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Avenging Dentist posted:Also, the rumor goes that they picked Kodi because it looks (kind of) like media player controls: I think that is skating backronynm territory, personally  "What's easily trademark-able worldwide that is also inoffensive in as many cultures as possible and short, also something that we can also acquire the domain for under a bazillion dollars from some rear end in a top hat squatters?" was how that conversation went. I am sure it took ages. I have no doubt that the volunteer services of people who are otherwise paid a lot of money to do that kind of thing for private corporations was involved, it's hard as hell. And after all that they still got a lot of people asking "why didn't they just name it <generic media center name x>?? Makes no sense!?" :-)
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Feb 1, 2015 10:23
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Ixian posted:The Kodi foundation isn't profit driven and isn't looking to make money off the software, but they are 100% committed to stopping other people from doing so by leveraging the name. There is still a lot of bad blood between part of the core team and Plex even though most of the Plex software products stopped having anything to do with XBMC-derived code years ago for example. And Plex are the good guys of the bunch, compared to a lot of off-shore fly by night outfits. Do you mind elaborating a bit more on this? It sounds interesting.
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Feb 1, 2015 15:00
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Never knew there was that much drama involved in the XBMC world (especially with the plex split). Thanks for your replies Ixian, they are pretty interesting to read.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:39
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DarkSol posted:Do you mind elaborating a bit more on this? It sounds interesting. Probably not what you're looking for, but if you'd like a more famous example, you can also look at Firefox. Mozilla is pretty aggressive in protecting its trademarks because it lets them shut down lovely companies that bundle crapware with the Firefox installer: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/04/30/protecting-our-brand-from-a-global-spyware-provider/
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Feb 1, 2015 19:24
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Avenging Dentist posted:Probably not what you're looking for, but if you'd like a more famous example, you can also look at Firefox. Mozilla is pretty aggressive in protecting its trademarks because it lets them shut down lovely companies that bundle crapware with the Firefox installer: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/04/30/protecting-our-brand-from-a-global-spyware-provider/ I have seen this done a few times. The installer is never available for more than a few days though. I have had some that were gone in as little as an hour. This was a few years ago when Google wasn't what it is today. I still remember using dogpile because it was less tied to Microsoft and would offer other options when it came to software. I had an issue the other week my brother tried getting XBMC and ended up with a ton of crapware on his computer. Ended up having to do a fresh instal for him cause the stuff was dug in like a tick. I reported the website he got it from to XBMC's help email. Never got much back but the site he downloaded it from was gone within a few hours which i was glad for.
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Feb 1, 2015 21:08
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serebralassazin posted:Never knew there was that much drama involved in the XBMC world (especially with the plex split). Thanks for your replies Ixian, they are pretty interesting to read. I've seen it when people develop add ons. Typically someone make a pretty interesting one (like the first psudeo TV plug in) and it gets really popular. Then a new version of XBMC breaks it and the forums implode with people demanding a fix or screaming that their feature request still hasn't been added. The guys who make the add on end up bailing or abandoning the project because they have lives/scholl work/jobs and can't spend all their free time giving free tech support.
