Kicking Cable to the Curb

[kiba]

OK, just gotta ask da actual users here, what does...

- Real Debride/etc.
- NetFlix/Plex/etc.
- any paid subscription

... provide beyond Kodi's inherent capability?

Nawh, I don't need to watch PPV UCF/WWC/etc. live teleca$t$ (I can wait 24 hours). Can already watch live American prime time/sports/news of my choice via Kodi wid what I have. IOW, what am I missing here besides spending mo' $$?

And no, I have no esoteric/rare/historic video collection to preserve fer whatever reason. I do appreciate those dat do, but not my goal. Nor do I have a 4K TV. Nonetheless, being an ol' phart, 720/1080 beats da crap outta what I've watched fer most of my existence!

real debrid hosts files, if you have an account, you can use them as a provider for a certain number of files per day... I think, I forget what the actual restrictions are. I sent the, an email and told them i was a developer, i think they increased that by half afterward, haven't ever gone over but then again I don't use it. i have it and some other providers disabled bc it makes my gf make Chewbacca noises.

Netflix is a streaming service, i use it bc its very cheap & always gives me a high quality (at least 1080p) stream with no faffing about. The HD streams in kodi aren't actually HD and, well for reference on a 4k screen, that looks about ~4 times worse than stretching a 480p picture onto a 1080p screen. but between Netflix and hulu i can usually find just about anything i want to watch 90% of the time. then again i don't watch too much tv to begin with, i'm mostly tech support for my gf and roommate.

plex is kind of like what we used before kodi, you could get icefilms, showbox etc. and it had all kinds of other functionality, kodi is better as a media player but i only use it as a media server these days. theres an htpc, several external HD's with all my media, that's running plex server, while my NVidia tv boxes access it through kodi with plexbmc addon and emby.

 

[2legsshrt]

720-1080 suits me just fine

Me too. I tried 4k on Netflix and I didn't see the benefit probably a blu-ray would be far superior. I don't think streaming 4k is all it's cracked up to be.

 

[2legsshrt]

Fios, they had blocked literally everything but the trailers,

That really sucks, good old verizon huh? I got a kick out of Dish sent me a flyer for high speed internet from my dish 10Mbps WOW!!

 

[2legsshrt]

OK, just gotta ask da actual users here, what does...

- Real Debride/etc.
- NetFlix/Plex/etc.
- any paid subscription

RD for 3 bucks a month provides an exellent stream nearly always on the 1st one you use and as far as buffering I hardly know what that is.
Netflix is ease of use, Plex no idea
Amazon cause it comes free with the membership but I would definately not get a membership to use it. To me it is the biggest ripoff of them all. Charge extra for the latest season..
Nothing provides the content of Kodi though but like for Ginny she is still trying to learn to navigate it. Netflix and HBOgo is easy for her.

 

[mikepetro]

For me, the value of REALDEBRID is that I get better quality streams.

What I understand is that REALDEBRID provides you access to a collection of semi-private servers. With the ever increasing popularity of Kodi, the public servers are getting more and more taxed.

For an example, I was binging on the "Chicago PD series. I would get mostly SD streams, and occasionally a 720p stream, but the 720 would often buffer. Signed up for realdebrid and I consistently get lots of 720-1080 stream choices, and rarely do they ever have to buffer.

Netflix, Amazon, HBONow, Hulu are just paid streaming services. You can find all of their content on Kodi, but the paid services rarely ever buffer. Again, just a better quality stream.

For me, I only use PLEX to serve up my own movies that I have stashed on the server. If you arent serving local files then it probably isnt much benefit for you.

 

[r77r7r]

For the non advanced users here that, like me, have no idea what Mike, Kiba, and some others are talking about
http://bestforkodi.com/what-is-real-debrid-and-how-can-it-benefit-you-in-kodi/

 

[r77r7r]

Yet...

 

[2legsshrt]

For me, the value of REALDEBRID is that I get better quality streams.

What I understand is that REALDEBRID provides you access to a collection of semi-private servers. With the ever increasing popularity of Kodi, the public servers are getting more and more taxed.

For an example, I was binging on the "Chicago PD series. I would get mostly SD streams, and occasionally a 720p stream, but the 720 would often buffer. Signed up for realdebrid and I consistently get lots of 720-1080 stream choices, and rarely do they ever have to buffer.

Netflix, Amazon, HBONow, Hulu are just paid streaming services. You can find all of their content on Kodi, but the paid services rarely ever buffer. Again, just a better quality stream.

