XBMC Media Center

[George]

The last 20 comments from the main site article:

#1Submitted by simon on Sun, 02/08/2009 - 06:47.
this looks very promising!
i have to try this out.


#2Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 04:43.
As an experienced user of XBMC on an old XBOX, I must admit that it's one of the most incredible piece of software around. With a few clicks you can transform your old XBOX (please note, not the XBOX360, but its old counterpart, sold used for less than 50 EUR) in a complete media center. Considering that it's also possible to hook up a DreamBOX (sat receiver + TV recorder) to the XBMC, you can have a reliable system with a fraction of the money needed to buy branded systems.
I have no experience in using XBMC on a PC, so I cannot reply to the users complaining of slowness and poor performance. I can only say that XBMC is the ideal companion for an XBOX, no doubt about it! You could even connect your XBOX with XBMC to a NAS or directly to your PC and have all your media content streamed to XMBC without having to struggle with USB memory sticks, DVD burning, etc.
A 5 ***** star product for me.
Best regards
Marco

#3Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/21/2009 - 17:31.
Something to Consider when using a game system for a media center is the extra cost associated with power consumption. Gaming centers typically aren't very efficient when it comes to just playing a movie on DVD. I don't remember the exact Wattage, but figure on an Xbox360 or PS3 (I think Wii uses the least...under 200 W) burning 250 W while a stand alone DVD player might use in the range of 30-60 W. plus, you still have to figure in the tuner and TV. If you're on a new and larger flatscreen or LCD or Plasma, your probably burning another couple/few hundred Watts. CRTs in the large variety (non-flat screened) seem to be the most efficient per square in. of screen space. All-in-all, you may be burning 1 KWh to just watch a movie. Main point I guess is beware of the hidden cost of that game system DVD/BluRay Player as a media center.


#4Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/17/2009 - 10:50.
Just to let the folks out there know, after dropping a "kil-a-watt" between my xbox and the outlet, when running XBMC, it draws anywhere from 56 to 63 Watts, depnding on what media the xbox is working with.
-Phil



#5Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 15:23.
Marco ... do you have any step-by-step instructions on the procedure of getting XBMC onto the old XBox ... or a reference to a place to get them? thanks ... Jim


#6Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 12/21/2008 - 00:19.
Do a Google search and you should find a few. This is one I used.
http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox.shtml
Drew


#7Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 12/23/2008 - 20:37.
Thanks ... appreciate the response ... Jim



#8Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 21:31.
All it does is play videos and add some effects? I'd rather use VLC.


#9Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 04:28.
Hullo everyone
I found that it played all my media file types, but with Video files it was a little jumpy. Split second jumpy - I became all excited. The picture was great but it missed a beat every 1-2 seconds maybe. Sorry cant use it. Oh well back to Media Player Classic and lots of installed codecs.


#10Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 22:26.
Was your comment based on the review or did you try it out? Sometimes (often) there is much more than what is in the review. I looked at the site but not extensively. If you just need a media player, VLC is nice as well.



#11Submitted by mikedutch on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 21:18.
Comparison of media centers:
http://www.telematicsfreedom.org/en/project/14/floss-media-center-state-...
FLOSS Media Centers: (in addition to XBMC and Boxee)
Elisa - http://elisa.fluendo.com/home/
MythTV - http://www.mythtv.org/
Neuros OSD - http://www.neurostechnology.com/
Freevo - http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
My Media System - http://mymediasystem.org/
Entertainer - http://www.entertainer-project.com/
MediaPortal - http://www.ose.tuxfamily.org/windows/index.html
CenterStage+Plex - http://www.plexapp.com/
FLOSS All-in-one (distro):
LinuxMCE - http://www.linuxmce.org/
Mythbuntu - http://www.mythbuntu.org/
KnoppMyth - http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/
MythDora - http://www.mythdora.com/
iMedia Linux - http://www.imedialinux.com/
MiniMyth - http://minimyth.org/
GeeXboX - http://geexbox.org/en/index.html