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Feb 1, 2015 21:49
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DarkSol posted:Do you mind elaborating a bit more on this? It sounds interesting. I don't have the whole up to date history - there was a blog post a few years back that went in to it, but I can't find the link. In any case it was from the point of view of the XBMC devs and is several years out of date (circa 2010-11) by now. However I've been involved on the outside - starting with the original XBox hack (I used Mechassault to load it), then I used to maintain the Schedules Direct Plugin for MediaPortal, another XBMC offshoot, and later a few live-TV related XBMC projects - for close to 14 years and remember most of it just from being around while it went down (again, as an outsider, I am not a member of the Kodi foundation/team). Plex was forked from XBMC around mid-2008 due to some drama over OSX support for XBMC - which either didn't exist at the time or was in a poor state, I don't remember. In any case, the original "Plex" essentially was just "XBMC for Macs". However the developer (later developers) who forked it also had a pretty big difference in opinion with some of the core XBMC dev team over how the back end should work, which lead to the creation of the Plex Media Server - a completely separate development that shares no code with XBMC. The merits of either approach could be argued (have been argued) for years, there's no "winner", some people prefer one, some the other, depends on the user. Clearly Elan (original Plex dev and current head of Plex) foresaw more possibilities by having a separate server from the client, and to be fair, he wasn't wrong. And after all you can always run them both on the same box for a mostly best of both worlds experience, though understandably many users prefer the do-it-all-in-the-client approach of XBMC for their needs. Anyway some bad blood developed out of that as is common when large groups of developers on open source projects refuse to give an inch, so the XBMC team proceeded to develop their own OSX native client anyway, which over time turned out quite good, or at least on par with other platforms. Then, around 2010 after mobile began to take over the world Plex split even further when they started down the commercial path, turning out components such as their mobile apps, as well as associated PMS features that supported them, for a fee. This they were perfectly free to do - only the Plex Home Theater client is still based in any way on XBMC (in fact they keep it up to date to this day with Kodi) and it remains GPL licensed, of course, but they are free to do what they want with their own code. This is also why some aspects from XBMC/Kodi - the plugin system, which was redesigned from the ground up in the client a few years ago, and Live TV support are two big examples - aren't present in Plex, or are present in very different forms.Other than the actual Plex Home Theater Client for PC's there's nothing in common any longer. So, combine this with the rancor that already existed over the OSX split in 2008 and other petty disputes along with the general attitude among many on the Kodi core development team that whatever else, their work should remain free and open and not act as a gateway for others to piggyback off of to make money - and you end up where we are today. Plex is really it's own thing now, and nothing they do today really "steals" from XBMC/Kodi, but since it did grow out of it - you could easily argue they would not have established any kind of foothold at all without the groundwork laid by XBMC - there's generally bad blood. Not with every dev, I should add - a lot of them don't care, but the ones that do are seriously butthurt over it still, in the way that only obstinate GPL obsessed programmers can be I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out and over-simplifying but that's the gist of it. By the way, I don't think the name change to Kodi was motivated by Plex - Plex barely uses the XBMC name as it is, and only when the GPL requires it. The name change was really aimed more at A) The dozens of fly-by-night Chinese Android kit sellers marketing "XBMC media centers" that work to varying degrees - some well, some badly - people using the name on app stores for scam apps, and pirate stream addons that use the name XBMC, which drive many of the core devs crazy and can also potentially lead to legal trouble - it is an official foundation after all, with years of hard work put in to it, profit-driven or not. Remember, they tried partnering with at least one Android hardware manufacturer, and one reason it went bad was because they couldn't lock down any kind of exclusivity - soon, everyone started copying it, some better than others. And the official forums, in spite of repeated bans, warnings, and black-holed posts, are still flooded with support requests for pirate stream addons. The name change won't eliminate that outright but it's a start.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:04
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Ixian posted:The merits of either approach could be argued (have been argued) for years, there's no "winner", some people prefer one, some the other, depends on the user. Clearly Elan (original Plex dev and current head of Plex) foresaw more possibilities by having a separate server from the client, and to be fair, he wasn't wrong. And after all you can always run them both on the same box for a mostly best of both worlds experience, though understandably many users prefer the do-it-all-in-the-client approach of XBMC for their needs. quote:I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out and over-simplifying but that's the gist of it. By the way, I don't think the name change to Kodi was motivated by Plex - Plex barely uses the XBMC name as it is, and only when the GPL requires it. The name change was really aimed more at A) The dozens of fly-by-night Chinese Android kit sellers marketing "XBMC media centers" that work to varying degrees - some well, some badly - people using the name on app stores for scam apps, and pirate stream addons that use the name XBMC, which drive many of the core devs crazy and can also potentially lead to legal trouble - it is an official foundation after all, with years of hard work put in to it, profit-driven or not. Remember, they tried partnering with at least one Android hardware manufacturer, and one reason it went bad was because they couldn't lock down any kind of exclusivity - soon, everyone started copying it, some better than others. And the official forums, in spite of repeated bans, warnings, and black-holed posts, are still flooded with support requests for pirate stream addons. The name change won't eliminate that outright but it's a start.
