XBMC Media Center – your free HTPC solution
XBMC Media Center has an interesting history, as it originates from the Microsoft Xbox game console – thus the name XBMC (Xbox Media Center). It has a long history as the project goes back to as far as the year 2002. XBMC can be considered as one of the killer applications for the original Xbox as it managed to expand the game console into a full blown media center that could playback Divx/AVI video, MP3s and just about any media content of that time. As time passed on and the original Xbox became a legacy product, the project was steered to new paths: They began porting it to GNU/Linux, Max OSX and Windows. As a result their next major release is now at Beta 2 stage, and available for all supported platforms, and believe me that it is a beauty.
The features of XBMC are nothing short of impressive. It can playback virtually anything you throw at it. It boasts a full selection of codecs out of the box and is expandable via a plugin architechture.
XBMC can play most audio and video file formats as well as display images at resolutions up to 1080p and over from virtually any source, including your local hard drive, CD/DVDs, USB flash drives, the Internet, and network shares, upscaling any lower resolutions videos to the maximum of your displays capability. XBMC can also playback DVD-Video movies with menus from ISO/IMG-images on-the-fly, even when they are in an RAR or ZIP archive. For music playback XBMC offers gapless playback, crossfading, cue sheet, replay gain amplification, advanced smart playlists, and chapter support.
XBMC can download or stream Internet video and audio streams, and play Internet radio stations (such as Podcasts and SHOUTcast), and listen to your favorites and discover new music with free, streaming music from Last.fm, among others.
XBMC of course handles all common digital picture formats with the options of panning/zooming, and slideshow with “Ken Burns Effect“. XBMC also handles CBZ and CBR comic book archive files, this feature lets you view/read, browse and zoom the pictures of comics pages these contain without uncompressing them first.
I did a quick test run with the Beta 2 for Windows, and it really seems to deliver. The user interface is quite well thought, and works nicely by just using a mouse. High Definition .MKV files were playing as expected, with Matroska embedded subtitles. In terms of memory usage the didn’t seem like a resource hog either.
I can highly recommend anyone to check our XBMC for a HTPC project, or just out of general interest. I would find it especially interesting for people with laptops, with a possibility to connect it to a big screen TV or a projector, as XBMC can run as a stand alone application in your PC so the installation and configuration is a snap.
Download from: xbmc.org
June 8th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Stream AVCHD MTS/M2TS over UPnP from XBMC to PlayStation 3
Home networking protocols like UPnP, SMB help us share files and media seamlessly through different devices. It is great to know that XBMC support UPnP server and PlayStation 3 (PS3) supports UPnP client. Both tools are claimed to support AVCHD .m2ts files now. I tried to use XBMC to stream my .m2ts file, which was shot by Sony camcorder, to PlayStation 3. However, it does not work.
I then tried a different file in .mp4 format, and it plays well with my TV connected to PS3. The file format will be the point for the issue. I searched and found Aunsoft MTS/M2TS Converter as the solution for streaming .m2ts file to PS3 via UPnP. I just need to convert AVCHD .m2ts to .mp4 for PS3, and setup UPnP between XBMC and PS3 for streaming.
Part I. Convert AVCHD camcorder video .m2ts to PS3 MP4
Step 1. Load M2TS files to Aunsoft MTS/M2TS Converter.
After capturing .m2ts video from camcorder to hard drive, just run the AVCHD camcorder video converter to load the .mts, .m2ts videos by clicking the Add button.
Step 2. Choose PS3 MP4 output format.
Click the Format option and choose PSP/PS3 > PS3 Video(720P) MPEG-4(*.mp4) as the output file format.
Tips: There are several options for PS3, but I choose 720p, as 1080p videos sometimes do not work on PS3.
Step 3. Convert M2TS to MP4 for PS3.
Click the convert button to start the conversion of .m2ts to .mp4 for PlayStation 3.
Part II. Setup XBMC with UPnP for streaming video to PS3.
Step 1. Make your PC as UPnP server.
Setup Windows Media Connect from Microsoft to make your PC works with UPnP protocol. You can select the folder you would like to share with XBMC.
Step 2. Enable UPnP network for XBMC.
After installing XBMC on Windows, run XBMC and find System > Network > Service, and enable UPnP shares.
Step 3. Setup UPnP shares for XBMC.
Go to the home UI of XBMC by clicking the home icon on the top-left corner, and click Videos > Add Source > Browse, and then find the Add Network Location option from the bottom of listed options. Then choose Windows Media Connect as Protocol, and click Browse to select UPnP:// option with your computer’s name.
Then you can stream the output mp4 from XBMC on computer to PS3 for watching on TV. With Aunsoft MTS/M2TS Converter, your camcorder videos will be accessible to XBMC and PS3 for streaming over UPnP, and the streaming process is smooth without problem.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This of course is one of the most interesting ideas for the XBMC. However the issue with PS3 Linux is that I don’t there are graphics accelerated drivers for the PS3 hardware yet – this might hurt the performance too much to be useful for HD content.
Until this issue solved, the native PS3 video features most likely outperform the XBMC on Linux. But I have not tried it myself – perhaps some of our readers has some 1st hand info?
October 14th, 2008 at 2:59 am
I wonder how well this might work if I install linux as a 2nd OS on my ps3, then install the linux version of XBMC, if anyone tries this please post your results
October 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
IMHO this is THE best media center application to linux. User interface is designed to be use with remote control and everything seems to “just work” out of the box. You can play virtually anything: mp3,cds,dvds,shoutcast streams etc.. Xbmx can even play dvd-images directly (even inside RAR packages).
I’m using XBMC with MythTV and this combo is real winner.. there is some plans to integrate MythTV with XBMC but I don’t known when this might happen (if ever).