one thing is some older boxes are under powered in the ram department which i would agree can make things a bit sluggish. but a decent one with 2gb of ram and a decent internet speed and there should be very little problems. i have one set up on a big tv(55in) and cant fault it.
yes, I replaced sky completely. Don't know about a like-for-like replacement. Its very different, we've had to adjust our viewing.
Viewing quality if you have fibre - yes
Viewing quality if you have copper - no
Fibre broadband isn't coming to my area until march so persevering til then. I only get 3Mb/s just now. Watching anything live can be a struggle but anything else is fine.
Anyone who thinks kodi is in anyway a replacement for sky sports is mental. The quality is so poor. I watched a match at my friends (he has fibre) the quality is so poor.
Sky in 4k can't be beat. I love my sport and the monthly subscription is a fair price to pay for this.
Just saw this,
Five held in 'fully loaded' Kodi streaming box raids
http://news.sky.com/story/five-held-...raids-10760562
That's for the sale of the preloaded boxes. Gumtree and eBay is full of them.
Use of Kodi to stream movies is still 'fine'. A grey area perhaps!
I stand corrected, though I believe it won't be legal for long.
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The pcadvisor article that you streamers are so enthusiastically linking to is stacked full of caveats and disclaimers and also mentions that the CJEU has been asked to clarify the legality of streaming copyrighted video in Europe.
The ruling by the CJEU over viewing copyrighted material online not being a breach of copyright as it is stored only temporarily on a computer was in relation to newspapers, so it is being argued that the ruling with regard to copyrighted video/TV is inadvertant.
That's why it might change.
As pcadvisor themselves say;
They also say;Disclaimer: We’re not legal experts, and we’re merely reporting on what the Court of Justice of the European Union has said. The current situation appears to be that you are not breaking any EU law by using a website or software to watch copyrighted content that has been made available by someone else. Morally, of course, it’s a completely different matter. But we’re not going to debate the morality of it here: we’re concerned only with legality.
It's hardly a ringing endorsement of legality, and although I accept the chances of any individual user being up in court over watching streamed paid for content for free is small, I wouldn't fancy using a magazine article as my defence.Neither PC Advisor or Kodi advocates or encourages piracy. You should use Kodi and its add-ons only to access content for which you have the legal rights.
As my quote was used to persuade you you were wrong, I'll make my view clearer. I think you were right the first time.
Operating a server streaming Sky Sports etc. to people's Kodi devices is illegal because it is stealing.
Selling people Kodi devices configured to receive illegal streams is also illegal because it is helping criminals to steal - that's what the raids in the headline were about.
Watching illegal streams is not illegal in the U.K. unless you save the programmes you are watching. However you are either paying criminals directly or helping them make money in other ways.
So Samjowen I think you are right - if you want to avoid being involved in criminality the safest way is to only use Kodi for legal streams - for which it is a perfectly good system in my view.
Like wearing a fake Rolex, the legality of watching a dodgy stream is really just an academic or moral question. You'll be arrested for neither.
However, both are undoubtedly forms of theft.
Not being judgemental, and I certainly have little sympathy for neither Murdoch nor Rolex, but theft they definitely are.
There isn't an appeal, as there was no ruling specifically about tv and film streaming of copyrighted content.
The CJEU have been asked to clarify on a point of law with regard to legality, according to the same article you are holding up as proof that it's ok, and I'm sure in due course they will do.
Equally likely is that the copyright owners will seek some form of legislation to protect their business.
At the moment, it appears to be down to individuals consciences about whether you think it's ok or not, I just don't get why people are supporting it so publicly.
there is no ruling as it falls under the term of browsing which to get a ruling i suspect would be a minefield.
i understand companies want to protect their income. who wouldn't.
when it comes down to copyright and conscience i suppose that would be determined in which part of the world you live in,take china for example
as there is no copyright law there folk might have a more relaxed view on these matters. but as our government deems it very bad as you're potentially stealing from their pals, we seem to want to take the moral high ground.(i don't mean you as an individual)
Last edited by Gestarp; 9th February 2017 at 11:48.
I get that this is just a watch forum and we're all just exchanging opinions. But if you are going to start quoting legal rulings you should check your facts. China has a comprehensive framework of copyright laws. They have one or two differences like first come first served on trademarks, but essentially not that different to the UK. Enforcement is hard, not least because so many people around the world are prepared to buy fakes from China. so the government and big businesses are getting together to crack down.
