Amazon Fire TV

SGF: Here's your answer - not my own work.

For anyone who has built up a library on a network drive or perhaps an attached usb drive i have made a step by step guide on how to incorporate it into your blackbox build so that you can access it once again.

It is possible to add your entire library as i store mine on 2 seperate 4TB hard drives that reside on my network.

Step 1: On main menu go across to Add-ons

Step 2: Select video add-ons

Step 3: Press select on ur remote on the 2 .. above FUBAR

Step 4: Select Files

Step 5: Select Add Videos...

Step 6: You can now browse to your drives via Windows Network (SMB)

Step 7: Once youve added the drive/folder it will ask you what type of file resides in the folder (movies/tv shows etc) as it will then scan through all the files/folders recursively and scrape the info from the moviedb or tvdb in order to index your movies etc into the library.

Step 8: Once youve added all your library, youll need to hack the main menu in order for it to point to ur tv shows and movies.

Step 9: Go across to maintainance

Step 10: Select Skin

Step 11: Select Home Menu Items

Step 12: Go across and select Menu Item - 3 TV Shows and a menu will pop up. Select TV Shows Menu

Step 13: Do the same for Menu Item - 4 Movies and this time change it to Movies Menu

Now when you scroll to these options on the home screen when you press select on tv shows or movies it will open up your library and allow you to select the movie etc that you want to watch from your network.

You will find that the background will have changed for both tv shows and movies due to hacking the menu. In order to get the original backgrounds back do the following steps.

Step 1: Go to maintainance

Step 2: Select Skin

Step 3: Go to Background Artwork and move across to Backgrohnd path and change the option to be TV Shows

Step 4: Select single image and follow the following path to get the original image

Home folder/.kodi/media/tvshows.jpg and press ok

Step 5: Repeat the process for movies and the image you want here is movie2.jpg

If you want you can then tell Genesis the location of your network library so that in the future you can add new content to your library and it will all sync up nicely.

To do that you need to do the following:

Step 1: Go to Add-ons and select Video Add-ons

Step 2: Scroll down to Genesis and press the context menu button on your remote and choose option Add-on settings.

Step 3: Scroll across to the Library tab

Step 4: Youll see that it has default locations for movies and tv shows but youll need to change those to the folders where your movies and tv shows on you network really are.

Step 5: Select Movies first and in order to see Windows network SMB again, youll need to keep pressing on your remote the back/return/exit button until you see the directory structure that has home folder/nfs/smb etc. Then just browse to the respective folders for both movies and tv shows.
 
Is there a list somewhere of free content available on the Fire Stick? I know BBC iPlayer content is free, and Netflix requires a subscription. What about all the other Fire Apps?
 
clv101 said:
Is there a list somewhere of free content available on the Fire Stick? I know BBC iPlayer content is free, and Netflix requires a subscription. What about all the other Fire Apps?
Click to expand...

It's android based, it has a number of free catch up apps and via the likes of Kodi and appropriate plugins more content than you could ever watch in a lifetime.
 
spudbynight said:
Yes, but PLEX won't output 5.1 sound.

You can install KODI and get 5.1 sound, but the internal media player on the FireTV won't do it with Plex.
Click to expand...

Is this still true?

I bought the 4k since my Roku has started to behaving weirdly the last week, keep on crashing unexpectedly.

Plex is what I use to watch movies, is Kodi easy to use like Plex?

edit - I just googled it, it looks an awful lot like XBMC? Is that mean it decodes at the Amazon TV device as opposed to Plex which decode from the server?
 
Raymond Lin said:
Is this still true?

I bought the 4k since my Roku has started to behaving weirdly the last week, keep on crashing unexpectedly.

Plex is what I use to watch movies, is Kodi easy to use like Plex?

edit - I just googled it, it looks an awful lot like XBMC? Is that mean it decodes at the Amazon TV device as opposed to Plex which decode from the server?
Click to expand...

I personally think Kodi is easy to use, but I have been using it for quite a while so kinda built up knowledge as they've added the features. Once you've worked out how to setup sources it just works. Soon as you turn it on, it detects any new files & scrapes video info/fanart/thumbnails etc and makes it look all pretty. Plus theres loads of skins to change the look.

