Free TV and Music for Amazon Prime users. KODI

[Shorty]

I do a lot of shopping on Amazon, so it is worth it for me to belong to Amazon Prime, (About 100 bucks a year) to get free shipping on many items. With family scattered all over, it makes holiday and birthday shopping for the grandkids much easier. Along with the shipping, you get access to lots of music and TV shows, movies. NOT trying to sell Amazon, but if you have it, you know of what I speak. They sell a little thumb drive that goes into the HDMI port on your TV (or laptop). It comes with a little remote, and it is called Fire Stick. This controls your Amazon TV viewing, and it has apps for games, Netflix, etc.   I found an app which allows you to get additional free programming. Music from all over the world, tons of movies both old and some that still play new in theatres. The quality varies greatly from crap to HD, you just have to look around.

This may be old news to the tech savvy folks, but it was a revelation to me. I have been watching and listening to a wide variety of stuff.  Anyway , here is the link to a Youtube video with instructions to install KODI. (A friend also installed it on his smart phone) There are a few steps to it, so I took my laptop to the TV room to follow the instructions step by step.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIxeEmtSXac

[Sheepdog]

Thanks, Shorty.

[Triple Jim]

You're right, and the programming can be good.  I assume Amazon Prime video and audio can be configured on a variety of devices.  We get it through our Roku, which we already had for streaming video.

[ITSec]

Most modern BluRay/DVD players, HD televisions, and so on can receive many of these services - Netflix being most often supported, with Roku, Hula and Amazon often also available. The HDMI mini-plugins are useful if your device doesn't get the service you want, but a little time exploring your owner's manuals and remote control might save you a few bucks.

[Randown]

I do a lot of shopping on Amazon, so it is worth it for me to belong to Amazon Prime, (About 100 bucks a year) to get free shipping on many items. With family scattered all over, it makes holiday and birthday shopping for the grandkids much easier. Along with the shipping, you get access to lots of music and TV shows, movies. NOT trying to sell Amazon, but if you have it, you know of what I speak. They sell a little thumb drive that goes into the HDMI port on your TV (or laptop). It comes with a little remote, and it is called Fire Stick. This controls your Amazon TV viewing, and it has apps for games, Netflix, etc.   I found an app which allows you to get additional free programming. Music from all over the world, tons of movies both old and some that still play new in theatres. The quality varies greatly from crap to HD, you just have to look around.

This may be old news to the tech savvy folks, but it was a revelation to me. I have been watching and listening to a wide variety of stuff.  Anyway , here is the link to a Youtube video with instructions to install KODI. (A friend also installed it on his smart phone) There are a few steps to it, so I took my laptop to the TV room to follow the instructions step by step.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIxeEmtSXac

What ITSec said above ^^^. The Firestick is a popular / easy way for the masses to use Kodi & they are sold on ebay loaded & ready to use BUT Kodi is FREE - you can download & load up a FREE video package & WATCH on your device, laptop, pc or whatever. If you want to watch on your BIG screen TV attach via HDMI.

It's not perfect, streaming can be choppy on popular content or fail to connect but it is FREE after all. With the exception of streaming & an OTA antenna my TVs are unplugged, I use it to watch live motocross / supercross races & occasional movie - a lot to choose from many are recent.

[Triple Jim]

Not being familiar with Kodi, I just went to the Kodi site and read a little.  In case others are similarly unfamiliar:

"Kodi� (formerly known as XBMC�) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android... 

 ...IMPORTANT:  The official Kodi version does not contain any content whatsoever. This means that you should provide your own content from a local or remote storage location, DVD, Blu-Ray or any other media carrier that you own. Additionally Kodi allows you to install third-party plugins that may provide access to content that is freely available on the official content provider website."

So Kodi, by itself, is a system to play video on computers and phones, and nothing more.