They arrested and charged five people for selling kodi boxes, so looks like the clamp down might be happening soon. It is crazy to think you can just buy these on ebay with the software all preloaded when it has always been a little suspect.
you are correct i wrongly thought there was no copyright laws in china due to their lack of enforcing them.(everyday is a school day) but it seems they still are very selective on what they enforce. and are on the priority watch list for failing to enforce copyright. my main point was that they don't take the moral high ground about the rights and wrongs of ip infringement as some in the uk do. reading into to copyright a bit its seems huge industries would not have got off the ground if it wasn't for plagiarism. hollywood being cited as one. funny how the world works
and to get the thread back on track, to the op's dilemma kodi is mediocre at best for sports(especially football) but exceptional at movies and tv and a personal media player.
Yeah, back to OP, I think your question is answered. For every day use, it's not a replacement for a paid subscription service. If I was in charge of my house (I'm not, I'm married) we'd just have freeview I think!
Whilst recently adding a 2 storey extension to the house directly where the sky dish was we cancelled sky for around 6 months and the only source of tv we had was a freeview aerial in the bedroom and kodi downstairs in the living room. I found that it did replace sky but it did take a lot of updating and maintenance to make sure you had up to date links. As previously said for tv shows and movies it works great. Live tv channels work ok although the picture quality wasn't 1080p we never missed a show during the construction we wanted to see. Now the extensions complete I have joined sky again but have taken a basic package of £30 a month instead of £86 previously. Live football can be a hit or a miss, last game I watched was fully hd playing through nbc and it worked great. Youtube had tons of videos on how to get the most from kodi. Asbyt was a channel I watched quite a bit for kodi updates.
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I am repeating myself from the other thread but here goes. I have Virgin, and buy DVDs and pay for sports channels. I am not getting rid of any of these any time soon. (I don't go to the cinema as it's annoying due to the other people never keeping quiet).
I also have a Kodi box. It is very useful for a very niche set of shows. House renovation and makeover shows. And things like 'Biggest Loser' , The Bachelor (i.e. trashy TV) that my girlfriend loves. These are sometimes shown over here, but very hard to find. So using this with trakt.tv makes watching them a doddle. So though I use the same mechanism as people use to watch recent films I am not doing that at all. As for whether this differentiates me in the eyes of the law or not...not sure. I also streamed some live TV channels from Spain to watch some of the shows I like over there, which is great fun actually.
As for quality. At the moment I have a cheapish one with 1GB of RAM and Kodi16. I also use via WiFi. 75% of the time it is OK, but I often see either 'Stream Cannot be Found' when trying to start a show. Or whilst watching, it hangs. So I am getting two things delivered today. A newer 2GB box and I've ordered some powerline extension things, so I can hopefully plug in via an Ethernet cable.
So for me, the Kodi just compliments all the other avenues for things I want to watch.
My brother Inlaw has a kodi box and every time I go round I insist on him switching the tv off as all he does whilst we are there is try and find a decent stream, to his defence he's not the brightest so maybe I'm not seeing kodi in its best light but it's a thumbs down from me.
So, in Exodus, when I choose something, it loops through and looks, then present me with a list of providers. I always pick #1. I have assumed it is the 'best' going on metrics? Is this wrong?
(I know I could probably google this, but if this thread sticks around, it might be somewhere we can help each other out).
I heard somewhere that Superplex was better than Kodi. I have no idea about these devices/different platforms. Can anyone explain the advantages/disadvantages?
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I just got a Firestick with KODI and am about to ditch Netflix. I'm running v17 with the Titan skin (to make it look like Netflix and easier to find movies) and its really slick.
Need to keep Sky for the recording, slick GUI and Sports though but only pay £38pcm at the moment so not too bad.
it`s the quality of the streams that make me totally uninterested in this platform. Put it on my phone and thought it was rubbish
Recently ive switched from talktalk to BT broadband. Since this and swapping my router for the Hub6 my Fire box with Kodi on it is not working. Streams are buffering a lot or they just stop. Anyone know how to get it going again? Im not too up on routers and im thinking something is stopping the streams.
