It’s been a big week for the XBMC team. They announced the release of their first cross platform beta in preparation for a full release in October. XBMC started as a media center project for the original Xbox, but has expanded a lot since then. The new beta works on Linux, OSX (Leopard and Tiger), Windows, and Xbox. They’ve created XBMC Live, so you can get XBMC up and running quickly either by booting from the CD, from a flash drive, or using it to install to a disk. People have been writing add on apps too, like the XBMC Remote for iPhones.
This summer we covered both Boxee, a social version of XBMC, and Plex, the original XBMC OSX fork.
I like xbmc, but I don’t like the rabid fanboys who ask to see it on every platform, including hand-helds that already run a minimal gui and their own mplayer.
Maybe I just don’t like pointless Gui’s, or maybe I never gave it a good try since winlirc isn’t supported in the windows port. But to layer a gui on top of a gui starts seeming very pointless to me.
It is cool that there is more development, maybe I will see winlirc support and be able to give it a try on mw windows box.
I love it for my xbox, except for the obvious lack of HD decoding power. Why can’t XBMC for the Xbox360 be used apart from a “media center” edition of windows running on a PC? No technical reason, just money-grubbing Microsoft.
I am a big fanboy, but I am like nubie I don’t know if we need it on all platforms.
I understand the thought for porting XBMC to more platforms though. The original Xbox’s will eventually die off, by way of the dump, scrap heap and buried in closets. So in order to keep XBMC alive it had to be ported to another platform.
Now that said, if they are going to make it multi platform then add more functions to it like video capture. Or even an easy integration of downloading video podcast and other web content.
Yes they will have to add winlirc for the pc side of it. I am sure there will be more features added soon, since there is a feature freeze until the ful version is released.
we can always mod it to work with other programs…well some1 not me i dont program much anymore but im sure once it comes out in more final version some 1 will mod it
FYI; Plex is not “original XBMC OSX fork”. XBMC was first ported by Elan while he was still a member of the official XBMC project so XBMC for Mac was originally developed first, Elan then left Team-XBMC and forked XBMC to start his own project that is now called Plex. So XBMC is still the original, even the Mac OS X version.
The main reason that XBMC was ported to other platforms is that the old Xbox does not have the processing power to decode high-definition videos (even if the old Xbox does a great job at upscaling standard-definition videos to 720p and 1080i). The secondary reason why XBMC been ported to other platforms is that we love it so we like its userbase to expand, and more users means also more developers working on improving it.
@nubie, XBMC is so much more than a MPlayer GUI, it is a complete media center software which enable plugins and customs skins that totally chance the look and feel of the interface. You should also know that only the Xbox version of XBMC uses MPlayer, XBMC on all other platforms uses Team-XBMC’s own FFmpeg based video player.
I for one would love to see XBMC ported to Pandora
http://www.openpandora.org
PS! there is a patch for WinLIRC in the XBMC forums.
Does someone know when Velvet Assasin for Xbox360 will be released?
I comprehend the believed for porting XBMC to even more systems though. The authentic Xbox’s will ultimately pass away off, by way with the dump, scrap heap and buried in closets. So to have the ability to maintain XBMC alive it experienced to become ported to yet another platform.
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