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Feb 2, 2015 08:54
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Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:XBMC is starting to move towards allowing headless servers (and pseudo server-client approaches). Close - The unnamed company (BMC, Microsoft themselves, or something completely unrelated) was the reason they couldn't trademark the name - but what drove the name change in the first place was the reasons I mentioned, among others. I've never heard that some outside force actually made them change it (through threats or otherwise), but then I'm not in the inside circle so I wouldn't know for sure, I just know what's been discussed among other maintainers and devs over the past couple years on an informal basis.
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Feb 2, 2015 14:08
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Lowen SoDium posted:Whats this now? Available at many computer shops:  New logo for XBMC:  Do I give a poo poo? Not really. I think the name is dumb and the logo is a ripoff. Still love the thing and play with my KODI box constantly.
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Feb 2, 2015 16:39
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It's a K inside a shape. I don't know how anybody could make a case for that being a ripoff.
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Feb 2, 2015 16:49
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Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:XBMC is starting to move towards allowing headless servers (and pseudo server-client approaches). In what way?
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Feb 2, 2015 16:55
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UPNP library sharing/playback. That's the main thing, I'd say.
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Feb 2, 2015 18:09
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I had seen on the forums a while back that someone was also interested in possibly doing transcoding on the server side, but given how slowly the UPnP library has been developing, I don't expect that feature anytime soon.
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Feb 2, 2015 18:15
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G-Prime posted:UPNP library sharing/playback. That's the main thing, I'd say. One of the devs is also literally working on a headless XBMC: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=212061
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Feb 2, 2015 19:03
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Vykk.Draygo posted:It's a K inside a shape. I don't know how anybody could make a case for that being a ripoff. Yes, any time you put a K inside a shape, it looks just like those two nearly identical logos, as these many examples demonstrate:  InfiniteZero fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 19:49
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I had a near catastrophe with my media library last week so I decided I'd do some reorganising while backing it all up, and extended that to updating my years-old XBMC setup to catch up on the new hotness. It seems a lot nicer, I'm just hitting a couple of issues I'd like to smooth out if possible.. 1) I've used tinyMediaManager to update all my metadata, and that's extended to setting the "Movie set" property which is new for me. It's great because I didn't like having my movies inconsistently named (e.g. "James Bond - 1962 - Dr No" rather than "Dr No (1962)") just to keep them together, BUT my sets view is now cluttered with lots of "collections" of only one movie. I don't really want to remove that metadata in case I do get others in the sets at some point, but I don't really want them showing up there either. Is there any way to say "only show sets with more than one movie"? 2) I've got a load of other genres of media (Snowboard movies, stand up comedy, etc) that I'd like to have the full database features (nice synopsis, actor listings etc) but I really don't want to show up mixed with my "cinema" movies, and would rather have them in their own sections. Is there any way to set this up? I guess basically like the Videos -> Files section in the InfoWall view mode, but this is lacking the database features. Alternatively, if I went through and tagged all these videos is there any way of setting a default filter for the Movies view to exclude these tags?
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Feb 2, 2015 21:14
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The Gunslinger posted:Ace was really the best skin, hope it gets an update. There's a version of ACE in the Kodi forums that has been updated for use with Helix and it works great. You will need to download the updated WIP version and change one XML file manually (one view was broken -- right list I think), but it has worked perfectly for me so far. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=215438 Edit -- I don't use the live tv or pvr options though, so I can't speak to those working. InfiniteZero fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 22:43
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Froist posted:2) I've got a load of other genres of media (Snowboard movies, stand up comedy, etc) that I'd like to have the full database features (nice synopsis, actor listings etc) but I really don't want to show up mixed with my "cinema" movies, and would rather have them in their own sections. Is there any way to set this up? I guess basically like the Videos -> Files section in the InfoWall view mode, but this is lacking the database features. Alternatively, if I went through and tagged all these videos is there any way of setting a default filter for the Movies view to exclude these tags? Would storing these in separate Windows folders, and then creating specific Libraries pointing only to those folders solve your issue?
