2019-05-17, 23:22
I've been using NextPVR with Kodi for about three years now, and I've generally been totally happy with everything. It's worked great, performed reliably, and behaved as expected. The only feature I've ever really wanted is Transcoding On-the-Fly while streaming a program. It always seemed like the most obvious feature to have: here you have a water-cooled, nuclear-powered server, necessarily under full-time power, why not let it take the burden off the downstream links and devices? I figured everything else about NextPVR was so awesome, it would surely be the next main feature to add.
But nobody else seems to be interested, such as in this thread from 2017, saying basically "you don't need it".
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=305213
Yes, I do need it. My TV picture comes across the cable at about 20 Mb/s. Sure, nominally, my client devices can handle that. But I need transcoding for slow devices, or when network conditions aren't ideal. I need it for running many devices simultaneously. I need it for running multiple streams to one device. I need it for when I'm at the park and I don't want to use all my monthly data in 15 minutes. I need it for when I'm at work, and they won't notice a 0.5 Mb stream, but a 20 Mb they certainly would. I need it when I'm trying to watch remotely, and my server's upstream bandwidth is only 10 Mb. It's hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn't need it, unless they're doing the absolutely simplest thing, streaming one or two streams on a captive full-speed network.
What makes it even more frustrating is that this technology is already in the product; it uses on-the-fly transcoding for the web interface. Sure, I could use the web interface for everything, but that's horrible - having to use a mouse to even pause, and if you need to FF or Rewind you might as well kill yourself.
I was so happy to discover X-NEWA, because finally I could get live-transcoded streams to my Kodi. When it works. Which right now it doesn't, so I have the time and frustration for this rant.
But nobody else seems to be interested, such as in this thread from 2017, saying basically "you don't need it".
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=305213
Yes, I do need it. My TV picture comes across the cable at about 20 Mb/s. Sure, nominally, my client devices can handle that. But I need transcoding for slow devices, or when network conditions aren't ideal. I need it for running many devices simultaneously. I need it for running multiple streams to one device. I need it for when I'm at the park and I don't want to use all my monthly data in 15 minutes. I need it for when I'm at work, and they won't notice a 0.5 Mb stream, but a 20 Mb they certainly would. I need it when I'm trying to watch remotely, and my server's upstream bandwidth is only 10 Mb. It's hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn't need it, unless they're doing the absolutely simplest thing, streaming one or two streams on a captive full-speed network.
What makes it even more frustrating is that this technology is already in the product; it uses on-the-fly transcoding for the web interface. Sure, I could use the web interface for everything, but that's horrible - having to use a mouse to even pause, and if you need to FF or Rewind you might as well kill yourself.
I was so happy to discover X-NEWA, because finally I could get live-transcoded streams to my Kodi. When it works. Which right now it doesn't, so I have the time and frustration for this rant.