[kwlug-disc] OT: Online TV services?

Fri Nov 3 09:19:17 EDT 2017

Mark this is why we eventually started using XBMC/KODI. When Rogers
announced it was going digital we decided to re-evaluate TV. What we
found was that we mostly PVR'd movies (MythDora = Fedora + MythTV).
Normally we were too busy to watch them when they were on. We loved
MythTV because we could record up to 14 days of content and it had/has
a lot of great rule sets for conflict resolution: e.g. record movie X,
but record it later if a show/movie with a higher priority conflicts
with the time. Digital seemed like it meant new equipment and new
hoops to jump through. At the same time DVDs had dropped in price and
Blu-ray was starting to become more popular.

MythTV is a great PVR, but not so great at organizing ripped media, enter XBMC.

There was a time when KODI add-ons were less frowned on/more legit
(and as you pointed out there are a lot of legitimate add-ons, over
1000). Remember the Boxee Box? Boxee forked XBMC/KODI. There was a
time when you could run Boxee on a PC as you would KODI. Several
companies released Boxee boxes (D-Link was one of the more popular).
Then Samsung bought out the company that had forked Boxee and AFAIK
it's been an abandoned project now for about 6 years.

Our setup now is:

KODI server in the living room (Core 2 Quad PC with 4GB RAM, an 8TB
HDD, 1GB fanless GeForce 210 card w/ HDMI, Xubuntu modified to boot up
to KODI, LIRC, SAMBA, openSSH). We use an old HP media center remote
and receiver to navigate the KODI menus. The remote was a snap to set
up, you just install lirc and choose Windows Media Center remotes and
it works pretty much perfectly with KODI. Our SAMBA shares are read
only. To put media on the server I use ssh/filezilla from my desktop
PC in another room where I do all the ripping of our media.

Attached to another TV is a Zotac box, I think the model is ID81. I
found it pretty darn slow, even with Xubuntu, so I threw in an SSD and
performance was a bit better. This is actually the second Zotac box I
tried and both were a bit sluggish. It works. I bought one of those
miniature keyboards that look a bit like a gamepad with a touchpad.
KW/Cambridge surplus sells them for $29, but there's a store on
Victoria (that also happens to sell KODI boxes) that sells the remotes
for half that price ($15). I bought two, one from Cambridge surplus
and one from this other shop. The one from Cambridge was a bit
defective, the down arrow doesn't work nearly as smoothly as it does
on the less expensive one (same model).

In another room we have a Zoomtak T8H attached to a small TV. The T8H
comes with KODI and there's a "loader" that lets you load those pirate
plugins, but I found it pretty aweful, and it rewrites the KODI menus
so you legitimate network served content is hidden (the main purpose
of the box for us). It comes with a stock clean version of KODI that
works very well. Although the unit has wireless we have gigabit
running through the apartment. Since some of the media stored on our
living room KODI server is Blu-ray quality file sizes are huge. On my
A8-5600K CPU it still takes about 30-45 minutes to rip a Blu-ray
(MakeMKV). The file-size of a Blu-ray runs anywhere from 16GB to 45GB.
I could compress them with Handbrake, but I found it adds a lot more
to the time. I haven't played much with the MakeMKV settings yet
because I haven't had a need to, but I probably will soon since those
Blu-rays tend to fill space quick.

As an example: our KODI server used to have 3 drives, 2 x 3TB and 1 x
2TB (they're now my backup). One of the 3TB drives was 98% full with
around 75 Blu-rays. The 2TB drive had about 700 DVDs and was just a
smidgen over half full.

Eventually I plan on adding a digital TV tuner to the server and a
second 8TB drive (for RAID 1). KODI can interface with MythTV and a
few other open source PVR programs. Not so sure how great the over the
air channels would be, but we're pretty high up (12th floor) so we
might have some luck.

A word of caution if you plan on buying a large drive: the 8TB drive I
bought only has 4 mounting holes (as opposed to 6 on most smaller
capacity drives). The drive is a bit more solid throughout. This posed
a problem mounting it in our case (Corsair SPEC-01), I needed to file
off the middle plastic bits on the mounting rail to mount the drive.

We also use the Zoomtak T8H to watch Netflix. You can add other
Android add-ons for watching channels like Fox sports legitimately,
but most of the content isn't anything you can't get via a web site.

