Of course, ideally, you will want to install XBMC on a machine intended for multi-media use. It will work on lower-end video cards, but the interface will be somewhat slower. For a complete listing of supported hardware check out the XBMC hardware page. Now, let’s get on with the installation.

Ubuntu

I will give you a warning here: The most recently supported Ubuntu is 8.10. That does not, however, mean it will not install on anything later. I have XBMC installed and working fine on Ubuntu 9.04. With that in mind here are the installation steps for Ubuntu.

Open up your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following to the end:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main

Save that file and then issue the command:

sudo apt-get update

Once the update is complete issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install xbmc

If you want to install extra skins, issue this command:

sudo apt-get install xbmc-skin-*

Figure 1

You will find the XBMC menu entry in the Sound And Video sub-menu of the Applications menu. When XBMC opens you will see a very user-friendly interface (see Figure 1).

Now it’s time for a less than user-friendly installation. Because there have been no rpm files created for Fedora, the installation requires a number of steps which will lead you to compiling XBMC. These steps will work for Fedora 8, 9, and 10 as well as CentOS 5.2. Here we go. NOTE: You will need to be the root user for this installation.

If you don’t already have Subversion install, do so now with the command:

yum install subversion

Once Subversion is installed, check out XBMC from subversion with the command:

svn co https://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk

Now install the rpmfusion repository with one of the following commands:

Fedora:

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

and

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rmpfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

CentOS 5 (32 bit):
rpm -Uvh http://apt.sw.be/redhat/e15/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.e15.rf.i386.rpm

CentOS 5 (64 bit):

rpm -Uvh http://apt.sw.be/redhat/e15/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.e15.rf.x86_64.rpm

Now the fun begins. This installation command is all one line:
yum install SDL* glew glew-devel libmad-devel tre tre-devel libogg libogg-devel libvorbis libvorbis-devel boost boost-devel bzip2-devel bzip2-libs fribidi* lzo lzo-devel mysql-libs mysql-devel jasper jasper-devel faac faac-devel enca enca-devel hal hal-devel hal-libs cmake gperf nasm libXmu-devel fontconfig-devel freetype-devel libXinerama-devel pcre-devel gcc-c++ sqlite-devel curl-devel mysql-devel libcdio-devel libmms-devel faad2-devel flac-devel libsmbclient-devel libXtst-devel

The next step creates a symbolic link for the libmysqlclient.so file. The command is one of these two (depending upon your architecture):

For i386:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0 /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so

For x64:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0 /usr/lib64/libmysqlclient.so

Now cd into the XBMC directory (should be in the directory you are currently working in) and issue the following commands:

./bootstrap

and

./configure

and

make

If you see an error related to jpegint.h, then you might have to issue the following command:

cp XBMC/xbmx/lib/cximage-6.0/jpeg/jpegint.h /usr/include

If you have to issue the above command, then issue the make command again.

Finally issue the command:

make install

And XBMC will install.

On Fedora distributions you might have an issue with SELinux. If so you will need to issue the following commands:
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avutil-50-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avcodec-52-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avformat-52-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/swscale-0.6.1-i486-linux.so'

That’s it for the Fedora/CentOS installation. You should find XBMC in your Video menu. If you can’t seem to find a menu entry you can always enter xbmc in either a terminal window or the run dialog.

Final thoughts

XBMC is an outstanding media center software. It will play your CDs and DVDs flawlessly. If you have the hardware for this software, it is a much better solution than most other Linux video solutions.

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First things first, you’ll need to download the Linux binary of Floola from the Floola download page. Once you have the tar file downloaded unpack it with the command tar xvzf Floola-linux.tar.gz which will create a new directory called Floola-linux. Move into that new directory and, as the root user, issue the command cp Floola /usr/bin/. Copying the Floola binary into /usr/bin will allow Floola to be run globally.

Now you will need to mount your iPod. You can refer to my article Connect your iPod to gtkpod for instructions on the mounting procedure.

Once your iPod is mounted you can start up Floola. You will first have to configure the make of iPod you have connected. After you have the iPod type configured Floola will see the iPod and list all of data. Now on to the video download. Well, almost. Before you can actually get the video to your iPod you will need fmpeg installed in order to handle the conversion. Fmpeg can be installed by either doing a search for fmpeg in your Add/Remove Software utility or you can issue a command similar to urpmi fmpeg (for Mandriva) or apt-get install fmpeg (for Ubuntu.)

