Linux Finally Getting XBMC

B47h0ry'5 CuR53 writes "XBMC is getting ported to Linux. A few developers of Team-XBMC have begun the porting of XBMC to Linux using OpenGL and the SDL toolkit. In this effort, they are recruiting developers. XBMC is, by far, one of the finest projects to come out of the open source community; and to think it is homebrew. XBMC is a massive project, with the current SVN branch weighing about 350M before compilation. Porting it will be a big effort and any hackers willing to contribute should check out the Linux port project."

Comments

What is XBMC?

[KingSkippus]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries. Since it wasn't mentioned, XBMC is the Xbox Media Center, an open source media center project to play images and videos of various formats and from various sources, such as streaming from your PC or even the Internet, on your Xbox 360. It will let you use your Xbox 360 kind of like a beefed-up and free Apple TV

Sounds pretty cool, but it does require that you mod your Xbox 360, and Microsoft has been banning modded Xboxes from their Xbox Live service. I'm not saying do it or don't do it, just that before you get too excited and start downloading stuff, you ought to know that as part of your decision.

Because, you know, allowing people to improve your product for free by adding a ton of useful functionality, customizing the thing they've laid out a not-insignificant amount of hard-earned cash for to better suit their needs must be stopped at all costs. After all, it might cost you a few bucks in not selling movies that people already own to them again.

Re:What is XBMC?

[PorkNutz]

Correction, XBMC is for the original Xbox, not the Xbox360

Re:What is XBMC?

[jonwil]

Actually, I believe XBMC is for the first XBOX. I don't think homebrew is possible on the 360 unless you can somehow get a certain firmware version onto your 360 (without ever having something later that blows the hardware fuses and prevents a downgrade)

Re:What is XBMC?

[cabinetsoft]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries.

That would ruin the moderation system making "Informative" inutile.

Re:What is XBMC?

[gmack]

XBMC is the only reason I bought an XBOX and I spend far more time using the media functions than I do playing games so I don't care from being banned from XBOX live (which I never use anyways)

Re:What is XBMC?

[morgan_greywolf]

Sounds pretty cool, but it does require that you mod your Xbox 360

It's been slashdotted, but from what I did read, it seems like the Linux version doesn't necessarily require an Xbox? Wouldn't this put it at odds with projects like MythTV?

Re:What is XBMC?

[yakumo.unr]

XBMC existed before the xbox360, and still hasn't been ported.

You can be kicked off live for a modded xbox just like an modded 360, but from what I've read the switch boxes work pretty well, and anyway plenty of people buy them as a cheep media box and never even attempt to hook them up for Live at all.

Re:What is XBMC?

[maniac/dev/null]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries.

What, you mean as a nerd you don't automatically know about every project on every platform everywhere? So you have no idea about the developments made by the TTMH team, or the ramifications of Project Windmill? What about your take on the social issues associated with the QRML?

You don't even follow the news enough to understand a project that only runs on a modified version of an outdated hardware platform and does the same job and dozens of other far more powerful systems and commercial products?!? Turn in you nerd card, sir!

Re:What is XBMC?

[twistedsymphony]

That's right XBMC is for the Xbox 1 NOT the Xbox 360.

From what I've heard part of the reason they're working on a Linux port is so that they can have this fine software running on the Xbox 360 (seeing as it's possible to run Linux on a limited number of Xbox 360 consoles) as well as the PS3 which can run Linux out of the box.

I've been using XBMC at home for years now and it really is fantastic and gets frequent and useful updates. Here's hoping that a Linux port will not only provide us with LEGAL binaries (being homebrew on the Xbox 1 means that the binaries are technically illegal) but support for some video capture devices and DVR/PVR functionality... which IMO was the only major feature missing from XBMC as it wasn't possible using the Xbox 1's too slow for video v1.1 USB ports.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Ant P.]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries. Since it wasn't mentioned, XBMC is the Xbox Media Center, an open source media center project to play images and videos of various formats and from various sources, such as streaming from your PC or even the Internet, on your Xbox 360. It will let you use your Xbox 360 kind of like a beefed-up and free Apple TV

All it takes to avoid looking like an idiot is to use some common sense and hover over the first word of the summary.

Re:What is XBMC?

[russ1337]

It's been slashdotted, but from what I did read, it seems like the Linux version doesn't necessarily require an Xbox? Wouldn't this put it at odds with projects like MythTV?

I'm not sure if XBMC provides recording and playback for live TV? Or you'd at least need the tuners/capture cards on a remote backend.

There is a thing called "Project Grayhem" which lets you skin your Mythtv like the Project Mayhem skin on XBMC. If you're into that kind of thing....

Re:What is XBMC?

[SydShamino]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries.

Though in this case, if you just mouse over the first link in the summary, you see that it leads to xboxmediacenter.com. There's no need to even follow the link to see what it stands for.

No, I didn't know what it meant until then.

Re:What is XBMC?

[grub]

XBMC is the only reason I bought an XBOX and I spend far more time using the media functions than I do playing games so I don't care from being banned from XBOX live (which I never use anyways)

Ditto!

XBMC rocks. It chokes badly though on x.264 or other HD video because of the XBOX's wimpyish hardware. This might replace our current Mythdora setup (used only for HD movie playback) as XBMC is very 'wife friendly'.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't moved up to hovering yet. I'm still working on basic levitation.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Balthisar]

Double ditto. I played a couple of games a little bit when I first bought my Xboxes, but that was just out of curiosity's sake.

KnoppMyth backend, Xbox front ends, and I'm all set. Well, except for high resolution video. But you -- the Xbox upsamples reasonably well.

Re:What is XBMC?

[MikeBabcock]

I've become addicted to being able to watch actual HD content from my PS3's XMB and now over the network with DLNA.

Anyone else notice that Sony this round is actually going with standards compliance? HDMI connector (not just some proprietary one), DLNA for A/V streaming, USB for connectors/devices, S-ATA user-replaceable hard drive, right down to their software development (OpenGL, GNU tools, etc.).

I'm impressed, although I'm sure some anti-Sony rant will follow this.

Re:What is XBMC?

[brouski]

You say that like it's a bad thing. Competition is good!

Re:What is XBMC?

[brouski]

As we see here, nothing can whip a nerd into a frenzy more than an acronym he doesn't understand.

Re:What is XBMC?

[twistedsymphony]

yeah I did notice that actually. You can extend that standards compliance to bluetooth devices like headsets, as well as flash media, wi-fi, etc.

I really like that direction and the PS3 makes a great media device for those reason IMO. I'd own one except I don't need a media device and there's nothing on the console yet that excites me as a game machine.

The number of people looking for a media device and game machine wrapped into one at a price to reflect that I would suspect is much smaller then the number of people looking for just a media device or just a game machine and not wanting to pay for things they don't need.

Re:What is XBMC?

[sootman]

Also, used original XBoxes can be had for $50-100, so if you want XBMC *and* Xbox live, it's cheap enough to just buy another.

Re:What is XBMC?

[rikkards]

The one thing that really annoys me about XBMC though is that opening an MP3 Playlist it will parse it every single time.

Re:What is XBMC?

[jgoemat]

All it takes to avoid looking like an idiot is to use some common sense and hover over the first word of the summary.

What does it take to avoid looking like a dick? I'm probably asking the wrong person...

Of course hovering over the first link in an article and looking at the url in the bottom of the browser (which could have simply been "http://www.xbmc.com" but still only tells you "xboxmediacenter") is much simpler than reading a one-sentence description in the article. Heck, why even have sentences, just make articles a list of links...

Re:What is XBMC?

[billcopc]

As everyone else pointed out, XBMC is for the original Xbox. I've been using it for years, and I absolutely love it. I use it to stream videos from a Samba server, which is how I can leave my DVDs in a storage locker while still having access to 450+ movies without getting my fat ass off the couch. It also handles music and photos, though I've never used the photo features but I do occasionally play Shoutcast streams with it on the big stereo.

One of the nice things about XBMC is its skinning capabilities. It has had Mac-like style and flair for years, making PC-based media players look old and boring. Considering that XBoxes can be found for less than $100 including a remote, it's cheaper and more reliable than any half-decent DivX-enabled DVD player. Even 720p high-def plays fine with most source formats, and plays smoothly on the puny little CPU since most of the video processing is done by the GPU.

Re:What is XBMC?

[drinkypoo]

From what I've heard part of the reason they're working on a Linux port is so that they can have this fine software running on the Xbox 360 (seeing as it's possible to run Linux on a limited number of Xbox 360 consoles) as well as the PS3 which can run Linux out of the box.

Another possible motivation is departing from using the XDK. As you may or may not know the XDK (Xbox Development Kit) is not publicly available and thus the XBMC team does not distribute binaries, but only source code. Then various groups with illicit copies of the XDK compile this code into the XBMC that we know and love. You have to know where to go to get it, et cetera. In addition, to even run it you either need it to either be signed, which is only done by Microsoft, or to have a hacked Xbox. In order to run unsigned Xbox (XDK) programs on the Xbox, you need a hacked BIOS. And these are by definition modified copies of the original BIOS, which are in turn illegal to distribute, and possibly to create or possess (depending on how valid the Xbox EULA is.) Work proceeds on an Open XDK replacement, but it's not up to most tasks yet.

However, it is possible to run Linux on the Xbox using an alternative BIOS known as Cromwell. This is an entirely Free/free solution, and is completely legal. You can flash it to the system in the same way as you would any other BIOS, so if you have an early Xbox you can do the internal TSOP reflash and you don't even need a modchip.

(Pardon my linkage; might as well make some links for posterity, and they support my argument) :)

Anyway, HTPC, Xbox 360 (and Playstation 3!) compatibility were probably the primary goals. But it also has a dandy side-benefit.

There is however still no legal way to do DVD menus (at least in the USA.)

Re:What is XBMC?

[multisync]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries

I used to tell myself this is a geek site, if I don't know what an acronym stands for I should look it up myself yada yada etc etc. Then I see this story yesterday about "altruism," and the submitter bothered to give us a definition of that word (I'm pretty sure it was the submitter; I didn't see the definition in the linked article).

