Not really a dedicated thread and the HTPC thread is more for hardware. How many people actually run XBMC and what do they run it on? ATV? HTPC?

I've got a stable release of Eden (11.0) running on an HTPC (i3 w/6570)

Thinking about moving to an SSD for the library to speed up the GUI/artwork refreshes through menus. I also can't for the life of me get perfect playback. Running at 60hz drops frames with 24p playback and adjusting the display to match the video is annoying because my Samsung takes a second to switch modes each time and it occurs even when you bring up the menu. I'd prefer to maintain one refresh rate and use a clock. Currently doing an Audio clock seems to work fine. From what I understand you can't use a video clock (re-sample audio) if you're sending DD/DTS to a receiver/decoder. I was originally keeping my refresh rate at 24p all the time but then it become a hassle every time I wanted to watch that one 30 or 60hz show (navigating XBMC menus at 24p is also noticeably laggy, not to mention the input lag on the display from the mouse).

My favorite part of the whole set up is my Harmony 900 RF remote though. Custom touch screen buttons for new shows, etc. The RF feature is great. I've gotten so used to not actually pointing a remote any more that when I use traditional remotes I forget to actually point it and get frustrated.

The one frustration is despite being an RF remote the signals are still sent via an IR blaster (RF remote -> RF receiver -> IR blaster -> device). So there is still the IR lag between when you hit the button and when the display updates. This occurs on all remotes but it would be nice if I could figure out how to get an RF -> USB receiver for the HTPC to eliminate the lag from the blaster.

9/6/2012 3:16:24 PM

I have three ATVs running XBMC. I have them all synced up using the article from Lifehacker a while back. One of three is at my in-laws mountain house so when my wife and kids go up there they have all of their movies and TV shows. It has taken about a year to get everything where I want it. All of the media is stored on Fedora box with 3TB of storage and a 80GB SSD for the OS. I just installed a fanless power supply the other week and that has really cut back on all the noise.

9/6/2012 4:00:31 PM

Awesome. I have yet to actually try XBMC on an ATV. How's the interface responsiveness? I enjoy having an actual computer hooked up to my TV for other reasons but I imagine smaller installs of it would be nice for secondary tvs.

9/6/2012 4:36:30 PM

The interface is smooth and I've never really had an issue. I also have all of my thumbnails/images mapped to a network share so that helps some with the limited storage on the ATV2.

9/6/2012 4:44:09 PM

i've been using xbmc for awhile and would like to tune/tweak it further. current setup is

htpc with core i3 sandybridge cpu, onboard graphics, HDMI to tv + optical audio to receiver. it has an SSD for win7+xbmc. It mounts a network drive from file server where I keep the tv/movies.

I bought a cheap $20 logitech remote to try to use, but didn't get the right receiver (IR?) for it. so, i just use xbmc app on my android phone as the remote for now.

Quote :

"One of three is at my in-laws mountain house so when my wife and kids go up there they have all of their movies and TV shows. "

i'd like to do something like this (sync all data to a 2nd remote location). I read the article you linked, but it just addresses how to sync the xbmc database w/ mysql... i don't think i'd want to run mysql over the internet. how do you sync the library?

9/7/2012 8:43:38 PM

I used the original XBMC on my hacked xboxes and loved it. I will probably continue to use them so I can play my SNES/Sega roms gracefully.

I've done a few implementations on some old Dells for friends. Completely unable to play MKV 1080p movies. 720 was sometimes a struggle.

I want to build a nice nettop but i've got some shit laying around i could make a decent desktop and just stick it there.

[Edited on September 8, 2012 at 8:40 AM. Reason : ss]

9/8/2012 8:39:36 AM

Quote :

"i'd like to do something like this (sync all data to a 2nd remote location). I read the article you linked, but it just addresses how to sync the xbmc database w/ mysql... i don't think i'd want to run mysql over the internet. how do you sync the library?"

Using rsync it copies my library over each night. I just did this at my brother-in-laws house as well. Has been working fine for a while now. We setup a freenas box with an old dell I had.

10/18/2012 10:52:18 AM

Haha been messing with the sqllite DB behind XBMC:







[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 5:20 PM. Reason : s]

10/29/2012 5:19:32 PM

put that code on github

10/29/2012 5:41:15 PM

Episode premier date. Can see the down tick over the summer.

