FireTV/Stick Streaming
 

I finally cut my cable and went streaming. F@wK AT&T! Went Google Fiber for $55+tax per month. I have FireTV and I love it. I loaded Kodi and been watching free movies. Although some of the servers are not very clear, but free is good. I also subscribed to SETV for $20 per month, gives me 200 channels and love it! Also got movies/TV Shows that I can watch.

Those that stream, what else do you use? Is VPN really necessary?

I can't figure out Kodi to save my fucking life man. Loving Terrarium and Mobdro though.

I recently signed up for VPN but I've yet to enter my Amazon info in the stick so I can install the app because I'm scared of reverting it or something.

I'd like to cut the cord too but my favorite networks (Discovery, History, Velocity, Travel, HGTV) aren't available from a single streaming service and the price ends up being too close to what I already pay now with cable. Plus I love my Tivo too much to give up time shifting and go back to just surfing channels with live streams.

Amazon is a bunch of douches - killed youtube on it in dispute with google...

I'm also on FireTV (Neftlix, HBO, Amazon Prime) and no cable. F*** the cable company with their "$100 nothing to watch" packages and commercials every 5 minutes.

Thankfully youtube works still on my 4k Chinese smart tv, but strangely thetv app doesnt seem to be in 4k, where the fire tv was.

Lol. I live in a hole in the earth. I am running 3mbps DSL, use Netflix and amazon prime, and my wife has Hulu. It sucks. The local cable provider installed a node about 25 yards from my garage door, which means I can run a simple coaxial into my house. I gotta call and upgrade to 25 or 50mbps cable. Oh well...what I have now is still better than when I had directv.

All those channels are on SeT TV www.setvnow.com for $20 a month. That's what I use, the only drawback is it does not record the shows.

I went to Troypoint.com to figure out how to install Kodi on the Firestik

Wow I'm amazed that they have so many networks! I just don't think I can go back to watching live tv though, it doesn't work my schedule and I can't stand commercials. If Tivo ever inked a deal to record the set tv streams like it does cable that would be a true game changer.

ROKU bitches... because you already have Amazon and Netflix and Hulu. It's GUI is infinitely easier and the remote is tits. Trying to score "free shit" by using Kodi and watching in 120x80 resolution instead of waiting a few months until it's "free" someplace is dumb... especially since the tradeoff is that eventually somebody will hack your shit and send 100 stainless dildo's to a drop-shipper outside Houston-Hobby. If you absolutely have to see the latest episode of Will and Grace the actual night it airs, just watch it at your boyfriends house.

I recently signed up for Directv Now @ $35/month. I has those above channels and live local tv for the 4 major networks (I actually get the local live philly and nyc channels). The guide is a pain in the ass and it is annoying not being able to press a button for whatever channel you want, but it works and the price was right. I'd love to be able to say "alexa play CBS on directv now" but it's not that smart. I use it with a fire stick but I got a new roku stick for free when signing up for directvnow. It's still in the box.

I will probably try the SET TV 3 day free trial, that seems cool. Still thinking of getting an antenna because there's one local philly channel that isn't on directvnow.

On another note - netflix has down the drain recently with their price hikes, garbage original content and no licensing deals for good movies. I can't find anything to watch on it half the time. Amazon is slightly better, but HBO is usually delivering decent content (original and very fresh movies).

I know right? It's gone up $2 per month in the last 8 years.

Those greedy bastards.

I use antenna for local morning news and Roku for Hulu and Amazon and also a couple of free stations for international news on Roku (Euronews and Sky news). I don't care about sports much.

I have a fire stick, chromecast, wd tv live hub, tivo, and a fairly complete fios channel lineup.

i've tried living by the stream and after watching a few shows with unskippable 5 minute ad breaks every 15 minutes, the network streaming options can chew on goat dicks.

ABC I'm looking at you.

My company gave everyone an Echo Dot. Not sure why, but they did. I haven't even opened it. It's still sitting in the shrink-wrapped box it came in.

I was thinking about selling it on Craigslist, my wife was thinking about adding a firestick for streaming.
Some of the people she works with told her you can get lots of free stuff by downloading software. This thread makes me think they are talking about Kodi.
We have a Roku a friend gave us in the living room. We were thinking about adding a TV to the bedroom.

