Just a friendly rant, its a shame there's still so much poor quality sources

[thepixy]

I've been messing with Kodi for about as many years as its been around, especially following the add ons (Ex**us and Redux are my current faves). I'm sure the contributors are compensated in some way for their trouble, but its a shame that what I'd call "junk" providers are not weeded out. The number of times I've looked at a so called 1081 or 720i stream, only to find that its resolution is worse than typical SD. In some cases you'll even find instances of the old "set up a camera in a theater" quality copies. Then to add insult to injury, way too many times you will look up a title, find it, and then discover that all the downloads available are not even the right move.

Like I said, its just a friendly rant, but it seems like in all these years things are getting worse. At best 1/3rdof the time you'll find what your looking for, with decent resolution. Whe I do, even if its buffering horribly I can always download and let it cook all day. And now that the IDSPs are cracking down again (SPECTRUM now blocks most of Kodi's add on scraper targets), there's no getting away fron needing an VPN. NORDvpn is offering a decent deal now if you buy 3 years, but between the need for a VPN, and the constant battle to get a good stream (RaeolDebrid is probably better, but costs more), I'm not very hopeful about Kodi still being worthwhile in the years to come. Its no going to live up to its hoped "free " content much longer.

Thoughts?

 

[capslock]

No problems here, for years. The 2 mentioned add/ons are working perfectly here, a few 1080 links, enough 720 links, and hundreds of SD links, nó buffering, )fast VDSL internet, few installed apps on box, big ram-rom space on box.

 

[Buddywhatshisname]

Is there some method to report or repair broken links? Lots of shows I watch have episode descriptions that don't match the episode shown.

 

[RavRob]

I get what you're saying. However, this is not the addon's fault, it is the uploader's fault for mislabeling the video. As for being Cam vs 1080, most Cams are actually 1080. That is only the resolution at which the movie was recorded. If they used a 4k camera, the output video would be a Cam that is 4k. Best bet is to view a movie that is already out on dvd or bluray.

 

[capslock]

Good advice !

 

[thepixy]

I fully understand that. These add ons do a great job, and I'm not criticizing them at all. But the provider sites they scrape (like the well know PUTLOCKER, and a dozen others) are apparently accepting submissions with out vetting them. Resolution? Yeah... I know a 1080i or 1080p camera will record 1080. But there's a huge quality difference between a good recording made with a quality recording card (like the Haupage Capture card and software) from a Blue Ray disk, and some idiot just sneaking his camera into a movie theater and not even bothering to center or level!

Then there are competely wrong uploads. I remember when Star Trec discovery came out. For a while, every hi res source of any episode was just a copy of episode one. Or the time we tried to watch The Charlie Parker story (Charlie parker, the famous musician), and found that every copy from every provider, was not that movie, but a film about Rosa Parks. Ok, both Charlie Parker and Rosa Parks are both black. But that's all they have in common. This happen a lot! Just the other day I was trying to check out the new 2019 "Jungle Book" (Disney ). Even though every working copy I found was labeled as the 2019 version, they all were the original animation from at least 10 years ago.

No, that's not the add on's fault. The coders are doing an excellent job, especially considering that a lot of providers keep changing their sites, so that the scraper cod needs constant revision.

But it IS the fault of the providers that are not bothering to check submissions for validity. Sadly, they probably compensate people who upload programming, withou realizing they are getting junk.

So my point is that between the added cost of needing to use a VPN with a lot of ISPs these days, and time spent looking for content that often turns out to be bogus or poor quality, the hoped promise of "free" viewing of anything that we all hoped KODI (and its add ons) would provide is turning out to be less true each year. Not complaining too much... it IS free, and it "is whaat it is". Just a friendly rant.