A little over a month ago, I was away from home without the xbox and still wanted to get some development done. To solve this problem, I decided to port parts of XBMC to the PC.

Now, before everyone starts getting too excited, let’s make some things clear:

1. It’s not a full port, nor is it planned to be a full port. We are not planning on abandoning the xbox anytime soon.

2. With that said, most stuff works - at least stuff useful for the target audience.

3. It’s designed primarily for skinners and python developers who can test out their skins and scripts without having to transfer everything to the xbox.

Okay, so with that out of the way, what is it?

Basically, it’s a simple port of the majority of XBMC. This includes the entire gui system, file listing, some of the filesystem code (eg local, database files, zip + rar etc.), very simple audio playback, slideshows, python scripts and so on. Video playback is not supported, nor are screensavers or visualisations (basically anything that was relying on the xbox version of directx).

The source code is available in SVN and requires the directx sdk (I use the Summer 2004 version) installed to build the executable. You do not require the XDK. The executable that it produces may be distributed freely - it contains no XDK code whatsoever.

To run it, you basically just grab a full build of the usual xbox version of XBMC, place it somewhere on your PC, and replace the .xbe with XBMC_PC.exe. Note that you’ll need a DirectX 8 compatible machine. Most graphics cards nowadays should be fine, but some older chipsets may have issues.

You then have to mount some drives so that the executable knows where to find stuff. You use the subst command under DOS to do so. I use the following .bat file:

[CODE]
subst q: c:\xbmc_pc
subst t: q:\userdata
subst p: q:\userdata
subst z: c:\xbmc_pc\cache
[/CODE]

Obviously you just change the location of q: and z: to reflect wherever you want them. Note that p: is the “profile” directory, and should point to your profile folder if you are not the master user.

That’s about it. It logs exactly the same as XBMC does, so if you get errors, it’s likely logged about them.

We’re not supporting general users running this to play their mp3’s or whatever - but we’ll be happy to help get skinners and python devs up and running, as that is the target audience.

Ofcourse, others may feel free to have a play all they like. If there’s any Win32 developers listening in, then you are free to download the source from SVN and help extend it in anyway you like. One immediate improvement would be to have the executable auto-mount the drives it needs.

Discuss this news item here

Team XBMC is in the process of moving our support channel (#XBMC on EFnet) across to the Freenode IRC network. This is to bring us in line with other similar applications (such as MediaPortal) and also because it’s lower maintenance for the ops.

Everyone is encouraged to move to Freenode (#XBMC) as soon as possible. Those unfamiliar with Freenode should be aware of a few differences, the main one being that on Freenode you are encouraged to register your nickname. See here for more details..

The old channel (#XBMC on EFnet) will be maintained for a week or two until everyone has moved over, whereby it will cease to exist.

Due to the superiority of using Subversion (SVN) over CVS, Team XBMC has also decided to move to SVN. This allows better management of the development of XBMC.

In the last few days, we have finished the migration to SVN, and now CVS will no longer be updated. This means everyone who checked out XBMC sources and wishes to continue to do so, will have to install another client and do a complete recheckout.

We recommend using TortoiseSVN. TortoiseSVN is very easy to configure. After it is installed, simply:

1) Rightclick the folder where you want XBMC source folders & files to be downloaded.
2) Choose: ‘SVN Checkout’.
3) Enter ‘https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk/XBMC’ as “URL of repository”.
4) Hit OK.

To update in future just use ‘SVN Update’.

Note that the main trunk of SVN, where the main development work is done should be considered pre-2.1. The 2.0.1 source tree is tagged in SVN and no more development work will be done in it as we move forward towards 2.1.

Please don’t ask about release dates for 2.1 - we are currently in full feature addition mode. Expect more announcements shortly of a few of the changes

Team-XBMC and The XBMC Project is proud to announce the release of XboxMediaCenter 2.0.1. XBox Media Center (XBMC) is an award winning, free and open source media player for the Xbox™ game-console. XboxMediaCenter 2.0.1 point-release source code has now been set in our CVS, and all XBMC users are highly encouraged to upgrade to this version. Know that this point-release version marks the end of the 2.0 era of XBMC, there will be no more 2.0.x bug-fix point-releases. The next point-release of XBMC will be 2.1 (or maybe even 3.0), and it will probably be quite a while before that 2.1 (or 3.0) version sees the light of day with all new major features/functions we have planned for the future, (those who can not wait can always use the latest daily CVS of XBMC).

This XboxMediaCenter 2.0.1 point-release is a stable bug-fix version of the XboxMediaCenter 2.0.0 point-release, no major new features has been implemented, for a full list of fixed bugs and tweaks please read the changelog. (For a full list of all features/functions and codecs/formats supported by XBMC please visit the “XBMC Features and Supported Formats/Codecs” page in our online manual). Remember, Team-XBMC only maintain the XBMC source code, Team-XBMC does not release or distribute Xbox executable (XDK binaries), but the XBMC source code needs to be compiled with the XDK before it can be used on an Xbox, also note that XBMC requires a modded Xbox to run. Our thanks goes out to everyone who has tested, reported bugs, and helped fix them in order to make this release possible.

Help is always wanted to keep our online-manual and language translations files up-to-date.

XBMC-Forum discussion: XboxMediaCenter 2.0.1 (Final) Point-Release!
XBMC official web-site: www.xboxmediacenter.com (manual and FAQ)
Note! The old XBMC xboxmediacenter.de domain has been abandoned!