sounds great! though, the obvious advantage of an xbox / xbox 360 is that it's already under the TV to start with...

digitalhen

Not in article: 10.5 Leopard only...no Tiger or PPC support whatsoever.

mr.Man

Can't wait to get the Mac I'm going to get this summer so I can try it. :)

Michael @ Paperweight Blog

@Gina Trapani:

That's a bad quote for them to say. I'd think anyone who knew anything about the ATV, would only go for the 40GB, IMO. 160GB won't be near as big enough for media, & most media will just be "streamed" anyway. Thus making the deal a 3 to 1 ratio when comparing the price difference between the ATV & a Mini..

genius74

Cool... I might have to try this on one of my machines...

tamoko

Ugh please make Connect 360(or Rivet) and this for PC. Media Center sucks.

xdeliriumx

what makes this better than sapphire for front row?

k2snowboards88

From the FAQ:

"Will this run on AppleTV?

We believe that it is probably technically possible to get XBMC for OS X to run on Apple TV hardware. The processor would be underpowered for most HD content, and it would probably perform very closely to the original XBox hardware (unless someone figured out how to utilize the onboard h.264 hardware). While it seems to be technically possible, this team has no plans to support XBMC for OS X on Apple TV. We are big fans of both Apple and their technology, so we are not willing to engage in anything that Apple could consider "hacking" or encouraging people to hack. Our official recommendation is you want something like Apple TV, either buy an Apple TV, or spend the extra $200 and get a Mac Mini and be able to do both! "

Gina Trapani

is it possible to run xbmc from a appletv unit? that would be the ultimate media appliance for me...

VakeroRokero

If you read my Lh comments, I sound like an XBMC groupie... but I love the crap out of it. I have it customized to my hearts content and set to stream media off my main server. XBMC + giganews + media server = the nerdlings tivo

If for any reason in the future I can't get my hands on some used xboxs, I'll buy a mini and install XBMC on it.

Jason Fitzpatrick

I don't know how I feel about the apple remote, the xbox controller makes a damn good remote and the pressure sensitive triggers for scrolling is so intuitive - they really did a great job with the XBOX hardware, I'd hardly say this will make me want to throw out my xbox.

vsboxerboy

i use xbmc literally every day. that soft mod was the greatest thing i've ever done.

also, you can buy an xbox for like $50 and plays everything but HD (although it upconverts nicely on my 1080). greatest invention ever.

Khamel

@mr.Man: I mentioned no PPC support, but didn't say no Tiger. Adding now, thanks.

Gina Trapani

Reading this make me want to put my XBox back together and boot up XBMC.

XBMC is the best media program ever. Anything that can take a P3 733, a GF3, 64MB and a HDD and make it media bliss is alright in my book.

For the Mac, it's a win, especially if they develop HD playback...

I dunno, I wish XBMC would be ported to the PC... Mediaportal is just far too buggy and bloated every time I have tried it.

radio1

Like many commenters here, I am a huge fan of XBMC and have been using it since it was called Xbox Media Player. It truly is the best media player I have ever used. However, I have been hoping for many years that it would evolve from an Xbox-only player to a multi-OS solution. What I was most-hoping to see was a Linux port, and possibly one for the Wii now that there is a partial hack for it (and it rums some homebrew code). Does anyone have info on either of these?

salviati

I really hope the windows port starts gaining some steam.

Robobagins

For PC, I've had good luck with GB-PVR. Not as good as MythTV when I had a spare system to run Ubuntu on, but much better than Mediaportal.

TheTick

@vsboxerboy: they've made the xbox 360 wireless controller work with the .5 release. not sure if the triggers will do proportional scrolling of lists though.

in the future you'll be able to play MAME games using the 360 controller through XBMC on the Mac.

also, they have universal remotes like the harmony working.

zakharm

XBMX on the xbox is great but cannot play back 720p material. This sounds like it could be better for HD stuff.

oopl

As someone who is reasonably happy with Front Row, could someone tell me what the advantage of the XBMC is? What features make it worth swapping it out?

Ryan H

I'm not a Mac person, but it seems like this would be perfect for a Mac Mini.

Norcross

Can anyone exactly tell me why this wouldn't work for a PC? I know that XBMC was written to be put on a FATX partition but have they not figured a way to do run it on a NTFS or a FAT 32? (preferrably the former) I know the hardware is pretty basic so that should be a limitation.

