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Help: Trying to watch HD movie streams via Kodi on a Fire Stick
Posted on 11/3/15 at 7:41 am
Posted on 11/3/15 at 7:41 am
I have an Amazon Fire Stick and I just side loaded Kodi onto it. I did the TVAddons configuration that got me all kinds of cool addons like Genesis, etc.
Here is my question...it is cumbersome trying to get the HD files to stream. My internet connection is solid by all accounts. I did plenty speed tests from my phone and get 8 up/35 down. That should be more than adequate to stream, right? My daughter's Kindle and my iPad stream HD quality flawlessly.
But the movies on Genesis stumble and buffer on HD streams. Is it the processing power of the Fire Stick? Would a Fire TV work better? Or an Apple TV?
I guess what I'm asking is that I have all this stuff that the Fire Stick can do but is it just not able to do it well enough? Everything else on the Fire Stick works well, like Netflix, Hulu Plus...but sometimes Watch ESPN buffers a lot on the Fire Stick but on my iPad it never buffers.
Here is my question...it is cumbersome trying to get the HD files to stream. My internet connection is solid by all accounts. I did plenty speed tests from my phone and get 8 up/35 down. That should be more than adequate to stream, right? My daughter's Kindle and my iPad stream HD quality flawlessly.
But the movies on Genesis stumble and buffer on HD streams. Is it the processing power of the Fire Stick? Would a Fire TV work better? Or an Apple TV?
I guess what I'm asking is that I have all this stuff that the Fire Stick can do but is it just not able to do it well enough? Everything else on the Fire Stick works well, like Netflix, Hulu Plus...but sometimes Watch ESPN buffers a lot on the Fire Stick but on my iPad it never buffers.
4
Posted on 11/3/15 at 8:00 am to The Sad Banana
quote:
I guess what I'm asking is that I have all this stuff that the Fire Stick can do but is it just not able to do it well enough? Everything else on the Fire Stick works well, like Netflix, Hulu Plus...but sometimes Watch ESPN buffers a lot on the Fire Stick but on my iPad it never buffers.
TVAddons work great on my Firestick...
Posted on 11/3/15 at 8:09 am to guedeaux
Okay, but what about the 1080/HD quality movie streams? Do you have to wait a while for them to buffer?
What specific addon do you use that works so well?
What specific addon do you use that works so well?
Posted on 11/3/15 at 8:13 am to The Sad Banana
Google kodi zero cache. This will allow you to pause the video for a little while and cache it faster and cache the whole video so it won't buffer. My experience has been the same the HD streams on Kodi are a lot harder to stream than a legit HD stream but zero cache helps a lot.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 8:26 am to Phate
quote:Googling thanks
Google kodi zero cache.
To OP - My Fire tv box works better, but I stream HD on my sticks. If you are using Genesis it hasn't been very good lately, stream all sources has been much better, but I don't like their interface as well.
Typically before I try to stream a movie I will force stop Kodi and clear the cache and I find I have better success streaming. Interested to see if zero cache eliminates the need to do that.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 8:31 am to Phate
Thanks, Phate...I'll look into that. And yes, I did notice that force stopping Kodi and clearing the cache helps. I guess if I'm going to be going this route and not paying a red penny for it I can't complain too much.
So what is stream all sources?
So what is stream all sources?
Posted on 11/3/15 at 9:22 am to The Sad Banana
read this chain of posts and replies between me and Creamer
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?sp=55433051&s=2&p=55417665#55433051
and read this chain of posts and replies and the wiki page in the link
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?sp=58724833&s=2&p=55221047#58724833
now you're an expert
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?sp=55433051&s=2&p=55417665#55433051
and read this chain of posts and replies and the wiki page in the link
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?sp=58724833&s=2&p=55221047#58724833
now you're an expert
Posted on 11/3/15 at 9:25 am to Phate
quote:is this really good to do? this wiki article warns against that for the firetv and firestick
Google kodi zero cache
https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache#Cache_settings
quote:
Value: 0 - we can use the local disk memory (typically your hard drive), which will not put any limit on the size (outside of the size of your drive). This also allows devices with low RAM, such as the Raspberry Pi, to cache more than they normally would due to the small amount of RAM they have. The cache is deleted from the local disk whenever playback is stopped.
