What Can I do With Kodi?

Kodi was originally the XBMC media player for the Xbox console. Now it is one of the foremost open-source media centers with which you can set up a home theater with your PC. This is media center software that brings all your multimedia content together within a single package. If you don’t already have Kodi v17.6, you can add it to Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS platforms from this page on the software’s website. However, Kodi’s own website is open about the fact that Kodi itself comes with no content, which could lead to people wondering what they can do with it. These are a few of the things you can do with your Kodi media center.

Play Music and Video

The most obvious thing you can do with any sort of multimedia software is play music and videos. So of course you can also play music and videos in Kodi, which isn’t anything special. However, in Kodi you can play video on Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs, and the software supports a wide variety of video and audio file formats. The media center also has video and music libraries that enable users to organize their music and videos within metadata databases that include album covers, music posters, and fanart. Furthermore, Kodi’s music player has amazing visualizations.

Stream Movies and TV Shows From a Range of Sources

Media streaming is one of Kodi’s buzzwords, which otherwise means you’re not just limited to playing content saved on your HDD. As such, Kodi users can watch movies, sports, channels, and TV shows streamed from other sources. Exodus and SALTS (Stream all the Sources) are two of Kodi’s best known add-ons for playing streamed content in the media center. This Tech Junkie article covers how you can add Exodus to Kodi.

However, a few people are pushing back against this option; Kodi’s media streaming has also led to legal disputes, as some claim the software is enabling users to watch copyrighted and exclusive content that they haven’t paid for. For example, the Premier League is blocking Kodi users from watching live football streams. A spokesman stated, “For the first time this will enable the Premier League to disrupt and prevent the illegal streaming of our matches via IPTV, so-called Kodi, boxes.”

Watch and Record Live TV

Kodi enables you to watch and record live TV, much like you would on a cable box or any similar device. All that’s required is a TV tuner and extra backend software that decodes broadcast signals. Kodi supports the NextPVR, VDR, and Windows Media Center backends. The backends also have their own add-ons that integrate them with Kodi so that you can select a TV option from the software’s main menu and open channel guides. This article tells you about some of the best live TV add-ons for Kodi.

Create a Photo Slideshow

You can import and view your favorite photos in Kodi. The software also enables you to play image slideshows. Kodi only has somewhat limited slideshow options, as it offers no subtitles or alternative transition effects to select. However, you can also set up screensavers with the media center’s Picture Slideshow Screensaver add-on that has various transition effects.

Check the Weather Forecast

For a more basic sort of convenience, Kodi users can check the weather forecasts with numerous add-ons. They give you forecasts like the one shown in the snapshot directly below. Yahoo Weather, OpenWeather Map, and Weather Underground are a few of more notable weather apps for Kodi.

Set up a VPN

Kodi users can also set up a connection with a Virtual Private Network provider to encrypt network traffic, for anyone who feels like privacy is becoming harder and harder to come by and wants to fix that. You can do that by adding a VPN add-on to Kodi. VPN Manager and OpenVPN are two VPN add-ons for the media center.

Launch Windows Games and ROMs

Kodi’s ROM Collection Browser add-on enables you to browse your retro games library within the media center, and then you can launch both Windows games and ROMs from within Kodi. The add-on includes plenty of options for you to configure your game libraries with, and it also scrapes metadata from various sources so that Kodi can include artwork and videos for the games. There’s also a Steam Launcher add-on that enables users to launch Steam games without switching between the Kodi and Steam software, so you can turn Kodi into one stop shop for anything media-related on your computer.

Play Games

There aren’t a huge amount game add-ons for Kodi, but you can still play a few games within the media center. For example, the Tank Warfare add-on provides some blasting action. The Kodi Blackjack add-on brings that classic card game to the media center. Connect 4 is another classic game you can add to Kodi from the SuperRepo repository. They aren’t much more than what you would expect to come packaged with your computer, but their inclusion is still a nice bonus.

Listen to Live Radio

Kodi also enables you to listen to live radio with official and unofficial radio add-ons. Radio is one of the official Kodi add-ons that gives you 7,000 international radio broadcasts with 115 genres. Or if that’s not quite your style, you can listen to thousands of free music, talk, and sport radio stations with the TuneIn Radio add-on, which also has a Premium upgrade in the U.S. for audio books and live NFL games.

So now you can see why Kodi is much more than a run-of-the-mill media player! With a little configuration and a few extra add-ons, you can access a multitude of multimedia content in Kodi; if you can think of something media related, Kodi probably has an add-on for it. Check out this Tech Junkie guide for further Kodi details.