With fmpeg installed NOW it’s time for the video madness to start. With Floola open go to the Item menu and select Add From Web. A new window will open with a button for Add URL. Click that and a smaller window will open to copy and paste the Youtube video url and click OK.

Floola Add Video

When you see your Video listed in the Add From Web window select the video and click OK. This will start the process. Now it’s time to sit back and watch as the video downloads and then is converted. Depending upon the speed of your machine, this could take quite a while.

Once the video is converted a new window will open where you will need to click the Add button so the video is actually added to the iPod.

Adding File

Once you click the Add button your video will be transferred. But you’re not done yet. In order for your iPod to be in sync you will first close Floola and then unmount your iPod. With your iPod unmounted you are ready to enjoy your new video! You will be amazed at the quality of video transferred, it’s quite good.

And that’s it! Now you can have plenty of video goodness on your iPod with next to no effort.

Oh, and since Floola is freeware, you might consider donating to the author. If you do you will get rid of a 4-second nag screen upon closing.

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Installed Codec (via Shell Extension City) is another fine NirSoft tool that displays all installed codecs of a Windows 2000, 2003, XP or Vista system in a table. All meaning all Codec drivers and DirectShow but not binary codecs which are used by some applications like MPlayer.

The software lists the name of the codec, its installation path and file, the company that developed it and if it is enabled on the system. Each codec in the list can be disabled which has the effect that this codec will not be used to play the supported multimedia files. Excellent if you want to make sure that a specific codec is playing certain videos.

Removing some of the installed codecs can be achieved by disabling the codecs first and checking if the videos still play fine. If that is the case I would temporarily move them to another directory and if nothing bad happens delete them from the system. Most of the codecs installed on my Windows XP system are from Nero 8 which is kinda strange because I have not installed all those additional converters and tools that come with it. The codecs seem to get installed nevertheless.

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I think it’s ok as long as you can validate that the executable has been send by a friend. I would still scan it using an online scanner though. The software supports a lot of different audio and video formats, all the important ones are included like mov, flv, mp4, mpg, avi, swf and wmv.

Audio / Video to Exe (via Instant Fundas) can process multiple files at once and either convert them into a different format or create one executable for each multimedia file that has been added to the interface. The output size is roughly the size of the audio or video file.

I did encounter several errors while testing the application. It seems to have trouble with large files. The conversion of a 1.7 Gigabyte video to the executable format succeeded but I was not able to play it afterwards. Some videos were not playing correctly as well after the conversion.

The only advice that I can give is to try it out for yourself and see if the conversion worked for the audio or video files before you upload them or send them to a friend.

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That was just one feature of Miro. The main one in my opinion is the ability to download videos from various sources including Bittorrent, video portals like Youtube, URLs and Video RSS feeds with subscription possibilities. So called Search Channels can be created. Say you like football and regularly check Youtube for new football videos. You could create a search channel which gets automatically updated when new videos get published.

A new version was released today which is a major step for the Miro team. Miro should run a lot smoother in this version especially because of the update to XULRunner 1.9 which should bring performance and memory improvements to the Windows and Linux clients. Check out the release notes if you are interested in a detailed list of changes.

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The distribution has a size of 8.9 Megabytes and comes with an unbelievable amount of features. It is a self-bootable Linux distribution based on the excellent Mplayer which assures that it can play (almost) any file that you throw at it. It plays MPEG 1/2/4, Real Media, Windows Media, Ogg and Matroska and audio and network streams.

The multimedia files can be loaded and played from various sources such as CD, DVD, HDD, LAN or even Internet. It’s all there, it’s tiny and booting really fast. It should not have problems with most hardware setups. The requirements are 64 Megabytes of RAM, a Pentium class cpu (400+ Mhz recommended) or a Mac G3+ (G4+ recommended), an an ALSA compatible sound card, a VESA 2.0 compliant graphics card and a CD or DVD drive.

You can download a prebuild ISO image, sources or Debian repositories from the developers website. There is also a list of supported hardware available which is great if you run into troubles or want to build a computer that can run the Linux distribution.

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SMPlayer is available for Windows and Linux in various languages including English and Spanish for instance. The download has a size of about 11 Megabytes which is not that much if you consider that you do not have to install additional codecs. All the usual features are supported as well including subtitle support, DVD / SVCD / VCD playback, audio track switching, video equalizers, fast forward, slow motion and lots of preferences.

It is for instance possible to use video playback without hardware acceleration to capture screenshots from the movie.

