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XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released, Now Cross-Platform
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 02:31 PM
from the let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom dept.
from the let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom dept.
An anonymous reader writes with a welcome followup to last year's promise of XBMC being made available for Linux: "The first cross-platform Beta version[s] of XBMC Media Center for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox have now been released in preparation for an upcoming stable release, code named 'Atlantis.'" Now, though, there are binaries available for download through the XBMC Media Center site, though only for the non-Xbox versions.
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News: Linux Finally Getting XBMC 203 comments
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."
Submission: XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 released - now serving all by Anonymous Coward
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Great! (Score:2)
I love xbmc. Anyone knows of a nice (and cheap) pc that could serve as a media center with xbmc, a la asus eee box, but with the ability to run hdtv content?
Re: (Score:2)
Not the EEE laptop, the EEE Box [asus.com] It can do 720p, but not 1080p.
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Not the eee netbook, the eee box [wikipedia.org]. According to AnandTech [anandtech.com] it'll just about handle 720p video; they complain about the lack of HDMI, which is a problem if you either wanted digital audio or wanted to watch DRM restricted HD content.
XBMCMC? (Score:2, Informative)
The first cross-platform Beta version[s] of XBMC Media Center for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox have now been released in preparation for an upcoming stable release, code named 'Atlantis
Xbox Media Center Media Center? I'm sorry, but when I see XMBC I think Xbox Media Center in my mind. Its use isn't ubiquitous enough that people have forgotten what it stands for.
xbmc rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:xbmc rocks (Score:4, Informative)
I run this on my linux box that i use for my htpc. I like it because it can handle anything i throw at it even HD content (something the orginal xbox couldnt handle) Also i think it looks 1000000x beter then mythtv gui
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's presuming you can get MythTV to work properly, a dicey proposition at best.
I've had FAR more luck getting XBMC to talk correctly to pre-recorded media (of almost any format) from my NAS and winboxen.
As for the GUI... I love the XBMC GUI. I love the fact that the Xboxes I purchased at a flea market for comparative pennies make lovely network video boxes for the spare rooms in my house to pull just about everything I've recorded from NAS.
I'm looking forward to the "new" Windows-based XBMC so my home th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Agreed, it's the center of my media center at home. I just wish the Xbox could handle 720p, but not a big deal for me right now.
The interface is top notch, my wife can navigate with ease, of course, we have a remote to interact with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Gates was shown a demo of XMBC and asked how Microsoft could engage the community. Why don't they come out and support it on the 360? I might consider buying one if it did.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't care about engaging the community as long as they can imprison the community.
It's a shame too, because there are lots of ways that they could embrace "freedom" that would win them lots of favor with the very customers they've spent all these years alienating. They could do lots of things like this, but they'd rather try to succeed with a stick than a carrot.
Maybe after the guy with too many Y-chromosomes steps down Microsoft can go back to being part of the community rather than trying to
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't taken time to play with any of them yet. Anyone tried LinuxMCE?
The Killer App (Score:5, Insightful)
XBMC really was the killer app for a modded 1st gen XBOX. I dropped a 120GB hard drive in mine, had it auto-sync with my video torrent folder, and had a brilliant little movie/tv show playing setup going on. It makes an Xbox do what Microsoft should have done with its Media Center Extender initiative.
For something that was quasi-legal (if I remember you needed proprietary things from the Xbox developer's SDK to properly compile the source for the Xbox) it had a remarkably excellent UI. Things seemed to work quite well. It seems like a good thing to have some real competition in the media center market, particularly cross-platform open-source competition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I still watch nearly all my TV on my xbox. TVRSS with rtorrent, samba, and XBMC has made broadcast TV obsolete.
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I still watch nearly all my TV on my xbox. TVRSS with rtorrent, samba, and XBMC has made broadcast TV obsolete.
A bit noisy, no? Or was the 1st gen Xbox quieter than today's? I achieve the same Az+RSS+Winshares+Samba coverage of old and new TV with a diskless NFS header running mythtv on a mini-ITX board. Didn't bother with broadcast TV but like you say, with BT coverage you don't miss out.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you use to get the feeds? I currently use pytvshows. It works great, but I wasn't sure if there were any others out there. (There is TVShows.app for OSX, but development has stalled).
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Oh, I wrote my own using perl's XML::RSS. It was ridiculously easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Modding the Xbox wasn't the quasi-legal gray area, unless you consider modifying hardware you own illegal. It was that the compiled binaries for the Xbox had to be compiled from the developer SDK and that was only available to developers who were approved by Microsoft and paid for it.