Completely off topic with this but it struck me as funny that we're expected to know every obscure acronym under the Sun but apparently need to have the concept of altruism explained to us.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Type-E]

It's for xbox 1 and it can be softmodded with a "splinter cell" Live will bang your machine, but I got my used xbox off ebay for $80 and have straightly use it for xbmc.

Re:What is XBMC?

[drew]

It will let you use your Xbox 360 kind of like a beefed-up and free Apple TV

XBOX 360: $299
Apple TV: $299

Where is this "free" you speak of? If I could a 360 for free, I might actually get one.

Re:What is XBMC?

[KUHurdler]

Triple Ditto

This really should have been a poll I guess.

Re:What is XBMC?

[rockstar1o9]

Does this mean we may get to see MythTV integrated into XBMC? The two working together sounds like the ultimate media center to me.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Bob-taro]

Heck, why even have sentences, just make articles a list of links...

Excuse me while I go register:

• www.insovietrussia.com
• www.iforonewelcomeournew.com
• www.imagineabeowulfclusterofthese.com
• www.butdoesitrunlinux.com

Re:What is XBMC?

[treeves]

"Inutile"? Is that Italian or something? Please inform me so I can mod you up.

Re:What is XBMC?

[ottothecow]

In the dorm right now, my xbox is connected to the network running XBMC with a 5inch PSone screen attached to it in the bathroom.

It's used as an over-glorified shower radio right now but at home for the summers (and coming up in my apartment) it gets used connected to the TV. This lets me watch TV shows and other computer video content on a TV from a device that has GREAT video output for a TV (way better than the s-video connection on my laptop).

Re:What is XBMC?

[cabinetsoft]

"Inutile"? Is that Italian or something?

inutile

Please inform me so I can mod you up.

Moderating and commenting on same story don't mix...

Your post is then... inutile?

Re:What is XBMC?

[nonsequitor]

Excellent analysis of the current situation regarding legality of the code. You left out that the XBOX lacks the processing power to handle 720p quality video (Xvid compressed), even though it is capable of output at that resolution. This among other things which have been accumulating just go to demonstrate that XBMC has outgrown the XBOX making a port desirable to best utilize the effort spent so far in development. A development effort which has been on going since the turn of the century. Waste not, Want not.

Re:What is XBMC?

[MikeBabcock]

As to the OpenGL aspect, drivers are not available for alternative OS's at this time (like Linux) which can be installed on the hardware, but USB works fine as does the hard drive (I'm running Ubuntu on my PS3, thank-you very much).

Writing software that runs from within Sony's XMB is another story; that requires a license (as with all game systems) but those who have such a license don't have to look up some strange new specification for their software at an API level -- that's what standards are for.

As for hardware support, I've plugged USB cameras, memory sticks and hard drives into my PS3 and all of them worked perfectly with no drivers from within the XMB. Blutooth devices are similarly seamless. Any 2.5" Serial-ATA hard drive can be installed and formatted within the PS3.

Are you done with the FUD now?

Re:What is XBMC?

[whoop]

You must be new here. Slashdot does nothing more than insert the phrase "_user_ writes: " in front of user submissions and submits them directly to the front page. You can't call them "editors" when they do nothing but repeat what some user submitted to them, verbatim, grammar, spelling, punctuation errors and all. Don't expect them to go so far as to verify, fact-check, further research any topic, also. There are more and more submissions that are just random user blogs with things like, "I think XYZ is a conspiracy. Company XYZ needs to stop it."

Re:What is XBMC?

[treeves]

No, more of a poor attempt at humor.

Re:What is XBMC?

[cabinetsoft]

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries.

That would ruin the moderation system making "Informative" inutile.

"Inutile"? Is that Italian or something?

inutile [princeton.edu]

Please inform me so I can mod you up.

Moderating and commenting on same story don't mix...

No, more of a poor attempt at humor

So your shot for "funny" didn't work, it seems neither my shot for informative quoting the dictionary and explainging the moderation system didn't... that's it, i'm moving to digg!

Re:What is XBMC?

[KingSkippus]

Free, as in no incremental cost if you already own an Xbox for gaming that you're willing to mod. ;-)

(Unlike the Apple TV, which you very unlikely own unless you're using it for this specific purpose.)

And I accidentally misidentified the project as being for the 360 instead of the original Xbox, which you can actually get pretty dirt cheap these days.

Re:What is XBMC?

[aztracker1]

I kind of wish the LinuxMCE, MythTV and XBMC developers could all work together, it would be nice to have LinuxMCE's interface with XBMC features, and MythTV's TVR functionality... imho XBMC and LinuxMCE have nicer interfaces, LinuxMCE seems to have pretty good linux integration, but XBMC has all those nice emulators, and functionality built in nicely... I only wish my nVidia TV capture cards had support under linux... :( Been holding out for an HD solution that will work with subscription though... I don't mind windows mce, but would prefer an open solution.

Re:What is XBMC?

[bberens]

Yeah, the guest operating systems (like your linux) run within a virtual machine which does not allow access to the higher end graphics capabilities of the PS3.

Re:What is XBMC?

[ookabooka]

I don't think homebrew is possible on the 360 . . .
Yah it is: XNA

Re:What is XBMC?

[ookabooka]

You don't even follow the news enough to understand a project that only runs on a modified version of an outdated hardware platform and does the same job and dozens of other far more powerful systems and commercial products?!?

The modded xbox costs what now, maybe $150? With it (modded) you can play SNES, Genesis, N64 games. Not to mention xbox games. If that wasn't enough now comes XBMC. My roomates and I ALWAYS use XBMC to watch movies from our computers, we just leave the xbox plugged into the network and watch the movies right from our windows share. I have yet to run into a codec that won't run on XBMC, and the picture/sound quality is top-notch. Once I had a movie that was spread across a zillion rar files, I thought I'd have to go back to my computer and extract them, but no, just select the first rar file in XBMC and you can play it right there, over the network. It doesn't extract to a temp directory or anything, it seamlessly plays across a series of rar files. I can listen to my mp3's (over the network) with some very trippy visualizations, or listen to shoutcast instead. I can watch youtube too. I'm sure there are even more features I am not aware of. It turned my little console in a machine that fills dozens of niches. XBMC is one of my favorite open source programs. Ofcourse credit is also due to the folks at Mplayer and other GPL projects XBMC glued together in their app. It's just one of those things where once you have it you have no idea how you lived without it.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Sancho]

Ok, now I gotta ask: where is the content coming from (downloaded from Sony? home file server?) And can the PS3 upscale SD DVDs to 1080i/p? Is the interface decent?

I've been pondering my media setup lately, and came to the conclusion that my XBox is no longer suitable for my media needs. I'd been toying with the idea of getting an XBox 360 and finding a good way to stream media to it (currently, I think that the only options are Win/Mac, neither of which I have.) I recently discovered other possibilities , however I'm still leaving my options open. The 360/PS3 would be nice in that the device would also play games, and be a portal to HD media, but both solutions are around twice the price of the standalone players I linked to.

Re:What is XBMC?

[BigFootApe]

And can the PS3 upscale SD DVDs to 1080i/p?

It can now.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070524-sony s-newest-update-adds-720p-blu-ray-support-and-upsc aling-capabilities.html

Re:What is XBMC?

[iamacat]

The definition of an open standard is that a) Vendor A can create a product that works with another product from vendor B, without getting any special approval or secret information from B or anyone else and b) Vendor A's product will work with other/future products from vendor B or any other vendor that advertise compatibility with the same standard. Just being easier to learn by virtue of being similar to another system doesn't qualify as being standards-complaint if developers are locked out by secret keys.I can see how PS3 can claim an open standard for USB storage devices, but there is no openness whatsoever when it comes to accelerated 3D graphics or HD video output.

Re:What is XBMC?

[acroname]

Another Slashdot post with an unexplained acronym? I had to leave my RSS reader and log into Slashdot to investigate an xbox hack? And Slashdot is ad driven? I give - I never thought I'd drop it but now's the time.

Re:What is XBMC?

[BungaDunga]

Not quite true. You can run on a stock BIOS and run a program that patches it during boot. Not sure how that counts for legality, but it works very well and you don't need to open up the xbox at all.

Re:What is XBMC?

[Mr2001]

Modding your Xbox doesn't keep you from using Xbox Live, if you have a switchable mod chip or use a softmod.

Re:What is XBMC?

[drinkypoo]

Not quite true. You can run on a stock BIOS and run a program that patches it during boot.

Do you mean one of the buffer overflow exploits? There's the 007:AuF and the Mechassault holes.

Neither one of these is a self-starter, so it's okay for test-driving linux, but it's a pretty crap solution for day-to-day use.

Re:What is XBMC?

[BungaDunga]

No, I mean in particular nkpatcher: handmade ASM homebrew (no XDK), it tweaks the BIOS as it loads to allow unsigned and habibi-signed programs ro run, as well as enabling VGA output, and a few more things. The result is a softmod that acts just like a chipped xbox. I've got it set up on mine, it works very well.

Re:What is XBMC?

[drinkypoo]

But where does the mod load from?

Re:What is XBMC?

[BungaDunga]

There are Xbox dashboard exploits. My impression is that the font files are not signed and can be used to launch any arbitrary program, usually NKPatcher. You install the dashboard exploit with a game exploit, like MechAssault. I'm not sure on the details, there are all sorts of interesting information to be found on the Xbox Scene forums.

Re:What is XBMC?

[MikeBabcock]

The interface is the XMB from the PSP -- if you haven't seen it, just search 'xmb' on Google Video or Youtube.

Media can be streamed over the network (doing it myself) as of the last firmware update, or can be stored on the hard drive, or on a USB-attached device, or on a flash card in one of the slots.

High definition media can be your own rips or downloaded from Sony, but is restricted to stereo audio it would appear (no dolby digital / dts passthrough on audio). This would be my only major complaint (I like good audio in my recorded shows), but otherwise it works very well.

Re:What is XBMC?

