We've cut the cable (2 Viewers)

[ragincajun]

About to plunge back in. Cut the cord for a few years then went back. About to sign up for Sling with a Roku 3. Already have Netflix and Amazon. May pull the string on a Tablo so the wife can record any OTA programs she wants.

Any recommendations on an antenna in the attic? I built my own last time.

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

Cord Cutter for 4 years with an HTPC. Its been getting a little slow and causing some issues so I started looking into upgrading the PC. Instead I bought this TIVO unit for $50 and the life time subscription and we love it. Biggest plus is that it can record up to six shows at once with only one coax cable going into it. Has all the apps you need including, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, etc etc. It works much faster than our HTPC as well. Very very happy with this for $300. Combined with the Xbox One we are set for the next few years.

 

[lumpy19]

Cord Cutter for 4 years with an HTPC. Its been getting a little slow and causing some issues so I started looking into upgrading the PC. Instead I bought this TIVO unit for $50 and the life time subscription and we love it. Biggest plus is that it can record up to six shows at once with only one coax cable going into it. Has all the apps you need including, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, etc etc. It works much faster than our HTPC as well. Very very happy with this for $300. Combined with the Xbox One we are set for the next few years.

I agree, tivo is awesome. Just one correction, you can only record 4 shows at once. The Tivo/tivo mini setup is ideal for multiple tv's, even if you still have cable, the cable card charge is minimal and there's no additional box charge for the mini's.

 

[JoeSteeler]

So, guys who were into the DirecTV carding scene of the early 2000's, we have our 2015 equivalent - IPTV. Basically the sportsaccess.se equivalent for everything and anything else you can basically think of live.

Dove into the rabbit hole on this over the past few days in Kodi, and it is unreal. They basically privatize the streams of everything on Dish + some UK sat companies, and re-broadcast it via the IPTV apps in Kodi (IPTV Stalker) for about $10 a month for uninterrupted service.

I'm not going to post links on this due to the nature of the beast here. I got a temp card number from Citi and gave 1 month a spin for $10 (you can do $80 for 12 months). As far as live TV goes, think of the channel and it's there in at least great SD to HD quality. My only beef is the lack of a program guide. There's one out there called iVue which looks spectacular, but with how it works there's tons of mapping issues with it right now, so that's a work in progress to have a program guide that's no different than Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, etc. It's very new and still in development, so I'm going to hold off on future months at this point until they get a guide going, but oh wow is it impressive.

so...what is the legality of this from the user side?

 

[tonydead]

So, guys who were into the DirecTV carding scene of the early 2000's, we have our 2015 equivalent - IPTV. Basically the sportsaccess.se equivalent for everything and anything else you can basically think of live.

Dove into the rabbit hole on this over the past few days in Kodi, and it is unreal. They basically privatize the streams of everything on Dish + some UK sat companies, and re-broadcast it via the IPTV apps in Kodi (IPTV Stalker) for about $10 a month for uninterrupted service.

I'm not going to post links on this due to the nature of the beast here. I got a temp card number from Citi and gave 1 month a spin for $10 (you can do $80 for 12 months). As far as live TV goes, think of the channel and it's there in at least great SD to HD quality. My only beef is the lack of a program guide. There's one out there called iVue which looks spectacular, but with how it works there's tons of mapping issues with it right now, so that's a work in progress to have a program guide that's no different than Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, etc. It's very new and still in development, so I'm going to hold off on future months at this point until they get a guide going, but oh wow is it impressive.

Mquinnjr, thanks for being the guinea pig on some of these things for us. Do they have NFL Network/Redzone in their channel line-up? What about PPV? Are you using a VPN?-> The few google searches I've done so far I've found some rumors/chatter about Dish Network filing law suits in California.

 

[mquinnjr]

So, guys who were into the DirecTV carding scene of the early 2000's, we have our 2015 equivalent - IPTV. Basically the sportsaccess.se equivalent for everything and anything else you can basically think of live.

Dove into the rabbit hole on this over the past few days in Kodi, and it is unreal. They basically privatize the streams of everything on Dish + some UK sat companies, and re-broadcast it via the IPTV apps in Kodi (IPTV Stalker) for about $10 a month for uninterrupted service.

