[mikeagner]

I have an older 1st gen Fire TV Stick, and am thinking of installing Kodi (or one of the forks, such as perhaps Nodi or SPMC). I am sure there are a number of settings and actions one can take to make Kodi run more smoothly, particularly on the storage starved sticks. I have yet to find anywhere that has a good writeup - so I'd like to propose to do one and put it into the wiki. I'm pretty comfortable with MediaWiki (and I already have an account) so this shouldn't present a big issue.

So how about it? I would hazard a guess that the settings for the Fire TV box might not be the same as for the stick, since the box has a bit more storage space and a better processor, so it would seem I'd need 2 pages. Things like hardware acceleration, artwork, anything that could bog the system down.

Mike

[Karellen]

Hello mikeagner,

Sounds like a fantastic idea. We can always use the help to update the wiki.

The MediaWiki account won't give access to the Kodi Wiki. If you have your own scratchpad page at Media Wiki, you can create it there and then we can transfer it over. The transfer can be done by you if you sign up with our wiki, or we can transfer for you.

[mikeagner]

I've already been upgrading the FireTV article - I should say articles, now, since I split off and upgraded most of the information. This is all stuff that I found either through my own experimenting, or stuff that I found that made a lot of sense. Obviously with a wiki anyone with the proper credentials can go edit it; that's the name of this game.

Mike

[nickr]

Thanks for your efforts.

[mikeagner]

Well how about it folks? Just to get the ball rolling, how about some recommended settings for the PLAYER SETTINGS / VIDEOS form? Such as;

Adjust Display Refresh Rate
Display 4:3 Videos as
Enable HQ Scalers for Scaling Above
Enable Hardware Acceleration - both for the surface and other Mediacodec

These settings, I'm sure, would affect video playback (including IPTV) so having the right settings is important.

I'm looking for settings for these and other forms in the SETTINGS menu for the Fire TV Stick and box that make Kodi work better and/or more efficiently.

[DaVu]

Most of the settings also depends on the connected TV....

Adjust Display Refresh Rate

At this you should have the option to set it to "off", "always", "start/stop" and it will depend if the TV is either capable of 24p (for example) or what kind of video is being played. So to 'recommend' anything in that regard is a bit difficult as it depends on the usecase, the TV and the media which is being played.

Display 4:3 Videos as

also depends on the TV. I admit, that 4:3 TVs aren´t very common anymore, but we have to assume, that ppl might use 21:9 monitors as TVs as well.

Enable Hardware Acceleration - both for the surface and other Mediacodec

might also depend on the media which is being played.

So generally I would say, we could explain what the settings are for. But we can´t 'recommend' anything as it depends on too many things.

Just my 2 cents.


And just something different. I just saw one of your edits: http://kodi.wiki/view/FireTV_Maintenance..._Easier.3F

We really appreciate your work, but under "generic searches" you provide to links to a list of Youtube videos coming from a specific search term. That´s generally not a problem, but the problem is, that the 3rd (or the 4th) video mentions something about Exodus. That´s not a thing we want to have at the wiki. So please either remove those links completely or embed a specific video with: {{#widget:YouTube|id=<youtube_id>}}

and replace the <youtube_id> with the specific video ID.

[DaVu]

For the settings....if you are referring to that article: http://kodi.wiki/view/Settings/Player/Videos

Then this has just been changed by me and the other settings will follow as soon as I will have the time for it, following that specific structure I started with.

This page explains the general settings which Kodi offers to the users and is not platform or device specific. If there is anything device specific that should be mentioned at the device-specific wiki article, IMO.

[FXB78]

The whole thing reads like a "Kodi Blog" to me anyway, do you really want the wiki linking to Real Debrid, IPVanish and various YouTube videos which in turn will have the user watching other YouTube videos from people such as Husham and Soloman? I don't really see the benefit of the whole page but fair play to you for putting the effort in to do it, my only concern is that it just links to the outside world of "banned" content and make it look like it's all part of one big family.

[DaVu]

That´s why I mentioned the youtube-template: {{#widget:YouTube|id=<youtube_id>}}

with that you are able to embed youtube videos directly at the wiki and no other recommended videos (which could ofc could contain videos we don´t want to be assigned with) are being mentioned.

[FXB78]

Fair enough, will that stop the recommendations showing at the end of the video?

And what about this line "Some ISPs are known to throttle the speed of your connection back during certain times. Much has been written about using Real Debrid or IPVanish to solve this issue; note that IPVanish does not work with first generation FireTV devices." Post that in the official forums and you'd get ripped apart and have your post binned, surely it's not suitable for the wiki to be posting about premium file hosters & VPN's?

[DaVu]

For the first question, yes. We have edited the template for it, so it won't show recommended videos at the end of a video.

Regarding to VPNs. There's​ no general need for VPNs while using Kodi. In most cases VPNs are used to avoid Geoblocking and accessing illegal content. Both aren't​ things Kodi want to be assigned with. There are some rare cases where VPNs might make sense (accessing content over the internet you store at home on you NAS, for example). But VPNs aren't needed in general.

But, to be fair, it's not my decision how we handle VPN related stuff. A wiki about VPNs might be OK as long as it doesn't affect our forum rules or our piracy policy.

[FXB78]

Given the amount of posts that are binned due to mentions of VPN's, file hosters, free IPTV, 'youtubers' and all the rest of it you may see some of these posters refer you back to this wiki page, but it's none of my business so I'll leave guys to it

[mikeagner]

Let me take care of that widget business tomorrow - I dropped the offending text totally, but I think the 3 specific YouTube videos I had mentioned originally have a lot of good information in them that a newcomer can use. So I'll figure out how to put them back.

Re the refresh rate - I highly doubt the FireTV an adjust this on the fly, unlike some of the more powerful boxes, like a Nvidia, that most likely can. I suspect that's the reason why you can manually change the refresh rate and video quality to the highest your TV or monitor can handle using the tools found in the little known options article. I would say this should be OFF, and the user should see this article to make the adjustment. I can easily see this as potentially causing chop and loss of sync when playing videos. Then I think you would need to make the same change in Kodi where it asks for the max resolution rate to be sure they are both in sync. Thoughts?

Re the hardware acceleration - my thought here is simple; if the fire TV doesn't have the capability of handling either or both options, then should the media call for it, you're again likely to get a lot of hesitation and chop. I'm not a guru on the innards of the FireTV, so any comments on this are welcome

If I should drop the refs to IPVanish and Real Debrid - which, by the way, are almost constantly mentioned on Kodi websites and YouTube videos in one form or another, that's no sweat. It's only 1 place where is referenced. Just let me know.

[mikeagner]

Re the widget: I've moved the 2 links in the articles down to the bottom using the widget so it doesn't interfere with the flow of the article. That video is a good one as it allows the otherwise klunky controller to act a little more like a mouse; and with Kodi and a FireTV, you really need either a mouse, wireless keypad with a mouse or a gamepad controller to use it.

Mike

[FXB78]

IPVanish and Real Debrid - which, by the way, are almost constantly mentioned on Kodi websites and YouTube videos in one form or another

Yes of course, we are all well aware of this fact. So-called piracy addons, builds & wizards and all that other stuff are also constantly mentioned on these "Kodi websites", it doesn't mean it should be mentioned on the official site. I don't think you fully understand the difference between what you are reading/watching on external sites vs the ethos of the actual official site.

You have references to "Third-party Wizards" & "Free IPTV" in your article, together with a mention of the ES Explorer app, which is the biggest piece of malware on the Play Store. None of this stuff should be on the official site, having it there just makes a mockery of what is preached on the official forums every day.