Category : Video Players & Editors
Used to work perfectly, but suddenly the only thing I get is a black screen. Tried rebooting, tried emptying cache. Even reinstalled. Nothing. When passing the "first run" screen and accepting the storage privs it goes black. Funny thing is that the back button returns the classic kodi button click sound, but it won't take you anywhere. Read somewhere that someone with a switch managed to get it to work with setting a static IP but for me that does nothing.
I installed it on my Android TV & it is the better media player compared to the others. Things I don't like about the app: The media control don't go in auto hide when you play files. Unable to disable the category widgets, they are still there even if you disabled it. Unable to adjust the soundbar volume separately - unlike with other media players you can separetely adjust the TV volume and the soundbar volume. Hopefully, on the next update this will be fixed & a better splash screen design.
I like the app, the only issue i have with it is each of my anime/tv series folders on my drive has an individual image for it, when i started up my old 4k box, it should show the image instead of a blank folder icon. This app shows folders list, no icons. The only way to get the image as the folder is to access my drive threw the "pictures" part of the app. I really wish it was like that with the Movies/Tv part of the app. Looks so much nicer seeing all the different icons
Edit: Okaaaay, switching the phone to 60hz (standard refresh rate) allowed me to enter the app. Changing the APP'S refresh rate from 60 to 48 allows it to work on my phone. Probably has something to do with Variable Refresh Rate, so check that first. Now that I'm in, the UI looks awful and I'm stuck in landscape. Features over Plex seem interesting, but fairly niche on a phone. Original: Doesn't work on S20+ running 1UI4 and Android 12. Dumps me into a black screen. Plex seems to work better.
Doesn't work for me, I do a fresh install, asks me to give access to the file system, so I do, then a little loading bar fills and the screen goes black. Every time I hard close the app and reboot it, it's just black. Guessing from everyone else's reviews it's just a device isolated bug, but still, would expect it to work on a Pixel phone.
Garbage these days.. You cant even scrape external USB hard drives. A fundermental flaw. Absolutely rubbish app in 2022. Used to be the best for personal libraries, now its at the bottom of most lists. I know the app inside and out for designing home page on skins but the app will not allow USB external hard drives to be selected as a source. Stupid not to really. Easy to set up for a NAS or LAN to PCs using ip or SMB but no function for Hard Drives scanning...
Superficially, a gorgeous interface. Absolutely beautiful and _looks_ like its been well thought out.... Unfortunately, once in the app, it is damned near impossible to get out of it again. This beautiful gui maroons the hapless user who is unable to find the home screen which seems to have the only exit door. Its not just me, I asked other users what I'd missed - but all were frustrated by the same problem. The plus side - it easily connects to my NAS. If exit ptoblem were fixed, id give 5*.
I love Kodi - I've been using it for more than a decade. However, they should either recommit to or drop the Android port. Having no default skin adaptations to phone-sized touchscreens and lacking very basic media playback features like using the notification system to continue music playback after the screen goes to sleep are key failures. The contrast between Kodi and best in class mobile media playback apps like Pulsar and VLC is glaring. Having a half-assed app isn't really serving anyone.
Anyone who gives KODI a bad review citing the inability to connect to (( whatever )) is wrong. KODI will connect to virtually anything via any network protocol. Like any powerful app, it requires a bit of time and thought to set up, so it's not for the lazy or stupid, but if you want a power packed media player, this is it. if you want an app that does everything for you, keep looking.
Worked ok with earlier versions but the latest is terrible. These comments are about how this works going over to an older "smart" TV. It can't seem to find anything on my tablet even though I tell it right where to find it. I cannot get it to show photos at all as the interface doesn't give you the choice just video and music and music has never worked. Even though I set it to "play next video automatically" it just goes back to the directory which takes about two minutes to reload. out of room
Aside from erasing and then making it nearly impossible to remap to an existing home media server, it's also completely useless after the latest update. It's cumbersome UI no longer supports the best skins and themes available, it does not seem to be able to download and support any required dependencies in order to properly function. Every attempt gives a "not compatible with this version" error. Developer's completely blew it on this one.
Unfortunately, I have to rate this as a fail, as far as updates go. I've been using Kodi for many years on different platforms. I basically use it to play movies from a vast collection of them that reside on a windows machine being used as a NAS. Since they updated to Matrix, it's impossible to connect to the windows shares, even though it claims that it's compatible with the latest SMB protocols. Is not only the android version, the windows version behaves exactly the same, I'll stay on 18.9.
