(Part 3) Top products from r/Addons4Kodi

My hardware isn't great to be honest. I badly need a new GPU but I've just paid for a family holiday so it's going to be a while. For everything apart from the gaming side of things, pretty much any old PC should do the job. Even an old amd athlon or Intel core quad CPU should be fine - I mean, kodi runs adequately enough on shitty Chinese android boxes, raspberry pis and firesticks. You're probably better off going with something like an AMD A10-7850K APU though, unless you're looking for a decent gaming experience too, in which case you should check out /r/buildapc for help or take a look at the build guides on /r/pcmasterrace


I'm using this usb hauppage dual TV tuner I bought off amazon for around £50. It works fine. A lot of people say the usb tuners aren't as good as an internal tuner that connects to a pci-e slot on your motherboard and, while they're probably right, that particular usb tuner works well for me. Slap one of those into any old PC, connect it to an aerial with decent reception and you're golden for getting freeview in kodi. If your freeview reception is shit but you have a satellite dish, look for a dvb-s tuner rather than dvb-t. If you want the HD channels to work properly on freeview, make sure it's dvb-t2. There are cheaper options but drivers can be a real pain in the arse. The reason I went for the hauppage tuner is because I knew the drivers would work with both the mediaportal and the nextpvr backend servers. NextPVR is easy to setup and the recordings, pausing live TV etc works great. There is a slight delay flipping channels compared to using tvheadend on Linux but it works about as well for me as the inbuilt freeview tuner in my Panasonic TV.


Anyway, since you asked, my CPU is an amd fx-8350 with a slight overclock, I've got 8GB RAM, and my GPU is a quickly ageing xfx 2GB 7850. It's in a bitfenix prodigy midnight black case on a micro-atx motherboard with a coolermaster 212 evo fan. Using an ssd speeds the general operation up immensely so booting straight to kodi is fast, giving it that 'appliance' feel. Much faster at starting up than a sky box, for example. Mine is an old 60GB SSD that's barely big enough for windows and a few other applications. I've got most of my games installed on a 1TB Seagate HDD and that's what I use for tv recordings.



The case is nice enough looking and moderately compact so it doesn't take up too much space but cable management was/is a disaster. If you're planning on something for your living room, you probably don't want an enormous case with obnoxious led lighting so look into micro-atx or even mini-itx motherboards and cases if you do want something small/ unobtrusive. Just be warned building a PC with those small cases is a lot more finicky than doing it with a nice, big, airy atx tower.


To be honest I built my PC some years ago specifically for gaming and eventually decided to get a smaller case and move it into the living room, so my build isn't really a good starting point. You'd be much better off checking out /r/htpc for inspiration or, for gaming builds, looking at the build guides on /r/pcmasterrace and then customising them to suit your preference.


All in, you could probably build a PC like mine for less than £500 by ordering the parts off amazon, but for that sort of money you should be able to put something much better together with better hardware choices.


It's way cheaper than buying a ps4, paying the inflated console prices for the games instead of steam or you know, just pirating them, paying for either a freeview + box, or heaven forbid, paying the frankly ridiculous prices for sky+. For what it's worth I usually buy my games from steam when they're on sale and it doesn't cost much.

Ouch, you should definitely look at getting a decent router. That will help a great deal. Something like this.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted because it's the best answer. Local channels you can receive for free as long if you have an antenna. you can get 25mile radius ones for $12.99

https://www.amazon.com/1byone-HDTV-Antenna-Miles-Performance/dp/B00IF70QCW/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1478910356&sr=8-7&keywords=antenna

A friend of mine uses an antenna and has been extremely reliable for her.

I had the remote you linked, and I threw it out. I found it awful, which surprised me because in so many ways it was almost awesome. But the keyboard is missing many of the keys I would need for the command line on the linux OS that kodi is running on, it was fussy abut picking up keys unless I was very close, there's no way to turn the mouse off and so it comes on every time you touch the remote and puts a cursor in your screen, and there's no stop button. How does someone make a media remote with no stop button?!

Anyway, this isn't an empty rant, I found this very similar remote for a very similar price that fixes all of these issues. The two problems it has is that the "back" button doesn't map to the right button, so doesn't work in all cases unless you remap it, and the first button you press wakes up the remote instead of actually sending the command. So it isn't perfect, but it worked for me a lot better than the other one you linked.

As a bonus, it can be used as a game controller if you run emulated game consoles launched from Kodi.

Yes you take up 1 port but on the bright side it does come with a spilt for charging + reciver

The Plus model just came out recently so there actually is not many bluetooth ones around. They only have the Blue colored (heh) bluetooth i8+ it also it a bit more at 27.99.

