I have a WebDav server that contains some movies and shows. I use Infuse on Apple stuff and NOVA Video Player on Android to watch these. The directory is not organized, file names aren’t manually adjusted, and the movies and shows are mixed together. Yet, both of these programs are able to index recursively, get metadata, create a library and let me watch my media without issues.
Kodi, on the other hand, seems to be unable to index nested directories, requires you to tell it what type of media is in the individual directories and cannot identify anything correctly unless I go and manually rename directories/files. It also is exclusive for TV usage and not very suitable for desktop.
So, are there alternative programs to Kodi, ideally better suited to desktop usage or extensions I can install to make it work properly?
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I was a long time Kodi user from back when it was called XBMC.
About 5 years ago I got tired of messing about with managing media, editing config files and installing addons. Moved to Emby first, and now I am on Jellyfin. No media management required, the backend server does it all for me and the front end is great, never gives me any problems and plays everything. I run the front end on multiple Nvidia Shields with no performance issues.
I’d manage your media better with movies and TV in separate parent folders and not all mixed together. When you setup Jellyfin, you point it at a folder and tell it what media type it is. Mixing up different media types in the same folder structure just makes things harder than they need to be for no gain.
Ok but Jellyfin is a web service. Not really suitable for a Home Theatre PC. If there was a frontend application that worked in a kiosk type way, then it would replace Kodi.
No, Jellyfin has a server backend which manages the media and serves it up to the client frontends which support most modern operating systems like Windows, Linux and Android. See https://jellyfin.org/ for details.
I’d ditch the HTPC, and go for an Android based media player like the Shield, no moving parts, no keyboard/mouse and rarely requires an update. Had a HTPC for many years and anytime I wanted to watch something I had to mess about with it first before it would play.
Sorry but it doesn’t sound like you know what you’re talking about. Jellyfin is a server. Sure you can use a web client but there are many others too
So recommend a client suitable for a dedicated HTPC? I’ve yet to find one, as the Kodi add-on for jellyfin is buggy in my experience.
Well if you want a windows pc app there’s this. There’s a list of official clients but it sounds like you already know it
To be fair I didn’t know that existed because I don’t use windows. I would expect it would be fine if I did. However, I use Linux.
Ok. I missed which sub I was in, sorry. There is a Linux desktop Jellyfin app but I haven’t used it myself. In my own case I am running Jellyfin on Linux. I use various clients, including web browser (laptop), Android and Roku (TV) and find it works really well. In the past I had tried with the ‘connect directly to the server’ route with XBMC (as Kodi was called then) and it never worked well, with similar issues those described in other comments.
Yes jellyfin is a server, and the question asked was what to replace Kodi with. Kodi is a frontend. Jellyfin doesn’t solve the problem.
Kodi itself can act as a frontend for Jellyfin.
…and it’s unusably buggy in my experience.
That’s strange. I’m using the old Jellyfin addon (not the JellyCon), and so far only encountered one bug in total, which, if you are familiar with kodi addon ecosystem, is basically unheard of. And even that one is related to my non-standard manual configuration that allows me to use WebDAV instead SMB or NFS. It’s using the wrong type of escaping for certain special characters, which is understandable, because who in their right mind uses WebDAV?
So that one doesn’t talk to the Jellyfin process. It just understands the way Jellyfin organises things on disk. Right?
You then access the files via NFS, SMB or WebDav (the horror!)
Just checking I understand.
Yes. Jellyfin will index the media files and push all the metadata along with the file paths on the network share they both can see to the local kodi database. That way browsing the library on kodi does not suffer any additional latency, but you also lose some advanced jellyfin functionality like on the fly re-encoding.
Not really suitable for a Home Theatre PC
Not sure where you got that idea, but it’s absolutely what I use it for. That I can also watch content from multiple sources as well is part of the appeal. Plus no constant upsell like Kodi and Emby.
So how do you interact with the jellyfin server from your HTPC?
Using the native Jellyfin app available for Amazon’s fire tv stick.
Fire stick is not a HTPC
Why not? It’s a computer that displays tv? At 4k, 5.1 audio, that’s not too shabby, no?
I made a PC specifically for streaming video back before sticks were a thing, but it was expensive, noisy and not very good in comparison and I don’t miss it. What about a stick is inferior to what you’re talking about? Genuine question - educate me, please. What software, what hardware, why choose it over something else?
A few things for me:
- I had most of the parts to build a low power machine that’s passively cooled. No noise whilst watching video.
- I can have a locally stored library so don’t need a NAS running 24/7 elsewhere in the house supping power.
- I can have multiple things running on it like games as well as media giving me a PC gaming console (fans come on at that point).
- Never have to drive it through my phone or a tablet. It’s just on the TV remote. Ease of use is great.
- No money to Amazon, Google or similar companies that just want to data farm me.
Kodi works very well for me with a local library. Serving it from Jellyfin was a mess (Jellycon). I think primarily this is a Kodi problem as really it should support DLNA servers much much better, and then a add-on wouldn’t be needed.
Fair play - it’s good that there’s choice and if it works for you, great. I also totally get the fun of building something yourself.
The local storage is a big one if you don’t have a nas or home server on the network. Although, if you’re linked into the *arrs then I would think most people already do. It’s nice when new episodes just turn up automagically in Jellyfin.
I tried Kodi before but I found the commercialisation of it very jarring. Jellyfin is entirely free - your fifth point might give it extra credit for that. The Jellyfin app doesn’t (afaik) feed any info to anyone, but you do need to load it from the Amazon fire menu, so you can’t entirely skip their advertising. It is the only thing I use the fire stick for, and the price is cheap compared to anything else - it cost £25 and works on any TV. Being a dongle, there’s no noise either.