GideoN314

does anyone know if this port actually adds anything to osx version of XBMC that is not available on good old xbox.
Like the 720p/1080p support?

vladgur

Given that MediaPortal started as an offshoot of XBMC, it's a shame that it's not better developed - given the comments here.

dagwud

"ultimate media center" eh?

Does it have PVR functionality? ... no?
I'll stick wiht my non Mac 'penultimate' media center then, thanks. (read: enough headline hyperbole. wtf integrity)

Rajio

The problems with weather and plug-ins will be fixed in the next beta, due out very shortly. And you forgot to mention one of the biggest advantages to using XBMC on OS X, which is support for 720p and 1080p HD media. Great article! -elan

ShashiCabal

So ... anybody up for a Hackintosh running XBMC?

Sounds like the ultimate cobbled-together media center...

Jon

XBMC is quite awesome and I used it until I bought a cablecard windows media center. XBMC is light years ahead of frontrow and I heartily recommend it for Mac types.

Xenocide

To answer some questions. The main reason that XBMC is being ported to other platforms is for HD content. It first started being ported to Linux over a year ago, and to Mac a few months ago. Those that are wishing for a Windows version will be happy to know that the Windows version is probably about as stable as the Mac version at this point. If you want to try the Windows version you can download an installer for it off of sourceforge or the XBMC forums.

febes17

I have a question, does XMBC stream things from a server, or do you put thngs onto the HD, or both? I might go pick up an old xbox, also, anyway to get the software without going through the irc channels? bittorrent?

takemetoyourtoaster

What format would you recommend I rip by dvds to play on the XBMC? I won't get far with 4GBs a dvd. Thanks.

mykoljay

Rivet and 360... nom nom nom.

pomophobe

@takemetoyourtoaster: You can do either or both (on the xbox at least).

You don't have to go to secret ftp sites or irc channels to get XBMC (for the xbox). Just go here: [t3ch.yi.se]

reeflections

WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THOSE 'TV SHOW' IMAGES?!

mmr

@radio1: They have HD playback already. I watch 720p TV episodes with OSXBMC all the time. If your comp is fast enough it will even do 1080p.

mmr

I've been using XBMC for about 4 years and still use it pretty much every day, it's far and away the best solution for playing ripped DVDs and xvids. If the xbox was silent and had the power to play HD it'd be my ideal device.

I've just ordered a popcorn hour media streamer to do the HD stuff for now but once this gets to a 1.0 release and I've got some more cash I fully intend to get a mini to hook up to the TV for media centre duty!

@takemetoyourtoaster:

You can stream over SMB shares or play from the HD, one of the cool things about XBMC is that it will play straight from rar files without having to extract first.

As far as getting the software goes www.xbox-scene.com is the place to go for guides and try searching for "auto xbins" if you don't want to deal with IRC.

atconc

@takemetoyourtoaster:

XBMC can stream over a network from a server, or play off an internal hard drive. However, the internal hard drive is small (10-12 GB). There are ways of upgrading the internal hard drive, but they either require a mod-chip to be soldered into the xbox, or a painful level of coding (with hex editors) that I wouldn't subject my worst enemy to. Basically, you'd want to learn how to 'soft-mod' the xbox using the UXE method, and stream your content over a regular network (like a Windows shared drive). The best site for xbox modding used to be xbox-scene.com, but I haven't checked it lately. Good luck.

salviati

for those who are unaware, there is a PC alternative as well. Media Portal [www.team-mediaportal.com] has initially started as a port of XBMC to the PC, but because it's been in it's own independent development for a long time, it's quite a different project now. Still worth a look.

Pasha

long time fan of XBMC...much better than ANY media center software or hardware that I've seen in the last few years.

I'm moving my Mac Mini to the living room!!

I've already got a dedicated network drive with all sorts of movies and music on it. Just configure XBMC on my Mac Mini to find the network share and I'll be playing back movies and music all weekend long.

1080p media...isn't that worthless unless you've got a big tv (40+ inches). let me re-phrase, isn't the difference in quality from 720p indistinguishable, until your screen size exceeds 40-something inches?

moxSapphyre

@mmr: Heh. First, no need to yell. :) Set the content for the folder that holds your TV shows to television, and then choose an image source, and scan 'em in. Same process as for movies, just set the content type to TV.

