Posts: 19
Joined: Dec 2012
Reputation:
0
chobo2
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Hi
I am looking to see if xbmc plus netflix could finally help me get rid of cable. I been playing around with xbmc and downloading certain packages but I noticed that channels seem to break or are broken when I download.
I am wondering if people who have used xbmc can shed on light on long do add-on usually last. It seems like they break pretty fast.
Posts: 31,445
Joined: Jan 2011
2012-12-24, 04:40
(This post was last modified: 2012-12-24, 04:43 by Ned Scott.)
There's no way to easy gauge that. Simplified, think of it as three basic categories:
Good support: Some add-ons are made that connect with sites/services that have public APIs and make it easy to access content from other programs and sites. Some even specifically support XBMC.
Neutral support: Other add-ons are made that connect with sites/services are just websites, and so the add-on has to grab the web pages and pull video streaming info and other data from that. There might be some standards or even some APIs, but these sites don't go out of their way to make it easy to access the content outside of their website. A simple formatting update could break an add-on, but it could also be a simple update to the add-on to make it work again.
Bad support: Some sites/services even actively work to break add-ons because they don't like it when other people access their content. Some want people to pay money for viewing content on a TV vs a computer (such as Hulu), or have strict licensing agreements with movie/tv studios that forbid it (such as Netflix).
Even then it's hard to say for sure. A "good support" example would be Youtube. Youtube has standard APIs to access video content that is intentionally designed to make it easier for other programs and websites to access their content. However, it's not entirely uncommon for the Youtube add-on to break every now and again. (however, the great guys behind the Youtube add-on are very awesome and quick to fix things. If something breaks then it's normally fixed pretty quickly. Remember, this is just an example.)
Meanwhile, a "bad support" example would be Hulu, where Hulu really tries hard to make it so that people can't access their content outside of hulu.com or official Hulu applications (which use a closed/private API). The Hulu add-on has been working great for me for the last year or so, and might be the longest it has gone without major breakage.
What I would look at is two things: 1, does the site/service provide neutral or good support, and 2, how popular is the site/service. The more popular a video service is, the more likely you are to have someone(s) interested in making an add-on and maintaining it, especially when faced with the various challenges that come with making the add-on. This (very) simplified formula can give you a rough idea on how long a given add-on might "last".
Generally speaking, add-ons don't get accepted into the official XBMC repo if they're expected to break right away. In the last few years that we've had an official add-on repository (before we had "scripts" and "plugins" that did much of the same thing, but wasn't well organized and as easy to update), I've seen the number of good working add-ons continue to grow.
There's also another category for video add-ons, ones that are built on a sort of "black market" for internet video, mainly pirated content. We don't support those add-ons on the official xbmc.org website, but we also don't stop the community from doing what they want with XBMC. Just remember that any add-on that is providing something that seems too good to be true, such as every TV show and movie ever made, and for free, probably isn't going to be too stable. The more well known these sites get, and the easier they are to access, make them easier targets to get shut down or have videos removed. I doubt anyone will ever be able to stop video piracy, so there will always be ways, but it's far from a "first class" level of service because of the constant attempts to stop them. Think of it as a cat and mouse game.
That's at least the general gist of it.
Posts: 19
Joined: Dec 2012
Reputation:
0
chobo2
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Ya I am not looking for hulu or pirated content addons. My plan is to get netflix for the movie parts. I am just after the basic shows I watch like storage wars and stuff along those lines.
Do you know if "bluecop-xbmc-repo" is active one?
Posts: 6,339
Joined: Jul 2010
Reputation:
116
artrafael
Team-XBMC Forum Moderator
Posts: 6,339
The Hulu, cnet, PBS, and TED Talks add-ons have been pretty stable for me.
