IPTV & KODI - how to get yourself setup (UK and US channels in particular)

[Chicog]

I like my Shield. I've never seen  Kodi so fast and so stable.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Was reading the user reviews on the Walmart.com site of the $69 Mi Box Android TV.

 

Overall, mostly very positive. Very few complaints, mostly very satisfied.

 

A few things that users called out:

CONS:

--no Ethernet port

--no Amazon Prime Video app in the official app store, but can sideload it

--limitations on the box's ability to output fancier audio formats beyond basic stereo.

 

PROS:

--Very few complaints about broken/faulty devices at purchase.

--supports 4K video, although some users reported some playback difficulties

--supports AC wifi and 5 GHz (but not wired ethernet)

--direct Kodi download avail from the official Play Store

--can sideload apps if they're not available directly from the Play Store

--supports Chromecasting from mobile devices, but users reported problems casting from PCs.

--lots of positive comments about how well the voice-command remote control works

[MJKT2014]

On ‎01‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 6:24 PM, Chicog said:

I hope it's an improvement on the previous one, many hoops through which I had to jump in order to get it to English, including rooting by sight!

 

OK, I'll bite. What is "rooting by sight"?

[Chicog]

21 minutes ago, MJKT2014 said:

 

OK, I'll bite. What is "rooting by sight"?

 

Following instructions when all the menus are in Chinese and I haven't got a clue what they say.

 

[JoePai]

21 hours ago, Chicog said:

I like my Shield. I've never seen  Kodi so fast and so stable.

 

 

You mean the Nvidia Shield ?

 

[ScotBkk]

Jeeze' think I'll stick to cable for an easy life !!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Chicog]

9 hours ago, JoePai said:

You mean the Nvidia Shield ?

 

 

Yep. Lovely little box.

[guzzi850m2]

Buying TV box for Kodi is not as simple as I thought it would be by reading in the Kodi forum:

 

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916

 

The Nvidia Shield is indeed the Rolls Royce of the TV boxes but the price in Thailand, ahhh, I was quoted +12.000 baht in Tukcom.

 

The Mi box has as mentioned some problems with Kodi: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=275083&pid=2446197#pid2446197

 

The one I am waiting for is the WeTek play2 but will have to see what the tests say first, and price off-course.

https://wetek.com/product/wetek-play2#

 

Looks like a bad idea buying one of those cheap Chinese boxes on Gearbest, according to the Kodi forum.

 

Well I am patient and can wait, will likely first buy one next year.

[AgentSmith]

I use Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3 and after reading all the problems with Android boxes out there I will probably never use different hardware. Libreelec is a light weight OS that has Kodi fully integrated into it but of course there are other OS's to choose from. It's a super fluent experience and all plugins I've installed on it over 6 months ago still work just fine. I never have streaming issues that are caused by the device. Streaming content from both the NAS as well as the internet come in fluently. And so does live tv using a friend's DVBlink server abroad and the Kodi DVBlink client. I have an EPG, I can watch live tv in amazing HD quality (coming in at 9000 kbps!) and I can program and watch recordings. F1 with commentary in my own language is just perfect. (Because it's way better than those British guys at Fox ).

 

UK channels come in through their official public streams. So do other European streams. To circumvent the geo fencing I use an OpenVPN client with a paid subscription that uses a separate preset VPN server per plugin (UK server for BBC, Dutch server for Dutch TV etc). Switching servers happens automatically. All these plugins, streams and local content are tied together with a slick interface that is operated through the TV's remote. Watching media has never been easier!

Edited November 5, 2016 by AgentSmith

[guzzi850m2]

The Raspberry Pi3 looks like a cool little thing, for a do it yourself guy.

 

You can buy a Pi3 package in Thailand for just under 3500 baht: http://www.thaieasyelec.com/en/products-en/best-sellers/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-1gb-combo-set-detail.html

 

Could be fun to play around with and same vendor sells the board as a stand alone unit for about 1/2 of above price and you can add/build as you like.

 

Thanks for posting this AS, it's nice to know all the options, 2-3 days ago I didn't know anything about the options out there, ha-ha.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

10 hours ago, guzzi850m2 said:

The Mi box has as mentioned some problems with Kodi: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=275083&pid=2446197#pid2446197

 

If you read the subsequent posts in that thread, the problem issues seem to have been mostly resolved, at least, according to the main guy posting about them.

 

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=275083&pid=2450699#pid2450699

 

I wasn't aware of this, but there's also mention of there being two different, but very similar looking and named versions of the Mi box -- the new Android TV version aimed at the U.S. market, and a prior non Android TV version for the Chinese market. So it sounds like any prospective buyers need to be careful if considering buying this device from any of the Chinese online retailers to make sure you're in fact getting the NEW U.S. version.

