Home Media Server with Kodi - a DIY

Dear All,

This post explains how to setup a "Home Media" server with Kodi and other tools.

Pre-requisites:

1. A good movie collection
2. A Linux installed OS

Installations:

1. XBMC / Kodi server (latest being called Krypton)
2. youtube-dl for downloading movies/video collection from youtube
3. ffmpeg and avconv for conversion processes.
4. openssh client and server tools for accessing the movie collection outside the network.

Installation of above in Ubuntu / Debian systems with working Internet connection is:

0. sudo apt-get update
1. sudo apt-get install kodi kodi-standalone
2. sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
3. sudo apt-get install ffmpeg avconv
4. sudo apt-get install openssh-client openssh-server

5. For any of the above commands failing to execute, issue sudo apt-get -f install

iOS and Android App

There is an Android and ios app with the name Kodi. Installation is through the play store or the app store.

Configuration settings and execution/launch of a movie in Kodi

Launch Kodi by the run prompt (Alt+F2) enter kodi

In the beginning screen you should see the Files Section. Browse to your movie collection and add the source.

Play any movie to see that the source is taken into consideration.

Note the file format of the movie has to be one of the many supported file formats of Kodi.
If for any failure of a movie file format,

You can redownload the movie with the command

1. youtube-dl --recode-video avi --prefer-ffmpeg URL

OR

2. youtube-dl --recode-video avi --prefer-avconv URL

Replace the URL with the link of the movie. Also make sure that both ffmepg and avconv are installed.

Now play the re-formatted file in Kodi to check for the proper format.

Enabling web server of Kodi and Zeroconf settings

Kodi has too many options and tweaks to help users. One such thing is enabling the webserver concept and allowing other apps to access kodi.

To enable both, hit Kodi Settings/Services/Control - enable Allow remote control via HTTP and give proper values and note the port number.

Also in Settings/Services/General/Zeroconf enable the first line.

Enabling the UPnP / DLNA support in Kodi

Kodi helps us to stream movies and music to the TV with a network connected in the Hall / living room. For this, Settings/Services/UPnP - enable the first 2 lines.

Accessing movie collection of Kodi - across the network

Though there are multiple ways of accessing the movie collection of Kodi across network, one thing that I could make it work easily is via ssh.

This below link is the best guide.
http://www.arbi.se/using-connectbot-for-ssh-with-pubkey-authentication/

After following the above link, make sure you port forward 22 port and also give appropriate values to the connect via SSH in Kodi in your android or ios device.

Note: Kodi by default connects to a Event Server with port 9777. Also Port forward 9090 and 9777 is important.

Kodi also by default connects to a wifi. If your laptop has both wifi and a RJ45 port, make sure wifi is disabled.

Kodi also makes use of ipv6 in original. Disable it. (Google out to know how to disable ipv6 in *Deb systems.)

Hope this blog post helped some of you stream your movie collection across multiple devices.

I shall continue this post with yet another tweaks related to Kodi pretty soon.

Thanks for reading,
Ananth G S