We’ve reached the end of over 3 months of bug bashing, and have closed 425 tickets for this release and, while there are still some bugs outstanding, we feel that ‘Atlantis’ is reasonably stable, and thus it’s time to move on and get cracking on new features.  We’ve branched for release, and will maintain this branch with critical bug fixes while we move on and begin working on new features in the main linuxport trunk.

Thanks to all in the community who have made this possible by reporting bugs and suggesting improvements.  In particular we’d like to recognise the sterling efforts of Sho who was our release manager for ‘Atlantis’, diligently handling the trac system on behalf of developers.  We’d also like to thank our new QA team of Arnova, SandmanCL and ShortySco for their help verifying bug reports and making it easier for the devs to concentrate on fixing bugs.

Go grab XBMC ‘Atlantis’ and let us know how it goes!

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

New in this release is multi-core video decoding for Windows users, courtesy of a rebuilt FFmpeg by WiSo and AreaScout, and XBMC now runs on the Apple TV via the easy to use USB installer created by Scott Davilla. We have also updated the skins (PM3.HD, Project Mayhem III, and MediaStream by Team Razorfish) to their latest versions.

With almost 80 tickets closed, and close to 200 commits to SVN since Beta 1 was released, Beta 2 represents a clear step forward in terms of stability. Thanks to all in the community who have made this possible by reporting bugs and suggesting improvements!

Go grab XBMC ‘Atlantis’ Beta 2 and let us know how it goes!

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

1. The first item that is new in this release is the brand new skin “PM3.HD”, a high-definition tribute to Project Mayhem III, which will be gracing screens as the default skin on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Xbox users can, of course, choose to use this skin if they wish as well, and the original Project Mayhem III skin is still packaged with Beta 1 for those who prefer the old-school look. This is in addition to the already awesome selection of skins available for XBMC.

2. The second item is the initial release of “XBMC Live“, a bootable CD which gives users the opportunity to try XBMC on their computer, without touching their harddrive. In addition, XBMC Live allows installation of XBMC, complete with an operating system, onto a USB flash memory sticks for a permanent, fast booting, dedicated set-top-box style installation of XBMC. XBMC Live is designed to support Microsoft’s MCE Remote and USB receiver out-of-the-box.

3. The third item is that the XBMC for Mac release now has initial support for integrating iTunes and iPhoto media into XBMC. For more information on this, please read this developers blog entry; “iTunes and iPhoto integration in XBMC“. The Mac release of Beta 1 also comes bundled with a bonus skin for XBMC, and that is MediaStream by Team Razorfish, (this skin can, of course, be downloaded and installed on all XBMC platforms, like all other XBMC skins).

You should know that XBMC ‘Atlantis’ is still in a feature freeze, the final release of which is scheduled for October, and we really need your help in order to make ‘Atlantis’ as stable as possible. We encourage all users to download and use this Beta release in preference to using SVN or the Alpha builds, and test it thoroughly, reporting all bugs to our tracking system.

We would also appreciate any and all assistance in making sure that the online manual and FAQ are as up to date as possible. Both the online manual and FAQ are wiki based so just register and request write access if you wish to contribute. In addition, translations and updates of XBMC language files is another area where help would be appreciated.

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the XBMC community for the great feedback in terms of bug reports and usability suggestions. Without your assistance, we would never be able to make XBMC as solid and stable as it is right now.

Here are a few teaser screenshots from the new PM3.HD skin:

Now go, download XBMC ‘Atlantis’ Beta 1 and enjoy!

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

XBMC ‘Atlantis’ is still in a feature freeze and the final version is planned to be released on Linux, Mac, Windows, and Xbox in October. You may track the development progress here, with the next release scheduled to be the first Beta.

We need your help in order to make ‘Atlantis’ as stable as possible. Please download and use this latest Alpha release instead of XBMC SVN builds. We encourage all users to test it thoroughly and report all bugs to our tracking-system.

We would also appreciate any and all assistance in making sure that the XBMC Online Manual and FAQ are as up to date as possible. Both the manual and FAQ are wiki based so just register and request write access if you wish to contribute. In addition, translations and updates of XBMC language files is another area where help would be appreciated.

