I have a WebDav server that contains some movies and shows. I use Infuse on Apple stuff and NOVA Video Player on Android to watch these. The directory is not organized, file names aren’t manually adjusted, and the movies and shows are mixed together. Yet, both of these programs are able to index recursively, get metadata, create a library and let me watch my media without issues.
Kodi, on the other hand, seems to be unable to index nested directories, requires you to tell it what type of media is in the individual directories and cannot identify anything correctly unless I go and manually rename directories/files. It also is exclusive for TV usage and not very suitable for desktop.
So, are there alternative programs to Kodi, ideally better suited to desktop usage or extensions I can install to make it work properly?
Fair play - it’s good that there’s choice and if it works for you, great. I also totally get the fun of building something yourself.
The local storage is a big one if you don’t have a nas or home server on the network. Although, if you’re linked into the *arrs then I would think most people already do. It’s nice when new episodes just turn up automagically in Jellyfin.
I tried Kodi before but I found the commercialisation of it very jarring. Jellyfin is entirely free - your fifth point might give it extra credit for that. The Jellyfin app doesn’t (afaik) feed any info to anyone, but you do need to load it from the Amazon fire menu, so you can’t entirely skip their advertising. It is the only thing I use the fire stick for, and the price is cheap compared to anything else - it cost £25 and works on any TV. Being a dongle, there’s no noise either.
Kodi isn’t commercialised. I’m not sure what you’re referring to. It’s open source and always has been.
I also have the *arrs running on that same box so new episodes appear automatically. They require a browser or other client, so I didn’t include it in my list. They just run in the background.