 

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=275083&pid=2450746#pid2450746

 

 

[AgentSmith]

5 hours ago, guzzi850m2 said:

The Raspberry Pi3 looks like a cool little thing, for a do it yourself guy.

 

You can buy a Pi3 package in Thailand for just under 3500 baht: http://www.thaieasyelec.com/en/products-en/best-sellers/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-1gb-combo-set-detail.html

 

Could be fun to play around with and same vendor sells the board as a stand alone unit for about 1/2 of above price and you can add/build as you like.

 

Thanks for posting this AS, it's nice to know all the options, 2-3 days ago I didn't know anything about the options out there, ha-ha.

NP! There isn't much DIY stuff involved. Most people should be able to follow any online walkthrough. The RPi series have been released to enable every world citizen to play with computers, programming etc. That's the idea with which the RPi foundation promotes those little boards. Of course there are many other brands and producers too now but the RPi today has the biggest community behind it.

[Chicog]

https://www.kodiapps.com/hardware-chart

[Hereinthailand]

BS nothing wrong with the s912 processor not sure where some people get their info. You buy a cheap box expect poor performance. Thats why the shield is around 200 us dollars and the top minix boxes over 150, spend 50 or 60 dollars for a box and you get what you pay for. Youtube Roberto Jorge for some of the best and honest box reviews if you are looking to buy.

[guzzi850m2]

Well I just ordered 2 Xiaomi MI 6.0 TV boxes since Aliexpress is having a discount right now so got them 20% below the normal price, so 80$ a pop & free shipping, they are apparently only 70$ in the US but can't use that for anything. 

1 is for my friend in the village and one for myself.

It's one of the few China TV boxes that are supported by Netflix and they are also updated via OTA(over-the-air update). Not many China made TV boxes will ever be updated when they leave the shop.

If your TV box is not Netflix supported, it will be 480 only when watching Netflix and not HD or 4k. Okay the MI is struggling a bit when playing 4k content I saw on YouTube and skip a frame now and again but I can live with that. 

Hurry up if you want the 20% discount, it ends tomorrow.

 

[Kimpil]

I have been a happy user of playiptv.com the last 5 months. All the channels you need and a 14 days Catchup on most channels. The guys behind it are very responsive and resolves every problem fast. During the 5 months I have used them i haven't had one day they have been down. Most of the major sports channels have backup so if one fails the other one works. You can take a look on their website and if anyone is interested in a free 24 hours trial they can PM me. I used to use an american sub but they were down all the time so that was a waste of money.

 

Kim

[zeazon]

similar experience. i moved from 3bb to aisfiber and from satellite/digital TV to android box TV.   i am quite enjoy with plenty of good TV channel choices and at cheaper prices.  besides the free Kodi, i subscribe to fwtv at Bt300 a month, they have all foreign news, movies, sport, entertainment channels including HBO HD, etc. 

 

the android boxes (i started from one and now got another for another TV set)  i bought from Fortune Town. there are many choices there and you can inquire and buy fwtv or other iptiv subscriptions from them

[AgentSmith]

On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 10:20 PM, Hereinthailand said:

BS nothing wrong with the s912 processor not sure where some people get their info. You buy a cheap box expect poor performance. Thats why the shield is around 200 us dollars and the top minix boxes over 150, spend 50 or 60 dollars for a box and you get what you pay for. Youtube Roberto Jorge for some of the best and honest box reviews if you are looking to buy.

Or you buy a Raspberry... Sorry to repeat myself but there is absolutely no need to spend that much cash on hardware just to compensate for the crappy underperforming Android drivers.

 

The RPi has 100% control over its hardware including screen refresh rates as well as HDMI (PLL) timings. It's probably the only Kodi hardware out there that supports "Adjust Display Refresh Rate", "Sync Playback to Display" and audio passthrough all at the same time. 100% hardware support for a fraction of the price of your Shield! This board the size of a cigarette pack plays all possible video files without a hiccup.

 

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=219796&pid=1943753#pid1943753

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=263052&pid=2279039#pid2279039

[KittenKong]

7 hours ago, AgentSmith said:

Or you buy a Raspberry... Sorry to repeat myself but there is absolutely no need to spend that much cash on hardware just to compensate for the crappy underperforming Android drivers.