I'm not going to post links on this due to the nature of the beast here. I got a temp card number from Citi and gave 1 month a spin for $10 (you can do $80 for 12 months). As far as live TV goes, think of the channel and it's there in at least great SD to HD quality. My only beef is the lack of a program guide. There's one out there called iVue which looks spectacular, but with how it works there's tons of mapping issues with it right now, so that's a work in progress to have a program guide that's no different than Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, etc. It's very new and still in development, so I'm going to hold off on future months at this point until they get a guide going, but oh wow is it impressive.

Mquinnjr, thanks for being the guinea pig on some of these things for us. Do they have NFL Network/Redzone in their channel line-up? What about PPV? Are you using a VPN?-> The few google searches I've done so far I've found some rumors/chatter about Dish Network filing law suits in California.

They do have NFL Network/Redzone, on top of all of the a-la-carte sports packages offered on Dish, like Center Ice, League Pass, etc. Also have (due to the inclusion of a UK satellite) all Sky and Setanta sports channels. Basically, look at the channel grid on the website, and you'll find it re-streamed here.

Definitely use a VPN for this if you delve in, as just based on setting it up, the servers are centralized so you don't want to mess about there.

I think in terms of recommendations, I'd hold off for a bit unless you're really brave or a Kodi , because it's a work in progress in the dev community and has had me pulling my hair out. You'll be on the IPTV forums a whole lot until it's a more refined offering (they're still figuring it out), but if that's your thing by all means

 

[tonydead]

I'm going to keep waiting, it's going to have to be a proven service before I pay for anything.

Canceled Sling Tv, never use it anymore.

Is there an add-on to update Kodi to the latest version or do you have to re-install every time? When you re-install does it save all your settings?

 

[mquinnjr]

I'm going to keep waiting, it's going to have to be a proven service before I pay for anything.

Canceled Sling Tv, never use it anymore.

Is there an add-on to update Kodi to the latest version or do you have to re-install every time? When you re-install does it save all your settings?

Yeah I did a 1 month just to get my feet wet/mess around, but yeah I'm 100% with waiting. It's exciting though, this could be big once they get the IPTV software on Kodi more refined/user friendly. I hope it's not too easy, would rather IPTV fly under the radar for a bit in terms of making it easy to use/setup.

ETA: I have a Mac, and was updating ini files with MAC addresses and a code translator last night, based on one set of instructions I later found works in "some cases." So yeah, you're basically hunting around forums for solutions at this point, no uniform easy instructions just yet. I'm a so I don't have a problem with that with some time on my hands. Being FF prep season, that's going to tail off very soon.

I use ADBFire to upgrade Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV (works the same for the Stick), and I just use the "Install APK" button with the latest version of Kodi from the official site. When you go to run Kodi after ADBFire tells you that the installation has completed, it starts up the new version.

 

[belljr]

How does the tivo work without cable?

 

[Bogart]

Every time I think I want to go back to cable, I go back to this thread and am energized again to keep fighting the good fight.

Just got a Fire Stick and look forward to trying out Kodi.

 

[mquinnjr]

Every time I think I want to go back to cable, I go back to this thread and am energized again to keep fighting the good fight.

Just got a Fire Stick and look forward to trying out Kodi.

It's like buying beer when I was in HS, always liked the challenge/feeling of beating the man.

Same principle applies here, pretty much a nice hobby and I love diving into the details.

 

[tonydead]

I use ADBFire to upgrade Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV (works the same for the Stick), and I just use the "Install APK" button with the latest version of Kodi from the official site. When you go to run Kodi after ADBFire tells you that the installation has completed, it starts up the new version.

Yeah, but, are all your channels and settings in tact or do you have to start over and install from zip etc, etc?

I remember seeing a notice pop up when Isengard came out and I was hoping to just push a button somewhere. I mean all the add-ons update automatically.

 

[tonydead]

Another thought on the credit card thing: Did you say Citi Bank has a service that gives you a temporary credit card number to use? If so, yeah that protects you from the "bad" guys who might steal your CC info. However, I assume there would still be a trail to your Citi Bank account. One way to cover up your tracks from the "good" guys too is to take cash to the supermarket and use cash to buy a prepaid VISA.

