we have decided to postpone the last submission date of our xbmc skinning contest by one month, this mostly due to the few number of skins submitted so far. postponing the contest means new skinners will get a chance to catch up to join the competition and all existing skinners get to perfect the final touches of their entries, or perhaps even create another skin for xboxmediacenter? again, the prizes on stake is 20 xenium modchips provided by team-ozxodus and xbox-gear.com. the final submission date is now 20th of june 2004, so go ahead and get skinning!

non-skinners, please make a donation to help pay for the winners modchip shipping cost.

more info: xbmc skinning contest rules and conditions

tomshardware.com has today posted a review of “the ultimate multimedia center” that is xbmc. the famous tech review site now offers the first full review of xboxmediacenter which they call “the ideal home playback system for audio and video”. the review features xbmc tested on friendtech’s dreamx-1480 (xbox modded with a 1.4 ghz processor and 128mb memory, twice the spec on a normal retail xbox). the review concludes that nothing beats the price/performance ratio a modded xbox with xbmc, but they forgot to mention that xbmc of course also works on all modded xboxes, and it’s the convenience and compatibility of xbmc/xbox that makes it the perfect multimedia machine that it is (as then they would have nicely summed up what xbmc is all about).

update! the xbmc review has now been ‘slashdottet‘, see slashdot.org top story here (link).

full english review: modding the xbox into the ultimate multimedia center
german translation link: mit xbox-modding zum multimedia center
french translation link: transformer la xbox en platine multimédia
italian translation link: trasformiamo la xbox nel centro multimediale definitivo
russian translation link: Превращаем xbox в домашний мультимедийный центр

we are glad to announce the xboxmediacenter projects official online merchandise store open. the store is hosted by cafepress and offers xbmc merchandise such as t-shirt’s, hooded shirts, mugs and a few other goodies, all with the official xbmc logos (courtesy of tamper). currently the store is a small personal shop with only a few selected items however it might be upgraded later to a premium shop with a much larger selection if enough interest is shown in the store and xbmc merchandise, (who knows, we might even be able to publish an xbmc user-manual and/or demo cd’s through that store if those are made in the future). know that any profits will go to support xbmc development and the projects existence, so when you purchase anything from the store you are making a small contribution, thank you.

link: xbmc official online merchandise store
discussion: xbmc official merchandise store