XBMC is spelled "XBMC", (not "XMBC") (Score:3, Informative)
Plex (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Plex (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Not for Linux, just Ubuntu (Score:2, Informative)
It is available for Ubuntu, not for Linux. There are other distributions out there.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
untrue, Linux source is available. Any proper /.'er should have no issues compiling themselves ;-) Binaries only for Ubuntu at the moment as that is the target/dev environment.
DVR? (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to use MythTV but hated the interface; that combined with the free TV guides going away made me try out MCE 2005, which I currently run.
MCE2005 works, the interface is great (for PVR stuff at least...I don't really like the music manager, though), but the management is crap compared to MythTV. I can't remote onto it easily because it's XP-based, and the web management is garbage, too. I've been thinking of trying out something else, or seeing how MythTV is now.
Basically my setup is this: I have a FreeNAS that I use for file sharing that I have my music and downloaded videos on. I have the MCE box in the living room doing DVR stuff, with connections to the file shares for music and the rest of the videos. And I an original Xbox sitting around doing nothing.
I'd love to be able to put the DVR somewhere out of the way, have it do it's thing, and pump everything to XBMC somewhere. But can you do the live-tv thing with XBMC? Maybe I'm missing some other package out there completely?
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I used to use MythTV but hated the interface;
Can't blame you there, it is... rough. But it is immensely capable, so I've learned to live with it's rough edges in exchange for the incredible power it provides (and being a programmer, I can't help but love being able to write custom SQL recording rules :).
that combined with the free TV guides going away
You chose a closed solution with little flexibility over paying $20 *per year* for guide data [schedulesdirect.org]? Really? Meh, to each his/her own, I guess.
Fortunately, you ca
Re: (Score:2)
You chose a closed solution with little flexibility over paying $20 *per year* for guide data [schedulesdirect.org]? Really? Meh, to each his/her own, I guess.
Mostly it was I got it for free from work, and had grown frustrated with MythTV. I'm thinking of looking back into it, and granted the schedule thing isn't that big of a deal :-)
Fortunately, you can hook XBMC into MythTV. Wouldn't that be a solution for you?
I guess that's what I wasn't sure of. So XBMC can run on an xbox and hook into MythTV? Or does XBMC need to be running on an actual computer (possibly even the same MythTV box?) to actually be able to use the DVR things that MythTV does? Hmmmm...I'll have to look into this - thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
The model would be that XBMC would run on an Xbox, and it would connect to Myth over the network just like another frontend.
Incidentally, from what I can tell, XBMC now has a basic, native MythTV client built in. It can be used to watch and delete recordings, and watch and record live TV. However, it has no EPG support, no commercials skip, etc. See here:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/326091 [gossamer-threads.com]
Looks like an interesting option.
Anything similar for Wii? (Score:2)
I want to stream music and video (but I'd settle for just music) to my Wii. I don't want to hack it, so my best bet is probably coming up with a web application to view with Opera on the Wii. I played with Jinzora for a while but never could the Wii part of it to work; I never could figure out how to start the Flash player that was supposed to handle everything.
So, dear Slashdotters, have any of you managed to play music or other media on a Wii from a Unix sever?
Re: (Score:2)
Someone has ported XBMC partially to the Wii. Problem is he won't release his code or his binaries. A very few people have them and say it works great (for alpha).
If you can code donate some time to the XBMC group and get it working.
Re: (Score:2)
The idea is great, but that's only for Windows.
On the PS3 (Score:2)
I've been really wanting to get XBMC on my PS3. I have it on my original XBox, but is struggled with HD at times depending on the codec because it lacked memory. The XBox also can't put out 1080p.
I'm wondering if I should attempt to install Linux on my PS3, and then compile XBMC on it. Will I have issues because of the non-x86 architecture?
If I have Linux on my PS3, will it still play PS3 games? I think I need to hit up Wikipedia and start reading.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you can do multiple partitions and keep the PS3 OS (and thusly play PS3 games) as well as a separate Linux partition.
Now I just need to know if I can compile XBMC on the Cell/PPC architecture.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
XBMC vs AppleTV? (Score:2)
Anyone have any hands on experience with both or have a link to any information discussing the pros/cons of these two media centers?