[MikeBabcock]

This is a frivolous argument (as you've ignored several of my 'open' remarks and only focus on 3D and video here -- I assume you're giving in on the other points), but that said, you're still wrong. HDMI is not a standard for the software to use, but one for interconnects. Sony COULD still just use their proprietary AV connector (which is included on the PS3, PS2, etc.) and force you to pay $60+ to connect a PS3 to your TV or stereo system, but they don't -- HDMI allows you to connect a PS3 to any STANDARDS COMPLIANT HDMI device (that's what standards are for) for both audio and video, or any STANDARDS COMPLIANT digital audio receiver via TOSLink.

Open standards aren't the same as "open source", I wish the PS3 were an "Open Hardware" device, but its not. It is however very standards compliant which is good both for consumers and for other hardware and software companies.

Re:What is XBMC?

[drinkypoo]

I've heard of font exploits, but I thought they were patched in later versions of the dashboard, which means any Xbox used [relatively] recently for Live should fail... But I could and have been been wrong :)

PS3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this is so that it will run on the PS3.

This is great!

[Vr6dub]

I'm glad to see this happen. I'm not a Linux user but I have used XBMC on the Xbox. I really appreciate its grown up style compared to the 360 interface. Plus all the other great things XBMC is capable of. Would it be possible to make it run and boot from a flash drive? With sizes getting larger and larger it would be pretty cool to carry a mini media center around with you.

Re:This is great!

[svendsen]

I dunno I find the 360's interface pretty easy to use. Have a media center PC nearby and the 360 can use the MCE GUI for videos/movies/etc and is very slick.

My fiancé finds both very easy to use and find stuff and can get to her favorite Xbox live game (Worms) very easily and start a game with her friend across the country without my help.

Finaly?

[FinchWorld]

Hasn't XBMC (And for a brief time XBMP, before they merged) always been GPL (Or atleast some other open source license)? Nobody has stopped anyone from porting it. The only thing that has changed is that the XBMC team are starting to port some bits themselves to encourage more people to develop for XBMC.

Re:Finaly?

[speculatrix]

the source has always been GPL... the problem is that the tools for building are Microsoft proprietary (i.e. no gcc/g++), and therefore once you've built XBMC from source you're effectively violating MS's rights, and so the binaries are not downloadable except from "interesting" sources.

Re:Finaly?

[Trogre]

Which of Microsoft's rights have I violated? Their right to remain silent?

Perhaps you mean one of the nefarious terms written on the sheet of lavatory paper they called an EULA. Luckily they're not enforceable isn't it?

This just in!

[mw13068]

Update: XBMC decides to stop the port and says "screw Linux" after their Web server was reduced to a molten puddle by being slashdotted.

Re:This just in!

[pike2k]

LOFI press announcement that might work (our regular news is forum based, and well...) http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/XBMC_recruiting_dev elopers_for_Linux_port.html

LINUX ON ITS WAY TO TOP OF THE WORLD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Woohoo! Time to rejoice, this is a clear sign that Linux is heading to the top of the world. This is a major thing! Go grab a glass of champagne and rejoice!

Re:LINUX ON ITS WAY TO TOP OF THE WORLD!

[Stevecrox]

2007 is the year of Linux on the desktop

Some might say that Dell selling Linux machines caused it but no it was.....

XBMC!

Re:LINUX ON ITS WAY TO TOP OF THE WORLD!

[LordSnooty]

And anyone using their Xbox & XBMC on their desktop needs their heads examining! It goes under the TV.

Re:XBMC for all

[morgan_greywolf]

The biggest problem with speeds below 600-800 MHz or so is that is you're not likely to be able to stream SD-resolution media very smoothly (forget about HD-resolution). Maybe with a hardware MPEG board or something.

Re:XBMC for all

[91degrees]

Depends on the media format. My 350MHz P3 had a problem with some DivXs. A P2 will be able to play DVD rips and some other videos, and will have no trouble at all with audio.

Unfamiliar to XBMC? Checkout the Wikipedia article

[Gamester17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC "Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is an award-winning media player for the original Xbox game-console. XBMC can play music, play videos and display images from the Xbox's DVD drive, its internal hard-drive drive, a local network, USB flash drive, and the internet. It also functions as a replacement dashboard to launch Xbox games off the hard-disk drive. Other functions of XBMC include large metadata databases for music/video-file handling, displaying weather forecasts and TV guides, watching YouTube videos and apple.com movie trailers, listening to SHOUTcast and Podcasts streaming internet radio/video, also XBMC functions as a gaming platform by allowing users to play python-based mini-games and a free online-gaming alternative to Xbox Live. It is important to note that the software requires a modchip, softmod exploit or other means by which to execute on the Xbox as it is a homebrew application. XBMC is free and open source software, the source code is distributed under the GNU General Public License. The XBMC project is not produced or endorsed by Microsoft."

The article then goes on into more feature/function details, it is recommended reading ;)

XBMC

[Anonymous Coward]

It's XBox Media Center

It is really good, I am currently actualy watching an episode of house on my TV run off my xbox running XBMC :P

However I don't think porting it is a good idea, it simply isn't that special, the reason it is good is becasue it runs on the xbox, not anything else, when it is ported to linux and released into the wild with competition people will soon realise this isn't anything unique, it's main success is what it operates on. In my opinion these hackers would be far more productive working on a media center already coded for linux and making that better, personally i think this approach wastes time.

Re:XBMC

[BestNicksRTaken]

yeah, i'd probably agree with you here, mplayer and amarok can do what xbmc can do, but don't have a single interface.

i suspect that a lot of the point of porting it to linux is to run it on the ps3, and eventually on the xbox360, which is starting to boot linux, moreso than to run it under linux on regular pc's.

you could run it on a mac mini and get an appletv-killer - oh wait, apple are killing off the mini ;-p

the other thought is that it could be legit on the xbox1 by running it under linux on that, although linux+mythtv frontend is stupidly slow on xbox1.

a big barrier to entry is to developing xbmc is that you need visual studio 2003, 2005 won't work as the xdk doesn't work with it, and i think you need the pro/enterprise version too - certainly not express; and you can't legitimately get hold of the xdk (the foss version really never took off). gcc would be much nicer, lets face it, the xbox1 is just an x86 pc.

by running on top of linux you also gain things like a nfs client - xbmc has ftp/web/samba, but ssh server and nfs client would be great, damn even vnc would be cool!

of course you're going to lose things like the instant boot and no-hassle capabilities of just running on the xbox1, but gain performance and flexibility by running under linux.

get the xbox360 booting linux (kinda done) with xbmc2 on top and i'll buy an elite ;-)

Re:XBMC

[Gamester17]

Note! You do not need Visual Studio to develop XBMC for Linux, nor do you need the XDK (Xbox Development Kit), you do not even need Microsoft Windows. Those are only needed when you develop XBMC for Xbox.

If are are competent with C/C++ programming-language then all you need to start with developing XBMC for Linux (to help in the porting project) is a x86-based computer running Linux, (Ubuntu 7.04 is recommended). The software development tool used to develop XBMC under Linux is called Kdevelop, which is also free and open source.
http://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/ xbmc/branches/linuxport/XBMC/README.linux

Re:XBMC

[Sark666]

Hmm, I can't agree here. You talk as if there is a multitude of choices of all in one guis to access your media content on linux. Let's see there's mythtv and freevo (there's one other that's has had some development but the name escapes me). Myth is awesome, but the gui has always felt sluggish to me, whereas xbmc is responsive and fast as one would expect from a gui. And freevo, well I heard they have made some improvements, so I can't say currently, but when I tried it awhile back it felt pretty hacked together.

If someone wants to use some old hardware to hack together a media box, this sounds like the first choice and would be a welcome addition of options on linux. It would be a shame to let it gradually be left behind with the xbox 1 platform.

Re:XBMC

[BestNicksRTaken]

yeah, sorry forgot to make it clear that vs2003+xdk is only required for xbmc on xbox1, not the linux version, which uses gcc.

Re:XBMC

[slim]

However I don't think porting it is a good idea, it simply isn't that special, the reason it is good is becasue it runs on the xbox, not anything else I disagree. In combination with the Xbox remote, XBMC is hands down the best media player I've used on any platform. It has a better UI than TiVo! Thanks to XBMC I was able to retire my CD player and my DVD player. Most of my TV watching is now AVIs streaming off the net.

XBMC is the most reliable video player I have -- it plays pretty much anything, including stuff that Windows Media Player and Quicktime (both on Mac and PC) choke on. Obviously, I could run MPlayer on my PC, but with XBMC I get Mplayer ready built with every codec and extension under the sun.

Not only that -- plugins and scripts -- in XBMC, I can use a script to access BBC "listen again" audio, or live streaming radio, or YouTube.

Here's something that blew my mind: I'd been irritated for a while that sometimes after downloading a torrent, I'd have to unRAR it. Then one day, I noticed that XBMC would let me browse into the RAR, and play directly from there, unpacking on the fly. Brilliant.

And the point is - one day my Xbox hardware will fail. I'll want to keep using XBMC. Instead of buying a new Xbox 1, I'll be able to buy something more powerful. Maybe a quiet PC, maybe a 360, maybe a PS3, maybe something else. I'd expect to gain enough power to decode HD content. Maybe in future it will accept a DTV card and replace the TiVo. Sure, there are alternatives out there -- Freevo, MythTV, but staying with the same UI will keep me and my girlfriend in a comfort zone. This is nothing but good news.

About damn time...

[EvilNight]

Xbox Media Center is one of the best kept secrets in the programming world. After all, it only runs on the original Xbox, and while there is a healthy modding community that has been hacking them since release, it isn't exactly mainstream. It's been a crying shame that this exceptional media program has been tied to the original Xbox for so long, and I'm thrilled that it's being ported over to Linux and set free for everyone to use.

The killer feature of this program is *not* what it does. It's a very powerful and robust media player, certainly, but the true power comes from the user interface, which is simple, effective, straightforward and very pretty to look at (and fully skinnable). Anyone who has used a TiVo or similar television media interface should have no problems using XBMC. Now that it is no longer tied to the Xbox, it will be possible to create small form factor media center systems running linux and give them a truly excellent user interface.