For me, I only use PLEX to serve up my own movies that I have stashed on the server. If you arent serving local files then it probably isnt much benefit for you.

Exactly from what I understan the streams on RD give you better bandwidth and speed. Myself I love it occasionally there won't be a 1080 stream so I will use a non RD and seems to work jsut fine. As far as Kodi not being HD I haven't noticed it at least on the RD streams the 1080's are as clear as on my Dish HD receiver or on my Roku on HBO go or Netflix.

 

[2legsshrt]

@oldbroad have you got your SS hooked up yet? If they are willing to do it for you go for it you will be able to navigate with the basic remote just fine once it is setup. I like Trakt.tv for the simple fact you can use your computer to find any movie you want and it will automatically transfer it to the box. It's kind of a hassle to type in each movie you are looking for on the box plus you have the advantage of, this is only in Trakt, typing in a name like Elvis Presley, John Carpenter or any star or director and it will bring up any movie they are connected with plus many of the members have already done the leg work and make their lists public which means all you have to do is push clone list on the computer and every movie there will be available on your box. You can't beat the price FREE although the VIP membership for $30 a year gives you even more options. A free RD subscription is worthless.I'm hoping you got it from Elite. They seem to be faster with service. SS is fine though.

 

[kiba]

Me too. I tried 4k on Netflix and I didn't see the benefit probably a blu-ray would be far superior. I don't think streaming 4k is all it's cracked up to be.

you'd be right on that one, most android boxes have a 30fps max frame rate and won't let you use the high refresh rates most 4k panels have. it's actually better to use 1080p in that case.

what's worse, and what I realized after we got new tv's, is that 1080p, 720p and lower actually would look worse on a 4k panel than a 1080p one. some day every thing will be in 4k but for right now it's limited use. i'm still glad we upgraded though it had to be done, some of the TV's in the house were still old crt's.

That really sucks, good old verizon huh? I got a kick out of Dish sent me a flyer for high speed internet from my dish 10Mbps WOW!!

if it's one of the satellite ones, 10megabits,that would actually be your max bandwidth but what you'd normally see around 5, and also a VERY long ping times. I have a cousin who uses one bc he lives in a rural area. he was wanting me to see if he could improve that with a bette router or something bc he had just spent like $2k putting together a gaming rig & was trying to do some online gaming. I was like, hate to break it to you bro but idk if that's gonna be possible.

Exactly from what I understan the streams on RD give you better bandwidth and speed. Myself I love it occasionally there won't be a 1080 stream so I will use a non RD and seems to work jsut fine. As far as Kodi not being HD I haven't noticed it at least on the RD streams the 1080's are as clear as on my Dish HD receiver or on my Roku on HBO go or Netflix.

the providers that say 1080p next to them *are* actually HD, it's only the one's that say "HD" or nothing that aren't, those are usually the majority that you'll find though.

 

[mikepetro]

Are the SS boxes really any better than the Chinese Android boxes like this?

https://www.amazon.com/HOUYUAN-T96-...e=UTF8&qid=1487951239&sr=8-5&keywords=t96+pro

 

[kiba]

Are the SS boxes really any better than the Chinese Android boxes like this?

https://www.amazon.com/HOUYUAN-T96-...e=UTF8&qid=1487951239&sr=8-5&keywords=t96+pro

they are most likely very similar, if you still have the specs for yours I can tell you, here are the specs for the SS boxes

• Dual or Quad Core Cortex A9

• Mali-400 or Mali-450 GPU

• 1 or 2 GBs of RAM

• 8 GBs Flash storage

the main difference is that the SS boxes have kodi all pre set up for you and they also provide support and also firmware (which for some boxes it's hard to find)

 

[mikepetro]

they are most likely very similar, if you still have the specs for yours I can tell you, here are the specs for the SS boxes

• Dual or Quad Core Cortex A9

• Mali-400 or Mali-450 GPU

• 1 or 2 GBs of RAM

• 8 GBs Flash storage

And the T96 is half the price of the SS.

