XBMC for PC

[Warpdrv]

Anyone set this up yet and have good luck...

I have yet for find a GUI that will match and perform better then what I have with my old first gen Xbox, but the Hardware is pretty dated, so I am looking to get ready to build a sleek little Media Center PC for this purpose now that they have ported it over to PC, It had been buggy for a while, but things are starting to come together with it...

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking to do so soon....

Anyone...?

 

[Ben_in_COSpring]

I've been using it for several months now as my main interface for my HTPC. If you run on Linux you get hardware accelerated decoding, meaning you can play Blu-Ray rips on an old PC w/ an NVIDIA card (or meaning that you don't need to spend a lot on new HW). The interface is as sweet as it was with my old X-Box, and blows away Popcorn Hour and MVIX.

My gripes:
1) Took a long time to get LIRC set up so I could use my remote.
2) Can't do audio out of HDMI with an older graphics card. Optical works though after some tweaking in Ubuntu.
3) Playing DVDs from ripped ISOs works about 95% of the time. The other 5% can be frustrating though.
4) XBMC struggles with TrueHD and DTS-HD. Supposedly mplayer (which XBMC uses) has recently gotten TrueHD working, but I've been unable to get it to work even with new SVN builds.
5) I hate waiting 60 second for my system to boot up. It's no worse than my Popcorn Hour, but my old MVIX would come up in about 5 seconds.
6) The documentation on XBMC is spotty. There is a lot you can do with it (some really nice themes and skins) if you know the ins and outs of it, but most of us don't have the time to do this. It would be nice if these worked out of the box. I thought it was silly that I had to map my remote control buttons to commands in an xml file. XBMC should handle this.
7) The web interface to remotely control XBMC is still buggy.

I have it running on an older computer which I want to replace because it's kind of noisy. My plan is to wait until late this fall and see if Popcorn Hour or MVIX come out with any new compelling products for the holidays. I have recent products for both and find their interfaces lacking compared to XBMC, but they're low maintenance and well-integrated compared to an HTPC, which is a big plus. If they can come up with some close I will take the dive and get one of them, and if not, then I am planning on dropping $300 on a set-top box like the Asus B204 or Acer Revo and put XBMC on it.

 

[jinjuku]

I've been using it for several months now as my main interface for my HTPC. If you run on Linux you get hardware accelerated decoding, meaning you can play Blu-Ray rips on an old PC w/ an NVIDIA card (or meaning that you don't need to spend a lot on new HW). The interface is as sweet as it was with my old X-Box, and blows away Popcorn Hour and MVIX.

My gripes:
1) Took a long time to get LIRC set up so I could use my remote.
2) Can't do audio out of HDMI with an older graphics card. Optical works though after some tweaking in Ubuntu.
3) Playing DVDs from ripped ISOs works about 95% of the time. The other 5% can be frustrating though.
4) XBMC struggles with TrueHD and DTS-HD. Supposedly mplayer (which XBMC uses) has recently gotten TrueHD working, but I've been unable to get it to work even with new SVN builds.
5) I hate waiting 60 second for my system to boot up. It's no worse than my Popcorn Hour, but my old MVIX would come up in about 5 seconds.
6) The documentation on XBMC is spotty. There is a lot you can do with it (some really nice themes and skins) if you know the ins and outs of it, but most of us don't have the time to do this. It would be nice if these worked out of the box. I thought it was silly that I had to map my remote control buttons to commands in an xml file. XBMC should handle this.
7) The web interface to remotely control XBMC is still buggy.

I have it running on an older computer which I want to replace because it's kind of noisy. My plan is to wait until late this fall and see if Popcorn Hour or MVIX come out with any new compelling products for the holidays. I have recent products for both and find their interfaces lacking compared to XBMC, but they're low maintenance and well-integrated compared to an HTPC, which is a big plus. If they can come up with some close I will take the dive and get one of them, and if not, then I am planning on dropping $300 on a set-top box like the Asus B204 or Acer Revo and put XBMC on it.

Which is why I use Vista (soon to be Windows 7) MCE. Linux is only free if you place no value on your time.