 

[mquinnjr]

I use ADBFire to upgrade Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV (works the same for the Stick), and I just use the "Install APK" button with the latest version of Kodi from the official site. When you go to run Kodi after ADBFire tells you that the installation has completed, it starts up the new version.

Yeah, but, are all your channels and settings in tact or do you have to start over and install from zip etc, etc?

I remember seeing a notice pop up when Isengard came out and I was hoping to just push a button somewhere. I mean all the add-ons update automatically.

Yep everything stays in tact, surprisingly easy to do as I was expecting to have to do more than just load the APK for the newest Kodi version via ADBFire. I just make sure I'm not in Kodi when I upgrade, and the next time I start it after ADBFire tells me the package installed, you get the splash screen for the first time load of the new version. Good enough for me.

 

[tonydead]

I use ADBFire to upgrade Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV (works the same for the Stick), and I just use the "Install APK" button with the latest version of Kodi from the official site. When you go to run Kodi after ADBFire tells you that the installation has completed, it starts up the new version.

Yeah, but, are all your channels and settings in tact or do you have to start over and install from zip etc, etc?

I remember seeing a notice pop up when Isengard came out and I was hoping to just push a button somewhere. I mean all the add-ons update automatically.

Yep everything stays in tact, surprisingly easy to do as I was expecting to have to do more than just load the APK for the newest Kodi version via ADBFire. I just make sure I'm not in Kodi when I upgrade, and the next time I start it after ADBFire tells me the package installed, you get the splash screen for the first time load of the new version. Good enough for me.

Going to do the HTPC first try before I side load firestick. Have you ever tried the Config Wizard?

 

[mquinnjr]

Another thought on the credit card thing: Did you say Citi Bank has a service that gives you a temporary credit card number to use? If so, yeah that protects you from the "bad" guys who might steal your CC info. However, I assume there would still be a trail to your Citi Bank account. One way to cover up your tracks from the "good" guys too is to take cash to the supermarket and use cash to buy a prepaid VISA.

Yeah this is correct, kind of playing with fire here. They use 3rd party processors just like the offshore sportsbooks do to protect themselves (charges on my online statement were for garden tools, etc.), but nothing is a certainty, so I'll do this with any future purchases on this front.

Citi has a temporary number feature for online purchases where you get a "burner" number that is only known to Citi on the back end, it (especially for stuff like this).

 

[mquinnjr]

I use ADBFire to upgrade Kodi on my Amazon Fire TV (works the same for the Stick), and I just use the "Install APK" button with the latest version of Kodi from the official site. When you go to run Kodi after ADBFire tells you that the installation has completed, it starts up the new version.

Yeah, but, are all your channels and settings in tact or do you have to start over and install from zip etc, etc?

I remember seeing a notice pop up when Isengard came out and I was hoping to just push a button somewhere. I mean all the add-ons update automatically.

Yep everything stays in tact, surprisingly easy to do as I was expecting to have to do more than just load the APK for the newest Kodi version via ADBFire. I just make sure I'm not in Kodi when I upgrade, and the next time I start it after ADBFire tells me the package installed, you get the splash screen for the first time load of the new version. Good enough for me.

Going to do the HTPC first try before I side load firestick. Have you ever tried the Config Wizard?

Nah I started out with ADBFire when I started using Kodi on Amazon Fire TV and just got used to it, so I've stuck with it since I know how to work with most of the quirks at this point.

 

[matttyl]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

 

[tonydead]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

 

[matttyl]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

 

[cstu]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

Not worth the trouble of reducing file size when you can find 1000 hours on a 5TB hard drive.

 

[tonydead]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

Not worth the trouble of reducing file size when you can find 1000 hours on a 5TB hard drive.

Would be nice to encode to something you could watch on your ipad or something tho. I had no idea .mtv was that difficult. I wonder if Plex or something would stream it, probably not.

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

How does the tivo work without cable?

I use it with an OTA antenna. I in the philly burbs and get about 60 channels though a few of those are shopping channels and a few are nothing but hot spanish talking hispanic chicks.

 

[Insein]

Trying to do some sideloading of apps onto my firetv since my sister in law is letting us use her cable log in to get a lot of watch TV apps for stations like Disney, djr, dxd, ESPN etc. ABC app is still baffling why the ####ed their users so bad.

 

[Politician Spock]

How does the tivo work without cable?

