KODI

[1001gear]

Guy tells me he gets free movies, even new ones with this wifi box. It's called KODI and it's legal because it's wifi.

 

KODI was easy enough to find and free for PC. Turns out it's just an open source media center app that will capture anything there's a plugin for. They claim to not condone stealing of copyrighted media but there's nothing they can do about the plugins and officially it's not their fault anyway. They recommend using a VPN for your protection regardless. Even without stolen movies, you get TV shows, documentaries and garden variety inter-tainment stuff like Youtube and the usual stuff.

 

I'mma cherry pick the legal stuff and get rid of it.

 

Any thoughts from you industry guys?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I've never heard of it before.

 

[1001gear]

Yeah it was news to me as well. Amazon sells pre configured boxes for 50 to a 100 bucks so there's something going with this software. Just looking through the options though, you can maybe get away with free TV on general tolerance but you're on your own with pirated stuff.

[steve mac]

Where I live Kodi has been a way of life for the last couple of years. Whilst not approving of theft of programs, there is simply no legal way here of watching US or British tv to say nothing of all the sports channels. It is a one off small payment for the box and connect it to wi fi and TV and simply every program , movie or sporting event is available. The legality is down to the individual and there own moral compass.

[MikeRivers]

I don't know enough about TV to understand how it receives TV programming over WiFi. I looked at the Wiki but it didn't help. I watch TV over the air and don't subscribe to any cable services. I've been considering moving to a town that's far enough away from broadcast TV stations so that I probably couldn't watch them (AntennaWeb shows one network station that I could get with a big outdoor antenna). There's Comcast and AT&T in the area but none of them have a plan as basic as I want (will President Donald do anything about this?). Could I use it to watch CBS and NBC through WiFi using the cheapest Internet service I can find?

[1001gear]

The basic PC player has plugins for ABC, NBC, and CBS news besides a slew of "legit" (documentaries, science etc..) programming. There's a limited plugin for the Syfy channel it had the whole first season of Magicians; a favorite of mine. Computer makes better looking tv than my tv.

[MikeRivers]

The basic PC player has plugins for ABC, NBC, and CBS news besides a slew of "legit" (documentaries, science etc..) programming. There's a limited plugin for the Syfy channel it had the whole first season of Magicians; a favorite of mine. Computer makes better looking tv than my tv.

 

Just news? I get that from the newspaper and radio. I want to watch what I watch over the air only without dropouts when the wind blows.

 

It sounds like it's not a real time system, it's programs that someone is capturing and then streaming on demand or on a schedule. I remember a company that was receiving broadcast TV and streaming it. They quickly went away in the wake of a lawsuit from the networks that they were too small to to defend. I guess that scared away anyone else who thought about doing it. They had a pretty good argument for it being legal but that doesn't stop a good law firm with a lot of money behind it.

[1001gear]

There's lot's of what they're calling live tv from around the world as well as American stuff.

[Anderton]

YouTube has all kinds of real time streaming as well as "captures" of things like Fox News. I'm not sure how they get away with it, frankly. However the streams seem legit - YouTube is the only venue I know for seeing streamed news from Sky News, Nigeria, Al Jazeera, etc. A lot of it is from XBMC, like documentaries, which is what Kodi used to be called.

 

Here's some info.

 

 

 

[1001gear]

Too good to be true is most of the goodies come via plugins like Exodus which will get you into the mother lode; save to local drive included. Problem besides the legalities is the territory is shady at best and why a VPN is strongly recommended. Too much of a hassle IMO.

[techristian]

I have 6 satellite dishes to pick up some of my FTA TV....but I have tried KODI before. It is very tricky to set up "repositories" and there is no guarantee that the programming will be there even a week later...after you spend all kinds of time setting it up. I managed to watch 1 SINGLE episode of "mythbusters" on Discovery. The next week IT WAS GONE.

 

DAN

[nat whilk II]

Once having tired of constant crashes with Windows Media Player I installed KODI just for playing stuff I already own. Works well for that - has nice visualizations, too. Am I the only person who really likes those colorful, psychedelic visualizations? I can watch them at length, fascinated.

 

Never tried using it to snag movies or anything else - just playback.

 

It's been around a long time as a legit, free open source code - so a lot of people have figured out how to do a lot of different things with it. Not my hobby, 'tho.

 

nat whilk ii

[Hard Truth]

I have a $60 android box with HDMI output that I use to watch YouTube and other internet streaming on my TV. Unlike Roku, smart TVs and most other "over the top" devices, it has a web browser so you can watch anything (porn) on the internet. You can do the same with any computer with built-in HDMI or with an adaptor, but with this box I don't have to worry about viruses and malware taking down my whole computer, the worst that can happen is my $60 box goes down. So far, it has recovered nicely from crashes. The OS is probably on a PROM, so it may be indestructible.

 

It came with Kodi installed. I didn't find any content worth acquiring that way because most of the picture quality was poor. Much of the content seemed to be retransmissions of USA/European content with non-English subtitles or dubbed dialogue. I can see how it could be valuable to people without access to other content sources.