Is Kodi as shitty as you make it sound? I am thinking I might just sell the Echo and get one of the TCL Roku TVs.

Kodi is not shitty, the AddOns within Kodi is what gives you free shows. Most of the time they work. Need to constantly update it. Subscribe to Troypoint.com and you will get emails on what to update or change within Kodi.

Kodi as a system is not shitty.

Some of the "legal-but-maybe-not" sources on Kodi aren't great.

Installed this, youtube still works, and auto-updates so don't have to search for updates. Can launch from phone too just like the old app.

So, is there a decent "Kodi for stupid asshole beginners" guide or anything? I scanned through there yesterday looking for the Saints/Vikings game but came up empty again, I don't think I've ever successfully watched anything using that app...

I use Troypoint.com very easy to follow.

Unfortunately there is no live streaming within Kodi. Maybe there is but I've never tried, but SETTV is what I use for live streaming. The game was on SETTV.

Good to know. I got the stick off my local Craigslist with everything pre-loaded, It's got Mobdro and Redbox TV that do live TV but they're both kinda "meh" so I was hoping a better alternative existed.

Looking into SETTV now.

Well the $20 a month SETV was shut down last night due to lawsuits. :crx: Looking to get SlingTV to replace it.

Well that did not take that long. SETV is now TVSTREAMSNOW for $25 a month. Good thing I did not sign up for SlingTV yet. :rofl:

Anyone interested in a write-up from me on how to create your home server including automatic downloads of latest tv episodes and movies?

I use Kodi/Plex for intranet/internet streaming from my own server at home (have a 500 mbit up/down connection), Deluge (torrents) for downloads which are automated by Sonarr/Radarr. It runs on Windows, but AFAIK all these run on Linux too. End result is that I have a free (besides initial investment to buy some hardware), high quality way of watching whatever series/movie I want to watch.

Nice!

Yes! :party:

Feel free to post the Kodi related content Here

Below you can find a quick write-up of my setup and how you could reproduce it. If I need to further elaborate, let me know.

[Hardware]
So the first thing is making sure you have the hardware for a server that you can use. It doesn’t have to be very specialized, but considering the power consumption could lower the TCO, as it’ll probably be on 24/7.

If I had to buy something now, I’d get an i3, a simple motherboard, 4 GB of ram, a 300W 80+ gold PSU. Dedicated GPU not needed. Hard disks depend on how much you want to use, but probably at least 2 3TB disks. I would recommend hard disks that are made for storage more than speed, e.g. WD Red.

[Operating System]
My OS of choice is Windows 10 because I’m more used to it. However, if you feel more comfortable using Linux you could make that work too.

I disabled the Windows Firewall as it sometimes gets in the way of the stuff we’re trying to do here. I also set up a static IP for the server to make port forwarding at a later stage easier.

[Basic file storage]
So before we start installing applications, you have to create a basic layout of your disks. You’ll need:

1. A folder for downloads. I usually put this on the same disk as the OS as that disk will be spinning anyway.
2. A folder for movies
3. A folder for tv series

I’d recommend putting 2 and 3 on different disks.

Furthermore, I set up an FTP server for folders 2 and 3 so I can remotely access it. In my case I use FileZilla, but there’s plenty of other options.

[Deluge]
In my case I use deluge to download my media using torrents. If you’d rather use usenet, that’s an option too. You would probably want to check out SABnzbd.

Install Deluge. In Deluge, you want to turn on the WebUI so that other applications can use it. Set the password to your liking. Furthermore, I’ve installed the AutoRemovePlus plugin to delete the download itself after seeding for a good amount of time. Oftentimes, the download will contain rars and besides seeding there’s no reason to keep them.

Set up deluge to download files to a temp-dir while downloading, and have it to be moved upon completion to the folder 1). https://i.imgur.com/A1S9JYT.png .

Also I use ExtractNow to monitor the download folder, and have it extract any rars that might get downloaded by Deluge.

[Sonarr]
Sonarr is an application that monitors new tv series, automatically searches for the relevant torrents, has them downloaded, and puts them neatly into where you want them to be.