It works very well without cable. With the amount of free content it records from OTA signals, in three years I've never sat down to watch TV and not had something good to watch.

 

[mquinnjr]

So I finally got IPTV working with the native Kodi DVR after many hours over 3 days of troubleshooting. 751 channels available from multiple satellite sources, all in SD/near HD quality. Fully native channel guide within Kodi with show info and DVR functionality (This is where the Amazon Fire TV will be worth the extra $60 over the Stick, plus the wired ethernet connection that I have going over wireline adapters).

This is literally incredible. Hardest part now will be choosing between month to month ($10/mo.) or yearly ($80, which is less than Netflix per month) because, well, provider stability. The 2015 version of the ol' black box that I got from the back pages of Sporting News in the early 2000's for college ("Fully Digital converter !!!" , those were the days).

 

[Zasada]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

Not worth the trouble of reducing file size when you can find 1000 hours on a 5TB hard drive.

Would be nice to encode to something you could watch on your ipad or something tho. I had no idea .mtv was that difficult. I wonder if Plex or something would stream it, probably not.

Handbrake will do this for you. Pretty easy to use, too.

 

[matttyl]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

Not worth the trouble of reducing file size when you can find 1000 hours on a 5TB hard drive.

Would be nice to encode to something you could watch on your ipad or something tho. I had no idea .mtv was that difficult. I wonder if Plex or something would stream it, probably not.

Handbrake will do this for you. Pretty easy to use, too.

I don't think handbrake will take a .wtv file, though. That would have been what I would have done.

Are there other DRV softwares that will work with Windows and allow you to record off of a networked TV tuner (silicon dust homerun prime) into a format other than .wtv?

 

[tonydead]

I don't think handbrake will take a .wtv file, though. That would have been what I would have done.

Are there other DRV softwares that will work with Windows and allow you to record off of a networked TV tuner (silicon dust homerun prime) into a format other than .wtv?

I think Media Portal and Next PVT are the most popular back end software (there is a list on page 2 of the first link) that integrate with Kodi and I think you can specify them to record in a variety of different formats. (I haven't personally tired this myself yet tho)

Link 1

Link 2

 

[Zasada]

I don't think handbrake will take a .wtv file, though. That would have been what I would have done.

http://www.thedigitalmediazone.com/2012/03/02/handbrake-0-9-6-supports-wtv-files/

 

[tonydead]

So I finally got IPTV working with the native Kodi DVR after many hours over 3 days of troubleshooting. 751 channels available from multiple satellite sources, all in SD/near HD quality. Fully native channel guide within Kodi with show info and DVR functionality (This is where the Amazon Fire TV will be worth the extra $60 over the Stick, plus the wired ethernet connection that I have going over wireline adapters).

This is literally incredible. Hardest part now will be choosing between month to month ($10/mo.) or yearly ($80, which is less than Netflix per month) because, well, provider stability. The 2015 version of the ol' black box that I got from the back pages of Sporting News in the early 2000's for college ("Fully Digital converter !!!" , those were the days).

I've been reading about the Robin Hood Project; 153 HD live channels. I think I'll give that a go.

ETA: For live TV sports channels, the networks that Robinhood currently supports includes ESPN, Fox Sports, Sky Sports, NFL Network, and NBA TV.

 

[mquinnjr]

So I finally got IPTV working with the native Kodi DVR after many hours over 3 days of troubleshooting. 751 channels available from multiple satellite sources, all in SD/near HD quality. Fully native channel guide within Kodi with show info and DVR functionality (This is where the Amazon Fire TV will be worth the extra $60 over the Stick, plus the wired ethernet connection that I have going over wireline adapters).

This is literally incredible. Hardest part now will be choosing between month to month ($10/mo.) or yearly ($80, which is less than Netflix per month) because, well, provider stability. The 2015 version of the ol' black box that I got from the back pages of Sporting News in the early 2000's for college ("Fully Digital converter !!!" , those were the days).

I've been reading about the Robin Hood Project; 153 HD live channels. I think I'll give that a go.

ETA: For live TV sports channels, the networks that Robinhood currently supports includes ESPN, Fox Sports, Sky Sports, NFL Network, and NBA TV.

Nice, going to give this a go and see how it works out.

