this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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25
Alternatives to Kodi or ways to make it work properly (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 51 minutes ago

Long time Kodi user, since it first came out on the original xbox.

Assuming you are a watch and delete person then for films you really do not need more that a seperate folder than you dump films AND only films into and make sure that the film name is correct AND it includes the accurate year for the film. Vast majority of downloads will already have this in place, I never have to bother to rename or move films about as they just go straight into my download folder that Kodi is looking for my watch and delete films. Older versions of Kodi used to be much more annoying for film scanning requiring proper spacing and so on. However its very very important that only films go into this directory otherwise it will fuck up if you start dumping TV programs into here.

TV is much more complex if Kodi is doing the metadata scanning as it normally relies on the top level folder name, and a proper season and episode numbering scheme. If you watching TV I would just switch to a managed downloader like sonarr, its a PITA to manually manage weekly show downloads anyway and sonarr will sort everything out for you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

I used Kodi with LibreElec for years in a similar setup. It was nice... but in practice I didn't really use the "cool" functionalities (like indexing, image preview, Web remote control, etc) so instead I checked how Kodi works and noticed DLNA. I saw that my favorite video player, namely VLC, supports DLNA. I then looking for DLNA server on Linux, found few and stuck to the simplest I found, namely minidlna. It's quite basic, at the least the way I use it, but for my usage it's enough :

  • install VLC on clients, including Android video projector, phones, XR HMDs, etc
  • install minidlna on server (RPi5)
  • configure minidlna to serve the right directory with subdirectories ( /var/lib/minidlna by default )
  • configure few extra software that get videos to push them (via scp script and ssh-key) to rpi5:/var/lib/minidlna/

voila... very reliable setup (been using for more than a year on a daily basis.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Just organize your library properly and pretty much every software will manage it better. There are options for organizing and renaming them mostly automatically, like EastTAG or filebot. Some people use Sonarr and Radarr to organize shows and movies, but those are probably overkill for you. The various *arrs will be more useful if you're consuming new media through a server hosting Plex or Jellyfin. Kodi is also a waste if the library isn't already meticulously organized and you don't need a 10 foot interface.

If you're only consuming on desktop and you insist on being disorganized, then why even bother with anything other than VLC? It runs on Linux, Windows, iOS, and Android.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

People keep talking about needing to "organize your library" but what do you mean by that? Is metadata tagging sufficient? Or does Kodi care about filenames and directory structure?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Sonarr puts shows in

  • show folder
  • season folder
  • show name - S01E01 - episode name.mp4
[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 seconds ago

Wait, is this not standard practice?

I've always organized media files this way; I index my music similarly.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

kodi is best as a front-end for an already curated library. ive used it extensively since the xbmc days...

i use mediaelch to scrape, generate metadata files and rename files and folders into a standard way. it [can] generate things in a kodi-compatible format. kodi is set to just pull in that data. i concurrently use emby (jellyfin) to access that same metadata.

your problem is conflating the curation of your library with the applications that will use it.

kodi does need a full computer to run. thats where emby comes in. its for viewing the same shit on any other device

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

your problem is conflating the curation of your library with the applications that will use it.

This is not some extremely hard job that's way out of the scope of a media center. As I said, other platforms already have applications that can do this without breaking a sweat. I've never had to manually organize my files in years in any other platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 49 minutes ago

other platforms already have applications that can do this without breaking a sweat

Then go with those applications and that's it. In the same vein, you can say that Kodi needs an organized library, so organize it and Kodi won't break a sweat. That's what a lot of people are telling you in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

i cant even imagine wanting a mess of stuff as you describe, or expecting some media app to manage that mess on the fly. but hey, if thats how you want it. good luck.

ive got 2500 movies and > 35,000 episodes in my library.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

It's not a mess on properly implemented clients but I also have a fraction of the media you have. I put new stuff in, they get indexed, I watch them, I delete them. I am not going to do extra work for the privilege of using Kodi 🤷

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

i do zero work for kodi. i curate a library i care about and that is not your end goal. kodi is definitely not for the 'watch and delete' crowd.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Well, that's why I'm asking for alternatives but I also know a few people who rip a ton of blurays and throw them to a server and never curate it, and those are the only people self-hosting their media that I know anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

you seem to already have apps that do that stuff you want.. i was more answering 'how to make kodi work'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Not really, as those aren't available on Linux directly. The 'how to make kodi work' bit is because my research didn't give me any apps that can do this by default so I thought kodi might have extensions or forks I missed.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

If you're on Desktop just use VLC, or try running Nova in an Android VM. Most Linux users are the type to meticulously organize their files, so I wouldn't expect that there's an app that'll do what you're looking for. There are plenty that will help you rename/restructure your WebDAV though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

Thanks for the mediaelch tip !

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

What desktop?