I wish it was easier to update the movie players better. It plays it good for a certain amounts of time, then it gets hard to play the movies. Just wish that there was an easier tutorial to updating it and maintaining the applications. Besides those problems, its an awesome app to have when on a low budget, when it comes to watching movies and/or tv shows.
love it when it works. sometimes the add-ons disappear and i have to redownload a build. it's not too complicated because i have a kodi configurator but it can be frustrating. it also takes a LOT of room to install the app and the build that makes it work. otherwise, great app. i tell all my friends about it. if these few small issues could somehow be remedied, I'd give 5 stars in a heartbeat but they are not serious enough to make the app an uninstall.
I have been very happy with 17.6 which was doing fine playing 4K movies on SHIELD. But 18 has totally messed this up, have to put in a whitelist 4k resolution as only 1080p resolution can be set up, and still there are colouring issues. Well I have to switched to VLC instead. A total clean install with 18.2 seems to have fixed the issue. Now happy again, but do not allow automatic update anymore.
This app is superlative. 3 years use. In combination with addons you can watch almost any visual content. Recently I've gone back over M*A*S*H and Rumpole of the Bailey but also brand new content which I can't get from any single source. It isn't easy to master but there are step by step instructions on where and how to get the latest addons which give you access to lots of different sorts of content. The app is endlessly customisable and it's incredible that it's free. Happy hunting.
User interface is rough. - In poster view, most of the screen area doesn't respond to scrolling. - You can accidentally start media playback by tapping "options" if there is a thumbnail "behind" the button. - When the options panel is open, tapping outside it doesn't just close the panel, but starts whatever media your finger landed on. - In InfoWall mode, there is an annoying animation after each scroll gesture that briefly prevents further scrolling. - Review length limit reached :( Google...
Great app. Only thing I'd suggest adding to this Android version is the ability for the video to keep playing when it's not the active window. That way you can use Androids split screen view (two apps on screen at the same time using half screen each) and do other things like browse the web while watching a video. If devs or anyone reads this please consider adding this.
Plays everything I throw at it. Has a built-in file browser. Sound sync works correctly, (most players don't sync correctly.) Though x265 files play choppy on most devices, that's the hardware. Extremely configurable and frequent. The bad; vlc has auto find server. Kodi doesn't, so one has to configure their server information themselves. The gui may be confusing at first. The text on most skins is very small on my small TV.
Downloaded to tablet and it had a basic layout not all of the settings were available like they are on laptop or Android TV. Spent about 5 minutes looking through it trying to see if I could tweak, not sure what if it was me or the app just refreshed itself but all of a sudden the normal screen with all the settings like you see on a laptop were there... I downloaded to my phone to test it recently and detailed layout was automatic no tweaking. Not sure if devices differ but it works for me.
Not had this long enough to give it a really thorough review but so far it does serve my purposes. I do have some niggles with it that I am sure will be addressed in later updates such as it doesn't seem to run when I have my phone screen refresh rate set at 120hz meaning I have to change my display and set it to 60hz before use. The second issue is finding network storage is as some describe a little difficult and seems to be an issue with this version. All in all though it works for me!
genious app, runs fine on my philips tv and is the only app, which can stream from my NAS. BUT: one thing i have to mention. unfortunately, kodi does not properly distinguish between data and cache. my tv has limited resources, which makes it necessary to clean kodis "cache" (which can grow easily over 2GB) from time to time. but "cache" is always 0B and all is under "data". once i clean that, ALL config is gone and i can start configuring all plugins and shares from scratch. VERY NASTY.
Fantastic app and still the best media player available.It plays almost anything and my only gripe is it doesn't play dolby vision, not sure whether that's a licensing issue though. Every thing else is spot on, auto refresh rate change, HDR, dolby atmos pass through.i use on my p20 pro and shield and when it's setup properly it's almost flawless. Out of the box it does look plain and you have to install skins to make it look better but I'm not bothered, it's function
When it works it's great, but over the past few years that's become more and more rare. It CONSTANTLY freezes and crashes, and I have to force close it more than probably every other app combined. I can't do anything with it anymore because of its extreme fragility, and so it's become worse than useless. Downhill and problematic since Krypton.
Used Kodi since back on XBMC and never had this amount of issues! Starting with SMB issues which are just annoying, HDR oversaturation, microstutter on movies, half the add-ons don't work and takes 7 minutes to update my library every time! I don't use builds, I don't stream, I use it for it's intended purpose and it doesn't work. I will be downgrading to 18.9 but what a total waste of time and effort re-creating all my smart playlists and setup. Don't fix something which isn't broken!
Over all I think the app is good. Like the add-ons. Only problem is on mobile devices where the touch screen is not at its best. Could not navigate smoothly. Hard to move because it doesn't go by touch but works like an invisible mouse. And when you have pop up menu it goes away when you go to another app and come back. If you want to copy a text from another app then come back and input or try to paste on the pop-up menu you can't. Makes it a little challenging