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Feb 2, 2015 22:51
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Thermopyle posted:In what way?
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Feb 3, 2015 01:45
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How does UPnP work with traditional libraries? Does it still scan through NFOs to read the metadata?
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Feb 3, 2015 03:34
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UPNP works okay, but it doesn't scan in the library, it just shares it, so you have to go through files mode.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:48
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KKKLIP ART posted:How does UPnP work with traditional libraries? Does it still scan through NFOs to read the metadata? Everything works normally on host computer. You just turn on "Share video and music libraries through UPnP" in the settings. On the catch device, you can go Videos -> Files -> Add Source -> UPnP Source -> [host PC] -> Video Library, click ok, add what you just added to your favorites, and direct link it to your front page with a skin that allows that sort of thing. (I use Amber) After that, navigation kinda works like Plex. You don't get the advanced features that you get from scanning the files into your library like smart playlist but the custom link on your front page takes you directly to (Movies/TV shows/In progress TV shows/Recently added movies/Recently added episodes/Files/Playlists). From there, it has your standard breakdowns (genres/title/year/actors/directors/studios/sets/countries/tags) and your media has all the metadata/art/watch status/etc that's on the host pc. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 05:06
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I finally went from XBMC->Kodi on my ATV2. I want a new look, though, and I hear Metropolis is nice, but apparently one of the requirements isn't met? Some version of the XBMC gui is what the debug log said. Anyone know how to work around this or can recommend a good skin that won't bog down my ATV2?
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Feb 3, 2015 05:43
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While I do like Metropolis, I have fallen in love with Maximinimalism for countless reasons. Streamlined, slick, everything at your fingertips.
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Feb 3, 2015 06:13
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Call Me Charlie posted:Everything works normally on host computer. You just turn on "Share video and music libraries through UPnP" in the settings. In other words it kind of sucks and you're better off sticking to the old-school method of sharing via NAS/shared drives on the host PC and a simple mySQL db for the library info.
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Feb 3, 2015 12:04
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Ixian posted:In other words it kind of sucks and you're better off sticking to the old-school method of sharing via NAS/shared drives on the host PC and a simple mySQL db for the library info. I wouldn't call that simple but  Either method works but it seems like the Kodi team is moving towards upnp so hopefully they'll keep improving it.
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Feb 3, 2015 16:36
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Is there a good media manager / scraper for TV? I use MediaElch for movies just fine, but it can never seem to find all the folders of seasons (all named Season 01, 02, etc) that I have.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:15
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Call Me Charlie posted:I wouldn't call that simple but Not claiming it's simple, just that it doesn't suck
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Feb 3, 2015 21:58
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How does that Boxee device/software play into that? They had some really interesting ideas I'd love to see backported into XBMC like the searching for web sources: Hulu or whatever. I honestly feel like Boxee was a superior bit of software to stock XBMC. It's just their skin was outright trash and unintuitive.
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Feb 4, 2015 00:50
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KKKLIP ART posted:Is there a good media manager / scraper for TV? I use MediaElch for movies just fine, but it can never seem to find all the folders of seasons (all named Season 01, 02, etc) that I have. I've always wondered: why aren't you using the default scrapers? They seem to work incredibly well for me.
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Feb 4, 2015 02:50
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is anyone using the Gothem release? I have had great luck with it finally working as planned along with XBMC not breaking my addons. Still looking to swap out some addons.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:06
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Bigfabdaddy posted:is anyone using the Gothem release? I have had great luck with it finally working as planned along with XBMC not breaking my addons. Still looking to swap out some addons. Why would the Gotham release break addons? Did you mean Helix? What's the question?