^It's just a select statement from the XBMC sqlLite database. Then I threw the output in excel and pivoted.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 6:05 PM. Reason : ^]

10/29/2012 6:04:47 PM

So I've spent the better part of my spare time for the past two weeks investigating nearly every media center alternative out there, to try and consolidate my HTPC experience (and to get my wife to stop bitching about how kludged together everything is).

I went through Media Portal and Plex, and spent the last few days on XBMC.
Holy shit is XBMC better than every alternative. Like mind-blowingly better.

It definitely has taken me a couple of days to understand the system underneath. The whole add-on, file library, repository system is more than a little convoluted at first glance.

But once I got through understanding how it all works, every problem (which has only been a handful) I've been able to fix in a matter of minutes.

CableCard Live TV works pretty damn well. It's new for Frodo (12.x) as a standalone feature. (fixed the slow channel changing problem with a hotfix build, which should be integrated into 12.2 officially). I'm using NextPVR as the backend, and it took all of 20 minutes to setup initially, and another couple of hours of me fiddling just to fiddle.

Hulu integration is awesome, works perfectly (be sure to disable ads in the add-on config)

I actually got Netflix working too, though it took me an hour or so of poking around in code to figure out how to get it unbroken (and everything on the interwebs says it's broken for ever more, but that's bullshit, it only needs a few lines of code changed).

The last bit to get working is spotify integration, but that requires me to build the addon from source, so that's gonna have to wait a bit.

Also got everything setup running on a MySQL server on my media-server, rather than the sqllite db's. It's more than a bit slow doing the initial library updates, but it should be dramatically faster and less CPU/Memory/Storage intensive on every client endpoint.

4/27/2013 7:14:24 AM

I've been running XBMC for about 2 years now and it really is the best thing that I have tried. I have the MySQL DB setup as you mentioned Noen and it does help if you have multiple clients. I use ATV2's for all of mine throughout the house. I also have a separate setup at my in-laws place in the mountains that I mirror my main media server with rsync each night.

Are you willing to share your edits for the Netflix plugin? Pandora seems to be hot or miss with integration as well. Haven't tried to get that working lately.

4/28/2013 2:29:55 PM

Does XBMC offer the ability to play DVD and Blu-ray iso files with menus? I started ripping my movies a long time ago and use Windows Media Center now with a combination of plugins. I always thought that XBMC had a nicer interface, but when I was ripping I wanted full rips with menus and special features so my growing DVD collection could go in storage and it didn't offer the full playback I think.. Or am I wrong here?

4/28/2013 5:43:56 PM

Quote :

"Are you willing to share your edits for the Netflix plugin?"

4/28/2013 5:51:18 PM

...meant to add this earlier.

Quote :

"Does XBMC offer the ability to play DVD and Blu-ray iso files with menus?"

Yes.

Quote :

"DVDPlayer is XBMC's video player, capable of playing DVD video and many other video formats. DVDPlayer supports DVD video with menus, from CD/DVD-media, harddrive, network, ISO/IMG-images and RAR/ZIP archives (and even RARed ISO/IMG-images as long as they are in 'stored/archive' mode and not compressed)."

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=DVDPlayer

4/28/2013 8:37:17 PM

Quote :

"Are you willing to share your edits for the Netflix plugin?"

Open iqueue.py (in xbmc\addons\plugin.video.xbmc-flicks\resource\lib\) and find these lines (1275-1277):

APP_NAME = 'xxxxxxx'
API_KEY = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
API_SECRET = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'

Replace those values with these from the Plex Netflix plugin:

APP_NAME = 'Plex'
API_KEY = 'nfeafbf2hpdnyfvr5dd32ka6'
API_SECRET = 'bBsa6TqYab'

Then, in (xbmc\userdata\addon_data\plugin.video.xbmcflicks\) create the file userinfo.txt

You will need to add 4 lines of text to the empty file:

requestKey=nfeafbf2hpdnyfvr5dd32ka6
requestSecret=bBsa6TqYab
accessKey=
accessSecret=

The first two match the key and secret from plex. In order to get the values for the last two, go to http://developer.netflix.com/walkthrough

Go through the steps, copying and pasting the info it asks for (I fucked this up several times before getting it all right). Sign in to your netflix account in Step 3, then Click "Request Access Token" in step 4

In the text box that gets filled in under step 4, copy the oauth_token value, and paste that in as your accessKey in the userinfo.txt file, and oauth_token_secret value as your accessSecret in userinfo.txt.

Save the file, enable the plugin and netflix will be working

4/28/2013 10:19:46 PM

XMBC is fantastic, free, smartphone enabled, and fairly easy to use.

