Kodi

Kodi is designed for enjoying a personal collection of films, television programmes, music and other media from a comfortable interface.

Unlike a traditional desktop media player, Kodi is intended to be usable from a distance and therefore works particularly well on a television or a computer connected to a large screen.

Media can be arranged in libraries rather than being presented only as folders and filenames. Information about films, television series and music can be displayed in an attractive interface.

Kodi supports local files as well as media stored elsewhere on a home network. Its interface can also be extended and customised.

Why we selected it

Kodi approaches multimedia from a different direction than VLC. VLC is excellent when you want to open a particular media file quickly. Kodi becomes interesting when the computer itself is intended to function as a complete entertainment centre. For a living-room PC or a well-organised personal media archive, Kodi provides an unusually polished open source solution.