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Feb 4, 2015 05:35
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redhalo posted:Why would the Gotham release break addons? Did you mean Helix? What's the question? Just wondering if anyone that is using Gothem has had any problems so far.
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Feb 4, 2015 05:48
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Gotham 13.2 is rock solid, been running it nonstop since September or so.
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Feb 4, 2015 08:05
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YouTuber posted:How does that Boxee device/software play into that? They had some really interesting ideas I'd love to see backported into XBMC like the searching for web sources: Hulu or whatever. A good idea that came out of the gate strong but was ahead of its time and had commercial ambitions that outstripped its parent company's ability to exploit them is how I would sum Boxee up. They weren't particularly loved by some old-guard XBMC devs either. Streaming media providers, if it isn't obvious by now, aren't big fans of media center aggregation schemes. The closest they will come is by providing their own apps inside a delivery framework ala Roku, Amazon TV, Apple, etc. Some cut specific deals but it's pretty spotty and usually with the majors. However convenient it may be for the end user to see all media appear in the same type of interface no matter what the source it's not a sound revenue model, and no matter how desensitised "free" downloads and streaming have made consumers these days the fact is at the end of the day someone is still paying for this content to be produced and has to figure out how to monetize it.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:21
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Ixian posted:However convenient it may be for the end user to see all media appear in the same type of interface no matter what the source it's not a sound revenue model Why do you say this? I mean, what is it about having media all appear in the same interface that makes it bad for revenue?
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Feb 4, 2015 20:44
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Hadlock posted:Gotham 13.2 is rock solid, been running it nonstop since September or so. Same for me, just figured it never hurts to ask.
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Feb 4, 2015 22:59
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KKKLIP ART posted:Is there a good media manager / scraper for TV? I use MediaElch for movies just fine, but it can never seem to find all the folders of seasons (all named Season 01, 02, etc) that I have. FileBot all the way.
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Feb 5, 2015 05:12
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Thermopyle posted:Why do you say this? I mean, what is it about having media all appear in the same interface that makes it bad for revenue? Because - whether you agree it's a good idea or not - modern streaming media business models are centered around destination branding. Apple started this. Then Netflix. Amazon. Then the content producers caught on and said, wait a loving minute. Then you started seeing original content being produced by the distributors themselves - more for leverage than anything else, except some of it turned out to be pretty good and so the tactic worked, then everyone went back to the drawing board and now it's all about exclusives between producers and distributors plus originals, all in the name of getting you to a particular destination - Netflix, Prime, Apple, whatever. And that's just the US - outside the US it's even more broadly demarcated along these lines. Content producers want to get paid for producing content. Content distributors - the successful ones, anyway - either don't give two shits about getting paid for distributing the content and are using the content to lure in eyeballs for their other businesses, or view content as part of a larger brand strategy, ala Netflix. And all of them share the same goal, for different reasons, of getting content in front of as many eyeballs as possible, but only under their own terms, which is where curated "app" experiences come in and the only reason the Roku's and cheap "Smart" TV's of the world are still a thing (and on the way out in my personal opinion). Nowhere in this does a model that provides a single, broad interface that presents all content equally, regardless of source, fit in any longer. Netflix or Hulu don't give a poo poo if you watch a single show of theirs, even if (in Hulu's case) they stick ads in it or you are paying a subscription fee. They want you in *their* interface so they can show you all their *other* stuff, so you *keep* paying that fee, etc.. Same with Amazon - for a whole other set of reasons. Etc. This is why Boxee failed. It was in no ones interest - outside of Boxee's - to have Boxee turn in to the gateway for all content. Everyone at this point thinks, but wait a loving minute, isn't this how regular TV works *now*? Don't I get an interface now with all these channels mixed together, next to one another, and I can pick what I want? Doesn't NBC have to put up being right next to ABC on my program guide? Yes, but that doesn't mean they have to like it, or want to import that model in to the next generation. Content producers and distributors can seem awfully short sighted at times - and have been - but they are not completely stupid. In this aspect they are thinking ahead of the game, believe it.
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Feb 5, 2015 13:17
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