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Originally Posted by epitome1170
Was curious on your opinion of which device you think is the best: Roku 3/4 or Fire stick/tv?
I have been keeping up with the Kodi thread and am thinking about testing this out on one of the tvs, but want to get something easy enough for kids and wife to use as well.
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Depends..
Roku is for the most part completely legit legal sources. So you can find lots of content, but lots of the good stuff has a waiting period before you can access it through Roku. Some content is simply not available. Especially when you completely cut cable, as many of the Roku apps for TV channels require you to subscribe to cable to access. Like ESPN. You can use the ESPN app for Roku only if you also subscribe to a cable package that includes ESPN. But Roku shines in being very easy to navigate and use, with little that can go wrong.
FireTV runs KODI. Which is essentially an app that you can add custom plugins to, which scan pirate sources on the internet for movies/TV/sports/concerts/etc, and presents it all in a nice Netflix looking manner. You'll be able to stream almost any movie/TV after it's been released. It usually takes a matter of hours after it airs for popular shows. But because it uses pirate sources, it can sometimes be confusing, or it might show some sources but none of them actually play, or it might start to play and then buffer for 10 minutes. All of which is easy to overcome, but it's different and can frustrate wives/childrens who've never used it before. Usually just explaining that to them and letting them use it for a bit is all that it takes. Admittedly it's not for everyone. But once you get it configured, you can customize and simplify it as much as you'd like. You can even "Subscribe" to your favorite shows, and it will automatically add new episodes of your shows when they're available. You can then turn on the TV, and view your list of shows to see what all new stuff has aired. Once you actually watch it, it will mark the show as watched and remove it from your new episodes list. You can also view all your subscribed shows and watch every episode of every season. There's also addons for streaming live sports of all kinds. And with FireTV, you can add links in KODI to other Android apps like Netflix/Pandora/Amazon Video/Hulu/etc. So you can jump directly from KODI to those native apps and watch content there, then jump right back to KODI and continue there. It's pretty slick once everything is configured. But again, much of the meat of it is relying on pirate sources and an open source community driven framework. So you have to accept what comes along with that. It clearly works great for lots of people. Plenty of support if you know where to look. I've become very familiar with KODI on a range of different platforms, and can answer just about anything you want to know.
