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?
No, Jellyfin has a server backend which manages the media and serves it up to the client frontends which support most modern operating systems like Windows, Linux and Android. See https://jellyfin.org/ for details.
I’d ditch the HTPC, and go for an Android based media player like the Shield, no moving parts, no keyboard/mouse and rarely requires an update. Had a HTPC for many years and anytime I wanted to watch something I had to mess about with it first before it would play.