 

The RPi has 100% control over its hardware including screen refresh rates as well as HDMI (PLL) timings. It's probably the only Kodi hardware out there that supports "Adjust Display Refresh Rate", "Sync Playback to Display" and audio passthrough all at the same time.

 

I have a RPi that I bought to play with. Cant say I like it very much as I cba to use command lines and it's also quite slow.

 

I also bought a Tronsmart Win10 mini PC for GBP80. This is a complete Windows PC that does everything that any other Windows 10 PC can do (though I would not care to use it for processor-intensive tasks). It comes with a full and legal version of Windows 10. Kodi runs well on it, with full hardware support as one might expect from a Windows device. I dont use Kodi often but I have never noticed buffering on my 18Mbs 3BB ADSL. And being Windows, every other Windows media player runs on it also.

 

 

 

[Hereinthailand]

• I have tried using rasp pi for many things and dont say that it isnt a good little machine, but like linux users you dont understand most people dont want to spend time learning a new system plus kodi, they want to watch tv. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 11/2/2016 at 5:19 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Was reading the user reviews on the Walmart.com site of the $69 Mi Box Android TV.

 

Overall, mostly very positive. Very few complaints, mostly very satisfied.

 

A few things that users called out:

CONS:

--no Ethernet port

--no Amazon Prime Video app in the official app store, but can sideload it

--limitations on the box's ability to output fancier audio formats beyond basic stereo.

 

PROS:

--Very few complaints about broken/faulty devices at purchase.

--supports 4K video, although some users reported some playback difficulties

--supports AC wifi and 5 GHz (but not wired ethernet)

--direct Kodi download avail from the official Play Store

--can sideload apps if they're not available directly from the Play Store

--supports Chromecasting from mobile devices, but users reported problems casting from PCs.

--lots of positive comments about how well the voice-command remote control works

 

Black Friday is soon approaching, and that's usually the time with various big sales and promotions that I try to update my home video hardware/streaming boxes. So I've been spending some time this week looking at those kinds of opportunities.

 

Originally, I was thinking about getting the new Amazon Fire TV stick 2, which is supposed to go on sale on Amazon starting Black Friday for about $30, is silly cheap at that price, has AC wifi unlike its predecessor, and is a generally improved offering over the original Fire TV stick that I currently have.

 

But as I sat down and poured thru everything, I realized that the new Fire TV stick 2 still does NOT support 4K video or even HDR video.  And the current Fire TV box that I also have, while it does support 4K, still does not and apparently never will in the current hardware version support HDR, which by many accounts is a more impactful improvement on the video watching experience than merely upgrading from HD to 4K.

 

Now, right now, I don't have a 4K or HDR capable TV at home. But anytime I'm buying video hardware, I always try to be thinking ahead and make buying choices based on what I'll likely be wanting to do and use in the future. So having 4K and HDR capability is something I'm always thinking about these days.

 

And then I got around to taking a second look at the Mi Box, and realized that not only does it run 4K video like the Fire TV box, but it also DOES run HDR video, unlike the Fire TV box. That pretty well put me off of looking at the Fire TV devices for this season, and moved me toward looking at the Mi Box as an upgrade instead.

 

On the Roku side of things, they also have the new Premiere + box that also does support 4K and HDR. But Rokus have their own separate OS that cannot really be messed with or added to on your own. Also, the Premiere + is currently retailing for about $99, and I haven't seen any big BF sale offerings for it as yet that would put it into the $69 price range of the Mi Box.

 

I also tend to like the flexibility of having an Android TV platform at home (alongside my current Fire TV and Roku devices), since that's the one platform right now that I don't have.

[chubby]

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Black Friday is soon approaching, and that's usually the time with various big sales and promotions that I try to update my home video hardware/streaming boxes. So I've been spending some time this week looking at those kinds of opportunities.

 

Originally, I was thinking about getting the new Amazon Fire TV stick 2, which is supposed to go on sale on Amazon starting Black Friday for about $30, is silly cheap at that price, has AC wifi unlike its predecessor, and is a generally improved offering over the original Fire TV stick that I currently have.

 

But as I sat down and poured thru everything, I realized that the new Fire TV stick 2 still does NOT support 4K video or even HDR video.  And the current Fire TV box that I also have, while it does support 4K, still does not and apparently never will in the current hardware version support HDR, which by many accounts is a more impactful improvement on the video watching experience than merely upgrading from HD to 4K.

 

Now, right now, I don't have a 4K or HDR capable TV at home. But anytime I'm buying video hardware, I always try to be thinking ahead and make buying choices based on what I'll likely be wanting to do and use in the future. So having 4K and HDR capability is something I'm always thinking about these days.

