Xmbc By Default Installed On The Pandora?

[san]

This slashdot article looks quite promising.. could this mean the pandora is not only a very cool gaming device but it also servers as a portable hd theatre?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/02/1549235/New-XBMC-Port-Promises-ARM-Powered-HD-in-the-Palm-of-Your-Hand

Video: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2009/10/23/xbmc-on-arm-gles-2-0/

 

[juniorm33]

This slashdot article looks quite promising.. could this mean the pandora is not only a very cool gaming device but it also servers as a portable hd theatre?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/02/1549235/New-XBMC-Port-Promises-ARM-Powered-HD-in-the-Palm-of-Your-Hand

Video: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2009/10/23/xbmc-on-arm-gles-2-0/

Mentioned a couple of times and is also on the unofficial blog.
Although it doesn't have hd outputs if that's what you meant by portable hd theatre

 

[Gary13579]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

 

[Wolfsclaw]

Since it definitely looks nice, it would be cool to have this pre-installed, esp. for showing your girlfriend when you unwrap your little tickle-tac.. eh Pandora for the first time (or any stupid review sites who are too stupid to set the pandora up anyway and judge their review only on what you can do out-of-the-box)

 

[juniorm33]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

Slow what down?
The interface looked pretty fast on BB to me, with more optimisations to come going by the porters comments

 

[mindlord]

XBMC is at it's core a mplayer fronted anyway, but what it does do for you is give you a nicely put together gui. I really like it's connectivity to networked resources. It some some good library management features, as well. Plus being extensible with python scripts. It was designed originally for a very limited platform, and has a surprisingly small memory (about 30MB) footprint considering the features it delivers. I find that it runs superbly on any computer I've thrown it on. I think most people who've tried it on Linux and have had bad results left compiz running. Compiz conflicts with XBMC badly, turning it into a stuttering mess.

edit: Mega Bytes not Mega bits

 

[gruso]

http://pandorapress.net/2009/10/27/xbmc-on-beagleboard-take-2-0/ h34r:

I don't think you'll ever see it pre-installed on Pandora, this sort of thing is not the focus of OP Ltd. Besides, it still has some way to go before public release. Hopefully down the track it will be brought over to Pandora so we can run it from SD.

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

XBMC does a ton of things Mplayer can't do. That's why it's called a media center, not a media player.

 

[Gary13579]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

XBMC does a ton of things Mplayer can't do. That's why it's called a media center, not a media player.

Please indulge me as to what those features are. The only thing I can think of that mplayer doesn't do is it doesn't have the nice python scripting interface. Which isn't needed at all.

Auto mounting smb/nfs? That's what fstab is for. I understand why it's nice, I used it for many years. But the fact is, it's all kinda useless.

 

[wermy]

Please indulge me as to what those features are. The only thing I can think of that mplayer doesn't do is it doesn't have the nice python scripting interface. Which isn't needed at all.

One thing I'm excited about is the fact that XBMC is VERY well suited (read: designed for) gamepad control. Also, with all the scripting capabilities, I could easily see this becoming the front-end of choice. Just add a PND launcher to it. Obviously if this isn't your thing, that's fine -- but it seems there are many people excited about it, so it isn't just stupid.

 

[Gary13579]

Fair enough I guess I'm just overall disappointed with where the xbmc project headed. The last I checked they completely abandoned the Xbox and moved onto strictly PC, and they don't support *many* devices that would make absolutely great HTPCs (look at fit-PC2, WD TV, etc...).

 

[gruso]

App launching, photo slideshows, scripts, weather, imdb/tvdb integration... yeah, not much. And yes, the control scheme. Best.

 

[sebt3]

Please indulge me as to what those features are. The only thing I can think of that mplayer doesn't do is it doesn't have the nice python scripting interface. Which isn't needed at all.

Sure this list looks far smaller than this one.

Well, as much as I love mplayer for its reliability and portability (I use the wii port _a lot_), I will welcome the first beta of xbmc on BB or even pandy.