The interface supports running external programs (in particular, games and game emulators), python scripting to handle writing widgets to interface with popular media sites like YouTube, file management, and streaming from nearly any source. It also works as an FTP/Samba/HTTP server to serve out whatever media is stored on the disk to other sources. There is a web interface for remote management. It'll work with USB joysticks and remote control as well as keyboards. There is a web browser but it's a bit hinky - I'm sure that someone will merge it with Firefox after it is ported.

If you're wondering why anyone would give a damn about the original Xbox or this program, the upshot is this... for $129 you could buy a P3 system (xbox), hack it with software exploits (fairly easily), install a hard disk up to 1TB in side to replace the original, and have a portable media player box that could hold hundreds of hours of content and play it back in 480p/720p/1080i and DTS. The price to do that with any computer was far higher at the time (and frankly still is, especially in setup time). I've been carting mine around for years and have had a great many friends request that I make one for them. I think I've done around thirty of them by now.

I think Microsoft/Sony completely missed the boat by overlooking this application for their gaming consoles. Either they just didn't see it or they don't like this behavior and see it as a liability of some kind. Either way, we won't be needing them much longer. A clever company could probably turn this into a killer set-top app with some business savvy. All it needs is a bit-torrent backend for sharing content with other users and connectivity to media sites, and you've got a TV channel killer on your hands and a new distribution network (if it ever gets big).

Re:About damn time...

[penp]

If you're wondering why anyone would give a damn about the original Xbox or this program, the upshot is this... for $129 you could buy a P3 system (xbox) Check.

hack it with software exploits (fairly easily) Check.

install a hard disk up to 1TB in side to replace the original Check. (I used a 300GB maxtor)

and have a portable media player box that could hold hundreds of hours of content and play it back in 480p/720p/1080i and DTS And then scream with terror after the hard drive you just filled with files from your PC via ftp dies, losing 200+gb of movies, roms, and other crap.

Don't let it happen to you! To be fair, I should have seen it coming, the hd being a maxtor and all.

Re:About damn time...

[poot_rootbeer]

install a hard disk up to 1TB in side to replace the original

Why bother? With the exception of a couple of console emulators, every XBMC application I've tried has had flawless support for Samba file sharing. I'd rather stick that 1TB drive in a desktop PC or network file server, and mount my video/game/music directories so they're accessible to any machine on the network, including the Xbox.

play it back in 480p/720p/1080i

Upscaled to 720p/1080i, it should be noted. The Xbox's CPU isn't quite powerful enough to decode most native HD content in realtime.

I think Microsoft/Sony completely missed the boat by overlooking this application for their gaming consoles.

I don't think they did; they just blew it on the implementation. There was an "Media Center Extender" package briefly available for the Xbox, which allowed the console to stream content off an XP MCE computer; the 360 has this capability built-in. But still you're limited to the content that Microsoft wants you to have access to; ideally, they want you buying it from the Xbox Marketplace.

XBMC has taken the approach that if you own the hardware, and you possess a copy of the content, you should be able to use them together however you want. And the result of this approach has been that XBMC is the best media center to yet exist.

Re:About damn time...

[Hatta]

The killer feature of this program is *not* what it does. It's a very powerful and robust media player, certainly, but the true power comes from the user interface, which is simple, effective, straightforward and very pretty to look at (and fully skinnable). Anyone who has used a TiVo or similar television media interface should have no problems using XBMC. Now that it is no longer tied to the Xbox, it will be possible to create small form factor media center systems running linux and give them a truly excellent user interface.

We already have that, it's called MythTV. What does XBMC have that MythTV doesn't?

Re:About damn time...

[multipartmixed]

Here's a question for ya.

Can I make the XBMC in my living room start playing MP3s based on what I type in my bed room?

Every "Media Center" I've ever seen wants me to "Share" the files, walk 50 feet, pick up the remote control, squint at my television to read what songs are there, select them, play them, and walk back to my bedroom. Frankly, it's annoying.

My current hack is a homebrew wsh script on an XP pro box, I dump MP3s over the network, it picks 'em up, plays 'em, and deletes 'em.

The only problem is when I want to send movies this way, it works, but it takes a while to copy a two hour movie from one computer to another.

What I'd REALLY like is, say, a display filter for media player. Then I could play the media in the bedroom, but have it DISPLAY in the livingroom.

Kind of like X, actually, except that I run Windows at home. And X doesn't do anything with sound.

Re:About damn time...

[EvilNight]

All of the media center implementation attempts I've seen others make fell flat for me as well. They always came off as a half baked idea that was never properly implemented, and in Microsoft's case, always tied to a windows box somewhere. The teams looking at them didn't see them the way we do. They've failed to understand their customers - a problem XBMC does not have.

The reason you'd do the 1TB thing is because it's portable and all you need is a TV to enjoy your entire DVD library (XBMC will play raw ISOs flawlessly). You can't touch that in a portable computer - the xbox has plenty of travel cases, rather like a suitcase for your data if you like. If you just want something for your own home that will never move, you can hack it and install this in under ten minutes flat from opening the box, and stream everything off of your own fileservers. If you don't need to replace the original 8-10gb disk, then 95% of the hacking (and the worst of it) goes completely away.

Of course, there are still plenty of format problems, mainly to do with that bass-ackwards bastardized semi-Fat12/16 filesystem. Max partition size of 256GB (the 257th wraps over the first, found that out the hard way), the 39.3 filename limitations, no defragmentation, slow access... it's hardly optimal. Once it is on linux we'll all be a lot better off.

Heh, xentoo runs fine on the xbox. When this port is solid I'll probably install xentoo on my xbox and use the linux port just to get away from all of the other limitations of the original xbox operating system.

Re:About damn time...

[Hatta]

If you want network transparency and scripting, why the hell are you using windows? Use the right tool for the job and you'll find that there's no end of solutions. You might find you'd like the Music Player Daemon or MythTV. Or enable X forwarding and run Amarok across the network. Or just ssh in and use mplayer.

And if you're seriously set on using Windows for this, why not enable file sharing and let the network transfer your MP3s on the fly?

Anyway, to answer your question, you can do this with FTP Site commands. There's also a web API but I haven't used it.

Re:About damn time...

[rbanffy]

Is there a good reason why the PS3's Linux does not have full access to the hardware beyond lack of proper documentation?

Re:About damn time...

[a_ghostwheel]

Well designed interface that my parents/wife/kids were able to use without a single explanation from me. You should try it and see the difference.

Re:About damn time...

[drinkypoo]

I haven't used MythTV, but XBMC is truly beautiful and the default skin is not only gorgeous but highly functional. Take a look at XBMC. It's really quite impressive. (I wonder if you could run it in an Xbox emulator, for a trial...)

Re:About damn time...

[Hatta]

What are you talking about? MythTV is dead simple to use. Might be a hassle to get set-up, but anyone that breathes should be able to use it.

Re:About damn time...

[EvilNight]

It happens. A good foam carrying case for an xbox runs about $25 at Toys-R-Us or similar places. It cuts down on the abuse while in your trunk. I never put anything on there I can't afford to lose.

My worst one was formatting my 750GB model as one huge 750GB F drive. The partition table starts looping back on itself at the 256GB mark, so I overwrote everything on the system by copying in new media. I broke the 1TB model up into C/E/F/G at 256GB each and the problem hasn't reappeared. That would be a pain to manage except that XBMC has a mode that hides the locations of files, making one large list from as many library locations as you specify. Kinda handy.

Re:About damn time...

[Hatta]

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original posting, but I've used both. In fact, I use XBMC now because I have an xbox hooked up to my TV anyway. If I were to use a linux box as suggested in TFA, I'd just use MythTV.

Re:About damn time...

[penp]

It happens. A good foam carrying case for an xbox runs about $25 at Toys-R-Us or similar places. It cuts down on the abuse while in your trunk. I never put anything on there I can't afford to lose. But I wasn't abusing it. It was normal use, just sitting by my TV, transferring files. I think I just ended up with a bad HD, which sucks, because I haven't had one die on me in ages (maybe I'm lucky?) 10gb is plenty of space for other homebrew programs to run off the xbox, anyway, and most of them support grabbing data via network, which is fine by me.

Re:About damn time...

[drinkypoo]

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original posting, but I've used both.

Actually, you were being deliberately obtuse, which is horribly annoying. I don't think I can be faulted for not understanding the truth...

Regardless, the benefit of XBMC on Linux over MythTV on Linux is supposedly the interface, but again, I haven't used Myth. I have an Xbox, but I don't have a HTPC. And the benefit of XBMC on a faster system as opposed to XBMC on the Xbox is that it could support full-HD video.

Re:About damn time...

[drew]

I think Microsoft/Sony completely missed the boat by overlooking this application for their gaming consoles. Either they just didn't see it or they don't like this behavior and see it as a liability of some kind.

More likely they just haven't figured out how to monetize it yet. Since Microsoft sold both Xbox's at a loss, and Sony is selling the PS3 at a substantial loss, I doubt either is jumping up and down to find a way to let people use them in a way that won't make them any additional revenue.

Re:About damn time...

[rjcarr]

I don't know if there is a "good" reason, but just something sony imposed. I don't know much about it, but if you're interested, I think the key word you'd use to find out more info is "hypervisor".

Re:About damn time...

[costas]

I am a happy XBMC user for years now. However, I think XBMC has hit a ceiling of sorts: there are still bugs aplenty, especially around error handling: a small hiccup on your LAN and XBMC may freeze or stop media playing. Canceling out of most network-streaming ops also hangs XBMC... these have been around for years and although they've been getting better, it's not exactly a consumer-friendly experience.

Secondly, interfaces are getting complex enough to need their own IDE (yes, I know there's one floating around): Project Mayhem III is OK, but it's not perfect and modding an XBMC skin is not for the faint of heart (why didn't XBMC just use Python to script the skins instead of ant-like XML? they already have a Python engine embedded...)

