XBMC Running On ARM

beagleboard

The XBMC team has posted a teaser showing the current state of the ARM port of this popular open source media software. We’ve embedded it after the break where you can see the package boot up and playback HD video. In it we see that the system is decoding the signal well, but image rendering needs some tweaking before this will be ready.

The hardware used is a Beagleboard which runs a 600 MHz ARM processor, has OpenGL 2D/3D acceleration, puts out HD via a DVI port, and is selling for about $150. The 3″ by 3″ board can be connected to a network using a USB WiFi dongle. Although integrating XBMC by hacking TV firmware is a long way off, we’d consider velcroing one of these to the back of our HDTV and getting rid of the hulking PC behind the entertainment center.

Can’t wait for this version to hit a stable release and don’t mind using hardware that is just a bit bigger? Check out this guide for setting up XBMC on the $200 Acer Aspire Revo.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYq7f-CrnOc]

[Photo: Koenkooi ]

25 thoughts on “XBMC Running On ARM

  1. 1) a “hulking pc” is mentioned in the description, replace that with a mac mini (run linux + xbmc if you want, or boxee on osx)
    2) also i was under the impression that with vdpau an ATOM with a nvidia 9400m should be able to play back that same big buck bunny clip.
    3) I’m sure this thing beats both in power consumption, especially when idle.
    4) This is awesome, I’d love to see all of the fmpeg codecs ported as well, and i’ll take 3.

  2. XBMC is, at least in my mind, one of the most incredible open source/homebrew projects in history. I love to hear about it getting ported to new hardware or getting some new feature that commercial set top boxes costing hundreds of dollars don’t even have.

    I am very interested in getting a functional HD-capable XBMC install on a device like this. I have XBMC on my modded Xbox, but it just can’t handle HD content (the few videos that will play rarely go above 10 FPS). I wonder if it would be possible to get XBMC on the Roku player? I have no idea what the status of Roku firmware hacking is, but the thing is a great form-factor and is already running Linux.

  3. guys, the ARM processor on the beagleboard is much more powerful than that of a typical IPOD or IPHONE

    It’s the ARM cortex a8

    It’s QUITE powerful. The corex a9 is even more powerful.

  4. The Overo boards are hands down the best implementation of the ARM cores to date. They basically blow the beagleboard away and have the same price range, some cases less, and have a drastically better support system and community.

    The beagleboard has the TI OMAP3530, which is the fastest ARM core you can get without special licensing and/or at least bulk purchasing. I’d still go with Overo boards for the same price range. 2/4 of them have the OMAP3530 with OpenGL support.

    Also I think the 3530 has a 256MB address limit on DRAM and flash, beyond that requires a external controller. The Overo boards max it, and I think the latest Beagleboard REV did too.

    FYI the really well designed partitioning and bootrom security combo known as TrustZone is in no way open to the public or documented anywhere. So, if you’re a security researcher don’t bother, most consumer electronics don’t even use it(probably why they are all reversed.)

  5. I use an ASROCK 330 which is an ION machine. Max 40watts usage, plays 1080P H.264 video at high bitrates VERY well including the BBC “Earth” clip that everyone uses to abuse systems – Killa’ Video.

    I have NO doubt that this ARM would run cooler and use less juice but the ASROCK is fine by me and is now also handling my Torrents with ease. For about $349 it’s the best XBMC box I’ve seen yet and it runs off a wall wart :-)

  6. The Beagle Board is more than powerful enough for HD video. The one thing it is missing is Flash. I would buy one in a second if I could use it to watch Hulu and CBS.com. Now if we could just get a hack to allow it to playback “protected” blue ray and get NetFlix and Amazon streaming on it you would have an almost perfect media center PC.

  7. I would like SATA too

    and to add DVB-S2 Tuner would be nice, best would be a DVB-S/S2/C plug and play Tuner, like them from DMM, changeable, that would be nice

    DVB-S2 USB Devices don’t have hardware decoding, and i don’t think that they will work with the Beagleboard.

    would be a nice , cheap Receiver, when a smartmouse/Phoenix Cardreader is added via RS232

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