 

[matttyl]

So I finally got IPTV working with the native Kodi DVR after many hours over 3 days of troubleshooting. 751 channels available from multiple satellite sources, all in SD/near HD quality. Fully native channel guide within Kodi with show info and DVR functionality (This is where the Amazon Fire TV will be worth the extra $60 over the Stick, plus the wired ethernet connection that I have going over wireline adapters).

This is literally incredible. Hardest part now will be choosing between month to month ($10/mo.) or yearly ($80, which is less than Netflix per month) because, well, provider stability. The 2015 version of the ol' black box that I got from the back pages of Sporting News in the early 2000's for college ("Fully Digital converter !!!" , those were the days).

I've been reading about the Robin Hood Project; 153 HD live channels. I think I'll give that a go.

ETA: For live TV sports channels, the networks that Robinhood currently supports includes ESPN, Fox Sports, Sky Sports, NFL Network, and NBA TV.

So you're able to "stream" channels via internet rather than via a TV tuner?

 

[tonydead]

So I finally got IPTV working with the native Kodi DVR after many hours over 3 days of troubleshooting. 751 channels available from multiple satellite sources, all in SD/near HD quality. Fully native channel guide within Kodi with show info and DVR functionality (This is where the Amazon Fire TV will be worth the extra $60 over the Stick, plus the wired ethernet connection that I have going over wireline adapters).

This is literally incredible. Hardest part now will be choosing between month to month ($10/mo.) or yearly ($80, which is less than Netflix per month) because, well, provider stability. The 2015 version of the ol' black box that I got from the back pages of Sporting News in the early 2000's for college ("Fully Digital converter !!!" , those were the days).

I've been reading about the Robin Hood Project; 153 HD live channels. I think I'll give that a go.

ETA: For live TV sports channels, the networks that Robinhood currently supports includes ESPN, Fox Sports, Sky Sports, NFL Network, and NBA TV.

So you're able to "stream" channels via internet rather than via a TV tuner?

Trying to, yes. The only thing I use my TV tuner(card) for is the local OTA channels. It's just a matter of finding the right, good quality add-on in Kodi. For TV series and movies I don't mind waiting 24 hours until the recordings are available to stream; 1channel, genesis, pheonix, etc.

It's just the sports I want live.

So far sportsdevil works for live sports, but, it's not in HD (rather poor quality actually). The IPTV mquinnjr is using supposedly has a large inventory of HD channels, however, they've started requiring a paid subscription. The Robinhood project sounds promising, but, haven't tried it yet.

 

[mquinnjr]

Kodi Fire TV/Stick Guys - Get this and side load the Fire Starter APK as soon as you have some time, won't take long: https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/releases/tag/v2.7.2

If you found it annoying to navigate to the Fire TV settings to load Kodi every time you use it, or were having trouble setting up Llama to put Kodi on your home screen, those days are over. FireStarter lets you set up in its settings single and double click of the home button shortcuts to any app. It took me less than 5 minutes to setup double tapping the home button right into Kodi, and single click back to the Fire home screen.

So awesome.

 

[SouthJersey]

Kodi Fire TV/Stick Guys - Get this and side load the Fire Starter APK as soon as you have some time, won't take long: https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/releases/tag/v2.7.2

If you found it annoying to navigate to the Fire TV settings to load Kodi every time you use it, or were having trouble setting up Llama to put Kodi on your home screen, those days are over. FireStarter lets you set up in its settings single and double click of the home button shortcuts to any app. It took me less than 5 minutes to setup double tapping the home button right into Kodi, and single click back to the Fire home screen.

So awesome.

MQ >> What exactly does this do?

 

[mquinnjr]

Kodi Fire TV/Stick Guys - Get this and side load the Fire Starter APK as soon as you have some time, won't take long: https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/releases/tag/v2.7.2

If you found it annoying to navigate to the Fire TV settings to load Kodi every time you use it, or were having trouble setting up Llama to put Kodi on your home screen, those days are over. FireStarter lets you set up in its settings single and double click of the home button shortcuts to any app. It took me less than 5 minutes to setup double tapping the home button right into Kodi, and single click back to the Fire home screen.

So awesome.

MQ >> What exactly does this do?