I am about to invest a couple thousand into 3 MacMinis and 2 AppleTV units, which hooked up to a 3TB NAS device (drobo) can all share via Airport Extreme from my shared iTunes folder (which is already set up as a media share on the drobo). By attaching a secondary Airport Extreme in b/g compat mode, I hope to use my iPhone as a remote control -- mainly for the NiceCast iTunes r
No Mac PPC executable (Score:2)
(as above)
Re:XBMC ? (Score:4, Informative)
the source code is available to all platforms, including xbox.
Just the binaries that are not available to xbox, because the MS xbox sdk does not allows them to redistribute binaries.
Parent
Re:XBMC ? (Score:4, Informative)
To compile XBMC for the Xbox is illegal since it'll have to be compiled using the XDK (XBox Development Kit) which is not available to the average joe (as one may suspect).
That's the reason they don't distribute a compiled version. But if you google for XBMC and T3CH ... you might get something in return.
Oh... the wonders of googling...
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:XBMC ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The developers haven't legally licensed the Xbox XDK, and so they can't legally distribute binaries. So you'll have to find them somewhere illegitimate.
Even if you own the SDK, which, I think, average joe CAN buy, distributing binaries is disallowed under SDK EULA without MS's blessing, which they will not give for XBMC. This is pretty much same problem as iPhone developers have, except unlike iPhone there are no alternative ways to compile code for XBOX - you HAVE to use the MS SDK and as such MS can sue for distribution of compiled binaries (which then have to be distributed along side of other illegal material like movies and music and thus looks just as illegal).
On the flip side, at least there is no Apple "Fight Club" rules for MS SDK - you ARE allowed to talk about it without getting sued.
-Em
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I'd assume it's a legal grey area - does anyone actually know whether the idea that the EULA of a compiler can limit the distribution of binaries that it outputs has ever been tested in court?
The fact that the XBMC team don't want to prod MS with a stick and blindly hope that they aren't bankrupted by defensive legal costs, of course, is entirely understandable, but I'd still think that they've got something of a case; it's not like the makers of any other tool get a say in how you use it or what you do wit
OSX Users (Score:5, Informative)
OS X Users might want to check out: http://plexapp.com/ [plexapp.com]
This group forked from XBMC a while ago. It was originally called OSXBMC but to differentiate from the 'official' OSX XBMC release they renamed to Plex.
I've played around with it for a while and it is absolutely gorgeous. Each release gets it more and more integrated with OSX. Apple remote, mouse, local file system, etc.
They've also teamed up with CenterStage [centerstageproject.com] to work towards a more OSX like GUI.
Currently my XBOX, bought for $75 used, is going strong. Served via the XBMC protocol running on a debian server with 2 TB of data. pytvshows and rtorrent are nearly as good as a DVR (considering I work second shift) and ... There just aren't more words to describe how awesome the XBMC project is and how far it has come in the last 3 years I've used it.
I'll have to check out the other release tonight to see how it compares.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: OS X Users (Score:4, Informative)
Hi Gamester! (Cyberace1?) Gamester (one of the project managers of XBMC) is hardly an impartial observer. There are a number of features that Plex has that XBMC does not, and many report it to be more stable on their Macs. Not to mention he keeps misspelling my last name, which is "Feingold".
Come to the Plex forums (forums.plexapp.com) or download Plex to compare for yourself, but take his statements (posted under a pseudonym) with a grain of salt.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Again. I haven't had a chance to check out the 'official' release. But the difference was Plex has had a release now for 4-5 months. This means that I could have actually run it prior to now.
Plex also incorporates Sparkle, which is the autoupdater framework for OS X. (Which would be ideal for a set top box).
CenterStage is also something that is likely to only be in Plex and not OSXBMC.
I downloaded it on my work laptop (XP) and the thing I didn't like is that it
1) changed my resolution
2) started up full scre
Re: (Score:2)
How can Windows be available for anything but windows?
Just wait a minute! You'll get it! Or you'll be trying so hard to see what might be funny about it that I'll have time to make a clean getaway with your windows. You can keep the Windows, though.
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Deal with it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just 4 meaningless letters now.
Does that mean that we can rearrange them any way we like? XBMC == XMBC == XCBM == XCMB == MBCX == CXMB == CMXB == BMXC ad naseum?
Re:Product name whack-a-mole (Score:4, Funny)
Does that mean that we can rearrange them any way we like? XBMC == XMBC == XCBM == XCMB == MBCX == CXMB == CMXB == BMXC ad naseum?
"Ad nauseum"? Remind me never to get on a Tilt-a-Whirl with you. There are only 24 permutations.
Parent