 

[w1ll14m]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

Make life easy for it's users.

XBMC uses ffmpeg for the most part (mplayer is based on ffmpeg aswel), they have dvdplayer (their custom brew codec factory) the old xbox was running mplayer windows build with an w32 api emulator for stuff that mplayer needed.
As far as i know, the windows, linux and macosx build don't use mplayer not sure about xbox (haven't updated in a while).
Although xbmc looks promising, it looks like ffmpeg has done some initial work on arm dsp and neonized h264 optimizations.
while gles2.0 is done by the gpu most of that is used by the gui and overlay renderer and displaying the video that is decoded by dsp/cpu.

not sure about the performance it will have, but i think it will work pretty good.

This is just my opinion, i'm not really into this scene.

 

[WizardStan]

Since it definitely looks nice, it would be cool to have this pre-installed, esp. for showing your girlfriend when you unwrap your little tickle-tac.. eh Pandora for the first time (or any stupid review sites who are too stupid to set the pandora up anyway and judge their review only on what you can do out-of-the-box)

You aren't likely to see any media players (either video or audio) pre-installed.
The reasoning goes like this: due to license restrictions, OpenPandora isn't officially allowed to endorse certain file formats and codecs, such as MP3. By not supplying a player at all, it encourages the user to actually seek out and download the complete player, which will have full support for even the restricted formats. If they included a player that was limited to just the open formats, some users might complain that the player is "incomplete" without realizing they can download unofficial updates to get more formats.

 

[Gary13579]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

Make life easy for it's users.

XBMC uses ffmpeg for the most part (mplayer is based on ffmpeg aswel), they have dvdplayer (their custom brew codec factory) the old xbox was running mplayer windows build with an w32 api emulator for stuff that mplayer needed.
As far as i know, the windows, linux and macosx build don't use mplayer not sure about xbox (haven't updated in a while).
Although xbmc looks promising, it looks like ffmpeg has done some initial work on arm dsp and neonized h264 optimizations.
while gles2.0 is done by the gpu most of that is used by the gui and overlay renderer and displaying the video that is decoded by dsp/cpu.

not sure about the performance it will have, but i think it will work pretty good.

This is just my opinion, i'm not really into this scene.

From what I've been told, ffmpeg has been abandoned. It was used on the Xbox, but the PC version strictly uses their custom dvdplayer. This really isn't that big of a deal to me.

The thing that annoys me is they completely ignore *so* many devices that would make absolutely perfect HTPCs. The two I said are my favorites. First up, fit-PC2.

http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

This thing is completely low power, fanless, noiseless, and can handle 1080p with their proprietary drivers. Yet it's ignored, IIRC because they didn't want to support the video chip it's using.

http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=572

This is a bit, trickier, as it's even more proprietary, but look at it... $100, it is cheap as BALLS, and I've seen no effort to get xbmc running on it. The WD TV has replaced xbmc for me, and that's a shame because I'd much rather use the open source alternative to everything. But I can't justify spending $400-500 on an HTPC that takes 5 times the power and outputs 20 times the noise levels as the WD TV.

I suggest the WD TV to anyone who's looking for an HTPC these days. $100 plus a $5 USB to ethernet adapter and you essentially have xbmc, only a lot cheaper/smaller/quieter.

Edit: forgot to mention, the WD TV is Linux based and uses closed proprietary code for their interface. But the system itself is under GPL, people have hacked it to include smb/nfs support which makes it a WONDERFUL system.

 

[gruso]

Yep, XBMC on Xbox is still the hub of my loungeroom. The box is getting older and noisier, but I can't let it go.

 

[Miner49er]

So on the subject of XBMC

Who here actually has XBox Media Center for their Xbox?

Honestly I'm pretty set with my modded xbox and XBMC as my dash. I would be cool if we could control XBox Media Center for the xbox from the pandora. So far it is my most amazing media center.

