Comments on: Blog Discussion Topic - November 3, 2008 - Sumit Chawla - My HTPC experience so far . . . .

By: Paul Valente

Paul Valente — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:43:45 +0000

Thanks for the write-up. Very informative. I know it does not have the power or the flexibility of an HTPC like you describe, but being a bit short on time and money I decided to pickup an NMT from http://www.egreatusa.com . It has worked out really well. Plays all my downloaded files and also some tube sites and such. It has a lot of features I have not tried yet, and admittedly some I will probably never try - but it does the trick for an inexpensive HDTV experience.

Maybe someday i will try building one of these big boys . . .

By: Kieran Coghlan

Kieran Coghlan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:46:07 +0000

Robin, thanks for that news. I didn’t know about the Dolby TrueHD support. Although I personally don’t have use for it, it is a great feature.

The other news is that the XBMC team have finally released the next stable version (”Atlantis”)…
http://xbmc.org/blog/2008/11/14/xbmc-atlantis-released/

By: Robin Sutanto

Robin Sutanto — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:39:29 +0000

Kieran, I think the latest xbmc “Atlantis” 8.10 using FFMPEG (FFDSHOW) rev. 2322 which is now able to decode E-AC3 and Dolby TrueHD audio. You must select ffdshow as AC3 decoder to be able to use that functionality thou. It means now TRUE HTPC using XBMC, support all format. Life has never this sweet.

By: Kieran Coghlan

Kieran Coghlan — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:31:03 +0000

Sumit, the current “solution” for BRD on Linux is (I think) very similar to XBMC. i.e. you can rip a title and play the movie file, but not with full menu functionality, etc. But don’t quote me on that, I’m not a Linux expert.

You asked about remote control for XBMC. The software control is fully customizable with a keyboard map text file. So any IR remote you have that can control your HTPC can control XBMC. Using the original Xbox hardware, I use the Xbox dvd remote to control it, which works great, and is a standard RCA dvd remote for universal remote code purposes.

By: Sumit Chawla

Sumit Chawla — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:00:02 +0000

Kieran,
It will be interesting to see how this support gets built into XBMC given its open source framework.

Is there any Blu-ray playback solution on Linux?

By: Kieran Coghlan

Kieran Coghlan — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:14:01 +0000

Sumit, I stand corrected! XBMC currently has very limited support for Blu-Ray sourced content.

Apparently if your BRD has an AC-3 sound track, it’s possible, but since XBMC uses FFMPEG (www.ffmpeg.org) to demux file containers and decode the video and/or audio streams within those containers. Since FFMPEG does not yet support any of the HD audio formats like Dolby True-HD or DTS-HD, XBMC can not support them either.

Plus, even with an AC-3 sound track for your BR movie, XBMC doesn’t yet support the menu structure of BRD’s. So, you need to rip the movie file (with AC3 audio) and play just that file.

So XBMC is not ideal for Blu-Ray, yet. But by all accounts this will be the next major feature to be added after the next stable release, so maybe late this year or early next year one might expect some progress on this front.

By: Chris Eberle

Chris Eberle — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:11:19 +0000

Ever since the advent of Windows Media Center, I have followed the progress of HTPC products. The promise of a single do-it-all component is so inviting! As I gaze at my large bookcase filled with DVDs and Blu-rays, I long for the ability to put all those bits onto a hard drive array for instant access with the remote. Thanks to the intricacies of DRM, we’re not to that point yet but we’re getting there. Perhaps soon, I’ll have a single box with all my media, movies, music and pictures available to stream to any room in the house. I’m glad to see enthusiasts like us riding the bleeding edge. Someday soon, we’ll all enjoy great products as a result. Good luck Sumit!

By: Sumit Chawla

Sumit Chawla — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:12:11 +0000

XBMC does look nice. How is Blu-ray playback enabled through it? I am assuming that you still need a 3rd party solution from the likes of Arcsoft/Cyberlink. Also, is there a good IR solution for it?

A colleague of mine wanted to build a media center and I asked him to consider XBMC. Thanks for pointing this option out.

By: Kieran Coghlan

Kieran Coghlan — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:32:46 +0000

Walt, glad to hear you’re enjoying XBMC. I am continually amazed at how well it works for an open-source freeware project. This software product could easily sell for $50/download and still be a bargain, IMO.

I think the only big drawback of XBMC’s code at this time is that it does not take advantage of hardware acceleration in your graphics card, so most (all?) of the 1080p processing is done by the cpu. Thus you need a fast-ish cpu. I haven’t delved in to this aspect myself, as I’m using the original Xbox for the hardware, which is way too old/slow to process HD video media.

Finally, I can’t think of a media file type or codec that is not supported by XBMC.

By: Walt Meger

Walt Meger — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:31:25 +0000

I would first like to thank Kieran Coghlan for the tip on Xbmc. I finally got around to building my HTPC two months ago and I love it. Running Vista 32 bit home premium on an Intel dual core quad 9450 with a 4850 HDMI video card has produced spectacular results at 1920 x 1080 p @ 60 hz refresh. I can now cruse the internet on my 110″ JVC HD1 LiCos 1080p projector with nothing but chrystal clear images. I downloaded Xbmc last night and I think it is great, easy to use and makes the HTPC a more useful device and Vista a better HTPC OS. I sampled some of my digital HD FLAC (lossless) tracks. Stereo never sounded better. With my HTPC wirelessly home networked, I now have access to my entire music, photo and video collection. I may never leave my media room again. My wife can now truly see the value of my audio/video addiction as she can easily review all of our family’s collection of photos and videos along with listening to her favorite tunes.