If you use Kodi on an Amazon Fire TV or Stick, it is a side load app that allows you to single or double click the home button to open Kodi. It's a PITA to open without a shortcut, so anyone running Kodi on an Amazon Fire device will benefit from this.

 

[Insein]

Kodi Fire TV/Stick Guys - Get this and side load the Fire Starter APK as soon as you have some time, won't take long: https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/releases/tag/v2.7.2

If you found it annoying to navigate to the Fire TV settings to load Kodi every time you use it, or were having trouble setting up Llama to put Kodi on your home screen, those days are over. FireStarter lets you set up in its settings single and double click of the home button shortcuts to any app. It took me less than 5 minutes to setup double tapping the home button right into Kodi, and single click back to the Fire home screen.

So awesome.

MQ >> What exactly does this do?

If you use Kodi on an Amazon Fire TV or Stick, it is a side load app that allows you to single or double click the home button to open Kodi. It's a PITA to open without a shortcut, so anyone running Kodi on an Amazon Fire device will benefit from this.

Once I sit down to do this, I have to remember page 46.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

I do a lot of TV recording with WMC. It records things in a .wtv file format, which is huge (2-6 GB per hour of HD stuff). I've looked a bit, but can't seem to find any good way in which to reduce that size, or to convert those files into another file format. Any advice?

videohelp dot com

Just plug in the file type you're converting from and to into the search box. Read the descriptions about the software; some of the free programs come with bloatware and the descriptions will tell you how to avoid that.

With all the steps and potential costs of some of these, I think my answer is just to buy a larger hard drive for these files. Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days.

Wish you had asked a year ago as I had an ancient MCE PC (2004 or so) which did this constantly for several years. Unfortunately the PC died and I don't think I bothered to save the batch files I used. Now since I had an older version the files were encoded as .ms-dvr and not .wtv. And with just a tiny few exceptions most of these were standard definition and not high definition recordings so the settings might not have been optimal for you anyway. The point wasn't to save storage space as you have noted hard drives are inexpensive enough and, in my case easy to add (I have a cheap, low end unraid build) but to put the video in a more universal container.

With all of that said I only used static FFMPEG. (This of course was after comskip took a best shot at removing commercials (when relevant.)

Something along the lines of this was the starting point, but I doubt this was it -

ffmpeg -i INPUT -v 0 -sameq -vcodec libx264 -acodec libvo_aacenc -y OUTPUT

.. as at the very least it also trimmed the extra stuff off the beginning and the end of a recording. While I never had WMC on a windows 8 machine, and never used it on Win 8 I have read in the past that some guys had more luck first converting the .WTV to .dvr-ms and I have also read that there were issues with subtitles.

 

[tonydead]

Got to mess around with robin hood for a few minutes. Lots of HD live channels. Most of the streams worked, unfortunately the one stream I found for nfl network did not. Maybe they have more/better during season/games.

 

[Brady Marino]

Got to mess around with robin hood for a few minutes. Lots of HD live channels. Most of the streams worked, unfortunately the one stream I found for nfl network did not. Maybe they have more/better during season/games.

Literally had the same experience. I found the one NFL Network feed and it was deader than the Test Forum.

I did open up an ESPN stream and was actually blown away with the quality for a free stream.

This thing has potential, especially for soccer/futbol.

 

[matttyl]

I don't think handbrake will take a .wtv file, though. That would have been what I would have done.

http://www.thedigitalmediazone.com/2012/03/02/handbrake-0-9-6-supports-wtv-files/

Thank you for this!!! I was able to convert a 3.3 GB half hour HD recording of a sitcom into a more universal container and the output file was less than 3/4 of a gig (less than a quarter the size). I have a few hundred half hour and hour long recordings put into season folders that I'd like to keep stored, and this will greatly free up HD space!

That said, it was on an HTPC with an older E5200 CPU, so the conversion took about an hour and a half to complete.

 

[mquinnjr]

Got to mess around with robin hood for a few minutes. Lots of HD live channels. Most of the streams worked, unfortunately the one stream I found for nfl network did not. Maybe they have more/better during season/games.

Literally had the same experience. I found the one NFL Network feed and it was deader than the Test Forum.

I did open up an ESPN stream and was actually blown away with the quality for a free stream.

This thing has potential, especially for soccer/futbol.