Read More:

SMPlayer Homepage

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The Video Screensaver offers some parameters that you can modify. You can define the playback size (Fullscreen or 50% – 400%), play a random file, loop the file, mute the audio and alter playback speed (from 0.1 to 3.0). You may use playlists or select a file manually. Most file types are supported, the most common ones are of course avi, mp3 and wmv  – the tool basically supports all file types that the windows media player is able to play.

It seems to have some problems playing certain files that have been using a special codec for their audio playback.

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Start VLC on the main pc and select open file. Choose a movie that you would like to stream and check the Stream Output box at the bottom of the screen. Click on settings and enter the following parameters, leave everything else unchanged. Enable HTTP, enter your IP (192.168.0.1) and select a random port (1337 for instance). Select MPEG_TS as Encapsulation Method if you are streaming a dat, avi, mpg pr mpeg file.

Hit ok and open VLC on the client pc. Select Open Network Stream, choose HTTP / FTP / MMS and enter the streaming IP and port of the server, in this case http://192.168.0.1:1337. Hit ok and you are ready to go. Please note that it is also possible to stream videos for friends on the internet the same way. You just have to change the local IP of the server to your internet IP. (Look it up here)

Your friends have to enter that IP and port in their clients and will be able to watch the video that you stream.

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We all know that one solution would be to buy an expensive barebone or multimedia computer that is simply a small computer next to your tv which outputs the signal to the tv instead of a pc monitor. Another option would be to buy a multimedia adapter which is a device that makes it possible to stream media from a computer to your hifi or dvd player. This is indeed a possible solution but it would still mean that your pc has to be running to stream the contents.

The solution that I installed at my home is simple, relativly cheap and offers extra values. I’am speaking of a xbox with a replaced hard drive and modchip installed. I’am talking about a first generation xbox but with the first mod chips appearing for the xbox 360 this will most likely soon be possible with the new system as well. You should check your local laws before you think about buying the parts that you need for this operation, it should be legal in most countries though.

The price of a xbox, a mod chip and a larger hard drive (160+ GB) should be no more than 400$, most likely less than that. It also depends on the type of mod chip that you want to install and if you are doing the changes yourself or let someone do them for you.

It really does not matter which mod chip you choose, I would choose a solder less one if you are not that tech savy and want to do it yourself. There are ways to buy a pre modded xbox on the net and replace the hard drive with a bigger one. All you need is a special partition tool that converts the bigger hd to xbox format. (Slayer) You burn this tool to dvd and run the dvd when the hd has been replaced. Really easy, I was able to do it..

You can setup an ftp server from within your xbox afterwards and connect the xbox to your pc network. Use an ftp tool to transfer files to the xbox. One that you definatly need is XBMC (Xbox Media Center) This is a free media player that plays many formats, this will be your multimedia player. XBMC is only available as a source file, you could try IRC or Usenet for binary versions.

You transfer movies, music and pictures using ftp as well. The xbox has a 100 mbit network card which means transfers are really fast. You are also able to play region free dvd movies on the xbox and play xbox games. (of course).

If you want to enjoy online play I suggest a xbox with a modchip that you can turn off when you want to play online. Microsoft may detect modchips when you connect to them and could ban you.

My Xbox has a Xecuter modchip installed, this was some years ago, think it was three years ago. I never had to replace the hard drive, it is still working and I can watch all sorts of divx, xvid, avi, wmv and the like movies. Never used it for music or pictures but this should be running fine as well.

I think I replace my old Xbox with a new Xbox 360 once stable modchips come out for this system and the complete system will be a bit cheaper. This will most likely happen before christmas because Nintendo Wii and Sonys PS3 come out before christmas as well.

Let me know if you want me to go into detail somewhere or if you are using a different multimedia device.

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It will use the current divx encoder to transcode the movies and automatically detects a new version if installed. There is no hassle with codecs and the like which is great. If you have a divx encoder installed it is working. Dr. Divx supports multiple audio tracks and subtitle tracks as well.
The video transcoder is currently available for Microsoft Windows but will soon be available for Mac OS and Linux.

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How to convert Avi, Divx and Xvid to DVD describes the software needed and the procedure with detailed screenshots. The method uses only one tool and everything is completed after five simple steps. The guide does not tell you how to use menus for your new dvd but the program supports this option as well and you can chose from several different preinstalled templates.

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Ryan divided the results into three different categories and named one or more winners for each category. Categories are for posting, viewership and editing. I don´t want to keep you waiting, winners for posting are Vimeo and Videoegg, for viewership Youtube and for editing Jumpcut.

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