I dont have any strange file/directory setup. Just NAS/Movies, NAS/TV Shows/Show Name etc then setup a source for Movies & a Source for TV Shows.

Yeah Kodi does all the decoding on the device, no half decent PC required to convert the videos on the fly. Just chuck any video file on a NAS/SMB share and it'll most likely play.

Just install it on your PC & have a play.
 
I don't foresee to be too much a problem to install Kodi, it can't be any harder than to get XBMC to install into a Apple TV.
 
While Fire Stick related not 100% sure this is the right place to ask but anyway...

I bought my mum a Fire Stick for Christmas, got it all set up fine - much easier than I expected - and watched a film and some TV on it already, worked a treat. The issue seems to be after the screensaver's been on/it's been on another channel, it black screens and the only way so far I've discovered to get it back is to unplug it at the wall, which is a hassle I didn't want for my mum because getting behind the TV isn't the easiest thing in the world.

It's a relatively old 1080p Sony Bravia TV, and from what I can tell the problem seems to be that it switched from 720p mode to VGA mode when trying to use that external input (and seems to be a TV issue rather than anything with the Stick itself). Anyone have any ideas on how to force the TV to use a 720p resolution rather than VGA, or any settings to change if this is a known issue? Any help appreciated!
 
Tachyon said:
I think there's been quite a few problems with Genesis recently judging from the amount of comments on the Facebook groups I'm in.
Click to expand...

Genesis is in effect a search engine, it's creator is having some time off before deciding on how best to rework it, it still works fine exactly as it is, but as usual people hear a rumour, ignore the statement put out and then every single issue is suddenly Genesis' fault. It couldn't be the poor wifi, over subscribed sources or normal takedown requests that have massively increased following unreleased content going public, nope, it has to be the plugin's fault.

As for plus net or any ISP turn off the content filtering. If the host is blocked then it would affect ALL UK ISP's, not just yours. Try a smart DNS service or better yet a VPN.

Raymond Lin said:
Is this still true?

I bought the 4k since my Roku has started to behaving weirdly the last week, keep on crashing unexpectedly.
Plex is what I use to watch movies, is Kodi easy to use like Plex?
edit - I just googled it, it looks an awful lot like XBMC? Is that mean it decodes at the Amazon TV device as opposed to Plex which decode from the server?
Click to expand...

Plex is, or rather was forked from XBMC which became Kodi - it doesn't need to transcode anything as it supports the formats used in hardware on a FireTV 4K. Transcoding is for people who lack appropriate hardware to view content or don't wish to have multiple versions, transcoding 720/1080 content to a device that can already play it natively makes no real sense unless I missed something?
 
Last edited:
Hi fellas
After reading this thread and getting the impression it's a neat bit of kit, do I need it if I have a smart TV?
Was going to install kodi on it (I understand we can't talk too much about that) but can I use my tv to do the same things that kodi can do?
Was at a friends house yesterday and he got one with kodi and Genesis and it was a smart bit of kit.

Jb
 
Jobe said:
Hi fellas
After reading this thread and getting the impression it's a neat bit of kit, do I need it if I have a smart TV?
Was going to install kodi on it (I understand we can't talk too much about that) but can I use my tv to do the same things that kodi can do?
Was at a friends house yesterday and he got one with kodi and Genesis and it was a smart bit of kit.

Jb
Click to expand...

If all you are doing is streaming content from Amazon/Netflix or a NAS, then a smart TV will do the job nicely.

If you want to expand on what you want to stream you'll need some form of Android box that you can root or sideload apps onto. :)
 
Clov!s said:
If you want to expand on what you want to stream you'll need some form of Android box that you can root or sideload apps onto. :)
Click to expand...

A mate has said he can set it all up for me. He knows how to put kodi etc onto it.
With that in mind, my original question still stands. Would this be better?
I think it will be but was curious what I can do just via my tv really. Guess it's just the normal stuff

Thanks Clovis, I think you answered my question nicely.

JB
 
You'll receive exactly the same performance watching Netflix etc as you would on the fire TV, if you want to extend your services like adding certain streams for Movies and TV then you'll need an android box. :)
 
Hmm. Mate just plugged his into the back of his telly any started streaming a film. Did you see I mentioned the TVs stick?

JB
Edit. Whoops, I didn't mention the stick part did I
 
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