Does anyone know why the consumer electronics industry is ignoring Kodi?
I really don't think the audience for Kodi is that big. It requires you to have DRM-less, local copies of any TV or movie you want to watch, and how many people - legally - have that? Not many. I know because I'm one of those people, and use Plex, despite its faults.
Also, last I used Kodi it was one (very big) codebase. Plex is split out into server components and client apps, which is essential for Smart TV usage. You're never going to get a full instance of Kodi running on a Roku box, you'll need some kind of client that connects to a remote server holding all your videos. There's nothing stopping the Kodi team from making that Roku app, incidentally.
What I was thinking of is using Kodi as the base for an open smart TV platform. It already has good integration of live broadcast TV (including EPG etc) and many add-ons for streaming services. Of course, to make consumers happy, there needs to be a way to support DRM, otherwise there won't be Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. But Kodi announced last year that they're discussing about allowing DRM add-ons to talk with the application: https://kodi.tv/article/dev-journal-kodi-and-drm
Unless Kodi has changed substantially, even though it exposes an interface for live TV, it provides no mechanism for tuning, capturing a stream, or writing it to disc/DVR. That’s all passed off to a third-party backend like MythTV.
> I really don't think the audience for Kodi is that big. It requires you to have DRM-less, local copies of any TV or movie you want to watch, and how many people - legally - have that?
This is partially true. While all the "questionable" boxes come with pre-installed plugins connect to servers that restream copyrighted content (including live content), there are also plugins that connect to legit content streamers as well.
Comments
I really don't think the audience for Kodi is that big. It requires you to have DRM-less, local copies of any TV or movie you want to watch, and how many people - legally - have that? Not many. I know because I'm one of those people, and use Plex, despite its faults.
Also, last I used Kodi it was one (very big) codebase. Plex is split out into server components and client apps, which is essential for Smart TV usage. You're never going to get a full instance of Kodi running on a Roku box, you'll need some kind of client that connects to a remote server holding all your videos. There's nothing stopping the Kodi team from making that Roku app, incidentally.
What I was thinking of is using Kodi as the base for an open smart TV platform. It already has good integration of live broadcast TV (including EPG etc) and many add-ons for streaming services. Of course, to make consumers happy, there needs to be a way to support DRM, otherwise there won't be Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. But Kodi announced last year that they're discussing about allowing DRM add-ons to talk with the application: https://kodi.tv/article/dev-journal-kodi-and-drm
Unless Kodi has changed substantially, even though it exposes an interface for live TV, it provides no mechanism for tuning, capturing a stream, or writing it to disc/DVR. That’s all passed off to a third-party backend like MythTV.
The latest version of Kodi can play Netflix and Amazon using plugins they are working on drm management for official stream apps.
This is partially true. While all the "questionable" boxes come with pre-installed plugins connect to servers that restream copyrighted content (including live content), there are also plugins that connect to legit content streamers as well.
Latest version which is currently in alpha supports drm which could bring the change needed for kodi to go mainstream