Well this was a huge disappointment. I’m still trying, hoping that it will “click” somehow but I’m rapidly loosing hope. I’m sure the problem is me and not OSMC, but that doesn’t get me anywhere closer to a solution.
OK, long story: I was (still am) a huge fan of D-Links Boxee Box media player. Sadly it died a few years ago and I’ve been trying to replace it ever since. First problem is that android players have taken over the marked and they all suck. Like there isn’t possible to find any with something as simple as a dedicated play/pause button. In the end I bought a Google TV/Chromecast and it’s just awful. I actually like the Nova player well enough, but not on a box that needs rebooting every two weeks and doesn’t have a play button.
So when I bought a new TV I made sure to pick one with a good remote (Samsung) only to discover that HDMI-CEC only relays the direction-pad and not the play button. Seriously?
Next I bought a Pi4 but it’s not turning out any better. Both KODI and OSMC suffer from the same problems of having billion useless options cluttering up the UI while basic options seems to be missing (setting the watched flag or playing subtitles automatically for instance). The language keeps reverting to regional default (I prefer English).
I know there are many skins available, but there are no way of judging them except for trying them, and that gets old really fast. None of them seems to have the “10 feet user interface” I’m looking for.
So. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Or am I looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore?
I would say you are barking up the tree wrongly. It’s hard to identify your exact problems as I would say 99% of the topics you mentioned are not an issue and might just be a wrong config/usage.
- What’s your requirement to a 10 Foot GUI? And which of those are not fulfilled by OSMC?
- Watched Flag not set automatically? When? Movies in library or just source?
- Subtitle? Is your preferred Language the default in the movie?
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Fair enough. I’ll happily admit that I’m being difficult, but I just never expected having to fix this on my own. I mean, why oh why do everybody make remotes without a dedicated play/pause button? This shit was sorted out decades ago and now I have to build something from scratch? And I still can’t get it right.
1: Stuff like large readable fonts, not too much clutter or graphics. Right now I’m using Amber skin, it’s the only one I’ve found that’s even half decent. Maybe there are better skins but it’s hard to find when I just have to try them at random to see what’s what. But my issue really is with OSMC as the core UI seems to be the same.
2: Manually setting the flag on old items. I’m used to having a main window for the media where info, subtitles, and so on is handled.
3: I have downloaded subtitles for all movies (unless included in the mkv), usually the original language. Whether or not it will play these automatically seems to be a tossup.
Look, there is a lot to like here. It’s free, versatile and flexible. I like that I can remove menu items I don’t need. The skins provide a wide selection of interfaces and so on. So why does it keep on rubbing me the wrong way?
Maybe a better remote would help, being limited to the nav-pad is pitiful. Any way to fix this without buying a new remote?
Saumsung CEC implementation should work for the Play/Pause button. I can only suggest to reset the CEC (disconnect all devices from power for a few minutes) and try again. Otherwise might have to check CEC logs.
But yes buying an OSMC remote is the other solution
That sounds like the OSMC Skin
Your words are confusing, what is your issue with the OSMC Skin?
You go to your movies and there you have the menu to toggle the watched flag. You also easily can map a remote key for it.
Saumsung CEC implementation should work for the Play/Pause button.
Well it doesn’t. Not for Google TV, or Kodi/OSMC on the RPi4. This might be a Samsuck issue, so fine. I knew I should have bought an LG.
Otherwise might have to check CEC logs.
Let me guess. This requires command line and will in the end not work because I haven’t installed some stupid library nobody talks about?
But yes buying an OSMC remote is the other solution
I know, but not unless I can sort out the other bugs.
That sounds like the OSMC Skin
That’s what I was led to believe also, but alas. It feels like it was designed for a PC.
You go to your movies and there you have the menu to toggle the watched flag.
Really? Where? I push the center button and I get options over two lines. One is for the play options, the one over has subtitles, bookmarks, “i” which does nothing and video settings.
Understandable, I’m not getting anywhere either.
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Regarding CEC, every particular TV supports forwarding certain buttons and not others. There is nothing any external playback device can do about that. If your TV supports forwarding a button then OSMC/Kodi can be made to do most anything you want to do with that button (via keymappiimng, and not necessarily via command line). If CEC doesn’t get you to your happy place then the options usually are if your TV remote can do universal remote functions (or you just use a universal remote instead) then you can get an IR Receiver for your RPi and control it that way, or you can purchase a remote with a USB dongle like the OSMC remote. A major benefit of the OSMC remote is that it has been modified in Kodi so its button layout is extremely tailored to Kodi. The buttons all do what you would expect them to do out of the box, and there is other tweaks as well. For example you wanted an easy way to set watched status, with the OSMC remote you just hold down the play button and it toggles the watched/unwatched status, easy as.
As for the subs you just need to look at the settings, or perhaps just look at this forum a bit as I know I explained this to someone else a few days back. Kodi will do what you want, you just need to dig through the settings to configure everything to your preferences.
As for your skin issue I would try OSMC and Estuary again but looking at a few things you may not have noticed. With the OSMC skin look at the skin settings in Kodi’s settings. There is quite a few things you can tweak which may get you closer to your ideal. The other thing to look at is when you navigate into a library view, navigate to the side (which side depends on view but usually left) to bring up the slide-out menu, and try different viewtypes.
The fact is that Kodi (the open source media player that is running on OSMC) has a ton of options and flexibility to do most things anyone would ever want their media player to do. Some options can be a bit hard to find but most can be figured out by googling “Kodi” followed by some relevant keywords.
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You can select which sub plays - I’d maybe look at Kodi wiki