#12Submitted by George on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 20:50.
Hi,
thanks for the post. It is very interesting material when you're interested in Multimedia Centers. Initially I thought, hmm, looks like we could open a category for this. But now, after having visited all those sites and trying a few of the products I think differently.
Most of them don't work in Windows. We are still focusing on Windows software here though and, thus, we cannot include them yet. The only ones I found so far that do run in Windows are Elisa and MediaPortal.
Elisa didn't impress me at all. Remember that I have worked with XBMX for a while now, so call me spoiled if you like. Elisa started scanning my drive without asking - and takes quite a while for that. Optics are not as beautiful as XBMC and navigation gave me a heart attach. Each step you go forward you have to go backward again to branch elsewhere. Finally I reached a DVD folder but I couldn't play it. I had to navigate down to the VOB files to play each one spearately. But hey, there is the slider that I miss so much in XBMC. But that's not enough unfortunately. Start - Programs - Elisa - Uninstall...
MediaPortal - specifically made for Windows. The installation routine is a real treat. Very sophisticated and informative with all the options to chose from. Configuration of MediaPortal is firstly done in a regular Windows dialog. A lot of options need to be set. Well, I did that and clicked ok. MediaPortal disappeared for minutes. I thought it died on me. No progress bar or please wait screen - nothing. Finally the blue GUI. I navigated to the movies, selected a DVD folder, pressed Enter: black screen no sound. Selected another one, pressed Enter: black screen no sound. Selected an MKV file - same thing. Wow, AVI's would play, what a surprise. Slider? Not all - not even any controls to navigate through the movie. Start - Programs - MediaPortal - Uninstall...
At this point XBMC is my only choice, and its not even a tough one. Everyhting there works like a breathe (Windows and Mac) - ok, except there is no slider. But who said media center life would be fair...
Btw, does Boxee run in Windows? I haven't received my account info yet to download the proggy. How odd is that?
Best regards,
George


#13Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 18:59.
Not overly impressed, I am running this on a 2.5G P4 machine with 3GB of RAM and an ATI 1650 graphics card. The video side of things seems to stagger along, do anything else on the computer including moving the mouse and the Music side of things is affected by interrupts all the time.
It is pretty however which must count for something!


#14Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 15:36.
Does this or Boxee or anything else play TV from my Pinnacle USB tuner?


#15Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 11:28.
Boxee blows it away.


#16Submitted by George on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 20:53.
Hi there,
Boxee seems to be in Alpha still. I registered at their website. Obviously it takes a few days to get an account. Once I get it and can download the tool I will give it a try.
Best regards,
George


#17Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 12/15/2008 - 07:06.
want a media player



#18Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 12/06/2008 - 07:59.
EXTREEMLY DISSAPOINTING!!!
I waited, watched and droooooooollllled as they were devolping this software... I wanted a feature packed, totally portable meida player app that I could take from computer to computer on flash/usb/sd removeable media... plug in my card on any computer and play away. When I realized XBMC could easily be rolled into a portable app I thought it was going to be the way to go.. they announced the live version and that seemed even better. holy grail.
In the betas when I would run XBMC on some computers I would just get an error message that it could not load. I figured they would fix this. Now in the new release version the error comes up as "Desktop Color Depth isn't 32Bit", "XBMC: Fatal Error"... WELL THAT JUST GREAT!! THEY FIXED THE ERROR BUT NOT THE PROBLEM... now I know why it won't load- It wont load because XBMC requires really high resoultion. many of the really big monitors have 24bit resoultion max, i guess they are so big eithor the resoultion is not as important (because you farther away from the screen) or it would be too expensive to have that big of a monitor with more resoultion, so they just make many with the 24bit resoultion.... anyway, XBMC wont work on these lower resoultion flat screen monitors because the resoultion.
What a TPOS, why would you want a great featured media player that only plays on some computers? Gimme the old basic player with 2 options (a play/stop button and a scrollbar) and I'll take that over XBMC because the oldie player works on every computer I run it on.. Who wants a Rolls Royce if it only works half the time you turn the key!!! I'll take a moped and still be better off.
If it works on your computer great just sit there and use it.. but don't expect to take it out in public and have it behave nicely!
final note... if computer you are trying to run it can do more than 32bit resoultion but is set on 24 bit resoultion you will still need administrative rights to raise the display resoultion before XBMC will work... ..and that just makes many more computers I cant use it on...


#19Submitted by George on Sat, 12/06/2008 - 13:05.
Hi there,
I understand your disappointment. But it's not the resolution the XBMC requires, it is the color depth, just as the error message says. And the color depth is usually not a restriction of the monitor but of your computer and video card being able to provide the necessary memory (RAM and Video) and power (CPU and GPU) to handle 32Bit color information per pixel. Having that said you might be able to use 32Bit color depth on a lower resolution. In other words, if your computer can't handle 32Bit color depth on a 1900*1200 resolution it might be able to do so in 1024*768. That might be a solution for you depending on how far you are away from the monitor.
I do agree though that XBMC should not have that restriction. On my Vista box it doesn't even give me an error message, it just crashes if go lower than 32Bit color depth.
The thing that bothers me most with XBMC is that the video player has no positioning slider. That is really annoying and they will hopefully provide one in the future.
Best regards,
George


#20Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 21:52.
Hi George,
Is there any way for XBMC to run at a 24 bit color depth?
Best Regards,
Carl