Don't buy into the "Paid" Plex software that's supposedly better, it's not free or better.

4/29/2013 9:25:58 AM

The paid Plex is not supposed to be better, it's the same as the free version that you can download. The difference is you get access to new features earlier by testing out alpha versions and you get access to PlexSync, which will automatically sync media to your mobile devices for when you don't have internet.

I've helped several people get their HTPC setups up and running and I've found Plex to be much better than XBMC. Its so much easier to use and setup, and if you want multiple clients, its way easier than XBMC. Plex is built off of XBMC but it separates it into the backend server and the frontend clients. Install the server where the media is and then you can install as many clients as you want with no additional configuration needed. It has mobile apps that you can use to stream to any device anywhere as long as you have internet.

I had Netflix working for a while with Plex until a Netflix update broke the plugin. My roommates find it easier just to use Netflix in a browser, so I haven't bothered to look into fixing it.

4/29/2013 12:51:15 PM

Yeah I was initially really jazzed about Plex. It's media import wasn't very good, although it was a good excuse to get my stuff all named consistently (have been doing CableCard->DVR->MCEBuddy).

But the plugins for it are a mess, and since its not open source there's a whole lot of black magic you can't get any understanding into.

And the composition of the UI itself is nice and consistent, but it's horribly limited and there's not much extensibility there.

The final nail in the coffin though was the fact that I couldnt get the CableCard support to work reliably. It would just crash Plex constantly while I was editing channel configuration.

4/29/2013 12:54:31 PM

I use Plex for streaming media to my Android phone but XBMC as a front end for my HTPC. I've only got one machine so the UI is key. XBMC seems a bit better in that regard.

What remotes are everyone using? I've got a Harmony 900 and I love it. I'm glad Logitech decided to stick with an RF remote. The new ultimate looks awesome.

4/29/2013 1:00:00 PM

You can use the same skins with Plex as you can with XBMC with a little tweaking. I'm using Aeon for Plex downstairs but the standard skin upstairs.

I have a couple Harmony 880s. No complaints with them.

I've never had a problem with the media import, but I use couchpotato and sickbeard for everything, so it's all named properly.

I don't use a cablecard (or have any kind of live tv support) so I don't know about that.

I thought Plex was at least mostly open source. The Netflix plugin I was using seemed to be created by some random schmoe.

4/29/2013 1:13:43 PM

I need to try couchpotato. I keep meaning to give it a shot. I love sickbeard though.

4/29/2013 3:29:17 PM

^^The Plex windows/mac/web client is open source. The Plex Media Server and all the other device clients are closed. Which is/was my problem. All my issues stemmed from the server which is a black box.

I use a vanilla MCE IR Transciever, along with a Xbox 360 media remote and EventGhost. It works beautifully for me, and is a lot cheaper and million times less complex than a harmony.

4/29/2013 8:35:13 PM

Quote :

"million times less complex than a harmony."

Granted, I've ran into some head scratchers while programming my harmony, but it's not that hard 95% of the time and the idea of activities and remembering what devices are powered up/which inputs they are using makes harmony better than anything else out there by a light year.

And I guarantee you there isn't a harmony remote on the planet that has took 10% of the complexity and brainpower involved as what you posted ^^^^^^^^ up there.

Edit: I just saw the part about EventGhost. I've never heard of it before, but I googled it and it looks waaaay harder to set up and configure than a harmony.

Edit 2: plus the lot cheaper part isn't really as big of a gap as you seem to think either. He picked up a Harmony 650 for $35 last year. That's not that much more than the MCE remote, plus it's a far more elegant solution than the bland basic MCE one.

4/29/2013 9:09:20 PM

which is the easiest to setup for someone who doesn't know how to tweak code and only has a basic level of understanding of networks? i can follow directions, but i probably can't figure out why something doesn't work.

XBMC or plex?

[Edited on April 29, 2013 at 9:10 PM. Reason : .]

4/29/2013 9:09:51 PM

I think Plex is easier to setup. I've helped 3 very non-technical people set it up and they haven't had a problem. I helped one semi-technical person setup sickbeard, sabnzbd, xbmc, etc and they ended up switching to Plex too. Plex is definitely easier if you are going to have multiple clients with a central media server.

4/29/2013 9:27:53 PM

yeah, and i'd ideally like to get downloading as automated as possible with an interface easy enough for the wife

4/29/2013 9:49:51 PM

Quote :

"Granted, I've ran into some head scratchers while programming my harmony, but it's not that hard 95% of the time and the idea of activities and remembering what devices are powered up/which inputs they are using makes harmony better than anything else out there by a light year."