I have one too, in the bedroom. Box is too noisy so, I drilled a couple of holes in the wall and now have the box in the airing cupboard (no boiler in there, so not hot) and have the TV cable and the joystick cable (with IR reciever on the end) coming throug the wall.

Yes, it is a very nice system and as it hooks into my MythTV backend - it would be ideal for the pandy...I'm officially excited!

 

[mindlord]

I have XBMC for Linux installed on my "play" machine in the living room, and XBMC for XBOX installed in the bedroom. Mainly so that my wife doesn't have to familiarize herself with two different interfaces just to have access to our music and video collections stored on the NAS.

 

[w1ll14m]

This is pretty ofn, and I doubt we'll ever see XBMC do something that mplayer can't do (except slow things down).

Make life easy for it's users.

XBMC uses ffmpeg for the most part (mplayer is based on ffmpeg aswel), they have dvdplayer (their custom brew codec factory) the old xbox was running mplayer windows build with an w32 api emulator for stuff that mplayer needed.
As far as i know, the windows, linux and macosx build don't use mplayer not sure about xbox (haven't updated in a while).
Although xbmc looks promising, it looks like ffmpeg has done some initial work on arm dsp and neonized h264 optimizations.
while gles2.0 is done by the gpu most of that is used by the gui and overlay renderer and displaying the video that is decoded by dsp/cpu.

not sure about the performance it will have, but i think it will work pretty good.

This is just my opinion, i'm not really into this scene.

From what I've been told, ffmpeg has been abandoned. It was used on the Xbox, but the PC version strictly uses their custom dvdplayer. This really isn't that big of a deal to me.

The thing that annoys me is they completely ignore *so* many devices that would make absolutely perfect HTPCs. The two I said are my favorites. First up, fit-PC2.

http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

This thing is completely low power, fanless, noiseless, and can handle 1080p with their proprietary drivers. Yet it's ignored, IIRC because they didn't want to support the video chip it's using.

http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=572

This is a bit, trickier, as it's even more proprietary, but look at it... $100, it is cheap as BALLS, and I've seen no effort to get xbmc running on it. The WD TV has replaced xbmc for me, and that's a shame because I'd much rather use the open source alternative to everything. But I can't justify spending $400-500 on an HTPC that takes 5 times the power and outputs 20 times the noise levels as the WD TV.

I suggest the WD TV to anyone who's looking for an HTPC these days. $100 plus a $5 USB to ethernet adapter and you essentially have xbmc, only a lot cheaper/smaller/quieter.

Edit: forgot to mention, the WD TV is Linux based and uses closed proprietary code for their interface. But the system itself is under GPL, people have hacked it to include smb/nfs support which makes it a WONDERFUL system.

ffmpeg is definitely not abandoned browse here the current svn trunk: http://xbmc.org/trac/browser/trunk/xbmc/cores/dvdplayer/Codecs/ffmpeg
DVDPlayer a few codecs codecs including ffmpeg.
Anyway, i compile xbmc for linux once a week as xbmc is heavily updated.

about those htpc's...
The first can run linux, but would be impossible to decode 480p+ h264 material. The atom cpu isn't capable of decoding 480p+ on it's own without dxva and/or some other stuff (windows only optimizations or proprietary codecs).
As for the WD TV, i think it uses proprietary codecs also. The WD TV has problems with DTS audio even after firmware update. It's a good looking piece of hardware but I still prefer xbmc, as you can use it as you like or even change it to behave like you want it to.

If I may recommend a htpc or media center.. I would recommend an asrock ion 330 with xbmc live (or custom). it has vdpau (google for it) vdpau is implemented in ffmpeg and is capable of decoding h264 1080p only with the gpu, cpu is not used in the decoding process. vdpau is not fully open as I'd like but the api is and it works fairly good. A cheap 8400gs would be sufficient.

--edit--
I have 2 xboxes running xbmc as dashboard, 2 htpc's running xbmc linux with nvidia 8400gs.
Whenever i see the XBMC logo it gives a sort of warm feeling of hard work and dedication to a project.