 

And then I got around to taking a second look at the Mi Box, and realized that not only does it run 4K video like the Fire TV box, but it also DOES run HDR video, unlike the Fire TV box. That pretty well put me off of looking at the Fire TV devices for this season, and moved me toward looking at the Mi Box as an upgrade instead.

 

On the Roku side of things, they also have the new Premiere + box that also does support 4K and HDR. But Rokus have their own separate OS that cannot really be messed with or added to on your own. Also, the Premiere + is currently retailing for about $99, and I haven't seen any big BF sale offerings for it as yet that would put it into the $69 price range of the Mi Box.

 

I also tend to like the flexibility of having an Android TV platform at home (alongside my current Fire TV and Roku devices), since that's the one platform right now that I don't have.

 

and what do you use for content.  from what I've seen the only real affordable is Netflix , and that quickly gets old with the terrible  loser  films  they allow to show,  and the toliet  level  programming of their own,  other than  a few exceptions,  like old star trek, and house of cards .

 

kind of defeats the purpose to have nice hardware if there is no affordable , quality content 

[Chicog]

43 minutes ago, chubby said:

 

and what do you use for content.  from what I've seen the only real affordable is Netflix , and that quickly gets old with the terrible  loser  films  they allow to show,  and the toliet  level  programming of their own,  other than  a few exceptions,  like old star trek, and house of cards .

 

kind of defeats the purpose to have nice hardware if there is no affordable , quality content 

 

I think having 'IPTV Kodi' in the subject line is a big clue.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, chubby said:

 

and what do you use for content.  from what I've seen the only real affordable is Netflix , and that quickly gets old with the terrible  loser  films  they allow to show,  and the toliet  level  programming of their own,  other than  a few exceptions,  like old star trek, and house of cards .

 

kind of defeats the purpose to have nice hardware if there is no affordable , quality content 

 

Well, everyone has different views of what's quality content and what's affordable.

 

But for Americans interested in American content, there's:

--Sling TV's online cable TV package for $20 or $25 per month depending on package selected

--PlayStation Vue's larger online cable TV packages (40+ channels) that start at $30 per month.

--Hulu's online network TV offerings that start at $7.99 a month (though they had a $5.99 promo lately)

--there's also the former free version of Hulu that's recently moved to Yahoo View

--USTV Now's free ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CW package, or its 23 channel online cable package for $19/$29 per month.

--AT&T, later this week, is supposed to be launching its 100+ channel DirectvNow service for $35 per month

--and of course, there's everything you can find for free with the Kodi app and add-ons on a PC, Android, TV Box or other devices.

--and likewise, everything that can be found also for free via Youtube.

 

This list could go on from there, and will get longer pretty soon when new online cable TV services are also coming soon from YouTube and Hulu.

 

All of the above, already-operating services can be viewed simply via a Windows PC, Android devices and various kinds of TV streaming boxes. And all of the paid services are ones that can be subscribed to on a month-to-month basis (no long-term contracts). Most of them, except Kodi, USTVNow and YouTube, also require using a U.S. IP internet address.

 

--

Edited November 23, 2016 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Anthony5]

Lately I work a lot with playlists.The playlists I use stay active for 3-4 weeks on average and contain about 1200 Channels.

 

UK, USA, Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden and several Arab countries. I haven't bothered to count them, but I think from US and UK they have +100 channels each

 

Advantage is that they are, in contrast with free addons, virtully buffer free HD streams.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

AT&T is going to launch/announce its DirecTV Now service this coming Monday U.S. time -- 100+ channels for $35 per month -- all entirely online, month to month service, no cable, no required subscriptions to other services like mobile phone or internet.

 

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/18/13676884/directv-now-launch-event-att-november-28th

 

 

Quote

 

AT&T is holding a launch event for DirecTV Now, its upcoming over-the-top service, on November 28th in New York City. In a bid to grab market share away from incumbent services like Sling and PlayStation Vue, DirecTV will offer over 100 channels for $35 a month, which is arguably the best value offered by any over-the-top service.
 

According to a report from Variety, consumers who sign up for DirecTV Now for three months will reportedly receive a free Apple TV, and those who sign up for a single month will receive an Amazon Fire TV Stick. Given how small the profit margins could end up being on DirecTV Now, it looks like AT&T is doing anything it can to get a substantial number of subscribers on board as soon as possible to make the service financially viable.

 

 

[chubby]

from what i've seen  they are all full of commercials,  unless these boxes strip the commercials it's all a  non starter for me. 

