XBMC Media Center

Who has tried, or is using, XBMC?

If you don't know what this is, XBMC is a really cool media center. It was first developed as the XBMP (Xbox Media Player) dashboard for the original Xbox and has since been developed to run on Windows (XP/Vista), Mac, Linux (Ubuntu) and Xbox.

The website is http://xbmc.org/

This is a really cool media center front end and being completely free it is worth trying it just to see what it is like. I can guarantee it is better than Windows Media Center, and probably most other similar front ends you have tried. The Video player is especially nice with an initially simple control system, but with control panels to change settings for everything from aspect ratio, brightness and contrast, to any subtitles files you might have with the videos and to see offsets if they are not quite running in sync. And I really like the video stack feature. If you have a film split into multiple parts you can select stack and it will seamlessly stack them into a single sequence.

I'm currently setting it up on my spare Linux box with the plan to have it sitting connected to my amp to play music and videos.

I'm currently running Twonky Media Center and I'm pretty happy with it, although it's not free, only :JRflag:

Isn't Twonky a streaming media server used by Denon?

Quote:

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TwonkyMedia - our DLNA Certified™ media server - enables you to share all your multimedia with standard UPnP-enabled client devices throughout your home.

TwonkyMedia is available though our online shop for Windows XP, Macintosh and Linux. It also comes pre-installed on several network attached storage devices. This gives you the option to share your content without using a PC or having your PC online all the time.

Whether you are an end user or a device manufacturer, we have the right license model for you.

Device manufacturers may:

* bundle TwonkyMedia with UPnP-enabled media players,
* pre-install TwonkyMedia in embedded devices like personal video recorders (PVRs), network attached storage devicesN(AS), home gateways or routers.

Our mature implementation guarantees a short time to market and provides a significant competitive advantage. Through the lifetime of your product our maintenance services assure interoperability with other UPnP-enabled products without the hassle of interoperability tests on your side. TwonkyMedia is UPnP and DLNA Certified™ (on ASUS V6000). PacketVideo also assists device manufacturers through the entire UPnP and DLNA certification process.

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http://www.twonkyvision.de/Products/...dia/index.html

So it is more a media server than just a media centre?

Yes, and I'm using it to stream my movies and series on the PS3 or XBox360, I didn't get this working with the Windows Media Center, it didn't recognize my hardware properly.

I've go the 360 and PC connected up to each other, and am not hugley impressed with windows media centre I have to admit. It's really rather clunky. Some of it was incredibly easy to set up, but then to do other things it was a real pain on the ass.

That XBMC looks quite good. May be something to put on the list of things to try at some point.

The good news is that XBMC didn't really need any setting up. Once installed and launched it starts up without asking for any questions or settings. You are then free to explore the interface, navigate to directories on any computer or NAS on your LAN and add directories to the media centre. And it just works. I tried a few differently encoded videos and they all played first time without needing any codecs to be installed (unlike MCE which is basically WMP).

XBMC Rox my Box!!!!

I love XBMC, infact I was hacking a friends XBOX and noticed it, it was then well I fell in love with it, so simple, infact a rare purity amongst lesser gems i say.

XBMC all the way....

then you get your emulators installed.... MAME all the way!!!! then some N64, some C64/SNES/GBA/PSX mmmmmm yum tastic! :)

Quick someone get a tranquilizer. I think Zetr0 is going to explode! :lol:

@Zetr0. Have you tried the PC/Linux versions of XBMC yet? They are just the same as the Xbox version and just as slick too.

I just tried the XBMC out and it looks really nice, but unfortunately it's for no use for myself.