 

[Warpdrv]

But I hardly think that the Gui and stremline setup of WMC can come even close to what XBMC has been known for, for many many years....

That is my issue.... Windows has always puts up road blocks for everyone, by having to adhere to all the RIAA and MPAA's - XBMC has been at this for so long its not even funny and they bow down to NO-ONE, so its far more powerful and far less limited.

I'll put in the time to XBMC any day before I deal with MS's cr@ppy idea of what - and ONLY what they want you to do and see....


Can you stream with MCE of a (NAS) Network storage device, not connected to the computer...? Any Movie, any file type...? as part of your library...?
Not being stupid here, serious question... as I don't know...

 

[jinjuku]

But I hardly think that the Gui and stremline setup of WMC can come even close to what XBMC has been known for, for many many years....

That is my issue.... Windows has always puts up road blocks for everyone, by having to adhere to all the RIAA and MPAA's - XBMC has been at this for so long its not even funny and they bow down to NO-ONE, so its far more powerful and far less limited.

I'll put in the time to XBMC any day before I deal with MS's cr@ppy idea of what - and ONLY what they want you to do and see....


Can you stream with MCE of a (NAS) Network storage device, not connected to the computer...? Any Movie, any file type...? as part of your library...?
Not being stupid here, serious question... as I don't know...

I have all my CD's ripped. No 'comment' on the DVD stuff. Suffice it to say that MCE is capable of streaming lots of content.

 

[Ben_in_COSpring]

Which is why I use Vista (soon to be Windows 7) MCE. Linux is only free if you place no value on your time.

I agree, unless you enjoy learning new things. Then maybe its not all wasted time. I did learn a lot about serial ports and building custom kernels in getting LIRC to work, which I can see being useful information to have in my pocket someday. But for people that are content to be locked in to MS's sandbox forever, you're right, it's a waste of their time and they should not go anywhere near it.

And in my opinion Vista is an attractive option only if you place little value on your privacy or freedom, and enjoy being milked by MS for hundreds of dollars for an OS that is at best, marginally better than XP, and at worst (and in my personal experience), a bloated piece of crapware.


Philosphical arguments aside, even if I wanted to, could I throw Vista on my 5 year old computer and play 1080p content on it? I doubt it, and if it could, I would have to lay down some serious money for an OS and a software player (which still wouldn't have an interface anywhere near as cool as XBMC), and probably some other supporting software. Then if I decide to do something basic like swap hard drives or add memory, I will need to get daddy MS's permission to continue to use the OS that I paid for. Paying $200 for an OS and then getting treated like a criminal... sounds like fun. But with Linux I can play my 1080p content, with no RIAA/MPAA/MS driven restrictions on my freedom, for free. And it looks cool as hell to boot (seriously, show me an interface slicker than XBMC).

 

[Ben_in_COSpring]

And relevant to the discussion of Free Open Source vs. MS Crapware...

The product that we're talking about here is XBMC, (Microsoft) X-Box Media Center. When the X-Box came out people clamored for a long time to have a decent media portal interface for it. It made perfect sense: The Xbox had an ethernet interface, a TV-out, and a decent processor. XBMC (XBMP at that time) came about only because MS ignored its customers, probably at the behest of large media companies. If MS had used any sense at all they would have met the market demand, made money in the process, and prevented XBMC from taking root. But instead their box got hacked, XBMC got developed, and now they're trying to play catch up.

If it were not for XBMC delivering what MS refused to deliver, you might not even have Windows MCE as an option today.

 

[jinjuku]

I agree, unless you enjoy learning new things. Then maybe its not all wasted time. I did learn a lot about serial ports and building custom kernels in getting LIRC to work

Serial ports? My first computer was an Atari 800XL in 86'. Then a line of Amiga's up till 94'. I've put my time in

I have learned a lot and continue to learn more. One of the the things I have learned is to pick your battles. I give Linux a whirl for the desktop about every two years. I am still unimpressed. My first go of it was in 98' with Caldera.

 

[Nemo128]

Vista *puke*