Rapier skin and creating a custom menu entry that opens a favorite, but that's hardly ideal imho.
2-I'd like to play files directly from disk, without streaming or transcoding, just like any media player for PC.
3-I need it to work properly on an offline system.
4-I'd like to have on-screen controls for pictures slideshow (previous, play/pause, next are enough). (could live w/o it though)
Is it possible to achieve that using Kodi?
Thank you in advance.
Your problem here is that you want to use the library function, which gets series image, season images, episode images, air dates, synopsis and all that. This is data you DON'T have so it has to go online to download the data relevant to the movies/episodes you have. All this information is stored locally however, you don't need the internet to retrieve the info a second time (Unless you add MORE movies and episodes). Other than that caveat and also any streaming based add-ons like YouTube, Kodi can operate entirely offline. The only work around here I see is that you put the machine online, let it pull in all the data for the library view, and then take it offline. Failing that, get used to just using the 'Files' mode because the library NEEDS that data to work. and you're only getting that data from the internet, one way or the other.
Is there any particular reason you don't want the machine to access the internet?
(2015-02-20, 17:27)DJ_Izumi Wrote: [ -> ]Your problem here is that you want to use the library function, which gets series image, season images, episode images, air dates, synopsis and all that. This is data you DON'T have so it has to go online to download the data relevant to the movies/episodes you have. All this information is stored locally however, you don't need the internet to retrieve the info a second time (Unless you add MORE movies and episodes). Other than that caveat and also any streaming based add-ons like YouTube, Kodi can operate entirely offline. The only work around here I see is that you put the machine online, let it pull in all the data for the library view, and then take it offline. Failing that, get used to just using the 'Files' mode because the library NEEDS that data to work. and you're only getting that data from the internet, one way or the other.
Is there any particular reason you don't want the machine to access the internet?
Thank you for your reply.
The machine doesn't have Wi-fi card, and I don't see any reason to install one since I couldn't care less about that information that's retrieved online. I just want a simple listing of files, if there's a thumb of the video, that's a plus, but more than that is unnecessary.
If there's no way to use the library function, that's perfectly fine. I'm going to put all the files on the same folder and make a shortcut for it.
1 and 3 are down, any ideas on the other two? Does Kodi play the local files directly from the disc like any media player? And what about slideshow controls?
It does all of these things. Just add the specific folders with media in them and you can access them in the files view under video. And you can use the remote's next/back track buttons to skip through a slide show.
Though really, I don't see an solid argument for NOT putting a $19.99 wifi card in the thing. What if you wanted to copy files to it from another machine? Install additional software or such without needing to use a USB key to get it there? Use the handy library function (It's KINDA awesome) I'd spend the money to put wifi in it or reach Ethernet to it.
(2015-02-20, 18:04)DJ_Izumi Wrote: [ -> ]It does all of these things. Just add the specific folders with media in them and you can access them in the files view under video. And you can use the remote's next/back track buttons to skip through a slide show.
Though really, I don't see an solid argument for NOT putting a $19.99 wifi card in the thing. What if you wanted to copy files to it from another machine? Install additional software or such without needing to use a USB key to get it there? Use the handy library function (It's KINDA awesome) I'd spend the money to put wifi in it or reach Ethernet to it.
Well, I have blocked Kodi in my firewall because I'm simulating what would happen without internet, I'm going to unblock it to see how the library works, but I don't think it's going to work very well because most of my videos are ripped from disc (no metadata) or personal stuff. Sure I could put a wifi card on the system, but I'm not an enthusiast, I just want to get rid of discs and I don't want to deal with TVs settings because the compatibility sucks, there's no standard, every manufacturer does whatever they want and overall things doesn't work, so I just want a device that just output whatever I want on HDMI cable. I want something hassle-free and straightforward though.
Just label the stuff correctly and the library will work fine. Have a folder full of movies, or folders of movies, just label them and it'll work.
/Movies/Jurassic Park.avi
Or /Movies/Jurasic Park/Jurassic Park.avi
Just add your .../Movies/ folder as a source, set it to contain movies, and they should all scrape up nicely. Some stuff can confuse it like if something is labeled 'Directors Cut'. 'Blade Runner Directors Cut' isn't the ACTUAL name of the movie on IMDB so it'll never find it. But you can put stuff in square brackets and it'll ignore the brackets. Like "Blade Runner [Directors Cut].avi" The program will only read the 'Blade Runner' part and ignore the stuff in square brackets.
Same for TV series
Have a folder for TV series, put each series in it's own folder in that, and have the episodes numbered correctly and it'll work for scraping the library
/Television Series/The Simpsons/The Simpsons S01E01.avi
That'll work fine. And the library will sort your series, divide them up by season, get lots of pretty info and make a nice presentation once it's all scraped up.
Nice. It really worked. Does it work with all movies and TV shows in all languages? What happens when it can't find information for a file, or if there's no internet connection when it's collecting information for a file? If the thing relies on internet information, I wonder if the file will be 'unreachable' (at least in an easy way) when for some reason the library functionality fails to index it... unless there's an special place in the library for such files (e.g.: uncategorized).