If you are trying to watch subscription content for free using Kodi, hopefully this is your problem: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/...odi-streaming/
Kodi is better than Sky, because, for about £10 per month, you can have every single sports channel going, - not just UK ones. All in HD or 4K (where available). And you can have your choice of UI, - endless options - many of which are much better than Sky.
You can also have all the movies & box sets, - literally anything you want.
Plus every single Pay Per View event.
If everyone used Kodi to watch illegal streams instead of paying the people who made the programmes, then SKY etc. would all go out of business and there would be nothing to watch.
Plus, some Russian criminals would be very rich, although they would have to find another scam, or start paying for the content themselves.
If everyone used Kodi as well as paying their subscriptions, then of course, that would be great.
From what I have read, streaming Kodi isn't illegal, it's only illegal to provide. Personally I do pay Virgin for subscription TV as well as use Kodi occasionally.
Regardless, that's off topic anyway. The OP asked if it was possible to give up Sky. My answer is yes, in most respects it is better than Sky, and ridiculously cheaper. The only thing that you may miss, in regards to Live TV at least, is the ability to pause.
All the PPV events will be available for about a week after broadcast, as are many other events, so you may find you don't want Live broadcasts as much anyway.
Yes, if you want to give up Sky by paying criminals to carry out their illegal activities, then you won't be prosecuted for that. The rest of us will continue paying for the content and will make sure that Sky etc. stay in business and don't fire all their programme makers, so you don't need to worry about that either.
Just don't expect us to be happy about it, or regard it as 'off topic'. That said, I have already bored the forum about this before so I'll leave it at that.
Okay, so lets discuss that court case you are implicitly referring to. I'm not a lawyer, so all this is my opinion.
The judge applied the letter of the law - that the content is transient on the client machine because it is a stream and not stored indefinitely. The law quoted relates to content on a web page, for example an image on the Rolex website. When you view that page in a browser, a local copy is made and cached on your machine. Rolex will own the copyright for the image, and the law is designed to protect you as a viewer of that web page so that Rolex cannot try to charge you for storing the image in your cache because it is transient and only used for the purposes of the web page. However, if you then take the copy of that image and use it in a book that you sell, Rolex may want to charge you for the use of the image, which is their right as a copyright holder.
The judges ruling that a stream is transient is technically correct, but if you apply common sense you are consuming subscription content without paying for it, regardless of whether it is transient or not. This is no different from walking into a cinema and watching a film without buying a ticket. The film is transient, because you aren't taking a copy with a camcorder, but you are still consuming it without paying the copyright holder or their distributor.
If you somehow feel that streaming subscription content for free is acceptable then I'm not going to change your mind. For what it's worth, I think that sports rights are vastly overpriced but it's a luxury, not a right. And like any other luxury, if you want it you should pay for it. Otherwise, where do you draw the line?
I do find these threads a bit perplexing, particularly the grief people get for pointing out the nature of this kind of actvitiy. If you're getting something that you should be charged for, for free, then you're stealing it - certainly from a moral perspective. Just because there's a legal technicality that means that you're not necessarily breaking the law doesn't change that. (There used to be a legal loophole that made a type of mortgage fraud techincially legal until they altered the law). As in some of the above comments, it's a bit like accepting stolen goods if they're given free - someone has nicked the content (or breached their licensing conditions), and you've accepted it.
I'd normally blame the Millennial attitude and values slipping, but I get the impression there's a lot of middle-aged blokes who want something-for-nothing/to play the system/be canny/stick it to The Man/Sky&BT "charge too much" (delete as required).
Paying a streaming service for a better quality of pirated stuff really sticks in my throat, even if it is under the premise of legal activities.
BTW I'm not so self-righteous as to say say that I've never eg copied someone's CD etc, but I fully accept that this (and any variation of it) is stealing copyrighted material. Don't dress it up as anything else.
Even without court-mandated blocking of specific illegal providers, many ISPs employ traffic shaping giving lower priority to (certain) streams, P2P protocols, and so on. It sounds like you are suffering from such traffic shaping.
I strongly recommend against using illegal streams (even if it is legal to view them) but should you wish to continue to watch them then you will need to invest money either in VPN services or in better ISPs (by "better" here I mean not one of the big four and one that employs the least traffic shaping; "better" is also often significantly more expensive).