I just want to thank you guys for making a program that really works. I tried Kodi out, however aside from the local media sources i can access in plex with no issues, Kodi is complete crap, all of the plugins i have found were trash.
you should consider official plugins for paid sunscribers to netflix, hulu, tunein, apple music, pandora and similar programs, i know their are piracy issues concerning this but it would be nice for those of us that pay for these could access them all in one place. I have already subscribed to Tidal simply for one reason - it is supported here
folks often request to have plugins or linking to other streaming providers, so that plex can be a central front end, unfortunately that is primarily up to that streaming provider, and most of them do not want their content run through some one else’s app that they do not control.
in other words, netflix/amazon/disney/hulu/etc want to control their brand and content through their own apps, and not let plex (or other companies) try to wholesale or rebrand it to something else.
that said, plex does have free on demand and ‘live’ ad supported video streaming that is provided by various sources like ‘crackle’.
Kodi and Plex have very little in common. They can’t really be compared.
I use Kodi on a Fire Stick to play local files from an attached drive when I’m away from high speed Internet.
If you use a Fire Stck, Roku, Android device, you have Plex, Netflix, Prime, Hulu and whatever else you want all in the same menu.
I wouldn’t expect Netflix to support Plex or the other way around.
i am finding this out the more i play with it, apparently it will not act as a server and more just a front to combine things most of which can be used outside of the service, it seems to me the usefulness of Kodi is to do plex stuff on a local side only and also tie in many services that are free via plugins, and the only plugins i have found to work are the ones in the repository and not user developed. I was able to successfully install NextPVR and install the plugin for it, however, i dont see any real benefit of this since plex does it so well and i wouldnt need a pvr in the first place anyway since wintv8 does all of that and more
kodi and vlc are both stand alone ‘fat clients’, they generally have all they need compiled in or through ‘plugins’, and do not have a client/server centric streaming model.
plex is designed for light(er) weight clients, that connect to a server (local or remote), that streams content from, and controlled by the server.
Plex server controls all the indexing, metadata retreival and storage, and (as necessary) on demand conversion (ie transcoding) of content from its source format to a format that is compatible with the particular client.
kodi/vlc are akin to a typical corporate desktop
plex is more akin to a remote/virtual desktop on a cloud server, that can be accessed from anywhere.
I find Kodi incredibly useful in certain scenarios. It’s a great offsite solution, when you don’t have a network available, or don’t want to roast through mobile data to use one.
It’s also really good at native playing multiple file types that Plex will transcode (for legitimate reasons). Since Kodi is a 1;1 relationship with your monitor or TV, it direct plays files. Plex will transcode if it has to to match the acceptable format of the playback device. My use case for this is anything 4k, which I watch directly on the TV with the Kodi PC attached to it.
Here’s a good question about Kodi I have not tried, being as I have no real desire to buy a pc for all of my TV sets, can say Kodi for Xbox run plugins for shout cast, and also work with media files on an attached USB hard dive to the Xbox?
If you’re wanting to run multi screen options, that’s a Plex wheelhouse. Unfortunately, it’s not going to do the Plugins.
I run Kodi on an Xbox, but I’ve found that it’s a bit of a chore getting it to work as easily as it does on a PC. Haven’t tried many plugins for Kodi on Xbox. Mostly use it to run 4k from a network drive… which isn’t as good as the PC.
It’s a shame the kodi plex addon did not receive more attention. Kodi is very good at playing any file you throw at it. I found it useful how in Kodi you can delay the picture to bring the sound into perfect sync, when playing it through an external sound source. As well as the ability to compress sound so the sound effect volume is reduced and you can hear the dialogue more clearly, avoiding having to turn the volume up and down frequently when watching some recordings. In many ways it gave you the best of both worlds.
i found out Kodi on xbox can connect to my routers attached hard drive without going through through the PC, this makes it a good, less polished media player incase the other computer goes down or im busy using it for games and dont want resources used, its particularly nice for shoutcast and somafm add ons, however its sloppy looking to me compared to plex, but does seem to serve a useful app on my xbox