You've already seen what happens when there's no internet. It says it can't connect to the server to get the data. If something is mislabled it won't go into the library and that's when you have to fix it. Uhh, for example, Saturdayday Night Live 40th Anivesarary, there's no 'episode' number in that. I had to manually look at the SNL entry on TheTVDB.org and find out how that special was numbered. It's considdered Season 0 (Specials are treated as S00) and Episode 90. So I had to add "S00E90" somewhere to the filename. You will run into occasional issues like this in library mode and it often involves specials. I just do the work to make it work but if not, you can just use file mode. I won't lie, I didn't even know that XBMC had a library mode for the first few years when I used it on an actual classic Xbox. I just used the files mode for like three YEARS with no clue how or why the library didn't work. I was fine with it.
Also, you may need to check TheTVDB for spellings. This happens to me with anime. Sometimes the TVDB uses the Japanese titles, other times it uses the offical English title. Other times it uses a different SPELLING of the Japanese title when spelled with roman characters. But a little work and you can get those working fine. (Biggest issue I had was TVDB spelled a series with 'ou' where the vowel was but the anime scene just used the letter 'o' in the same place.
Nice. Thank you DJ_Izumi, the library mode is somewhat useful... I don't actually need it but some features are nice, however, the chance of having a movie buried in my disk that doesn't show in Library is something I'd like to avoid, because I want to use either the Library or the File browser, not both, so, perhaps there's an addon or something that tell us when you have a video file in "/Movies" that is not being indexed by the library? That would be neat.
Overall it seems I will be able to fight my way through Kodi... I don't like many things like the amount of interaction necessary to play a single title... these things should be way more streamlined imho, and also the somewhat lack of customization options for most skins (the maximinimalist skin is nice but there are few settings and most of the time it doesn't work properly).
I don't even know if that hardware is powerful enough, the guys on videohelp said it isn't, however, I could play 1080p videos flawlessly using MPC-HC, but perhaps Kodi needs a more powerful machine...
You might want to consider just using a plain jane video player such as VLC and the O/S folder structure.
Kodi's real strength is the library, it's a media manager par excel-lance. It will function as you wish, but it would hardly seem the effort is worth while unless you are going to use the library. Once set-up Kodi can be disconnected from the web/internet forever and if the library is built, you gain all the benefits of that mode, meta-data and graphics. I'm not going to try and 'sell' you on this, as Kodi was built for HTPC enthusiasts and contains most of the wanted features users have requested, not just a media player.
Re: QI
Kodi is cross platform and has most of the common foreign language support (for a listing check the wiki links) If Kodi needs information (in file mode, this would be a library request) it attempts to locate meta-data locally first (in a specific format) failing that, it will attempt to find it online on one of the default scrapers should a scraper be defined for that source, otherwise the fetch process ends.
Thank you PatK, no video player has a 10-foot interface, and I AM going to use the Library, although that's just bells and whistles imho, that's why I'm not crying in joy... I don't care if I have to rename all my files so I'm definitely using it.
However, I still would like to know what happens to the media files that are in the correct path but for some reason the Library didn't index them... is there a way to somehow 'list' only those files, or show a specific warning or something? Let's say I have hundreds of files in the /Movies folder, and then I copy to that folder another batch of movies, how do I know if one of these movies was not indexed by the Library? Do I have to go through the whole shebang manually?
Also, any ideas if that hardware* is powerful enough for Kodi (1080p@30 max)?
*Specs: Core2Duo E6600 (stable up to 4.1GHz), AMD HD5450, 2GB of DDR3.
The GPU will do DXVA2 so that'll cover most instances of h.264 and MPEG2 and DivX/XviD could be decoded on the CPU so that hardware is fine for that. You'd hit a wall with high definition HEVC stuff but you won't encounter HEVC any time soon. Really, once HEVC becomes common in video formats, HEVC in DXVA support will be in Kodi and you'd just need to swap in an alternate PCI-E card with hardware support for HEVC. A low end card would be fine for any sort of HEVC video decoding once it's available.
When media isn''t getting indexed there can be more than one reason.
* The naming is wrong, and doesn't match the online databases - easily fixed.
* The media isn't indexed on the online databases. Best option is to add it, they are user built. You benefit from the communiyy effort, contribute back. Next option is to use nfo files. See the wiki.
* your home videos, no point adding these to online databases as noone else will benefit. Use nfos for these.
To find out what the scanners have missed try the missing movie scanner addon.
(2015-02-20, 21:26)DJ_Izumi Wrote: [ -> ]The GPU will do DXVA2 so that'll cover most instances of h.264 and MPEG2 and DivX/XviD could be decoded on the CPU so that hardware is fine for that. You'd hit a wall with high definition HEVC stuff but you won't encounter HEVC any time soon. Really, once HEVC becomes common in video formats, HEVC in DXVA support will be in Kodi and you'd just need to swap in an alternate PCI-E card with hardware support for HEVC. A low end card would be fine for any sort of HEVC video decoding once it's available.
Nice. Thank you.
(2015-02-20, 23:00)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]When media isn''t getting indexed there can be more than one reason.
* The naming is wrong, and doesn't match the online databases - easily fixed.
* The media isn't indexed on the online databases. Best option is to add it, they are user built. You benefit from the communiyy effort, contribute back. Next option is to use nfo files. See the wiki.
* your home videos, no point adding these to online databases as noone else will benefit. Use nfos for these.
To find out what the scanners have missed try the missing movie scanner addon.
Yes, missing movie scanner does a good job but it won't allow you to fix the stuff directly... that's minor though.
Also, is there a way to easily add files to the library manually? Perhaps some addon that will generate the nfo file for you?