On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 9:26 PM, Mark Steffen <rmarksteffen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Legal?  Netflix, Youtube, CraveTV
>
> Legal and Free (and somewhat good):  Crackle.com (owned by Sony), and
> TubiTV.com (not sure who owns it but has decent content albeit a bit old).
>
> Also, most of the TV networks also will stream for free a couple recent
> episodes of what was recently on air, but for "full" access you need a
> satellite/cable/IPTV subscription.
>
> As others mentioned there is Kodi (and all it's shady TV/movie pirating
> apps).  Kodi itself isn't illegal or shady and makes a great media player,
> with lots of legal content plugins (that scrape/pull from legit streaming
> network sources) but it is mainly popular for the apps that stream pirated
> content.
>
> I was lucky enough to get Shaw Direct through the LTSS program a few years
> back (and then upgrade to a nearly full TV package for $25/month guaranteed
> until at least end of 2019) but if they raise the price after that I will
> just cancel it as nobody really watches 'regular' TV in my household, it's
> mostly Youtube and Netflix.  I just like to have Shaw for the occasional
> channel surfing when I'm bored, or to watch BNN/CNBC/live news/occasional
> sports/etc.
>
> Mark Steffen
> Office Direct: +1.226.476.1240 | Mobile: +1.226.600.0464
> "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." -Abraham Lincoln
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 5:03 PM, Russell McOrmond
> <russellmcormond at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>   I dropped cable back in 2012, and use the legal streaming options.  I am
>> also a Teksavvy customer.
>>
>>   In all but one case, I don't use VPN services:
>> http://mcormond.blogspot.ca/2016/11/notes-from-watching-supergirl-via-vpn.html
>> .  VPN may annoy some of the legacy cable companies, but they are legal to
>> use -- and if NAFTA were a legitimate "trade agreement" then we'd have a
>> single content market and there wouldn't be shows legally available in the
>> US (where most people VPN to) but not in Canada.
>>
>>
>> Easiest to use service is Netflix, and it works on the most devices.  My
>> wife doesn't want to fiddle with messy websites to watch TV, so pretty much
>> only watches Netflix -- if we watch on a different streaming service then
>> I'm the one with the controls.
>>
>> The second most useful for me is Google Play, where I can get seasons of
>> shows for not much -- and it works on most of my devices, but not quite as
>> easy as Netflix.
>>
>> Amazon Prime is now in Canada, and there are some really good shows on
>> that -- but the catalog isn't huge.
>>
>>
>> Some Canadian broadcasters have their own custom apps and websites, but
>> they're all pretty bad.   I watch some shows on the CTV GO app, but its
>> flaky.
>>
>> I also have CraveTV and while it is an amateurish services compared to the
>> professional "foreign" services, it often works. Pretty much everything that
>> is available on CraveTV is available in the USA via Netflix and/or Hulu, and
>> we'd all be better off if the region blocking were removed from those better
>> services.
>>
>>
>>
>> As I try to speak to politicians about the problems caused by our outdated
>> broadcaster-centric cultural policy, I blog about my experiences.
>>
>> http://mcormond.blogspot.ca/search/label/Television
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 5:44 PM, Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>> Hi: A friend recently switched from Rogers to Teksavvy, and wonders
>>> what TV services are available.  Aside from Netflix, what's available
>>> in Canada? Can you subscribe to CraveTV without subscribing to Bell's
>>> internet? Or anything from Rogers?
>>>
>>> I'd like to stick to sources that are directly available in Canada,
>>> without using proxies or VPNs...
>>>
>>> - --Bob, who still wonders where to get shows on Betamax
>>>
>>>
>>> - --
>>> Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>          Phone: +1-519-635-9413
>>> SOBAC Microcomputer Services             http://sobac.com/sobac/
>>> Software   ---   Office & Business Automation   ---   Consulting
>>> GnuPG Fngrprnt:04F7 742B 8F54 C40A E115 26C2 B912 89B0 D2CC E5EA
>>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>> Version: GnuPG v2
>>> Comment: Ensure confidentiality, authenticity, non-repudiability
>>>
>>> iEYEARECAAYFAlnxBb4ACgkQuRKJsNLM5erRfQCgjhNt4EtAE8qY7OQf9HI5Qnk7
>>> rekAoI3hTPx/4Ys6k+JXFlWubrowLIc4
>>> =6oZa
>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
>>
>> Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property rights
>> as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition! http://l.c11.ca/ict/
>>
>> "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
>> manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or portable
>> media player from my cold dead hands!" http://c11.ca/own
>>
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>
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-- 
Charles McColm
Blog: http://www.charlesmccolm.com/
Twitter/Identica/Google+: @chaslinux