Bung Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ - You'll be pleasantly surprised I think.

Downside is... 99% of raspberry pi cases are really ugly :(

It may be better with III but with a Raspberry Pie II XBMC/Kodi is quite slow and a bit laggy.

Personally, I switch to an Intel NUC with a fanless akasa case, and aside from the occasional Lodi crash it works relatively well.

It's not particularly great with the Pi III either. I have one, and I find it's under powered for the "media server" role. Especially, if more than one person connects. I like it for lots of other things, but this isn't one of them.

Ah I use my mine as a playback front end only, pulling media from a NAS. I guess that's a different use case really.

Just stick the Pi to the back of your TV with some self-adhesive PCB risers. No case required.

That's what I do.

Am I the only one though that uses the Pi with a (Synology) NAS with MySQL (MariaDB) to store the Kodi data, and my NAS (NFS) for the content? you can pick up where you left off from your Pi, to your laptop, or Phone.

I know...it's like Plex in architecture.

As for the remote, CEC will let you control Kodi from your TV's remote. Or if you have seperate audio, like a soundbar or AV receiver, a harmony remote will do.

What do you use as a remote? Also does RP+Kodi do Netflix/Amazon/HBO etc. streaming in a nice way?

Some options besides CEC over HDMI:

- Amazon FireTV remote (connects via Bluetooth)

- Logitech F710 (if you also run RetroPie, connects via USB)

https://retropie.org.uk/ is a great emulation system for several vintage consoles (80's-early 2000's).

With a Rpi over HDMI you can use your remote on most tvs if they support the CEC standard.

No and that’s the issue. Works great for your local / NAS media. Lots of plugins for all sorts of things, except, Netflix, Amazon, XM. I still use the TV apps for that.

There’s a Netflix plugin that uses the directory structure on Kodi for v18.

Thanks, I have seen and tried it. It’s still not GA and quite buggy. Not at a level I can hand over to my family for use.

Wife and I use the Kore app. Less likely to forget where my phone is than a dedicated remote. Handy to have the youtube plugin and share a video to kodi from that app too.

Kodi supports network remotes among other types. You can just install a kodi remote app on your phone.