Install Sonarr as per instructions, and go to the web interface. Here you’ll have to tie some of the previous steps together. Under settings, there’s a bunch of tabs that we need to configure:

• Media Management. I found the following settings to best work for me: https://i.imgur.com/njyZAdA.png
• Profiles as default
• Quality as default
• Indexers: Here you want to add your sources. I use some private torrent sites (e.g. iptorrents), but I guess public torrent sites could work too. If your favorite site is not included, take a look at Jackett ( https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett ). Jackett is a wrapper for many torrent sites and allows them to be added to Sonarr as a custom torznab server.
• Download client: Add deluge here. Should look something like this https://i.imgur.com/5qT77EV.png
• Connect: leave empty.
• Metadata: I like metadata so I turned most of this stuff on.
• General: If you want to open up Sonarr to the internet so that you can add series on the go, I would suggest setting a login and password.
• UI: No need to change

Now Sonarr should be set up. If you go to the Series tab, you’re able to add series and select where you want it to go. Select folder 3) from earlier. Sonarr should then look for it. Any downloads it finds should be sent to Deluge, tracked by Sonarr and moved to the folder you’ve selected.

Radarr is a fork of Sonarr, and can be used for movies. Configure it in the same way as Sonarr. Make sure that you don’t try to use the same port for Sonarr and Radarr, as that will not work.

[Plex]
Plex is an application that allows us to consume the media on the server on a lot of devices, including anything with a web browser, mobile phones and tablets. It’s definitely a great application, as it gives a Netflix-like experience to your home server.

Install as per instructions. It should work out of the box. Add the directories 2 and 3 to it and have it scan. If you want to include subtitles, I would suggest setting up the Sub-Zero subtitles plugin.

Also install the app or go to plex.tv from another PC. It should work already!

[Port forwarding]
To access all that we’ve installed, you’re going to have to forward some ports in your router. If you’re unsure on how to do it, I would suggest looking up your router at https://portforward.com/router.htm.
Make sure you port forward:

• FTP
• Sonarr
• Radarr
• Plex

[Kodi]
You can either connect the server to your tv and use Kodi locally, or use a simple Kodi box to play your media. I’ve used a raspberry pi as well as a Chinese android box with success.

Install and start Kodi as per instructions. We need to add the 2 media folders that we have used to the Kodi library. To do so:

• Go to ‘add video source’
• Select ‘browse’
• Select ‘Add network location’
• Scroll until you see ‘ftp server’
• Add your ftp settings. From your internal network, it should look something like this https://i.imgur.com/Qdq9hFK.png . If you are connecting via the internet, make sure you note the internet ip address of your home first, by going to https://www.whatismyip.com/ while on your home connection.
• It should then look something like https://i.imgur.com/IcjOfYq.png
• Tell Kodi that there’s tv series in there. Should look like this: https://i.imgur.com/HVyUk5f.png. Have it scan all the files. Could take a while.

After this, it should work! Happy watching. Let me know if there’s any further questions.

Very valuable info. Thanks for the write up! :eek3:

In my Kodi thread linked I mentioned that I just came across a free i3 dell machine. Fast dual core, 4gb ram. Some hdd that's inside. 2 large WD Red drives would be a great addition as there are 2 spaces available inside the case.

Would you recommend an SSD for the OS? I have some spare drives laying around but not sure if I'll be able to mount them inside if the WD Reds are taking up those spaces. I could find a 5.25" mount :dunno:

I would first try to get the setup you want working without spending extra money. Then figure out if the performance is adequate (Plex transcoding can be demanding at times), and whether it's something you want to invest in. I can also recommend a power cost calculation, if you do end up running the machine 24/7. A new basic server uses about 15 watts, wheres older machines can use 100+ watts at idle. That's about 2 kWh per day difference. Depending on where you live that could be a significant amount.

In regards to the SSD: It's not really necessary, but could be nice. Will also have a lower power consumption - and your OS disk will always be spinning. Wouldn't be the first thing to upgrade though. Might be smarter to get a cheap motherboard and an Intel G5400 for that money.

That's a lot of trouble just to do streaming! :rofl:

Might be limited to the case config since what I have is housed inside a dell.