 

i get if you really wanna fuss with the boxes to get it onto a TV so be it,  but I think only quality I've seen was one that had criterion collection films, the rest  is just garbage,   Sling  has some  La Liga  , but I can't tolerate commercials 

[AgentSmith]

14 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

I have a RPi that I bought to play with. Cant say I like it very much as I cba to use command lines and it's also quite slow.

 

I also bought a Tronsmart Win10 mini PC for GBP80. This is a complete Windows PC that does everything that any other Windows 10 PC can do (...)

 

For computation it's of course not the best device out there with its 1.2 GHz quad core ARM processor. And that's the latest Pi 3 whereas the previous versions were even slower. However this thread is mostly about Kodi devices and for that it has more than enough power available. It does almost all video decoding with hardware acceleration anyway and I have yet to notice the first hiccup during playback. That on itself is a small miracle considering the hardware on this little device. Unfortunately ARM based multimedia systems that support x265 video codec in hardware are scarce and the Pi 3 also isn't one of them. However it does play 720p x265 video's smoothly without hardware acceleration and that says something about both the cpu and the optimization done on a software / driver level. All this plus the fact it handles all frame rate / screen refresh rate combinations out there like a champ to me is a major thing on the media player market.

 

Apparently the next version of LibreElec that brings the new Kodi version 7 called Krypton is even more optimized when it comes to utilizing the CPU for decoding. My hope is that it will make fluent decoding of 1080p x265 material possible too. On the other hand if it doesn't no worries either. Because at some point there will be a Pi 4 and buying a barebones version for around 1500 baht won't make a dent in my and most other people's budget for leisure stuff. With a bit of luck the Pi 4 will have x265 decoding capability in its hardware making it the absolute winner when it comes to multimedia capabilities.

 

There are lots of OS distributions out there by the way for the Pi series. Lots of Linux distro's meaning no command line restrictions whatsoever. And there's even a free Windows IoT version for it that is under constant development. As far as I know that's also command line centered. All the stuff that people build with a Pi as the core device is humbling to a person like me that uses it for nothing but watching his latest movies and episodes.

 

How much did you pay for your Windows mini PC by the way? Probably a lot more than say 2500 baht that a typical Pi starter kit goes for. Just saying it's probably comparing apples and oranges..

 

11 hours ago, Hereinthailand said:

• I have tried using rasp pi for many things and dont say that it isnt a good little machine, but like linux users you dont understand most people dont want to spend time learning a new system plus kodi, they want to watch tv. 

Isn't that a huge underrating of people in general? Also it's not as if Windows is the easiest operating system out there. Putting Kodi (LibreElec) on a SD card with a Windows tool takes nothing but a few clicks and following a handful of steps from a walkthrough. Then simply put the card in a Pi and off you go. Or you buy an official Raspberry SD card as it comes with Kodi preinstalled (among a few other options). Sure for quite a few people even that's still too hard but others can always do it for them or they can buy ready made systems online for a few extra bucks. My 70 yo parents use Kodi on a Pi 3 on a daily basis to watch TV and some streaming content and they are nowhere near being tech savvy people. They love using it and finally get to fully benefit their fiber connection without being bothered and hindered by all the technical layers underneath.

[KittenKong]

7 hours ago, AgentSmith said:

How much did you pay for your Windows mini PC by the way? Probably a lot more than say 2500 baht that a typical Pi starter kit goes for. Just saying it's probably comparing apples and oranges..

 

The price was actually in your quote: GBP80 (that's about 3500B). That's complete with case, power supply and the full operating system (though not including an extra memory card).

 

Yes, I'm aware that the RPi and my miniPC are not the same, and I'm aware of the "hobbyist" nature of the RPi. I just found it rather slow and tedious to use. For example, I installed VNC on the miniPC very quickly to be able to use it without a dedicated keyboard and mouse. Getting VNC to start automatically at boot on Windows was also very easy, so all I need to do is turn it on and can then control it via VNC. To do the same thing on the RPi would have involved several different command line sequences and modifying a system file. I really cba to learn how to do that to accomplish such a simple task.

[Anthony5]

12 hours ago, chubby said:

from what i've seen  they are all full of commercials,  unless these boxes strip the commercials it's all a  non starter for me. 

 

i get if you really wanna fuss with the boxes to get it onto a TV so be it,  but I think only quality I've seen was one that had criterion collection films, the rest  is just garbage,   Sling  has some  La Liga  , but I can't tolerate commercials 

 

There isn't a single Kodi addon that has commercials inserted. There are a few free Android App's that are funded by ads, but same as with any website it's your own decision if you want to see those ads or not.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Anthony5