Plex vs Kodi for RaspPi2

supZ · World Chat Champion Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Karma :

Had kodi on my rasppi 1 for quite some time now but lately it's started becoming a bit temperamental. (not detecting usb external drive with my media on, hanging, etc..)

might just be the last update is gash (i remember updating once and it killed the whole image a year or so ago) but I have a pi2 sitting here and was thinking of swapping my media centre to that.

BUT... I was toying with the idea of going plex instead as the 2 can support it.

Never really used plex other than trying it for about 10mins on my pc so was wondering what people thought.. shall i put plex on or stick with kodi?

What are people's preferences? Main differences? Is there a decent plex remote control app as kodi's is damn good?

Cheers

edit:
in the meantime I'm going to be reading this: https://www.htpcbeginner.com/plex-vs-kodi-comparison-guide/

editedit:
actually this may be a non-starter.. it seems like with plex you 'need' a separate pc based server. update: hmm spoke too soon, looks like the pi2 support i'd heard about is to install the server on the pi itself. hmm, might still be an option.

could just install it on it, and try i guess, I'm not using my pi2 right now so its not like I'd lose anything by giving the install a go
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t121anf · World Chat Champion Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Karma :

I looked briefly at Plex, but found I preferred Kodi for my setup.

Media on a server, multiply clients connecting to it.

IIRC Plex would have had a cost associated with it but had the option of reaching your media away from the network (i.e. work) but I have no need for that.

Kodi has all the apps/functions you can add to get things from elsewhere, I don't use it but it's nice to know that if I wanted to stream a Premier League match or MotoGP I could.

Kodi just felt simpler, more familiar, especially as I was coming from a Meedios/Meedio background.

(all my hardware is Windows PC based, rather than Raspberry Pi)

J.M. · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Karma :

tl;dr plex makes it easy to share your media on all of your devices. Kodi makes it easy to access your media from a single device.

It's possible to have a setup where all of your media is shared (including the library watch state) on Kodi, but it's fairly involved.

inb4 CaNsA, take a look at OSMC: https://osmc.tv/

Very quick and easy to install. Works out of the box with pretty much everything, and gets free and monthly updates.

I've been using it for around a year now very happily, but only on a single device.

Also; install Chorus for Kodi: https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Chorus

Gives you a nice web interface for accessing your media from the computer, and acts as a remote control for if you're on your computer and want to control Kodi without getting out your phone. As a bonus, you can stream content from the web interface (html5 player) or download the content. If you set this up with port forwarding, you could access this from external networks (though security wouldn't really exist).
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2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

t121anf · World Chat Champion Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Karma :

The MySQL route for Kodi is easy, just follow the steps carefully.

supZ · World Chat Champion Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Karma :

J.M. · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Karma :

It has all the same functionality as the basic interface, but lots of extras with a nice UI. I sometimes use it for searching content and playing it on the Pi rather than using Kore.

I didn't realise you were currently on OSMC, I thought you'd gone for a manual Kodi install!
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2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

CaNsA · Super Spammer Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Karma :

Can you not use the media library?

Also, use Yatse not kore.

Kodi has a webgui already.

J.M. · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Karma :

supZ · World Chat Champion Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Karma :

Phil. · World Chat Champion Joined: 02 Feb 2002 Karma :

h265 is driving me nuts on the pi at the moment.

Supposedly builds to help which I haven't tried yet.
Dunno if Plex is any better with this

J.M. · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Karma :

supZ · World Chat Champion Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Karma :

so it turns out most of my woes were coming from my powered usb hub.. in that, it wasn't powering.

It's not just the plug or connection as un-plugging/plugging it back in was working for a time so its probably just borked.

tried my old spare and it kicked in 1st time. (i have to use a powered hub as my external drive is usb3 and the pi is not so i need the extra oomph from somewhere.)

i of course only noticed this after i had done a fresh install of osmc on my pi2 but screw it.. i now have a much faster and clean osmc install so its all good.

im trying the aeon nox skin, and its ok.. not overly impressed with the video widget. I kinda liked the big poster page of my old skin (i *think* it was something like metropolis.. can't remember now) but i'll look into configurations later.

not that its a big deal as i usually just scroll through what i want on my phone and play it from that.

one thing i've never been able to get working is live streaming of tv. i've downloaded 00s of addons (pheonix, freestreams, ivue, etc.. etc.. etc..) and nothing has ever worked as expected but i won't ask about that as i know cansa sells his boxes so don't wanna tread on his toes Smile

now i've got a fresh install im less inclined to try again as my old install ended up so clogged full of installed crap i never used.

anyway.. back up and running. job done
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CBR954RR - Daily toy
CBR600RR - Trackbike