[shredding]

Hello everyone!

I want to introduce myself as I plan to hang out here.

I'm moving to a new flat and need to make media management right, because our current setup is really bad and it ends up with the expensive tv not being used and everyone watches on their laptops and we have trouble listening to music because everything sucks.

It's really bad and my wife is pretty annoyed, because she loves music and netflix and everything is not working as it should. I do not wanna whine to much, but we have an Apple TV and a pretty expensive TV and station but the TV has a UX from hell and the station is turning off and on again out of the blue and I think I should have invested more time and I'm now willing to do so.

Here are my prerequisites:

- I'm a software architect with pretty good devops skills and am very fluent in python and I think thats the plugin language of kodi, great.
- I have a small 4 digit budget to get it right this time and am willing to invest some time
- I want to buy a dedicated linux machine
- I have a very, very good local network setup in my new flat

What I absolutely need to achieve

Pain: Currently if you turn the tv on, it boots and turns off (that appears to be a bug in the philiips tv i have), you turn it on again, meanwhile the receiver turned off, you need to turn it on again, switch to GAME 2 on, find the AppleTV remote, navigate to netflix and can start.

Solution: When I turn the TV on, there needs to be kodi on it and it needs to be controllable via android remote. This is crucial.

Pain: When I want to listen to music from napster or spotify, I need to turn on the receiver, which in turn starts the DVD Player which in turn starts the TV. I turn of the TV, which in turn turns off the Receiver, which I turn on again after removing the DVD player from Power, then i switch to GAME2, find AppleTV remote and sync with the iPad and start listening to music.

Solution: I need to start playing music with just the android remote and no other things available.

I think, when I'm there i achieved 80% of what I want to have and having a central server, video recorder etc is easy from there.

I hope someone can guide me to a few good tutorials or setup help. If I need to get rid of the receiver or tv or apple tv and get new stuff I am absolutely willing to do so.

[Miss_80]

I have no knowledge about Apple TV and have no idea why your TV, receiver etc are turning on and off. I can't help you there, but let me explain what I have at home.

- Panasonic Plasma
- HTPC (on Windows by the way) with kodi shell on it (boots directly in Kodi) via hdmi -> see this thread
- Harmon Kardon receiver
- Addons in Kodi for Spotify among others. -> read this
- Iphone with Kodi Remote, android telephone with Kodi remote and a bluetooth keyboard just in case -> for android, Yatse is also really nice

All these work perfectly with each other. In the past I had issue with the HTPC that wouldn't boot when the TV was already on (had something to do with the handshake) but I was able to solve that.
Select the correct channel on the receiver for audio.
Use your android remote to connect with Kodi (the app will search for an active kodi client when asked. One tip; make sure that your Kodi client receives a fix IPadres to make sure that you don't need to re-configure the app on your phone)
Select spotify as an addon in Kodi. Netflix is also an option (Flix2Kodi is the most active developed addon at this moment I believe), however, only works via the browser which is 2.0 audio. There is a workaround for that by the way ; NetflixRemoteController from kodi using Advanced Launcher. -> explained here

I hope this helps a bit

[shredding]

Thanks, HTPC is just a fancy word for dedicated media-server pc, right?

What are the steps you need to do in order to get kodi on your tv running or when u are running music?

E.g. is kodi automatically "enabled" (e.g. it shows upon on the tv screen) when you are turning the TV on?

[Miss_80]

yes you are right, HTPC -> a fancy word for a dedicated PC indeed

I have three Kodi clients actually. One is the HTPC, the other is a raspberry with OpenElec which I use in the bedroom and the third is a laptop which I use to play around with. All are using HDMI cables to connect to the TV. All connected to my NAS which contains the video and music material which I don't stream via Netflix or Spotify or other sources.

What steps?
-> just hook up your PC to your TV with HDMI. Your TV is acting as the screen nothing more. My receiver can't process audio over HDMI, so I needed a seperate spdif cable. Depends off course what your receiver can do.
-> to be able to use Spotify; download the add on (either via kodi repository) or via the link that Marcel has mentioned in his thread. Fill out your credentials and of you go.
-> Play around with some skins

[shredding]

I'm thinking of getting rid of the receiver at all. It's main purpose is to interconnect between various hardware (namely Apple TV, DVD, TV and Stereo).

Apple TV is just for getting data from the mac to the screen and that should be done by the media server in the future.
We do not really use DVD and if, i could connect it to the kodi-hosting os.

What I really would love to have is a TV that connects to kodi via the network and does so by default (e.g. I do really need two options: standard TV and kodi, with kodi as the default). I'm willing to buy a new TV if that's necessary.

I'm thinking about using sonos for sounds, as the stereo is pretty aged.

May I ask why you have three kodi installations? Wouldn't one central installation be enough to control multiple devices?

[nickr]

No you don't conhect kodi to the tv via network, you do it via hdmi.

[Miss_80]

May I ask why you have three kodi installations? Wouldn't one central installation be enough to control multiple devices?

I have three installations, because I have three places in the house where I want to be able to watch my movies / shows or listen to music separately.

[shredding]

No you don't conhect kodi to the tv via network, you do it via hdmi.

Hm. What kind of hardware do I need for that? Obviously a Server with HDMI, but is there any recommendation what kind of hardware one should use? I like to have a linux server that is as well a nas. I'd set it up myself, but I'd need something that is low on power usage and silent. Are there any hardware providers specialising in that?

[Miss_80]

Not sure if I understand you correctly but you need a laptop, or desktop or raspberry or android machine or whatever, on which you install Kodi. Connect that machine VIA HDMI to your television and you are good. If you have a NAS with mediafiles, make sure that whatever client you are using, can connect with NAS through your network.

[shredding]

okay, i already read up about that section, there are dedicated media pcs at the hardware online shops. However, I want to use a linux machine that serves kodi, a nas and some more staff.

[wgstarks]

Kodi isn't really a server. It's a media player.

For the type of setup you're describing, you would have a media server (I use unRaid) which contains all your media files. This would be connected to your boxes with the Kodi app installed (nuc, chromebox, raspberrypi, appletv, or almost any computer) via your local network. Each Kodi box would be connected to a tv/monitor via HDMI.

[shredding]

Can't i have one Linux Server that has the media files and serves kodi?

[nickr]

What do you mean 'serves kodi'?