My Latest Pastime

After a balmy weekend we awoke this morning to sunny but cool and crisp windy weather.  The warm north westerly has given way to a very blustery south westerly and unless you are rugged up, the wind just blows straight through you.  I gave up on my bike ride after around 7k's this morning, it wasn't worth it.

It is one of those "is 23 degrees but feels like 14 degrees" days.

The bike continues to make a funny click noise but it is much improved since I gave it a good oil.  The Community Association Meeting went on an hour longer than expected on Monday night but it was truly worth while.  We received great news from both our Councillor and the Sunshine Coast Airport Management Team member for our residents.

Right now it seems all the hard work we have put in is showing some positive results.

Late in July I was online and saw an Android TV Box for sale at around half price.  Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered, but lots of owners of media players like I have have been experiencing problems.  My media player is now an old model and the manufacturer no longer supports it with firmware upgrades.  So I have been keeping my eye open for a possible replacement to play all my files.

I have paid $70 for the Android TV box delivered which is half the current price.  I should have had it by now but they sold out before they got to my order.  I have since been told it should be sent around August 18.

I have previously heard of XBMC, a media program you can install on your PC.  The latest incarnation is called Kodi.  Kodi has been extended to work on a range of devices.  It now works on all sorts of Android devices, as well as Windows, Mac and Linux. So as the pic above shows you can get it to work on your laptop, your tablet, your Android or OS phone, even on your TV.  I think I read somewhere you may be able to install it on a Samsung Smart TV.

My new Android TV Box comes with Kodi installed.

Kodi is 'open sourced' which means it isn't owned by a private company and modifications can be made to it easily by anyone.  You can also have a huge variety of addons which can do numerous things.

I have downloaded and installed Kodi onto my PC to give it a try.  There are heaps of YouTube videos on how to set it up, how to install addons and even some great addons for you to try.  What the Android TV box tries to do (and different addons have different degrees of success) is access a variety of on line video streams from all across the world.  Everything comes via the internet so you need a decent connection and plenty of download speed.

I added the IPTV Stalker addon this morning and managed to get it running at almost 100%.  I can now access almost 750 channels world wide via my PC.  The quality varies of course.  There are sports, movies and many others.  There is HBO, Cinemax, Sky Sports, CBS, History Channel, and heaps more.

It is amazing!  Needless to say, I can't wait till August 18 and my unit is sent.  Then it is another wait for it to arrive from overseas!