Kodi is an open source cross-platform media centre designed while keeping home entertainment in mind. This freeware application allows you to organize and play TV shows, films, sports, music, videos, podcasts, slideshows, and photos.
Kodi supports a wide variety of media content and is a big favorite of those who love to watch movies, seasons, sports, and what not, it will gather duplicate content over time. However, the fix for duplicate media content is very simple, yet highly effective. Use Clone Files Checker.
Clone Files Checker follows Google Software Principles
Kodi is developed by XBMC Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States. The initial version was released for Microsoft Xbox and was formerly known as XBMC Media Centre.
Since 2014, the software has undergone tremendous change both in the name and features. It is available in more than 65 major world languages and supports Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Android, and Raspberry Pi Microcomputer.
Kodi is contributed by hundreds of volunteer software developers and translators around the world, together known as Team Kodi. It faces major competition from powerful rivals such as Google Chromecast.
Kodi provides an ideal platform to turn your personal computer into a home theater. It acts as an intermediary between your computer and big screen television set. It has a clean interface with fewer menu options so that you don’t have to dive deep into menus and app configurations.
One of the features that distinguishes Kodi from other media centers is the ability to customize and add third-party plugins. As an open-source software, you can make plenty of changes in the build at no price.
Seat on your sofa, take a cup of coffee and use your remote control to enjoy uninterrupted content from Netflix, HBO, ABC Family, ESPN, Fox Sports, Hulu, Amazon, SoundCloud, PS Vue, DIY Network and many other premium service providers.
Is Kodi Legal?
It is absolutely legal to use Kodi. The Kodi software itself is not illegal.
However, streaming Internet content and watching TV shows without express permission from the copyright holders might be illegal.
The practice of installing streaming devices such as USB and electronic boxes to watch unauthorized content may be termed as an infringement of intellectual property.
Using third-party plugins that stream unlicensed content may violate local laws applicable in your country. Such illegal content streaming may land you into trouble. If you do not have the permissions to play premium content from the original copyright holders, choose the plenty of freeware options.
Adding New Media Source To Your Kodi Library
Kodi does not have affiliation with any third-party content providers so you must setup your own streaming service in order for Kodi to play it.
Open up the main interface and you’d be able to choose a content source from local device, remote networks, blu-ray DVDs, USB sticks and other third-party regional sources. After adding content to your media centre, the main interface will turn itself into a list of your favorite TV shows, radio stations, podcasts, sports, music, movies and photos.
The File Manager allows you to view and manage your media content. Use the Search feature to find your local media files. You can view system information, battery status, power options, date-time, and resources used information, everything with a single glance.
Although Kodi uses remote control as the primary input device, you always have an option to use other devices such as keyboard and mouse.
To add a new movie or TV show media source to Kodi, follow the steps given below:
- Go to the Home Screen.
- Select the Videos tab on the left.
- In the subsequent screen, select Files.
- Choose Add Videos.
- Select Browse, and select your desired video source.
- Select OK.
- Specify a name for your source, and then select OK.
- Next, select This directory contains and select OK.
- Select your media type such as movies, music videos, or TV shows.
- In the Choose information provider drop-down box, select The Movie Database to scan for movie content, or select The TVDB to play TV shows.
- Select OK.
- Now, select Settings.
- Choose your preferred language and customize other settings.
- Select OK.
- Finally, in the Do you want to refresh information for all items within this path prompt, select Yes to add your new media source to the Kodi library.
Kodi developers have provided detailed instructions to perform initial configuration and set up new streaming sources in the Kodi Wiki documentations.
Additionally, you can buy a PCI Tuner hardware at a price of around $150 or subscribe for a nominal monthly charge to premium plugins such as BBC iPlayer, Deceit, USTVNow, Monster Munch, Jupiter IPTV, T2K IPTV Kingdom, cCloud TV, The Magic Dragon, and various others.
Pluto TV and Plex are among popular freeware options.
With 10 feet user interface and wide-screen, Kodi turns your device into a digital set top box where you can stream Internet media and play local content of your choice.
Enjoy Buffer-free Streaming By Regularly Deleting Your Duplicate Kodi Library Files
It may happen that as you use different streaming services to watch movies, sports or play Internet music, you acquire tens of thousands of duplicate library files. These files take up precious storage space and you run into low disk space issue. Nevertheless, this affects the streaming performance and Kodi takes longer time to buffer your videos.
To your surprise, both the Kodi for Windows and Kodi for Mac editions do not have any in-house functionality to automatically find duplicate media files. Worry not, a third-party tool Clone Files Checker does this job pretty well. Regular duplicate cleaning will help you reclaim lost storage space, speed-up the streaming and get rid of lags.
- First, exit Kodi. You cannot delete files while they are in use.
- Download Clone Files Checker for Windows or Mac depending on the operating system you use.
- Install and run the program.
- Click on the Add button.
- Use the folder selection dialog to choose your Kodi media library. Here are the default locations-
- Windows: C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\Media
- Mac: /Users/User_Name/Library/Application Support/Kodi
- Click OK.
- Add multiple folders as you may want.
- Choose the File Search option in the Scan Mode.
- The default selected option is All Files. However, you can select individual media types using the Custom option to find only music, movies or photos.
- You can also set optional custom file size parameters to specify upper and lower file size limits in KB, MB or even GB.
- Click on Start Search and the scan should take place.
- In the Duplicates Files Found dialog, you will able to see the number of duplicates detected along with the size of those duplicate files
- Choose the Fix Wizard option that allows automatic selection of duplicates without much hassle.
- Choose the file version you want to keep (Newest/ Oldest).
- Select an action of your choice (Permanently Delete/ Move to Folder).