Note: This will likely cause increased wear-and-tear on your drive.
Note: Do not use the 0 (zero) setting if you have a device with a low amount of local storage, such as 8GB on a Fire TV. As a general rule of thumb, only use this setting if you have at least 16 GB of local drive space that is currently free on the device. Otherwise, Kodi will stall and stop playing the video, or might even crash.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 10:06 am to link
Please tell me what to do. This is all like Greek.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 11:15 am to The Sad Banana
I tried zero cache on my fire tv and it didnt help. Genesis does have a download option that allows you to download HD movies and tv shows ahead of time. So the show will be on your hard drive and will play flawlessly. Downloading can take 15 to 20 minutes to complete.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 12:37 pm to The Sad Banana
find the plug-in called "easy advanced settings". do you know how to install and uninstall plug-ins on kodi? you might have to search the "video" and the "program" plug-ins...i don't remember where it was. when you get it, open it and go to:
Edit settings
Network
Network again
here you'll be able to edit values for buffermode, cachemembuffersize, and readbufferfactor. read the descriptions of each one of those on that wiki page above. set buffermode to 1 and readbufferfactor to 4 or 5...maybe 10, i dunno...it doesn't really matter.
cachemembuffersize is the big one. most of the discussions that i linked talked about how the cachemembuffersize number maxes out at your total RAM divided by 3, and that the firestick has half the RAM of the firetv box. so your stick has 1GB of RAM, which is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Divived by 3 = 333,333,333 bytes maximum. that's the largest number you would want to put for "cachemembuffersize". maybe back off of that a little and do 250,000,000 or something...i really don't know.
what Phate was talking about was how you can set cachemembuffersize to 0, and it pulls from your box's hard drive instead. the wiki article warns about doing this on devices with less than 16GB of space. the firesticks have 8GB i think, not sure. i don't really know if it's a big deal, but i do know that i'm very happy with how my firestick and firebox work now without resorting to the 0 thing.
another thing to consider is that the stream you're trying to watch might be very busy. i tried watching the walking dead on sunday after it aired and couldn't get a medium quality stream to work. tried again last night, and the HD stream loaded right up.
Edit settings
Network
Network again
here you'll be able to edit values for buffermode, cachemembuffersize, and readbufferfactor. read the descriptions of each one of those on that wiki page above. set buffermode to 1 and readbufferfactor to 4 or 5...maybe 10, i dunno...it doesn't really matter.
cachemembuffersize is the big one. most of the discussions that i linked talked about how the cachemembuffersize number maxes out at your total RAM divided by 3, and that the firestick has half the RAM of the firetv box. so your stick has 1GB of RAM, which is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Divived by 3 = 333,333,333 bytes maximum. that's the largest number you would want to put for "cachemembuffersize". maybe back off of that a little and do 250,000,000 or something...i really don't know.
what Phate was talking about was how you can set cachemembuffersize to 0, and it pulls from your box's hard drive instead. the wiki article warns about doing this on devices with less than 16GB of space. the firesticks have 8GB i think, not sure. i don't really know if it's a big deal, but i do know that i'm very happy with how my firestick and firebox work now without resorting to the 0 thing.
another thing to consider is that the stream you're trying to watch might be very busy. i tried watching the walking dead on sunday after it aired and couldn't get a medium quality stream to work. tried again last night, and the HD stream loaded right up.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 12:50 pm to The Sad Banana
quote:
Here is my question...it is cumbersome trying to get the HD files to stream. My internet connection is solid by all accounts. I did plenty speed tests from my phone and get 8 up/35 down. That should be more than adequate to stream, right? My daughter's Kindle and my iPad stream HD quality flawlessly.
But the movies on Genesis stumble and buffer on HD streams.
You're connected to free hosting services who aren't making it a priority for you to get the files you're accessing. Servers cost money. You could have 500 Mbps down, won't matter if the source is slow/congested. It's sort of why Genesis and similar addons will scrape 20+ sources, because it will take trial and error to find a reliable stream.
What sources are you comparing on the Kindle or Ipad? Netflix? Amazon instant video?
Zero caching can help if you select and walk away, but it's not the hardware limiting you, it's the delivery of the stream.
Posted on 11/3/15 at 1:17 pm to link
link and busbeepbeep, thanks for the info.
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