Finally, Xbox I is also showing its age: can't handle HDTV, and now with small-factor PCs being quiet and small enough, I'd rather have a less-capable UI than the jet-engine that's the Xbox fan+HDD (yes, I've modded the fan with a low dB one; the HDD is still freaking noisy).

BTW, does anyone know if the Mac mini + Front Row can match most of XBMC? codec support and the ability to run arbitrary subtitles on videos are top of my list...

Re:About damn time...

[Deliveranc3]

Don't tell people about it!...

Fine you can also get all the old emulators (They're working on a ps1 emu right now but everything prior to that) All Xbox games, several PC ports....

My Xbox also rips DVDs which is nice (Pop it in it copies and encodes overnight.

If it had line in it would be the sickest media centre ever. It's still Big heavy and ugly and needs a physical mod (though there are soft mods I haven't seen anyone who has used one) and doesn't support HD-DVD (gasp) or DVD burning.

I actually thought most slashdotters had one already.

Re:About damn time...

[HouseOfMisterE]

It's been a while since I've done this, but I think that you may be able to start media playback on XBMC by utilizing the built-in web server interface (XBMC has a built-in http web server). Start the web browser on your PC and connect to the XBOX's IP address. Then, use the web interface to start playback of whatever media you want to see/hear/shag.

Re:About damn time...

[multipartmixed]

> If you want network transparency and scripting, why the hell are you using windows?

Windows was there... I have a Windows PC hooked up in the living room so I can play Wolfenstein. Yeah, I know, that's kind of lame. LOL.

Going with a non-Windows solution would mean buying new hardware, though, since there aren't Linux drivers for almost everything on the [free] BookPC I'm using. Which means considering XBox makes sense, too.

MythTV -- not sure what this gets me? I thought it was your basic PVR? I have a hardware PVR.

Amarok -- nice, I didn't know that existed. That'll work for playing MP3s, that never even crossed my mind (I still use mxaudio at work). If I keep my media on an SMB share, display Amarok on the local desktop, but run it in the livingroom, that'd work.. HMMmm..m.m.mm

Same thing goes for mplayer -- thanks for more food for thought.

Now, the real answer to my question -- FTP Site commands. Beautiful! Thank you!

That's it, I'm going to start trolling the thrift stores for an XBox 1.0. Can it also run an SNES emulator? :)

Re:About damn time...

[Reapman]

To install XBMC on a modded XBox you... copy the files in. Configuration is all handled through the GUI.

I never got myth to install, and frankly with a package like XBMC that "just works", is free, and doesn't take hours, what does mythtv offer that XBMC doesn't? The big one would be Video Capture, but now that they're porting to Linux, hopefully they can add that. How's MythTV's scriptable interface? Never tried that, i know with XBMC there are scripts to access QuickTime trailers, YouTube, etc etc etc.

I don't get this "why have more then 1???" attitude posters are putting down here... so are you saying there should only be KDE or Gnome? Only 1 Linux? Only 1 OS? Isn't the strength of Open Source the fact your not stuck with just one????

You like Myth, use it. You like XBMC, use it. And don't complain if you use one, and someone else uses the other.

Re:About damn time...

[obeythefist]

This is awesome news, I have been using XBMC for years now and it continues to be one of the finest softwares I've used in my entire I/T career.

Sure, configuration is a little hands-on, but you can attribute a lot of that to the lockdown that Microsoft put into the XBox.

The ultimate HTPC would definately be a Linux/XBMC pairing. Assuming I can get an IR remote device that works under Linux, anyway.

I am confused

[Slashcrap]

I was under the impression that XBMC was basically a modified version of Mplayer. Now I can't believe that they coded their own OS to run on the bare metal and I somehow doubt they were using Windows. So that basically leaves Linux, right?

So they're porting a Linux based Linux media player to Linux?

Would anyone like to correct me or alternatively join me in a severe case of WTF?

Re:I am confused

[pike2k]

yes you are (confused) Yes, we use mplayer on Xbox1, as one of _several_ CORES for playback. it's not the stock mplayer but a modified version. XBMC is the gui and all added functions, too many for me to list. You need to have used xbmc to understand what it's about /pike, XBMC Projectmanager

Re:I am confused

[nagora]

You need to have used xbmc to understand what it's about /pike

Well, I've got MythTv, gqview, and mplayer and it's several years since I had any trouble playing a media file on my Linux box, so why don't you tell us, since you're here, why I would want something else, let alone download and install 350Ms? What's the point of this xbmc thing outside of the console environment?

TWW

Re:I am confused

[pike2k]

how can I put this.. XBMC = EXCELLENCE 350M (a figure I'm not sure is accurate) = sourcecode, why don't you just download try it when there's something to try regards

Re:I am confused

[CerebusUS]

As a longtime XBMC user: What XBMC brings to the table is an excellent 15-foot interface, seemless integration with a LARGE number of formats (including SMB shares and many types of streaming media) and a very active skinning / modding community. The fact that it's currently limited to the original xBox hardware is it's only weak point, in my mind. This keeps it from being able to play 720p content very well, simply because the hardware lacks the power.

A typical XBMC installation package (which is generally illegal, due to licensing restrictions on the compiler) runs between 25 and 50MB, so it's not that big.

I think the biggest challenge they will face with the linux port is hardware support. The xbox platform allowed them to focus more on the interface than trying to support a ton of different ir controllers / video cards / etc.

I wish them the best of luck, as I'd love to go get a MacMini and run XBMC (LBMC? LMC? XBMC4L?) on it.

Re:I am confused

[Sark666]

I don't have one but have used xbmc at my friends and it is a joy to use. It doesn't just look good, but has a sleek, responsive interface. I do have a myth box myself, and the backend is rock solid, but have found the mythfrontend to be somewhat sluggish and have wanted the responsiveness that xbmc gives.

But I am curious as well now, I know it's main player is mplayer, but regarding the gui and everything else, I thought it was all written with a modified version of linux? I guess not, but a better explanation there would be interesting.

And from a myth users point of view, I read it can playback mythrecordings (not sure if that's accurate), but I doubt it can accesss the live tv options. Not sure about the guide and stuff. If I could use xmbc as an alternate frontend to mythfrontend, I would change in a heartbeat.

But regardless, the option to port this is a nobrainer, as it would be a shame to let this fine piece of software fade into the background as xbox dwindles.

Re:I am confused

[Anonymous Coward]

the xbox runs a stripped down version of Windows 2000. The executable files are called .xbe instead of .exe. it evens uses a variation of Direct X for the games. do some research the next time you are confused.

Re:I am confused

[drinkypoo]

I think the biggest challenge they will face with the linux port is hardware support. The xbox platform allowed them to focus more on the interface than trying to support a ton of different ir controllers / video cards / etc.

That is not a problem, because it is an OS problem, not an application problem. Remember, they're porting it to Linux and SDL, not to some bare hardware. To them, SDL is the driver layer. This is excellent because SDL is available for a number of other platforms, so this is also a first step towards a Windows release (on which the XDK will not help you - Xbox 360 doesn't have this problem, what with XNA, but that's not interesting here. Otherwise it's Win32 code, which makes this an amusing way to get closer to Windows support.)

In addition, in terms of providing an Xbox install themselves if they choose, they can simply distribute a modified Xebian with XBMC; drivers are already taken care of. There's no 3D support that I'm aware of, though, so you'd lose the snazzy 3D screensavers unless MesaGL can run them at a decent speed in software. Some of them definitely wouldn't work this way :)

Re:I am confused

[0100010001010011]

WAF or GFAF. (Wife Acceptance Factor and GF Acceptance Factor, respectively).

XBMC is idiot proof. They turn it on and it works. I use ccxstream instead of Samba because I have no reason to use Samba on my debian server.

It's hard to explain if you've never seen it in action. If I go over to a friend's house and we want to watch some movies I can ftp them to the hard drive, toss the XBOX in my backpack and go. Almost all TVs on the market have RCA inputs. If I lose my remote I can pull up http://xbox/ on my laptop and play media.

XBMC is an amazing piece of OSS. The interface keeps getting more and more polished. The only downside is the Xbox is starting to show its age. If I could get XBMC on an AppleTV and use the exact same interface, I would.

Re:I am confused

[CerebusUS]

I seem to remember them doing a win32 port of XBMC a while back that was less than stellar.

Also, I'm not a coder, but SDL doesn't appear to grant any interface to IR Remotes, which is one of the main reasons I still haven't ditched my xbox in favor of streaming video to my PS3. I still can't believe they didn't put an IR receiver in that thing.

Re:I am confused

[drinkypoo]

Also, I'm not a coder, but SDL doesn't appear to grant any interface to IR Remotes, which is one of the main reasons I still haven't ditched my xbox in favor of streaming video to my PS3. I still can't believe they didn't put an IR receiver in that thing.

You don't need SDL for that, support for IR is provided by the Linux kernel as well.

Linux also supports all the Xbox hardware (but with poor video support thanks to nVidia - The OpenXDK guys are making some headway though) already, including the IR dongle IIRC.

Re:I am confused

[Torne]

But I am curious as well now, I know it's main player is mplayer, but regarding the gui and everything else, I thought it was all written with a modified version of linux? I guess not, but a better explanation there would be interesting.

No, XBMC runs on top of MS's standard Xbox kernel (well, standard except for being patched to support binaries not signed by Microsoft, and often a few other features such as hard disks larger than 137GB), using MS's standard Xbox libraries for IO, the same as an Xbox game does. No Linux is involved at all.

Re:I am confused

[lazyl]

Now I can't believe that they coded their own OS to run on the bare metal and I somehow doubt they were using Windows. So that basically leaves Linux, right?

No, it runs on the xbox os. The same one that all the games use. It was coded with the xbox development kit the same as any game. The port to linux requires writing sdl and opengl implementations of all the libraries that microsoft provided in the xbox sdk.

Re:I am confused

[Slashcrap]

the xbox runs a stripped down version of Windows 2000. The executable files are called .xbe instead of .exe. it evens uses a variation of Direct X for the games. do some research the next time you are confused.

