gHacks technology news » media PC http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:11:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 XBMC Media Center Final http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/20/xbmc-media-center-final/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/20/xbmc-media-center-final/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:55:23 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8412 The final version of the XBMC has been out for a while now. We covered an alpha release back in August and it is time to check on the final release and promote the product further. It may sound a bit biased but I’m using the XBMC for years on my old modded Microsoft Xbox system. While it has seen some gaming in the past the main reason for modding the system was to add the XBMC to the Xbox to be able to watch movies and videos that have been ripped or downloaded on the television and not on the computer.

XBMC has been expanded since then and it can now be installed on various platforms including Windows, Linux or Macintosh computers. It is intended to be used for media PCs (like the Xbox but with additional features) that stream the media to the television but it can be installed on any computer meeting the requirements obviously.

The interface has been designed with usability and wow effect in mind. Links to video, music, images, settings and plugins are available from the main menu. The first three entries lead to similar sections of the media center. The user has to first pick at least one data folder that contains files that can be read by the player. This takes a few seconds at most and it is possible to navigate with the keyboard, mouse or gamepad in the menus.

xbmc media center

The media center will pick up metadata automatically but it can also search the Internet for additional information like movie posters, plot summaries or actors.

Plugins enhance the system further. They can add all kinds of new functions to the system like games, communication, news and service integration (Youtube, Apple Trailers, Podcasts).

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/20/xbmc-media-center-final/feed/ 13 Xbox Media Center Cross Platform Alpha http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/xbox-media-center-cross-platform-alpha/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/xbox-media-center-cross-platform-alpha/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:54:24 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6171 I bought my shiny green limited edition Xbox when it came out, put a modchip inside and replaced the hard drive with a 120 Gigabyte drive. The first application that I put onto it was XBMC, the Xbox Media Center, which functions as my main entertainment hub ever since. I usually drop movies on it once every while and replace old ones because the hard drive has limited space but it gives me the pleasure of viewing movies that I download or rip on my LCD television and not my computer. I never really liked watching movies on the computer either.

That Xbox Media Center is apparently going cross plattform and a early alpha release is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. The funny thing is that you can download all three releases but not the Xbox release from the website because of legal reasons. I still think that Microsoft should hire those guys and make the XBMC the default media application of the Xbox.

It is clearly aimed at media PCs that are used in the living room but it can also be started from any computer that runs a supported operating system. Users who know XBMC from their Xbox will feel familiar with the interface because it looks pretty much alike, only that the gamepad navigation was replaced with mouse navigation.

xbox media center

XBMC is fully skinable, supports plugins that can be downloaded from XBMCScripts like tv guides, games, communication plugins and media plugins. It does come with two scripts, a Tetris game and Apple Trailers which provides access to the vast Apple movie trailers archive which means you can access nearly 1750 movie trailers from within the interface.

The media player plays pretty much everything that you throw at it and supports audio formats and pictures as well. It’s a great application, probably the best media center software ever released.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/xbox-media-center-cross-platform-alpha/feed/ 2 Media Player Classic Home Cinema http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/07/media-player-classic-home-cinema/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/07/media-player-classic-home-cinema/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:30:47 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5212 Media Player Classic Home Cinema Edition is a Media Player Classic modification that is especially catering towards Home Cinema users. It makes use of the basic key elements of Media Player Classic such as the low resource usage and compatibility to the most popular video formats out of the box.

The Home Cinema edition adds a few handy functions and features to Media Player Classic. It adds a function to remove tearing, additional video decoders such as H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support, support for EVR renderer and better Windows Vista support including a release for 64-bit versions of Windows Vista.

The modification also adds several language translations which may come in handy for users who prefer a version in their own language. Definitely one of the best choices for media PCs. Runs extremely well on low end PCs.

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