XBMC – Alternative Media Player

I’m always on the hunt for a replacement media player for my MS based HTPC. Over the past few days I’ve been playing around with and open source alternative that seems to look really promising. It’s called XBMC and has versions available for MS Windows, Linux, Apple and MS Xbox. It’s been out for a while, but I’ve never really looked at it before.

I’ve gone through quite a few HTPC front-ends and have always returned to MCE 2005 for one reason or another. Myth TV & Media Portal are great alternatives but I’ve always struggled to get my 3rd party MCE remote to work with them correctly. Both MS Windows Vista & MS Windows 7 are o.k. and look quite polished but I still favor the small resource footprint of XP (it’s a shame the default skin for MCE 2005 is just so horrible though and needs 3rd party apps to make it look a little better).

Also lacking with all of Microsoft’s Media Centre’s are the limited amount of data/images that can be displayed against video files. The best I could up with was to have an image of a DVD cover saved as folder.jpg & placed inside the folder containing the movie .vob files etc.

Here’s a few screenshots I’ve exported from my HTPC to give you an  idea what my XBMC setup looks like.

But first, here’s a reminder of how basic MCE 2005 looks!

…and this is XBMC, showing samples of ‘My Movies’ folder.

XBMC’s media library has the ability to download artwork for movies, TV Shows, Games & Music, including a huge selection of fan art which can be used as background images. Once downloaded, the images are stored locally on the PC. A huge range of database repositories are preconfigured such as IMDB, MTV & TVdb or if you prefer you can manually add sources or use locally stored l images.  In addition to artwork you can also download movie info, TV episode guides, cast & crews information & IMDB rating.

The media library system is very easy to use and it wasn’t long before I’d obtained information & artwork for my entire collection.

Here’s a few shots of my ‘TV shows’ selection page.

Season selection (complete with DVD cover & fan art background images.

Episode list complete with fan art and episode guide.

As you can see, the visuals are much better than MCE 2005!

Here’s a few other screenshots from various menu screens. I’m still using the default skin ”Confluence’ which I think looks really good. There’s quite a few alternatives available for download/customization but for now I’ll stick with the default.

Main menu showing ‘My Music’ highlighted

One of the configuration menus – plenty to mess around with!

‘My Pictures’ – which isn’t really much different from Vista or Win7.

Here’s the snag, as a front-end, XBMC is gorgeous with plenty of options to boot. However, as an actual media player…hmm, not good..not good at all.

The problem here is that with XBMC (or the opensource player – Mplayer (not sure which)) hasn’t been written to take advantage of the PC’s graphics card therefore all video playback is performed by the CPU. Unless you have a hefty PC (Dual Core/Quad Core), video playback is terrible. The frontend menu does use graphic acceleration so everything is silky smooth in that department though.

However…there’s workaround (actually two that I’ve read about).

One method is to configure XBMC to use an external media player i.e VLC or similar to run within the XBMC frontend.  This means editing the configuration files but i found the XBMC Wiki page quite easy to follow.

The second and by far the easiest is to download and install a port of XBMC which has been preconfigured to use DSplayer as it’s primary player. This supports graphic acceleration & runs perfectly on my setup with silky smooth video playback and perfectly sync’d audio.

The only other problem I found was that  a few buttons on my MCE remote had to be reconfigured so as not to launch  MCE2005  Again, the Wiki page was really useful in providing instructions to edit the remote.xml files

For more information about XBMC, alternative skins & support pages please visit the following -

http://xbmc.org/

Here’s the location of the alternative Windows build containing DSplayer (highly recommended)

http://passion-xbmc.org/gros_fichier…ayer/index.php

Trackmania United Video

I’ve just been messing around with the video mode on my Fuji 5800 so thought I’d post a quick video of yours truly getting some ‘air’ on my favorite Trackmania United track on my PC – played out to one of my favorite music tracks.

