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For those people that don't know - XBMC started off as a hack for the original XBox that made it into a media centre. It's since become a stand-alone media app
by AndrewDucker 15y ago
For those people that don't know - XBMC started off as a hack for the original XBox that made it into a media centre.
It's since become a stand-alone media app, installable on everything from the Apple TV to Linux. It plays everything you throw at it, keeps track of where you were up to when you last hit pause, and happily interconnects with all sorts of sources.
- skeletonjelly 15y agoSpeaking of pausing, one of my favourite features is how it works with the Android XBMC remote. If somebody calls my phone it will pause whatever is playing, show a notification on the TV and resume playing when I hang up. Always surprises me.
- malkia 15y agoI guess, I don't fully understand this... Is the phone used for remote?
- 0x0 15y agoI assume he's talking about a "remote" app for Android. There are a dozen for iOS at least. They all work via the HTTP interface that xbmc exposes, I believe.
- Danieru 15y agoThe android xbmc app is special because it is development by the xbmc team. xbmc has a few remote apis. The nicest is the JSON one, it's so easy to work with I wrote a simple remote for my n900.
- spdy 15y agoYes you can control XBMC over JSON-RPC there are many remotes for Android / IOS. I personally use my IPad as remote.
- xpose2000 15y agoI did not know this. Thanks so much! I was going to actually buy a standalone IR remote for my HTPC.
- skeletonjelly 15y agoThe only thing I hate about it is that it lacks haptic feedback so you can't really look at the TV screen and know where the buttons are, you'll have a high failure rate basically.
- vetinari 15y agoPiece of advice: get the standalone IR (or BT) remote. Not only you will have haptic feedback mentioned by skeletonjelly, but the battery will last months and, the most important thing, you can wake up the HTPC from sleep (yes, you can use WOL with the Android remote, but it takes too long). Another alternative is to get HDMI CEC-USB adapter and use remote from your telly for control. Pricewise, they are about the same as remotes.
- ZeroGravitas 15y agoAnother option is Flirc , cross between a uSB IR reciever and a programmable remote. You can teach it any existing IR remotes you have and it appears to the system like a USB keyboard. http://flirc.tv/ http://flirc.tv/ Note that despite the name, it has nothing to do with lirc.
- sdfjkl 15y agoI've been running this on a Mac Mini connected to my HDTV for some time now and it's become my favorite media player, mainly due to it's smooth integration with the Apple remote control and keeping track of what I've already watched. It really does play anything, including all kinds of subtitles and "just works".
- bherms 15y agoHave you tried Plex? I've been a dedicated Plex user for a while now, but I've noticed quite a few bugs lately and development seems to have slowed on the desktop client as of late (though I recent blog post says they'll be getting back to it soon). I just want to know if I should consider switching to XBMC.
- zerostar07 15y agoPlex requires snow leopard which you won't find on old mac minis.
- bherms 15y agoI've got the base model of the newest line of Mac Minis running Plex. It surprisingly pretty choppy and slow at times.
- e40 15y agoI'm on Plex .8 because Plex .9 didn't allow delete. There was a shitstorm in the forums about this, and it's been implemented, so I never upgraded. The other thing I hated about Plex .9 was the UI. I really liked the "browse by filesystem." I'm considering giving XBMC a try again (I started with that and went to Plex when they had much better Mac support).
- bherms 15y agoNice... I'm considering switching over to XBMC for a week or two to see how I like it. I might write a blog post to compare the two soon. Moving this week though, so it might be a while.