Yes, I know that. However in order to use the Windows kernel, drivers & DirectX etc.., you need to compile your software against the MS XBox dev kit. And that is illegal if you don't have a license.

So I was giving the project the benefit of the doubt and assuming they used Linux as the OS. But thanks for putting me right - after doing some research I now realise that the only way you can get the product is to either compile it against an illegal copy of the dev kit or download an illegally produced binary from a dubious source.

Congratulations on a truly stunning piece of advocacy - instead of being confused about the product I have now done the research you suggested and am rather suspicious about it.

Re:I am confused

[evilviper]

And from a myth users point of view, I read it can playback mythrecordings (not sure if that's accurate),

MPlayer supports Myth-produced NUV files, so, yes, xbmc just incidentally gets that feature without trying.

Re:I am confused

[StikyPad]

I can't speak to MythTV, but I'm using Vista Media Center (and WMC 2005 before that), and even the kids can operate it: Green button -> Videos -> TV -> Simpsons. I'd go with Myth, but I like being able to play PC games as well, and dual booting makes it less convenient. As an added benefit, I can watch full HD content, and use it for any other computing related task when necessary (like right now, while my motherboard is at ASUS for warranty service). Additionally, I don't have to worry about codec or format support, hardware support, etc. True, it was substantially more expensive than an Xbox (at the time of purchase), and the OS isn't free, but it was essentially a last-gen system that wasn't doing much of anything before I set it up as an HTPC. If you have extra hardware (and what geek doesn't?), I'd recommend an HTPC over a console-based solution any day. MythTV if you're into that, though I have no complaints about VMC/WMC.

AppleTV will be the primary platform

[bbzzdd]

The developers are looking to target AppleTV as the lead platform (at least on the low-end). This is great as the beauty of XBMC was that it ran on a console and everyone running it was on the same page hardware-wise. The only downside is lack of optical storage on the ATV and whether or not it can decode 1080p content.

Re:AppleTV will be the primary platform

[Lukano]

That is the single best news I've heard this year. I've been daydreaming about something bigger and better than an XBOX for XBMC - or similar.

This made my year. I'm ecstatic.

Re:AppleTV will be the primary platform

[bill_mcgonigle]

The only downside is lack of optical storage on the ATV and whether or not it can decode 1080p content.

The USB port is working now, isn't it? Yeah, not integrated but you can hook up a DVD writer.

IIRC, the decoder chip can only handle 720p - are hackers finding hidden capabilities?

I was going to try running MythFrontEnd on one under OSX, but this project sounds interesting as well.

Since I'm here - is anybody else running MythFrontEnd on AppleTV/OSX yet?

Re:And back

[pike2k]

it's all about drivers here last time I checked, there was no drivers for atleast 'accelerated video' (3d) for xbox1, and situation on 360 is similar

duplication of effort...

[advocate_one]

check out Linux MCE... far more powerful and sits nicely over existing linux distros. See the nice review here

Re:duplication of effort...

[pike2k]

How about: I don't watch the "how much linuxmce pwns all and everything else" video again, I'm gonna assume that's what you linked to. Why do I see several linux people thinking this is a bad thing? When has choice ever been a bad thing?

Re:duplication of effort...

[B5_geek]

Except that LinuxMCE is broken, doesn't work, and support from the developers is poor.

Infact it is un-installable (unless they fixxed it last night, and I have not checked). How many other FOSS project offer 'support' via Skype and YIM? Yes it is a nifty idea, but only if the devs actually log-in to those accounts. IRC remains barren. IRC is ideal because many people get to see/share the info that is posted. The official forums seem to be devoid of any dev interaction, and the bug-report might be falling on deaf ears for all the confirmation of bugs I have posted.

I love the concept of this project. I dearly wish it would work.

Re:duplication of effort...

[EvilNight]

I've played with it. XBMC has more stability and a much better interface, and is far easier to set up and get working, and requires far cheaper hardware and a lot less hacking even to get on a modded xbox. XBMC has a much more active community, is more feature rich, and has better support. Frankly, LinuxMCE is for linux weenies - the kind who want to play with a computer. I don't want to play - I want to turn something on, get a killer media center, and then *use it* to watch media without ever worrying about anything other than the occasional update. Let me know when the LinuxMCE folks are selling something that does that in a half hour out of the box.

I do agree though that eventually, all of these things could/should be rolled into one solid media center distribution. Don't overlook Pluto@Home either. It's got some very clever ideas even if the implementation is a bit hacky as well.

Re:slashdork

[pike2k]

I can't believe you wasted everyone's time typing those words

Why bother with humility ?

[Etyenne]

XBMC is, by far, one of the finest projects to come out of the open source community

Clearly, it is in the same league as Apache, Firefox, gcc and the Linux kernel.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[Builder]

Not even close. I could use Zeus to replace Apache. I could use an Intel or a Sun compiler to replace gcc. I can use FreeBSD to not only replace the Linux kernel, but to get a full OS. I can use Opera to replace Firefox.

XBMC is FAR more important than all of these things - it gives me a full media extender that my wife can not only use, but loves for around 90 quid. It brings peace and harmony to my home. It replaced my VCR and DVD recorder.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[EvilNight]

Different projects with different goals - however, that said, in spirit they are very similar. The television based user interfaces share a lot of the same ideas. I'd rate XBMC as a more user friendly product but Myth is closeer to it than any other working app I've seen. Myth and XBMC would make a good pairing - one for managing, watching, and recording your television shows, the other for connecting you to any other media on any network or server. MythTV would make a good addition to XBMC's front menu with a label of "Television". XBMC does have plugins to communicate with Myth, but they are a bit primitive at this stage. Rolling them together would be a fine project for Ubuntu Studio or some other media center distribution like LinuxMCE or Pluto@Home.

I'll second the previous poster's comment of "not even close." I know nothing that can replace this app once you've come to use it for a while. There are no comparable programs out there of similar quality - the closest to it I mentioned above but they are not nearly as good.

This is absolutely as much of a killer app for TV-based computers as Apache was for commodity web servers. Far too many people are assuming this is just another media player. It's not. It's a frontend for anything you could possibly want to do on a television set with a computer, and the best one going. Pictures do not do it justice, no more than a picture of an Ubuntu desktop tells you what happens when you start digging into the menus and programs. Try it before you knock it.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[sys_mast]

How exactly did it replace your DVD recorder? Since in this very forum the fact that the USB 1.1 ports are not capable of inputing live video, via a A/V to USB adapter. I guess it could replace both PLAYERS, but you still would need to be using another device for recording stuff.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[Builder]

My problem with MythTV is the resources required to run it. Where can I get the parts to build a complete MythTV device for under GBP100? And that's with a remote for the Xbox!

Sure, Myth offers more, but it offers stuff I don't need. XBMC on my old xbox is the perfect media centre for us.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[Builder]

Simple - instead of recording off of Sky, I just download the shows over bittorrent.

I am entitled to watch these shows, as I pay my sky subscription. But instead of wasting a plastic disc for every 1 hour of TV screened, I'm saving the environment and just downloading it once it has been on Sky. I see no moral or ethical challenge with doing this.

Re:Why bother with humility ?

[obeythefist]

Actually, it is. I know dozens of people who use XBMC. Less than a third of those use Linux, Apache, or gcc. Which is not to say that they aren't fine products, they are, but so is the XBMC.

In terms of "quality", that is, polish and end user usability, stability, marketability, all those things that we attribute to successful software, only Firefox, of all those products the parent mentions, is on par with the success of XBMC.

There are very, very, very few open source products that would be chosen by a source-agnostic end user looking for a square peg for a square hole. Seriously. Firefox and XBMC, and maybe Apache, are the real gems, because people will grab those because they are best-of-class products, outright better than any competitor. A lot of people I know who use firefox don't really know what open source even is. They just use it because it's a better browser.

On that basis, XBMC is a shining success.

Re:XBMC for all

[Gamester17]

XBMC for Linux (once mature enough for eveyone to use) will require that end-users (not developers) have a 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that at least supports Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0 (and featuring 24bpp or 32bpp for 3D hardware-acceleration support, (such retail adapter usually state on the box that they support "DirectX version 9.0c"). The XBMC GUI needs this to run smootly at an acceptable frame-rate). Meaning a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (or later), alternativly a Intel GMA X3000/G965 (or later) graphics-controller-chip/chipset, (ATI has so bad Linux drivers so not worth mentioning).

Re:XBMC for all

[91degrees]

Might have got my CPU speeds at the time a bit mixed up. It was definitely a P3. Maybe my K6-2 was a 350MHz and the P3 was 500MHz.

Whatever

[KingSkippus]

All it takes to avoid looking like an idiot is to use some common sense and hover over the first word of the summary.

And all it takes to keep people from having to jump through idiotic non-intuitive hoops that may or may not yield a modicum of an explanation of what the hell you're talking about is to spell out your obscure abbreviation at least once in the summary.

I'm glad that people like you, who blame problems with a user interface on those "idiot" end users, are becoming fewer and fewer. And next time you want to lecture me on what is and isn't "common sense" (let alone who is the real idiot), try counting how many URLs in summaries here, completely independent of the summary text, indicate the subject of the article. Oh yeah, that's obvious.

Re:Whatever

[drinkypoo]

spell out your obscure abbreviation at least once in the summary

While I agree that this is good practice, and should be followed, Slashdot is theoretically News for Nerds. If you're a nerd, you should either a) already know what XBMC is, b) be able to figure it out without help, or c) both. Those of us who fall into the latter category spend a significant portion of our time on slashdot either laughing or rolling our eyes at those of you who fall into none of these groups.

What kind of nerd can't do some fucking research? Especially when, as was pointed out just above you, if you hover over the first link all is explained. Not to mention that this site is a link aggregator with a discussion system, it's about links, if you're confused, follow the link. I know that this is slashdot, and we don't do that here, but it really does have the potential to shed a certain amount of light on the subject.