Sorry I realize now my post was very ambiguous. I meant complexity in using it, not setting it up. My wife is about as techno-phobic as anyone on earth. She isn't a technology person, and has an extremely low tolerance for anything techie.

So when I tried to talk her into using a Harmony, she was like fuuck that. My config was definitely a LOT more complex to setup, but with eventghost, she can use a VERY simple remote to do everything. No function switching, no multi-device management.

Quote :

"which is the easiest to setup for someone who doesn't know how to tweak code and only has a basic level of understanding of networks? i can follow directions, but i probably can't figure out why something doesn't work."

Plex by 1,000,000%. Plex was easy as hell to setup and use. If I didn't want to keep the CableCard and CableTV, I would still be using it. It's brutally simple to setup and use.

I got it hooked up with Sickbeard+CouchPotato+SabNZBD as well, they weren't too difficult, but you will probably get stuck in several places if you don't have a pretty good understanding of how usenet and torrents work technically, or how web services work generally.

[Edited on April 29, 2013 at 10:12 PM. Reason : .]

4/29/2013 10:11:48 PM

Quote :

"with eventghost, she can use a VERY simple remote to do everything. No function switching, no multi-device management."

How does that work? I'm trying to think of the logistics of a multi-device setup with a simple remote, and I can't think of a better way of doing it than the Harmony. My mom is also very technically incompetent, but even she has no problems with selecting activities on the Harmony. The hardest part was getting her to remember to keep the remote pointed at the entertainment center until everything was turned on properly.

4/29/2013 10:21:51 PM

^That's just it. With XBMC, there is no multi-device setup anymore. Everything happens on one box with one remote.

She is happy as shit that there's no more separate dvd player, no switching between cable tv on one input and Hulu/DVD on another. No different remote for volume or turning on/off the tv.

Now I just have to do the same thing for our living room, where there's a receiver in the mix (this is our bedroom setup)

4/29/2013 10:26:58 PM

Oh. Yeah, I was imagining a full HT setup, but I guess the whole point is that this duplicates all of that. I guess the whole live TV aspect really helps out a lot when you no longer have to worry about switching to a Cable/Sat box as an activity anymore. Didn't really think about that.

4/29/2013 10:30:58 PM

Quote :

"^That's just it. With XBMC, there is no multi-device setup anymore. Everything happens on one box with one remote."

TV, HTPC, receiver... 1 box?

On my main setup downstairs, I have the HTPC, xbox, wii, and OTA antenna and the harmony switches inputs on the TV and receiver automagically depending on what activity you pick. It's 1 remote for all the devices. I've also configured the remote to have the additional tasks needed for any activity on the screen regardless of the specific device the task is on (open/close the xbox, start the plex app, etc) so you never have to even drill down into the devices.

My roommate's girlfriend is the least technical person I've ever met and she has no problem using the harmony for all the different shit she does (watch stuff on HTPC, play kinect games on the xbox, play wii fit, watch the live news). It took me maybe 5 minutes to show her everything and she hasn't had a problem.

Now granted it took me at least 4 hours of tweaking everything on the Harmony to get it just right and testing to know which additional buttons I needed to put on the screen for each activity, but it's extremely easy to use and is one remote for all 5 devices.

I'm not saying your setup isn't great or doesn't work, I just don't see how the Harmony is less efficient or harder to use.


[Edited on April 29, 2013 at 10:45 PM. Reason : I guess by one box, you mean you never have to change inputs or mess with turning on off any devices]

4/29/2013 10:43:23 PM

^Yeah, I had to simplify. In our bedroom is just the HTPC hooked to the tv.

The living room is slightly more complicated, its currently just an Xbox+Receiver+TV. Gonna add a xbmc device in there next, but I'm going to handle the switching through the xmbc, rather than switching in the receiver (I think, we'll see how that actually goes).

And yeah, the Harmony IS great. I love them. Just button overload for the wife. The last thing she wants is ANOTHER tiny screen with buttons that change depending on what she wants to do. Like I said, I married a total luddite

[Edited on April 29, 2013 at 11:06 PM. Reason : e]

4/29/2013 11:05:24 PM

I have 9 different devices hooked up to my TV. If I ever move in with anyone that is a technophobe they're gonna be so screwed.