If I recall, the i3 I have has a TDP of 75w :bang:

Takes a bit of effort to set up, but there's plenty of advantages too :-) Mostly that you never have to worry whether your current subscriptions cover what you want to watch next.

Yeah, the cpu won't be all that bad. TDP is the thermal design power, meaning that that is the absolute maximum amount of power (and therefore heat) it can use. It's usually dedicated GPU's that'll take a bunch of power, and your motherboard will take some of it too.

WARNING!!! TVSTREAMSNOW does not work

Update: 6/23/2018 - TVSTREAMSNOW does work, apparently its the same SETV under a different name. I previously downloaded the wrong app to my FireTV, I downloaded the correct app and put in my device code. YAY!

If you aren't planning on accessing any of those services outside your network (ie. you don't feel the need to add hello kitty movies to your download queue sat on the throne at work), don't bother forwarding them. If you do forward them, PUT A PASSWORD ON THEM and make sure they use HTTPS / SSL if the app supports it and forward that port instead.

The exception to that rule is Plex - that already uses HTTPS by default and can also configure your router automatically if you have UPNP enabled.

A 'neater' way is to use the 'PlexKodiConnect' addon - this makes your plex library integrate directly into your Kodi library. Upside over adding folders / FTP is that If you start watching something on your phone via the native plex app, or in another room on another Kodi setup, stop, then start watching it on Kodi on the big screen it will pick up from where you left off, things like next unwatched episodes will work, all that good stuff...

What are the advantages?

:)

1) Free
2) Availability of movies that are not yet available on any of the streaming services
3) TV Series regardless of where they were aired, whether they are available on streaming services etc

Same advantages with the FireTV and FireStik which is what the Thread Title is about.

Ahhh, you mean theft.

Got it.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3fac625905.jpg

Not sure why you are specifically responding to me, as the first post already included watching movies for 'free', which is by definition illegal. But sure, I'll bite.

Theft and piracy (copyright infringement) are not the same. I'll be the last one to argue that piracy is a victimless crime, but I do think the ethics of it are significantly different. I'd rather not derail this specific thread by discussing it. If you want to discuss it further, open a new thread and I'll happily contribute to it.

If you're interested in some reading, I can recommend Thirteen Ways to Steal a Bicycle, which discusses how our legal and moral framework in regards to what is considered theft have shifted over time.

Moral relativism. It's the "as long as I get mine" theory of right and wrong.

The good news is you get what you want.
The bad news is you're taking something from someone who's created it as their livelihood without paying for it. They obviously weren't giving it away out of kindness. They obviously intended for everyone who viewed it to bear a portion of the cost of its production and eventual profit.

Not being willing to admit that it's theft doesn't mean it's not theft. It just means you aren't willing to admit that it's theft. I have things that I did not pay for. Therefore I have no right to them. I have taken them without paying for them. It is immoral and I have done it. I own up to it.

Like I said, I'll be the last one to claim it's a victimless crime. It is a copyright infringement crime. Just like taping a TV show to watch it later and skipping ads is, like my grandmother still does with her VCR.

Not every form of income deprivation is theft. Bunching all different sorts of crimes under the misnomer 'Theft' flattens moral distinctions. Which is exactly what the book I linked above is about. I'm not going to paraphrase a 400 page critique by a professor of law, but I did find an article of his which includes some aspects of his thinking here. I can definitely recommend the book.

Off topic but within the thread... and not to pile on you but your grandmother, so long as she recorded the show in a legal manner, has every right to skip the ads. Universal Studios vs. Sony Corporation of America. To try and make one "ok" by comparing it to the other is a bit of a stretch don't you think?

I'm sorry, not very familiar with US law. In the US it might be different than here (Netherlands). Apologies if the example wasn't a good one. Don't think it changes my point though. Copyright infringement is not the same as theft.

Also, nowhere I'm stating that it is OK. I'm just saying it's not theft, but another crime.

IMHO, just watching movies for personal consumption is not a crime or theft. Downloading it and saving it to a PC is a crime/theft. You can't download movies onto a Firestik or FireTV, not enough space. Why would you anyway?