Re:Whatever

[KingSkippus]

If you're a nerd, you should either a) already know what XBMC is, b) be able to figure it out without help, or c) both.

a) is extremely arguable. I hate to burst your bubble, but most nerds I know do not own an Xbox, 1 or 360. The ones that do (I own one of each myself) don't keep up with the mod/homebrew scene, they just use them to unwind after their day at the office. (Which is why I had never heard of XBMC, and even mistakenly claimed that it was for the 360.) As such, it's unlikely that XBMC will mean anything to, well, I'm guessing around 99% of the nerds that read Slashdot.

As for b), being a nerd myself, the first thing I thought of when I saw XBMC was BMC, the huge company that makes enterprise monitoring, alerting, and capacity planning software. The first thing that crossed my brain when I stopped a second to ponder, "What is XBMC?" was that maybe it was some sort of open-source equivalent, like ZenOSS or such. Of course, the reference to "home-brew" kind of threw me off, because typically, people don't describe applications like that as such.

So, curious, I followed the link and read a little bit about it and figured out what it was. And just to be clear, I never said or implied in my post that anyone here can't figure out what XBMC is, only that they shouldn't have to figure out what XBMC is. That doesn't make anyone an idiot (except maybe the person who claims that they should), it just means that they have better things to do with their valuable nerd time.

As it turns out, it's a good thing that I'm a Slashdot subscriber and got to see the article when it was to be posted in the mysterious future, because once it hit the front page in green status, the site got slashdotted, and the only way to figure out what XBMC stood for was to hover over the link. (Unless, of course, you've just got to know so badly that you pull up the HTML source for the page and find the URL that way.)

Of course, if you're like me and typically don't look at the URL of where Slashdot links go to, or if the link had been like most here, in the form of http://somwhere.com/index.php?articleid=48372901, it would have been more trouble than it's worth, and you would have just moved on, and that's not good for anyone involved.

And the solution is so stupidly simple that I can't believe you're still needlessly arguing about it. If you're a story submitter, make sure you spell out all but the most common of technical acronyms or abbreviations in full before assuming everyone knows what you're talking about.

While I agree that this is good practice, and should be followed

Well, funny enough, it sounds like you agree with me, which is what I said that you're needlessly arguing about it. At this point, you're wasting more of my valuable nerd time than you're worth.

What kind of nerd can't do some fucking research?

Not a very good one. But as you said, this is a News for Nerds site, not a fucking research project. If a lot of stories here were like this one, I would stop subscribing and find another site to get my news from that actually doesn't like irritating its readers.

Re:Whatever

[KingSkippus]

Reprieve:

I just noticed that you're not the parent of my other post, so you're not still needlessly arguing, only needlessly arguing. Stop that!

Re:Whatever

[smallpaul]

Question 1: what do you think that the role of a "summary" is? Question 2: how does a block of text become a good summary?

Re:Whatever

[drinkypoo]

Question 1: what do you think that the role of a "summary" is? Question 2: how does a block of text become a good summary?

Don't get me wrong, if there were two versions of the submission on the firehose, and one explained what XBMC was and one didn't, the one that did would be likely to be the one I voted up. But if there weren't, I wouldn't have voted the one down, but instead up.

For the record, some marks of a good summary (as opposed to "acceptable") include an expansion of every acronym, proper link etiquette, a link to a reputable site, and proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. There are other things I'd like to see, but they're not strictly necessary. For example, I'd prefer to see a total lack of editorialization.

Re:Whatever

[drinkypoo]

I would stop subscribing and find another site to get my news from that actually doesn't like irritating its readers.

What? Are we talking about the same slashdot?

This is the site where the editors don't edit, we got an intel opinion center inserted at the top of the list of categories, and where the moderation system is more or less designed to be abused. This is a site that loves to irritate its readers.

If you only paid for sites that didn't love to fuck with people, you wouldn't have paid for slashdot.

Re:Whatever

[smallpaul]

Don't get me wrong, if there were two versions of the submission on the firehose, and one explained what XBMC was and one didn't, the one that did would be likely to be the one I voted up. But if there weren't, I wouldn't have voted the one down, but instead up.

So why are we discussing this. If everyone agrees that it would have been better if XBMC were spelled out, then why did you contradict the original poster offering constructive criticism?

Re:Whatever

[drinkypoo]

So why are we discussing this. If everyone agrees that it would have been better if XBMC were spelled out, then why did you contradict the original poster offering constructive criticism?

What I'm contradicting is not their point but their tone and overarching display of whinyness. KingSkippus came on like a total hard-on about something that really isn't all that important. I think what really got my goat was the "people like you" line, which paints a certain picture. I don't think it should be used except when warranted.

Re:And back

[drinkypoo]

Is that really a problem for XBMC? I would imagine the only really important thing would be DRI support, which AFAIK still isn't there. But I know that there have recently been some successes by the OpenXDK guys on making the graphics hardware do snazzy things, so I hope there's hope :) I would have thought you'd only need the 3D to do the screensavers.

Re:And back

[pike2k]

you are incorrect. on xbox1, we use gpu for skinengine and we use shaders for our renderers

Re:XBMC for all

[drinkypoo]

XBMC for Linux (once mature enough for eveyone to use) will require that end-users (not developers) have a 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that at least supports Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0 (and featuring 24bpp or 32bpp for 3D hardware-acceleration support, (such retail adapter usually state on the box that they support "DirectX version 9.0c"). The XBMC GUI needs this to run smootly at an acceptable frame-rate).

I don't buy that; Some themes and effects would possibly require it, or to do it at high resolutions, but otherwise all you should need is patience and a blitter.

There should DEFINITELY be a theme that doesn't require all that jazz. It would be silly to demand it.

PLEASE MOD PARENT UP, as informative as it gets

[fritsd]

I don't even own any X-box but I'd imagine this would be the next question "but is it legal" :-) so pp gives a nice summation IMHO.

Anyone have a comment on how well this Cromwell BIOS works already? Might be nice to own a heavily subsidized Linux computer.

Re:PLEASE MOD PARENT UP, as informative as it gets

[matts-reign]

Cromwell is the bootloader. It starts the linux kernel, either off the hard drive, etherboot, cdrom, or whatever. It replaced the xbox bootloader that is flashed onto the xbox. The configuration is somewhat similar to grub.

Re:Unfamiliar to XBMC? Checkout the Wikipedia arti

[evilviper]

The article then goes on into more feature/function details, it is recommended reading ;)

I read it. 99% of it is talking about what it can play, which really has nothing to do with XBMC and everything to do with MPlayer, which XBMC uses.

As far as the Wiki or XBMC's page says, only thing "special" about XBMC over any other MPlayer GUI seems to be that it displays weather and uses IMDB to show info about your movies...

I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling. Certainly doesn't sound like the "best project of all time" as some are pitching it.

how many ways to watch a video

[Jeek Elemental]

can someone clue me in why this is important? not saying it isnt, I just dont get the need to watch the same film in 99 marginally different ways. so many formats, players, media, cables, settings, converters just to watch a stored stream of images. quality? convenience? more curious than critical, obviously alot of effort was put into this and Id like to know what Im missing :)

Re:how many ways to watch a video

[SpooForBrains]

Very simple. It allows me to store videos on a machine somewhere out of the way, and watch them on my TV, with an absolute minimum of fuss, and a nice interface to boot.

I don't have a PVR nor do I don't have a small form factor media PC. Neither do I want any of these things. This is a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle.

The reason having this ported is a good idea is because at the moment it's tied to the Xbox, a platform which is rapidly becoming phased out, and also a platform which is somewhat limited in processing power and RAM. It will eventually have to move if XBMC is going to change and evolve.

Also, it makes it legal, which it currently isn't.

Re:And back

[drinkypoo]

Is it not possible to have a less enhanced skin engine as well? Perhaps y'all would not be implementing it, but would it be too hard to swap for another one? I understand the Xbox might need that kind of manipulation, especially due to its lack of CPU power, but couldn't you do the job with more brute force type of processing where the processor hardware was available but the GPU not?

Re:XBMC for all

[Gamester17]

Sorry but it is XBMC's GUI toolkit that requires it for all rendering, (not the skins) =/

Also in the future pixel shaders will be used for hardware-accelerated video-decoding

Re:DVB on usb 1.1 IS possible!

[twistedsymphony]

Some usb 'freeview' dvb cards can do SD tv fine (though not HD) using usb 1.1 . They work by splitting the mpeg transport stream and only sending single channel streams down the usb bus. one such card is the Avermedia AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 (capable of sending either single channel down usb 1.1 OR full transport stream down usb 2.0) - nice little gadget - driver is in vanilla kernel. I am trying to get a nice minimal xbox 1 distro compiled which will run Mythtv on top of (X)DirectFB (which supports xbox nvidia chip) installed on an 80gb drive = nice mythtv (frontend/backend) running on xbox 1! Its tricky as the memory is only 64mb and you need mysql running along with X/qt (now all I need is someone to hack the led/power/eject/timer pic controller code so that it can be set to wake up and record programmes)

Wow, I didn't know such a product existed, the word from the XBMC team AFAIK, has always been that USB1.1 just didn't have the bandwidth to run a USB capture card, and really the USB ports are the only viable I/O interface available on the console.

I wonder if the teams is aware of such a product, if they are then I would suspect there is some other reason for not using it to ad DVR/PVR support (too processor/ram intensive, too complicated to get driving running in the Xbox environment, etc.). If they're not aware of it, well... maybe someone should tell them. I know I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I could use it with my XBMC setup.

Why Bother? Mythtv Rules!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Hmm.. maybe just to add another choice, but I use and really like MythTV!

Ubuntu Media Center

[clevelandguru]

Ubuntu is also working on a Media Center based on Elisa

Damn

[twistedcubic]

And I thought XBMC was some really interesting software, so I get excited and click the link. Disappointment indeed.

Re:XBMC for all

[bill_mcgonigle]

The biggest problem with speeds below 600-800 MHz or so is that is you're not likely to be able to stream SD-resolution media very smoothly (forget about HD-resolution). Maybe with a hardware MPEG board or something.