 

[garyoa1]

Here's a sub $50 box.
Hardware Specifications :
CPU: Amlogic S905X Quad Core ARM Cortex-A53 up to 2.0GHZ
GPU: 5-Core ARM Mali-450
RAM: 1GB DDR3
ROM: 8GB NAND FLASH
Operation System: Android 6.0
WiFi: Built in 2.4GHz WiFi
LAN: Ethernet:10/100M, standard RJ-45
HD: HD 2.0 up to 4k2k Output
3D: Hardward 3D graphics acceleration
High Difinition Video Output: SD/HD max.3840 X 2160 pixel
Network Function: Skype chatting,Picasa,Youtube,Flicker,Facebook,Online movies,etc
Other feature :Free Internet searching,thousands of android applications,different kinds of games,etc.
Languages:English/French/German/Spanish/Italian/etc multilateral languages

Interface:
1 X HDMI Port
1 X Standard RJ-45 LAN Port
1 X SPDIF Port
1 X DC Input
2 X High speed USB 2.0,support U DISK and USB HDD
1 X TF card slot

Package list:
1x M9X TV box
1x Charger
1x HDMI Cable
1x Remote Controller
1x User Manual

 

[2legsshrt]

you'd be right on that one, most android boxes have a 30fps max frame rate and won't let you use the high refresh rates most 4k panels have. it's actually better to use 1080p in that case.

what's worse, and what I realized after we got new tv's, is that 1080p, 720p and lower actually would look worse on a 4k panel than a 1080p one. some day every thing will be in 4k but for right now it's limited use. i'm still glad we upgraded though it had to be done, some of the TV's in the house were still old crt's.

if it's one of the satellite ones, 10megabits,that would actually be your max bandwidth but what you'd normally see around 5, and also a VERY long ping times. I have a cousin who uses one bc he lives in a rural area. he was wanting me to see if he could improve that with a bette router or something bc he had just spent like $2k putting together a gaming rig & was trying to do some online gaming. I was like, hate to break it to you bro but idk if that's gonna be possible.

the providers that say 1080p next to them *are* actually HD, it's only the one's that say "HD" or nothing that aren't, those are usually the majority that you'll find though.

I might give that a try.i have mine set to4k 30hz. I never use above 1080

 

[oldbroad]

@oldbroad have you got your SS hooked up yet? If they are willing to do it for you go for it you will be able to navigate with the basic remote just fine once it is setup. I like Trakt.tv for the simple fact you can use your computer to find any movie you want and it will automatically transfer it to the box. It's kind of a hassle to type in each movie you are looking for on the box plus you have the advantage of, this is only in Trakt, typing in a name like Elvis Presley, John Carpenter or any star or director and it will bring up any movie they are connected with plus many of the members have already done the leg work and make their lists public which means all you have to do is push clone list on the computer and every movie there will be available on your box. You can't beat the price FREE although the VIP membership for $30 a year gives you even more options. A free RD subscription is worthless.I'm hoping you got it from Elite. They seem to be faster with service. SS is fine though.

Hi Pat...I tech is gonna call me Sat. morn to help me set it up!I bought my box from Elite...not taking any chancestho I don't know what RD stands for ( I don't know what a majority of all these letters mean)

Tech and PC savvy I'm not!

 

[mikepetro]

Hi Pat...I tech is gonna call me Sat. morn to help me set it up!I bought my box from Elite...not taking any chancestho I don't know what RD stands for ( I don't know what a majority of all these letters mean)

Tech and PC savvy I'm not!

RD = RealDebrid, the premium streaming hosting company

 

[mikepetro]

they are most likely very similar

By specs alone the latest batch of Chinese ones smoke most of the US branded models, and every Chinese model I have seen lately came with Kodi fully loaded. I guess what I am really asking is if the SS (or any other box for that matter) is significantly better than the Chinese ilk in terms of functionality. Yes, the USA branded ones offer support, and probably more FW updates, but is it worth double the price for what is often lower specs?

I can see where support would be of high value to those who are not well versed in the tech. I can see where boxes like the nVidia bring gaming features to the table. It just seems like a lot of the US labels are really charging ultra-premium prices, are their boxes worth it?

For me, at $50-$75 I am not so much worried about FW updates as long its not bug-ridden to begin with, in which case I would just return it straight away. I dont mind chunking a cheap box after a year and buying the latest. Sort of disposable in my eyes.

 

[oldbroad]

RD = RealDebrid, the premium streaming hosting company

lol...thanks!.... I read back a few posts and then got it

Oh...and the support from SS is vital for me...that's why I paid top dollar...and also they have a FB site where even the dumbest questions are answered( right up my alley)

 

[mikepetro]

lol...thanks!.... I read back a few posts and then got it

Oh...and the support from SS is vital for me...that's why I paid top dollar...and also they have a FB site where even the dumbest questions are answered( right up my alley)

So I guess you can teach an oldbroad new tricks!