naf623 10 Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 As the title, is there any reason to use Kodi rather than just Emby's own web interface? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Burton 94 Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 I used Kodi for a long time. I like tinkering to make things perfect, and it was extremely customizable (big fan of eye candy in my media centres). Once I discovered Emby (which I was blown away by) I found Emby for Kodi and set it all up. The interface was pretty good, and things generally worked well, if not a little buggy (not wife friendly). I do recommend it, it was great while it lasted, but I've moved on to Emby Theatre. Basically cutting out the middle man (Emby Server-->Emby for Kodi-->Kodi) things just go directly from the server to the theatre. Basically, it's up to you. Kodi has far more options to customize than Theatre or the web interface (I'm sure that will change though). I've found the native Kodi player looks (to me) a bit better quality wise, but it's negligible. Comparatively Emby is lacking by a lot, but I honestly don't miss it too much. I find Emby Theatre to actually be more stable than Kodi and Emby for Kodi, and it's far more wife friendly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy2Play 8387 Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 Web Client/web browser have very limited codec support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naf623 10 Posted April 2, 2016 Author Share Posted April 2, 2016 I currently have Kodi on my PC, simply because that's what I was already using from when I used it to manage my central database. When I was away last week, I was using the web interface on my tablet, and it got me thinking if there was really anything I needed Kodi for - the web interface seems to work a treat. All of my media is H.264 anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathsquirrel 741 Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 If you like the KODI UI and general user experience but want emby managing your metadata and movie serving it makes perfect sense. If you aren't a fan of the KODI UI then I'd suggest EMC or ET. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naf623 10 Posted April 9, 2016 Author Share Posted April 9, 2016 So there's no particular functional difference, just aesthetic and personal preference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathsquirrel 741 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 So there's no particular functional difference, just aesthetic and personal preference? Well KODI certainly has its own plugins and things that aren't necessarily available to ET users any other way. For example I understand the have a Netflix UI which will never come to Emby as it violates the netflix site's terms of use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Last time I used the netflix kodi add-on, it was simply launching chrome, and opened netflix in a tab... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naf623 10 Posted April 9, 2016 Author Share Posted April 9, 2016 Fair point about other add-ons, true. But when I'm already on a PC with Emby in a browser, its no problem to have Netflix, YouTube and other stuff like that in the browser too. But just in terms of my own media library, is the choice just personal preference? Just for browsing and watching my library, would I lose any features if I moved from Kodi and solely used the web interface? For example, Kodi is very much a keyboard interface, while Emby is preferable with a mouse. Kodi has the additional volume amplification setting (which I've needed a few times on my tablet; Emby through Chrome just seems to be quieter than the same video through Kodi). On the other hand, Emby is much better when it comes to browsing different libraries, while Kodi just lumps everything into either Movies or TV. What other differences in functionality would I notice/miss if I switched from Kodi to web interface? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Kodi is fully customizable. It all depends on the skin you choose. Some skin are built around mouse support, while others are made for keyboard. The add-on recreates your emby sections, so you can easily recreate your emby sections in Kodi by simply creating a menu item that points to the add-on emby shortcuts (as long as you are not using confluence default skin). It's mostly personal preference, and how you plan on using your setup. I use Kodi mostly because it works well to have everything I use (emby, addons, etc) under one interface when using a remote control. Plus I like my tailor made interface. No real difference, you'd lose direct play on some of your content by switching to the web interface. If you want to keep using Kodi, find a skin that is built around mouse support. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1legend 45 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 I have a large library and six users in the household. I came from MediaPortal which at the time was the best things going for a large DB with the Moving Pictures and TV Series plugins. I then used Subsonic to support the media playback outside of my house. Looking to get away from the part-time job of supporting the MediaPortal clents I moved to Kodi. Kodi allowed me to sync better than MediaPortal with its backup tool and it sure has more plugins than MediaPortal. Emby for Kodi seemed to be the solution but it was buggy and did not seem to sync well with Trakt using Kodi profiles and linking them to Emby users, also it would stop updating new TV shows and movies requiring me to rebooting and manually fire off the update task. I'm now running Emby server with ET for the PCs connected to TV's, the web client for PC's with monitors, and the android client for phones and tablets. This is the most awesome solution that I have ever used. As others have said, Kodi offers a solution that is highly customizable but if you have many family members and want to give each their own watched flags and views, AND do not want to spend hours making Kodi do this then staying in the Emby Eco system is about as Turn-Key as it gets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Why would you use Kodi trakt add-on and not the server trakt plugin? And how come you've never reported your issues about the emby for kodi add-on? They could have been resolved at the time. I don't believe this issue exists with our latest builds + native playback mode (if you still wanted to use the Kodi trakt add-on for some reason) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naf623 10 Posted April 10, 2016 Author Share Posted April 10, 2016 I'd only lose direct play for media files which the browser can't play the codec for, right? I convert everything to h.264 mp4 anyway, so shouldn't be an issue. Think the web interface is my preference - it switches fullscreen/windowed properly and easily, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1legend 45 Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 Why would you use Kodi trakt add-on and not the server trakt plugin? And how come you've never reported your issues about the emby for kodi add-on? They could have been resolved at the time. I don't believe this issue exists with our latest builds + native playback mode (if you still wanted to use the Kodi trakt add-on for some reason) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk True, but I was highly motivated to deploy simpler solution for my self as well as the family. Believe it or not the initial DB sync with Emby on a fresh Kodi install took over two hours to complete. Sometimes this import would crash and I would need to start the process all over again. While it seemed that the music was 60% of that import time (I could have had Kodi index the Music which I tried and was quicker), you can't beat one minute to install ET and then two minutes to configure the user/system settings. Granted there was a learning curve for me because I spent years with MediaPortal and was new to Kodi, when I saw ET in action (even with its current limitations) I was sold on the ease of deploying a new setup. Truthfully I still use a stripped down Kodi for the few things that I want that ET will most likely never support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponyo 22 Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 I agree that sticking with an Emby environment is best if all you want to do is media playback. Especially Amazon/Android boxes are a cheap and good solution as long as you pick one that can do direct play. Though I'm not sure if the android app which is basically just a website wrapper works with a remote controller. I bought a fire tv stick for my girlfriend and that works great. Additional advantages are you can just as easily use netflix which you can integrate into Kodi but its not the worlds prettiest solution and likely prone to failure. Android boxes "just work" and fairly family proof which is important for acceptance. That said Kodi (on Windows) offers more flexibility. Not so much in the media playback department but through it's addons that can turn it into a launcher for a whole bunch of software. Something like the Steam addon combined with Steam in home streaming and family sharing can make for a power combination if you (or your kids) want to game around the house while also having access to media from the same device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceboy 2508 Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 I am forced to use kodi plus Emby for kodi as live tv is not fully functional in the Emby clients yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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