Yeah, that should be just fine. I recently read that the CPU in a Tivo Series 2 is 50MHz.

Apparently just about everything is offloaded to ASIC's.

Some related Links

[awarlaw]

Build An Xbox Media Center http://www.crn.com/white-box/60406779/ Examples of what can be done http://www.cboxmediacenter.com/info_screens.htm/ -Aa

Re:DVB on usb 1.1 IS possible!

[bodski]

from linux/Documentation/dvb/README.dvb-usb :

2.2. USB1.1 Bandwidth limitation

A lot of the currently supported devices are USB1.1 and thus they have a maximum bandwidth of about 5-6 MBit/s when connected to a USB2.0 hub. This is not enough for receiving the complete transport stream of a DVB-T channel (which is about 16 MBit/s). Normally this is not a problem, if you only want to watch TV (this does not apply for HDTV), but watching a channel while recording another channel on the same frequency simply does not work very well. This applies to all USB1.1 DVB-T devices, not just the dvb-usb-devices)

Seems that maybe more cards will do the same, I can only confirm that the AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 runs fine on USB 1.1 under linux,

Using adapters such as this one:

http://www.stegen.com/product_info.php/products_id /725?osCsid=e9a729b96d16f40938...

it should be possible to plug into as many as 3 DVB-T tuners (4 if you dont need a controller/remote) to your xbox as each port has full 1.1 bandwidth. using dma the xbox should have no trouble recording multiple streams to disk

I am trying to build a distro from scratch based on uclibc, running 2.6 kernel (required for dvb), with directfb/xdirectfb, mythtv/qt3/mysql. the directfb project specifically supports the onboard nvidia gpu incl. mpeg motion compensation :)

As I said earlier (as an AC in grandparent) the only thing stopping us from having a legal 'killer' pvr out of this is the lack of standby/wakeup and general power management support on the xbox. the PIC controller which manages the power/eject buttons and leds has been alleged to contain the realtime clock and is powered as long as the box is plugged in (runs from a capacitor for a while after unplugging) , if someone could figure out a mod to allow us to run a small timer wakeup routine either from this pic or from an added one we could set up recordings. only other option would be to spindown hd and issue noops to reduce power in between recordings.

btw Im new to posting here, how do I link a url to a word of my choice rather than posting the whole url?

Re:DVB on usb 1.1 IS possible!

[twistedsymphony]

I'm a close acquaintance with the maker of the XERC. I say acquaintance as I've never met him in person being that we live half way around the world apart. Pablot (who designed the XERC) and SICKDimension (who mass produces/sells them) work with me on both Xbox-Scene.com and Nintendo-Scene.com and I speak with them nearly on a daily basis.

Anyway, I'm fairly familiar with how they work. The XERC (and similar devices) essentially get their power from the PSU's standby line, they have an IR receiver and when the receiver gets a particular signal it shorts the contacts on the power button. The XERC goes a bit further and allows you to configure dip switches on your modchip as well as control any installed decorative case lights (leds, cathodes, etc.) or whatever else. It's a fairly simple concept if you know how to program an MCU.

The problem with using it to power on at X time is that there is no good way to notify the XERC when to power on. I think in order to do that you would need the aide of a modchip. They can be designed to support a parallel or I2C port, and they actually use those to control Character LCD screens (see the Xecutuer3, Xenium, or SmartXX modchips). Though it would seem that each chip does it slightly different and the software (like XBMC) is required to make provisions for each and every one of them. It would require quite a bit of coordination between the XBMC team, modchip developers and the makers of devices like the XERC. Also those chips that use a parallel interface as opposed to I2C (Xenium is the only I2C based chip IIRC) would likely have to either use this to control the timer chip or an LCD, and chances are most of the people interested in having that kind of functionality on their Xbox are probably the same people who use the LCD feature.

... or you could just leave the console on all the time.

Re:DVB on usb 1.1 IS possible!

[twistedsymphony]

hmm after posting that I had another thought... I suppose it might be possible to have XBMC send a high frequency signal over the analog audio outputs, high enough that it wouldn't be audible. you could then filter it and feed it into the XERC or similar device. It would be a pretty dirty hack so I'm not sure how reliable this method would be but it's another possibility and much more simple then the alternative I proposed above.

Re:DVB on usb 1.1 IS possible!

[bodski]

I was thinking along the lines of adding a PIC controller with a simple clock/timer routine preprogrammed on it, and making it available through the i2c bus and connecting an output to the poweron pin of the xbox. Some kind of simple daemon could manage requests for 'wakeups' by storing a list of requests and making sure the most imminent one was loaded onto the PIC controller. Upon shutdown/wakeup the daemon could update the chip to the next required 'wakeup'. Maybe you could ask your friend how difficult it would be to attach a simple pic device to the i2c/smbus and have it available at a given address - I have limited hardware hacking skills

It may be possible to alter the code on the onboard PIC16LC chip which already controls the power/reset, eject and led functions. This chip has also been alleged to contain the realtime clock (by bunnie) as it is powered when the xbox is switched off (will run for some time after power cord is removed from a capacitor). Microsoft have probably blown the fuses that would have allowed for this.

Useful links:

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/SMBus_Controller

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Xbox_Hardware_Overv iew#PIC16LC

http://www.xenatera.com/bunnie/proj/anatak/xboxmod .html

Re:Unfamiliar to XBMC? Checkout the Wikipedia arti

[evilviper]

It's very pretty though.

Meh.

And very easy to use.

How much easier can it get than to use a file manager with keyboard (actually remote control) navigation?

You should try it,

Not having an XBox, I can't. Even when it works on Linux, I still probably won't bother to try it, since nobody can name one reason it's useful or unique at all.

then try the other open source media centers.

That's setting the bar pretty low.

Re:Unfamiliar to XBMC? Checkout the Wikipedia arti

[evilviper]

XBMC surpasses them all with ease,

I think you missed the point. See the "file manager" comment.

It's very easy to make a very simple interface that works. I don't believe you could make anything any simpler than a normal file manager. What's complicated is making it keeping it simple, while adding lots of functionality. Since XBMC doesn't schedule recordings, manage conflicts, etc., etc., comparing it with MythTV or Freevo is extremely unfair. When it gets all that functionality, while staying simple, then it would be a good recommendation. Until then, I still don't see any draw. It seems like there's a religious devotion to it, for reasons that nobody can explain. It's starting to sound to me like the fanaticism is because people like media center PCs, and XBMC is perhaps the only one they've used, and they're confusing the two very different issues.

Mplayer is just part of it - there is 3 playback cores - 2 of which were developed specifically for XBMC.

MPlayer appears to be 99%+ of it.

The DVD Player doesn't do anything that MPlayer doesn't, and besides that it is based on libavcodec, which is MPlayer's sister project (same server, mostly the same devs).

The music player (assuming that's core 3) also doesn't appear to support any formats that MPlayer doesn't (or that XMMS doesn't, for that matter).

I'm looking for someone to convince me, but I'm not seeing anything.

Linux for livingroom!

[grif3r]

Not that I don't already have it in PS3, but consider small fanless VIA micro-ITX boxes running Linux running XBMC, stuffed in some stylish casing. Pretty neat. Windows Media Centers and AppleTV's are no match for XBMC in versatility. The dawn is coming, greet the new day.

Re:Unfamiliar to XBMC? Checkout the Wikipedia arti

[evilviper]

mplayer counts for.. perhaps.. 5 % of our codebase?

How does code size count for anything? Is Windows superior because it has more code than a base Linux system?

no replay gain support, no cue sheet support afaik.

MPlayer has both.

OH NOES. how dare we reuse other opensource code?

There's no recrimination here. There's nothing wrong with you using MPlayer either. It is, however, relevant to your attempt at drastically minimizing MPlayer's importance.

mplayer doesnt do dvd menus now does it?

Yes it does. There was an initial patch for dvd menu support for MPlayer before the XBMC DVD player came to exist, and most of it has been integrated into MPlayer for quite a while now... Since you are already extensively patching MPlayer for XBMC, one more DVD-menu patch shouldn't hurt.

mplayer doesnt support overlapping csc / decoding of the next frame in any efficient way

"csc" is a new one to me, care to expand that acronym?

MPlayer is certainly far more than fast enough to play DVDs on a 700MHz PIII, so I really don't see what you're getting at with the performance/efficiency comment.

can your prefered solution stack movies?

Of course.

play movies straight from rar files?

I can't see any use for that. Almost no space savings to be had, that's for sure.

Admittedly, it would take me a couple minutes to write a script to handle playing files inside compressed archives, but then it also wouldn't be limited to just RAR files either... It would be just as easy to also include support for playing files compressed with bz2, gz, zip, 7z, tar, cab, ISO, DSK, etc. etc.

can you add python scripts to extend it into doing anything from playing stuff from youtube to games like tetris and space invaders?

I can extend my DVR machine with ANYTHING that will run on Linux, from Python to C++. I use a script that downloads NullsoftTV listings which I can select from. I have a button on my remote that will open the selected video with an editor (for removing commercials or anything else).

And with Linux, my selection of games is any of the thousands mame/mess can play, as well as any natively written ones.

does it have a skin system that is so flexible that you can completely redesign the whole look of the app? does it contain a profile system so your wife can run with her preferred settings, have her own databases, individual favorites? can you easily lock your kids out from your pr0n?

All things easily handled by the underlying operating system... GTK themes work quite well. "Profiles" are just different users. Limiting what is shared is just a question of permissions, which can be easily pre-set on a few folders or files.

Perhaps slightly more set-up time than XBMC, but not much.

Admittedly, my DVR doesn't do movie and TV look-ups, but that's because it doesn't even sounds interesting to me, and I'm sure there is an Linux app out there that could do it if I cared to look for it. I already have the show/movie name, length, and year. I can't say I care about any of the other details, at all.

i'm ranting on. my point is; you obviously havent tried xbmc. and you have no idea what xbmc is and what it can do. stop the FUD and READ / try it out before you talk.

The more you complain about my ignorance, the more it seems I pretty well understand what it does.