4/29/2013 11:08:33 PM

^^ lol, when my sister came into town and I was showing her how to watch tv she goes 'so wait, I have to use this little screen here to control that screen there?'

^it's not so bad if you have your remote setup well.

4/29/2013 11:20:52 PM

Quote :

"I have 9 different devices hooked up to my TV"

When my wife first moved in with me, we had 6 or 7 in the living room. Now I just have a man cave. I currently have 10 consoles hooked up to my TV in here, and only because I ran out of space .

PS1, PS2, Sega Genesis+CD, TG-16, Dreamcast, Xbox 360, SNES, Nes, Famicom+Disk System, Atari Jaguar+CD. Need to reorganize a bit to get in the Saturn, Gamecube and N64.

4/29/2013 11:24:33 PM

What guide do you all use with NextPVR?

4/30/2013 2:34:41 AM

My girlfriend (who isn't very technological adept) loves the Harmony 900. We don't have cable so it's just hit "xbmc" on the touch screen to turn on then the "off" button to turn everything off. There is a TV soft button for OTA but we rarely use it. As long as you've got the soft buttons set up and everything configured correctly the Harmonies are fairly easy for anyone to figure out.

4/30/2013 11:03:57 AM

I hate the harmony one, but that's mostly to do with the garbage ir emitter and the shitty sunken touchscreen

5/1/2013 8:00:58 AM

Sunken? I've got the Harmony 900 and it's basically a Harmony One with RF. It's awesome. The touch screen is perfect too. Not too big and not too small. Just enough for the soft keys I need.

5/1/2013 12:12:21 PM

the display's like a quarter inch below the touch surface

you point it down towards your equipment so the shitty ir emitter has some hope of working and you can't tell wtf button you're going to press due to the visual offset

[Edited on May 1, 2013 at 2:11 PM. Reason : presumably the rf one you can point in any direction, so it's not really an issue for it]

5/1/2013 2:10:18 PM

I have a Harmony 880 (have for 3 years now) and I wouldn't trade it for the Harmony One or any other Harmony or remote. The main reason? The IR transmitter is so powerful and wide-spread that I can be pointing 90 degrees from it or pointing away and the signal still makes it. The second reason is because the button layout may not be perfect on the 880, but it's a lot better than the One's layout. Not sure what Logitech is doing.

5/1/2013 2:19:40 PM

I've like to jailbreak an Apple TV and install XBMC. Should I just buy a used one off eBay and go from there? Could I jailbreak one of the new ones?

5/1/2013 2:37:36 PM

^^To each his own, I guess, but I much rather prefer the button layout and general feel of the One to the 880. I just really hate the way the 880 body style fits (or rather doesn't fit) in your hand.

^You can only jailbreak the 2nd gen, and those only do 720p. Last I checked, the 2nd gen Apple TVs were still going for well over $200 used on ebay. If you're looking for XBMC on the cheap, try looking at a Raspberry Pi, or wait a month and pick up an Ouya at Best Buy.

5/1/2013 3:01:30 PM

Hm weird. The display on the 900 is flush with the surface and yeah IR remotes suck. I can control all my appliances from the parking lot if i want. RF FTW.

5/1/2013 3:14:58 PM

^^ Yeah I'm learning those things aren't cheap. Should I consider 1st gen?

Are there any other devices I should consider (in addition to the Pi) that can can run XMBC?

I've read the Roku box can stream video from a Windows computer, with the help of a 3rd party tool called Plex Media Server running on the computer.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/249838/free_plex_media_server_offers_a_streamlined_experience.html

5/1/2013 3:15:06 PM

1st gen Apple TV? Those are old and won't run XBMC at all (at least not in its current form)

If you're considering XBMC then stay as far away from a Roku as you can. That's like saying you're looking for a sports car and then buying an SUV. They're not even remotely comparable.

Seriously, look at the Ouya if you don't want to buy a Pi. It should be a plenty capable XBMC box for $99.

5/1/2013 3:30:32 PM

Yeah I realize Roku-Plex is not nearly as capable as XBMC...was just wondering what my options are if I didn't want to wait on the Ouya to stream stuff from my media server. I will probably just wait it out. Thx.

5/1/2013 3:36:34 PM

Got an older computer laying around? If it's just temporary you could install XBMC on that to try it out.

5/1/2013 3:46:25 PM

Quote :

" Last I checked, the 2nd gen Apple TVs were still going for well over $200 used on ebay."

motherfuck me.

i sold mine a couple months ago for $75.

i had no idea.

5/1/2013 4:42:29 PM