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Release Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - Printable Version

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Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-09

(2018-06-08, 17:43)badbob001 Wrote: This is a rather exciting skill but I'm not sure if it's family-ready. Searching for movies don't seem to give me the expected results.

Say I asked, "Find me Star Trek" and I get back:
  • Star Trek
  • Star Trek Beyond
  • Star Trek: Nemesis
But my movie library contains:
  • Star Trek
  • Star Trek Beyond
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
  • Star Trek Into Darkness
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
  • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (why did I pick this long example?)
  • Star Trek: First Contact
  • Star Trek: Generations
  • Star Trek: Insurrection
  • Star Trek: Nemesis
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
  • Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

In another example, I have this in my library:
  • Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
and I say, "Show me the last jedi".

Alexa would say, "Getting Star Wars The Last Jedi Theatrical Version From Kodi Video". Then it may correctly show me:
  • Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
or on a rare occasion, show me:
  • Transformers: The Last Knight
But what is the deal with it using the title "Star Wars The Last Jedi Theatrical Version" instead of the words "The Last Jedi"? Is it really just searching by "the last jedi" and saying "Star Wars The Last Jedi Theatrical Version" is just a cosmetic audio feedback thing?  I suspect it's not always simply searching by exactly what I ask for because the results are not complete or wrong.

Could it be that alexa first tries to find a match in it's own movie database and then pass that full title to kodi's search? This is rather frustrating if my movie titles don't match amazon's secret database (if it's in their database at all) or if I'm expecting it to do a straight-forward substring search.

I also have custom genres in my library (eg: Kids Movies) and that doesn't work.
And not sure if this should work but it doesn't: Show me movies from 1979.


Thanks for the feedback. The addon is using string similarity to find similar titles to what you’ve requested. But there is a threshold, and I guess it does not work fairly well for actual substrings (as with star trek example). But this is something I can look into, and tweak with it.

As per another question. Alexa does indeed (but only) search in their Amazon database, and then send the title name to my skill, which then forwards it to your Kodi instance. There is a way to proactively send catalog of own titles, but I have not yet come up with an idea how to approach this, since different people have different stuff in their libraries (this feature is more tailored for streaming services like Netflix, etc.). And also, some people don’t want to share their stuff.

Unfortunately custom genres does not work, as this is a limitation of the skill API, as well as searching movies by year.

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - badbob001 - 2018-06-11

So I'm guessing that for services like Netflix, Hulu, etc, they would upload their entire title catalog to amazon so Alexa will contextually search those entries first before defaulting to Amazon's own movie database. That won't necessarily work for Kodi catalogs as that will vary form person to person. Does Alexa only return the title of the movie? Does it return any other info like the movies imdb id?

What happens if Alexa can't find the movie in its catalog? Does it still send search words to your skill or does it just give up? If the former, perhaps there is a way to phrase a request or use a unique word that will near-guarantee Alexa won't find the title in it's catalog and cause it to send the exact string to your skill. I had a lot of trouble getting Alexa to find the movie Thor. Perhaps it was hearing 'Door'. But it finally worked when I spelled out the title (T-H-O-R). I wonder if there are any other tricks or key words to make this work better.

Or maybe we need to accept that we can't change anything that comes from Alexa and improve the search results in Kodi so that even near matches are shown?

When this works, it's kind of wonderful. When I enable 'followup mode' in alexa so it'll still listen for commands for a few seconds after the last commmand, I can do this:
"Alexa, show me movie <movie title>."
"Play this."

Thanks!
Robert

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - Johnd67 - 2018-06-12

I would like to be a tester, but it seems impossible for me to send a PM. Is there any other way to contact you?

Regards john

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - Johnd67 - 2018-06-12

(2018-01-26, 10:00)tkislan Wrote:
(2018-01-26, 06:13)havlc2u Wrote: Can you add me also when you get a chance


Just send me your Amazon Alexa connected email in PM, so I can add you

Could you please add me too? 


RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-13

(2018-06-12, 15:08)Johnd67 Wrote: I would like to be a tester, but it seems impossible for me to send a PM. Is there any other way to contact you?

Regards john
You can find me on reddit (there is no restriction there) with the same username.

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - melons2 - 2018-06-16

Everything was working fine with this great addon until today about 4pm cst. I haven't changed anything on my end but I'm getting the "connect" / "disconnect" error.
Has there been a change or do I need to check something?

Thank you

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - intellimation - 2018-06-16

Thank you

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-16

(2018-06-16, 07:20)intellimation Wrote: Please add these emails to Kodi Video skill
...
Hey, I've added both of them.

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - cindy202 - 2018-06-17

Please add this email to alexa video skill for kodi


Thanks so much for your hard work

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - silencebk - 2018-06-17

could you please add [email protected]?

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-18

@cindy202 @silencebk I've added your emails.

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - cindy202 - 2018-06-18

I got kodi video skill and successfully linked to alexa app, but alexa keeps saying couldn't find the kodi video skill and nothing works for now
anyway, appreciated your hard works

Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-18

(2018-06-18, 09:09)cindy202 Wrote: I got kodi video skill and successfully linked to alexa app, but alexa keeps saying couldn't find the kodi video skill and nothing works for now
anyway, appreciated your hard works


What country do you have set up in Amazon account?

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - cindy202 - 2018-06-18

I live in US. It works now (play, resume, pause) that is it nothing else even it can not stop the video just pause and resume or play.

Thanks anyway

RE: Amazon Echo Alexa Video Skill for Kodi - tkislan - 2018-06-19

(2018-06-18, 19:26)cindy202 Wrote: I live in US. It works now (play, resume, pause) that is it nothing else even it can not stop the video just pause and resume or play.

Thanks anyway
Stopping doesn't work, but that is an issue on Amazon side.

So what does it say, when you request some movie to play?