Gina Trapani

@mmr:

If you're looking for images, mediaicons.org is a good place to start.

anonymii

Have to second mediaicons.org as my go to spot for dvd covers & widescreen icons.

XBMC being ported to windows, mac, and linux is really the next big thing for all in one media centers.

h.264 is just barely playable in the xbox at 720, it stutters with high action. I'm thinking about the time most content switches to HD as the standard is about the same time XBMC ports get out of beta and into main stream.

I tried XBMC for windows and found most things present and working. Playback still needs some work.

A mac release is still good news and I'll continue to follow development.

thatdecade

A few things:
(1) In the meantime, I need to upgrade my XBMC on my XBox... I see some features that I don't currently have.
(2) I need to get a Mac Mini to replace my XBox. Downside is, it's three XBoxes to replace.

(3) Do *any* python scripts work? Actually a *huge* feature draw on the XBox version is the XBMCMythTV script. Anyone tried testing this yet? I guess I could, now that I think of it.

balthisar

I have two xboxs, one hard modded and one soft modded being used only for xbmc. I recently purchased the new popcorn hour to be able to play HD rips, since the xbox doesn't play HD content and all I can say I was thoroughly disappointed. They are a little under $200 but if you have used xbmc then you will be disappointed with the popcorn hour. I would suggest saving up and buying a mac mini. That is my plan for next year, and selling the popocorn hour.

amcfarla

Links to the project

Original idea/team building:
[forums.xbox-scene.com]

Project Thread:
[xbmc.org]

Terc

Oh, COOL! I started the work on that skin (iTV/XTV) back in the day!

Enjoy guys!

I'm waiting on the port to AppleTV to finish up.

Terc

For the first time ever, something has made me want to upgrade to Leopard (from Tiger). Ugh.

grant0

Intel-only=FAIL

jafac

just to comment. I have XBMC displaying 720P content perfectly on the XBOX hardware. I also have it running on linux. I have two xboxes 1 linux box connected to my mythtv backend so I can watch live tv and my recordings including DVDs, music, pictures and HD movies. The main porting effort is going on in linux first with the OSX and windows ports getting updated shortly after. I have ran it on windows also and it ran fine.

iimbt

Does this thing support HD DVD or Blue Ray?

itsandra

1. XBMC works on AppleTV. You need to install Ubuntu and then use the Linux version of XBMC. HD playback is problematic as the CPU of the AppleTV is simply too weak. 2. XBMC is being ported to Windows. It was just not released yet. You can read instructions of how to it at the XBMC forums.

RomildaCallisto

I have a soft modded xbox with xbmc. My dinky 8gb hard drive died which forced me to successfully drop in a 200gb drive with just a softmod. The most important item needed for this is the eeprom dump from when you originally soft mod your xbox. That and some software from xbox-scene.com and an hour or 3 of mucking around and you no longer have to stream as much stuff.

Plus you can have a whole pile of MAME for old school gaming too.

All in all, one of my favorite bits of hackery.

isaacd

also how do you add emulators and roms, do I download a emulator script?

takemetoyourtoaster

I have a question, I got this, and also downloaded a skin (MC360) how do I change the skin?

takemetoyourtoaster

What I want to know is where Gina got the TV show episodes! (Forget the artwork!)

fritzk3

Using an new 24 inch iMac this plays streamed uncompressed ripped blu ray movies (1080p) with nary a frame drop. The remote FF/Rewind was a little buggy when I tried it several weeks ago, though. The only thing keeping me from getting a mac mini to replace my modded xbox is I'm not sure it can handle 1080p.

echotrain

Too many Ultimate Media Centers :p
All in all, XBMC is a very good media program, seeing how it made me replace anything I already had before then.

SonicJ

is it possible to use this on a standard pc? i think that this would be good for people who have old pcs sitting around, give them a second life.

kayrose

you can put it on a pc but depending on the CPU may limit the content you can see. If its 1 GHZ or below you have to use standard resolution. If you want HD (720P) you have to reencode the media. Thats what I am doing now with my HD stuff. I just reencoded some 1080P stuff down to a 720P divx, works great. You can also run emulators through the script functions. my actually xbox is playing n64, snes stuff, and MAME stuff right now.

iimbt

anybody get the comedycentral script working in the mac version?

takemetoyourtoaster