The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Ultra HD is the cheapest device
on the market that can do 4K Ultra HD with HDR in Dolby Vision, HDR, and HDR10+.
While the official Kodi forums often recommend devices such
as the ODROID N2 with CoreELEC Kodi Leia, I’d argue the Fire Stick is a better
choice purely from a price perspective. The N2 will set you back £78 plus you
will need a power adaptor for it which cost a few more. In comparison, the Fire TV Stick 4K Ultra HD has an RRP of £49.99,
but on Prime Day it was just £25, and it regularly drops to £40 and under.
The Fire TV Stick does have some issues though, there is no ethernet,
and the ethernet adaptors are restricted to 100Mbps, so you will need to use
Wi-Fi and have a good signal if you want to watch local 4K movies with large files
sizes.
Then there is the issue with no Google Play Store on the device, and for some reason, Amazon won’t allow Kodi to be on their store.
The easiest way to get Kodi on the system is to buy MrMC
which costs £2.42. I don’t like the interface, and much prefer an official Kodi
install.
There are several methods to install Kodi on a FireStick; one option includes using ES File Explorer to download the files and manually install it.
The other option I personally prefer is to us adbLink on my
PC which can then remotely install Kodi. I like this method as it also makes it
easy for me to transfer over my advancedsetting.xml file, which contains the
MYSQL settings.
The following steps can be used to install Kodi via adbLink.
- Download adblink
- Download the latest version of Kodi for Android ARM devices
- Find the IP of the Fire TV via Settings -> Device -> About -> Network
- Enable ADB Debugging via Settings -> Device -> Developer Options and turn ADB Debugging to ON.
- Load adblink and create a new connection with the previous IP address. Most settings should be chosen for you but you tweak things to your liking, this includes options for SPMC.
- Connect adbLink to Fire TV. It can sometimes be a little slow to respond, but when connected it should say the connected device and the connection status.
- Hit install APK and select the Kodi APK
- Wait for the green bar to complete the installation process. This process can take a couple of minutes
- Kodi should now appear on your AFTV homescreen under Apps.
If you want to use advancedsetting.xml you will first need
to load up Kodi so that all the user folders are created. Then use the file
manager and browse to /sdcard/Android/data/org.xmbc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata
hit push then select your setting files.
You will need to close Kodi if it is still open, then when
you restart all your TV shows and movies should be there.
Post from: Mighty Gadget – Gadget and Technology Blog