We expect to be inviting some official beta testers on to the team in the next few weeks, so get testing if you wish to be considered for this role - we’ll be looking for people submitting good quality bug reports for these positions.

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

Our sincere thanks goes to Scott Zsori (a.k.a. szsori) of TheTVDB.com and MovieBackdrops.com for providing us with a direct API to all the data on his websites, so that getting FanArt backdrops into XBMC is now easier than ever. TheTVDB.com and MovieBackdrops.com are both user driven sites which let anyone upload and share FanArt, posters, banners, screenshots, and meta data information of their favorite TV shows and Movies. So again, thank you Scott! Our thanks also goes out to everyone who contribute artwork and information to these websites.

Team-XBMC encourage you all to visit both TheTVDB.com and MovieBackdrops.com, register to upload, and help maintain the content. Sharing your artwork with others through these websites makes it possible for people to enjoy XBMC even more.

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

In order to make this release as stable as possible, we will need your help in testing XBMC and reporting bugs to trac. We would also appreciate any and all assistance in making sure that the XBMC online manual and FAQ is as up-to-date as possible (both the manual and FAQ are wiki-based so just register, if you haven’t already, and request for write access). In addition, translations and updates of the language files is another area where help would be appreciated.

*UPDATE* The first Alpha version, “Alpha 3″, has been released for all platforms. We encourage all XBMC users to use this release instead of SVN builds, thoroughly test it and report all bugs.

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC

Related links: XBMC Community Forum discussion

Also, here is a link to a few pictures from the DEV CON (better late than never).

Thanks Dave and Team Boxee for the video!

XBMC started life out as the central piece of media center software for the old Xbox games console, and it is great to receive this recognition as the media center that gamers enjoy and use.

Over the last 12 months or so we have been branching out to all platforms, so that XBMC now also runs natively on Linux, Mac and Windows. We hope with a couple of stable releases under our belt (expect some news about this shortly) that more and more people will be using XBMC on their platform of choice.

Team-XBMC would like to thank SourceForge.net and everyone who took the time to vote for XBMC in this year’s SourceForge Community Choice Awards.

Discussion: XBMC Community Forum

Integrating this tracker-system into our site allowed us to implement a unified login, so from now on, only a single registration is required. Register on the forums, if you have not already, to be able to post both in the forums and to new or existing tickets on trac.

This is the first step towards making it easier for all XBMC users to report bugs, request features, submit language translations and code patches. Team-XBMC now accept bug-reports and feature-requests for XBMC for Linux, XBMC for Mac, XBMC for Windows, as well as XBMC for Xbox. Note though that for bugs please try post in the respective platform bug discussion forum first to get it replicated and confirmed by someone else too.

Team-XBMC would also like to take this opportunity to thank XanTium of Xbox-Scene for hosting the XBMC website on his webserver up until now.

Because of our limited resources, we can’t afford creating a Lab to run and test all 10 media centers. So we are relying on the community collective intelligence to gather all data necessary to provide you with a panoramic view on state of the art work in FOSS Media Center projects.

There is one webform available for each project. The forms are very easy to compile and we invite Project Leaders, Developers, and Power Users to actively participate, because you are capable to provide the most accurate information we need. You can participate anonymously, but if you decide to leave your name and email address you’ll be given credit for your participation and will receive an email notification of when the paper is available for download”.

You can participate by:
* Filling the XBMC profile webform: link
and/or
* E-mail screenshots from your media center, links to demo videos, or web reviews to <info (at) telematicsfreedom (dot) org>

The incentives to collaborate are:
* You’ll get for free a panoramic view on state of the art in all prominent media center FOSS projects out there.
* You’ll be promoting your favorite Media Center and showing how strong your community is.
* If you contribute, you will have credits at the end of the paper, in your project section.
* The best screenshots may be selected to appear in the paper to illustrate the software GUI.

Telematics Freedom Foundation full announcement: link
XBMC Community Forum discussion: link