I tried it and like it, feels like the Phoenix app. Good potential, just hope the streams don't get overrun with users, which is basically what happens with SportsDevil. Will keep it in my dashboard and try it periodically.

 

[rogwadd]

I've fooled with a number of these IPTV/Guide apps and installers and can't tell you how many times I've reset a mucked up Kodi over the last couple of weeks. Let me collect my thoughts and I'll relay my experiences with them. I'm still poking around in Robin Hood and Project Free TV. Has anyone looked at cCloud? It's been around a while and has just released quite a few link updates. It can be found on the podgod repo. If I can locate the source, I'll add it. So I've got a few live tv addons and Genesis which xhould accomodate me.

What are we using for guides? I'm trying to figure out Ivue because it's supposed to be integrated w/ cCloud, Gorilla Streams and vdubt25 all of which I found worthy of digging into. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to configure it.

Any suggestions on guides and links to help setting them up?

 

[tonydead]

I've fooled with a number of these IPTV/Guide apps and installers and can't tell you how many times I've reset a mucked up Kodi over the last couple of weeks. Let me collect my thoughts and I'll relay my experiences with them. I'm still poking around in Robin Hood and Project Free TV. Has anyone looked at cCloud? It's been around a while and has just released quite a few link updates. It can be found on the podgod repo. If I can locate the source, I'll add it. So I've got a few live tv addons and Genesis which xhould accomodate me.

What are we using for guides? I'm trying to figure out Ivue because it's supposed to be integrated w/ cCloud, Gorilla Streams and vdubt25 all of which I found worthy of digging into. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to configure it.

Any suggestions on guides and links to help setting them up?

Adding cCloud to my list to try in my search for finding a HD NFL Network channel. Thanks. The podgod repo isn't hard to find with a little googling.

ETA: Some of the posts online say cCloud is a good replacement for IPTV Stalker....so maybe.

 

[mquinnjr]

I've fooled with a number of these IPTV/Guide apps and installers and can't tell you how many times I've reset a mucked up Kodi over the last couple of weeks. Let me collect my thoughts and I'll relay my experiences with them. I'm still poking around in Robin Hood and Project Free TV. Has anyone looked at cCloud? It's been around a while and has just released quite a few link updates. It can be found on the podgod repo. If I can locate the source, I'll add it. So I've got a few live tv addons and Genesis which xhould accomodate me.

What are we using for guides? I'm trying to figure out Ivue because it's supposed to be integrated w/ cCloud, Gorilla Streams and vdubt25 all of which I found worthy of digging into. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to configure it.

Any suggestions on guides and links to help setting them up?

Adding cCloud to my list to try in my search for finding a HD NFL Network channel. Thanks. The podgod repo isn't hard to find with a little googling.

Completely gave up on iVue, and I read it's having problems at the moment. I got IPTV stalker client to work with the native Kodi PVR and a donation to IKS66 for one month, and it's glorious. If I have some time this weekend, I'll try and summarize what I did to get this going. Be aware, it was extremely frustrating and you'll need some time, maybe my experiences alleviate some of that. Also, you need to donate to one of the three IPTV providers to get it to work now amongst Rocket, NFPS, and IKS66 as the 6 month free trial the IPTV community ran ended July 15, 2015. I used IKS66 with a burner CC number for 1 month to see if I could get it going, as it's the only one that doesn't do a full year required. No real difference amongst the providers from what I've read performance wise. Tonydead raised a great point to just use a prepaid international card going forward, which I will.

I used the forums here for all my info. People are really passionate about it and willing to help you if you're not a knob to them and put some effort in trying with their instructions first: http://iptvtalk.org/

 

[Cjw_55106]

Wow, too much info to process here. Can someone give a quick run down of what you've gotten to work and what it costs?

 

[tonydead]

Wow, too much info to process here. Can someone give a quick run down of what you've gotten to work and what it costs?

For cutting the cable in general or specifically Kodi (since we've been talking mostly Kodi the last few pages)?

 

[mquinnjr]

If you are or know a college student, NFL ST via streaming for DirecTv now $100 for the season: https://nflst.directv.com/

 

[JuniorNB]

If you are or know a college student, NFL ST via streaming for DirecTv now $100 for the season: https://nflst.directv.com/

is that just for computers/smartphones? Would that work with chromecast?