I’ve been using Windows XP since it’s release and have yet to find a use for Windows Movie Maker. It’s one of the applications I usually uninstall after a fresh install (or remove completely if slipstreaming). However i’m finding it really useful for quick video edits like this to add music and the odd text overlay. I think I’ll leave it installed for the time being

I’m sure that most PC gamers have heard of and/or played the Trackmania titles especially as they’ve been out for ages now. If you haven’t then I really recommend that you give it a go. If you head over to the Trackmania website, you can download Trackmania Nations for free.

http://www.trackmania.com/

I’ve also been hooked on the Nintendo DS port recently and although I found the controls a little sensitive, credit has to go to the coders who managed squeeze this little gem on to the DS and still kept the frame rate up.

CES 2010 product wishlist

I’ve been following the coverage of this years Consumer Electronics show via various tech news sites,  TWiT podcasts & Revision3 video casts and amongst the plethora of products unveiled,  a couple have really caught my attention.

1# Sensia Digital Audio System – http://www.touchmyradio.com/

‘Sensia is a revolutionary internet-connected digital audio system with Flow technology and a large colour touchscreen, giving you a unique way to enjoy internet radio content and podcasts, DAB and FM radio stations, your own music collection via Wi-Fi, online apps and unique broadcast material’

This is just what I’ve been looking for the kitchen. I see they have them for sale at John Lewis already. Next time in town, I’ll definitely be taking a look.

#Lenovo Ideapad U1 Hybrid – http://shop.lenovo.com/us/landing_pages/products/new-product-showcase

Here’s a novel idea – Take one 11.6″ laptop running MS Windows 7, and make the screen detachable. When you detach the (HD) screen, that portion becomes a lightweight tablet running Lenovo’s Skylight Linux operating system! Fantastic idea, sort of a laptop, tablet & portable e-book reader in one. Ever since my works HP TX1000 tablet laptop died, I’ve been looking for a similar tablet netbook. If the price is right, the Lenovo U1 is something I’ll defiantly be looking at when it’s released in June.

First year annivesary post.

Well…I’ve been blogging now for exactly a year and can say I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Many thanks to all that took the time to pay me a visit,  I was presently  surprised to see how many hits I’ve received!

Originally, my blog was setup as personal and pictorial notepad for my gardening ideas that I was hoping to host offline. Something to look back on should my first attempt at vegetable growing take a turn for the worst. I started out with a local MS Word page but found that a WordPress blog offered a much easy way of posting & indexing posts.

As you can see, it’s not all about gardening & this is something I want to concentrate more on this year (and photography), maybe going forward I’ll split into two blogs…or maybe not, speaking from someone who isn’t that organised

Kind regards

StiGGy

Gameboy emulator for Nintendo DS

Another great emulator that runs well on the Nintendo DS is the Lameboy, which emulates the original Gameboy.

Here’s my 2nd YouTube video showing me playing the brilliant Gameboy conversion of Prince of Persia (just as good as  the PC/Amiga version in my opinion)

For further information on this great emulator, please visit  http://lameboy.nutki.com/

Over the next few weeks I’ll be trying out many other emulators including the ZX Spectrum, Vectrex, Megadrive and of course MAME.

Commodore C64 emulator for Nintendo DS

This is the main reason why I brought a Nintendo DS, to have a portable C64 gaming device so I can play all those vintage titles on the go.

Here’s a video I’ve just uploaded to YouTube (my first!) showing a quick round of the classic c64 game ”Leaderboard’ using the FrodoDS emulator.

For further information regarding FrodoDS please visit the GPF Dev Site http://gpf.dcemu.co.uk/

10 Print “FrodoDS”

20 goto 10

run

New Year, new desktop

It’s the new year, so I’m thinking a fresh new desktop is on order.

Windows XP Zune theme -  (works with native XP therefore no skinning software required) http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

Wallpaper -  http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2106/violent_crashing_waves.html

Yahoo Desktop Gadgets

• Gorgy Clock
• Yahoo Weather Gadget
• Multiple RSS reader
• ..and for fun, a daily Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip

Desktop resolution is 2560 x 1024 spanning two 17″ TFT monitors

Not too cluttered but I’m thinking a ‘Mac-esque’ dock app might be better than simple desktop icons.