Embedded Files
by Ryan Vagabundo
If you're old enough to remember the '80s and '90s you may remember the "black boxes" you could get some sheisty cable guys to hook you up with, you would slip them a few 20s and they would hook up a device that bypassed cable security and let you access any channel on the basic cable package.
Well, an Amazon FireStick with Kodi and Exodus installed is pretty much the modern internet equivalent. But it doesn't involve hacking the hotel or motel cable system. Instead, it just hooks you up to various online networks that have pretty much whatever shows or movies you want on demand.
You can do this with a computer, phone or tablet too. But I recommend a dedicated FireStick for this for a couple of reasons. One is that you don't have to worry about it getting hacked. The other is that, unless you use a VPN service, your IP address will be out there and visible. That probably won't end up being a big deal, but once in a blue moon some media company gets a wild hair up its butt and decides to track down some end users who are streaming "unauthorized" content to hit them with big fines and try and make an example out of them. FireSticks are pretty cheap and its a cheap way to cover your ass, plus your computer or phone isn't tied up with streaming while you want to watch whatever.
Anyway, here's how the whole thing works.
1) Get A FireStick
So I've noticed over the past five years or so of travel that just about every hotel and motel, even the budget chains and the little mom-and-pop places, have upgraded to more modern TVs that have an HDMI port or two in the back.
FireStick is a little dongle thingy that plugs into that port. Switch to HDMI input on the TV, and you've got a little streaming device that connects to WiFi (or Bluetooth to stream stuff directly from your computer / phone / tablet) to operate through it.
You can do a bunch of stuff with it out of the box. It has a little web browser and virtual keyboard so you can surf the internet, and you can connect to Amazon's app store to install various apps for it. There are a bunch of free TV apps like Pluto.tv and you can also install the apps for streaming services like YouTube and such.
It has a world of functionality beyond that, though, and we're going to use it to tap into the sort of TV and movies you usually have to subscribe to paid services to get to.
You can buy FireSticks from all sorts of stores, but they tend to always be about $40 unless it's Black Friday or some other big sale is on. Naturally the main source is Amazon themselves, and probably the best option for long-term travelers as you can have it delivered to one of their pickup boxes that are all over the place now. It comes packed with a remote you use to control it.
2) Install Kodi
Kodi is software that has taken an odd journey from being the Xbox Media Center (for the original Xbox back in 2002) to an open source media player that works on pretty much every device.
The main function of it is to play pretty much any type of media file, and it draws on an online database of box covers and metadata and such that has been built over nearly two decades. That's pretty cool on its own, but we're interested in the "extended functionality."
We want to connect to what's called a "repository" that stores add-ons for Kodi; in this case, one that stores shows and movies.
Unfortunately, while Kodi is available through Google's app store for Android, Amazon doesn't make it available through their own bastardized app store. So it has to be loaded onto the Firestick an alternate way.
Fortunately, that's pretty simple. Just follow these instructions at Tom's Hardware.
3) Install Exodus Redux
In Kodi, go to Settings > System Settings and enable "Unknown Sources."Back up and go to File Manager, then "Add Source."
Click "none" and type in https://i-a-c.github.io/
Enter "redux" with the keyboard in the "media source" box.
Return to the main screen and go to Add-ons > Install from ZIP file.
Click on redux and then the repository.exodusredux file.
You should get a "success" message when it completes.
Under "Install From Repository", click Exodus Redux Repo.
Under "Video add-ons", click Exodus Redux and then Install. Click OK to installing additional and dependent files.
You should get another "success" message, when you return to the main screen you should now have the option to launch Exodus Redux from the home screen.
Exodus Redux isn't the only option of this nature, you can poke around and find even more stuff to connect to in this way. But it's the best place to start for movies and newer TV shows as it's the most stable service with the biggest selection.
Enjoy!
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