Using Linux as Local Server for Streaming Movies Using Kodi

hello everyone.

I've been having such a good time with this i think I will just document it out for you guys. Kodi is amazing as a video player. It will auto search the movie title from databases and add all information about them for you.



I just sort all my movie files in folders like so



Kodi scans the folder and does the rest. I do have to make sure there are no extra files besides subtitle files and video files. otherwise it will show doubles in Kodi.

I have 200+ Movies
50+ Tv Series some with 19+ seasons! (South park...) lol

Gives you genre, director, writer, first aired, description about the movie/tv show and lots more! how long it is, visual quality, sound quality.. Just so much more information on screen compared to all other media players. Kodi exceeds them by far!

HOW TO:

1. First things first, you need a server/computer to use as the host for the files.


2. Install Samba onto Ubuntu. this will make it able to connect to all other devices. Windows, kodi, other linux systems, etc.

3. Make a mount point for your media server. I chose /srv/media
a lot of people just recommended using srv as it works with a lot of other things on ubuntu's side. sooo. just follow. My other folder is business name.

4. Open Kodi, click "Movies" >> "Add Videos..."

5. From here you will just direct kodi to find the videos on your server. From windows I had to map the network drive out or it wouldn't work. On my android box, i did have to manually type //SERVER/SRV/MEDIA

6. Now I would go into the settings and change it so it updates on startup ever time. I add movies constantly, so it's nice when i load up, it loads all new content i've added.

7. If you change the labels on anything and some things just aren't in your library anymore, go into settings and find "Clean up library" it will delete old links.

8. You have a movie / tv show in the folder but kodi isn't finding it. Okay, so basically the movie isn't labeled right, or kodi isn't understanding the label on it or imdb or tvdb doesn't have that movie / tv show on their database. try renaming the movie file first so kodi can see it and understand it better. I've run into that problem quite a few times.

If you guys have any further questions, please feel free to shoot me a message! i've been doing this for quite some time now, and the family just loves it.

Hope this helps! Thanks!