Honestly what I would do, if I wasn't using an rpi3 which has 4 usb slots, is get the RF for 21.99 then get a 4 way usb splitter for your other port for 6.49

Here's a dope ass chrome rii i8+ lol

FYI , you shouldn't use "range extenders" , they can really kill and much up wireless bandwidth and cause interference .

If you need better range , you should wire up a Wireless AP to the router with a cat5 cable and put it in a central location .

I love Ubiquiti products , rock solid ! https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Long-Range/dp/B015PRCBBI/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1543440302&sr=1-5&keywords=ubiquity

Also look into small factor PC's I use this

With a keyboard/track pad combo it makes working on it simple. Plus you get the benefit of a full fledged PC. They make the combos smaller, I like a full sized for typing.

[Here is my set up.]
(http://i.imgur.com/r57X5u4.jpg)

2TB hard drive with 800 or so movies, still has space, PC and DVD(r/w) with BluRay.

The drive and DVD are optional addons obviously.

I setup a raspberry pi with exodus and trakt for my computer challenged parents. They do pretty well with it.

Edit to add: they use this remote -Rii Mini Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard with Mouse Touchpad

An OTG Y-Cable was the best thing I bought for my Amazon Fire Stick. Connecting a USB hub opened up so many possibilities. Everything I've connected to it has worked so far: wired keyboard, wireless mouse (with dongle), wireless keyboard (with dongle), USB thumb drive.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00CXAC1ZW/ref=dp_olp_new_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=new

I did a post about this in the Team ZT FB group. but short version is I use either the Amazon FireTV Utility app available here - https://sites.google.com/site/amazonfiretvutilityapp/ or WIFI FTP Server ( WIFI File Transfer ) available here - https://www.amazon.com/WIFI-FTP-Server-File-Transfer/dp/B00S48KP96 --- just copy the addaons and userdata folder contents from your %appdata% Kodi folder on PC to the FTV Box and done

I was using Ethernet and I tried it with the wifi and nothing changed. The Class10 Kingston may not be enough as that was what I got. Actually got this one in particular:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0162YQG2I

 

Which was a "Kingston Digital 32GB microSDHC Class 10 UHS-I 45MB/s Read Card" and that's where it was causing me the issues. I believe it's because it was a 45MB/s, which I thought was fast enough, but from my tests wasn't. (Not sure if others experienced different).

 

So after reading some other posts I ordered the "Samsung 32GB EVO Plus Class 10 Micro SDHC with Adapter 80mb/s"

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WR4IJBE

 

After getting it and installing it, it ran a lot faster and I don't experience any of the freezes I had. Used the Samsung card (two different ones) in two different PI's and have the same performance. Whereas I was doing 2x of the Kingston in the PI's and had the issues. Granted your mileage may vary, but that's just from personal experience.

YouTube with an hdmi to rca+hdmi adapter. Rca output to your stereo and hdmi out to tv.

AGPtek HDMI to HDMI + SPDIF + RCA... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ECTHIKK?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00RM3KXAU/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hey OP i have this and its a beast! works with almost anything that you can connect it to.

https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Keyboard-Touchpad-Android-QQ-Tech/dp/B00BALK9CM/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1517605594&sr=8-8&keywords=bluetooth+mini+keyboard

Sorry, the USB adaptor I purchased is this

That is a a Gigabit adaptor.

I understand the port to the Firestick is only USB 2.0 but that still has a theoretical speed of 480mbs.

I would rather have a hardwired 480mbs connection Vs Wifi.

Amazon has refurbished Gen 1 Fire TV's for 49.99 shipped with prime.
https://www.amazon.com/Certified-Refurbished-Amazon-Previous-Generation/dp/B00DU15MU4
or you can get a nexus player for 72.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Google-Black-Nexus-Player-Streaming-Media-Console-B-Grade/111814999645

AmazonBasics USB 3.0 Extension Cable - A-Male to A-Female - 3.3 Feet (1 Meter) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NH13UFQ

This what I use when ever I use a USB drive stick to avoid heat issues the USB port on Shield generates a lot of heat when a thumb drive is plug in.

I've been using a RPi 2 & 3 for awhile. This is the setup I would recommend:

1. A Rpi 3.
   
2. A FLIRC ($22) One remote for your TV and KODI.
   
3. A USB extension cord for the FLIRC so you can hide the RPi or mount it on the back of your tv
   
4. A $6.50 USB cable with an on/off switch. Your RPi system will occasionally freeze and require powering it off and on. Rather than unplugging and plugging the usb power into the micro usb slot on the RPi each time it freezes, use the on/off switch.
   
5. Buy two sd cards and install and configure your addons on both. This will be your backup when your system fails to boot.