XBMC on ARM: GLES 2.0

October 23rd, 2009 theuni

Here’s a quick teaser for those of you who dream of using XBMC on a low-powered ARM platform some day. Our very own McGeagh briefly demonstrates XBMC running on the BeagleBoard using OpenGL ES 2.0 and even manages the obligatory playback of everyone’s favorite: Big Buck Bunny. This is still in early development and is nowhere near ready for public consumption, but it’s certainly a great step in the right direction. Kudos to McGeagh, keep up the good work.

  1. October 23rd, 2009 at 09:02 | #1

    Nice! I’m also hoping for some ARM hardware next to my TV in the future instead of overblown, power sucking Media PC’s. Keep up the good work.

  2. October 23rd, 2009 at 09:04 | #2

    WOW That’s awesome.

  3. Johny007
    October 23rd, 2009 at 09:12 | #3

    Keep up your work guys. Once it will be done, many people surely appreciate it!!

  4. pletopia
    October 23rd, 2009 at 13:19 | #4

    umm .. why ?? “overblown, power sucking media pc” ??? simple .. get a power sipping atom+ion setup .. it works now, it loads nice and fast, and its got a gpu capable of 1080p

  5. Tacoguy
    October 23rd, 2009 at 14:13 | #5

    Awesome. Really. Xbmc gets better and better. This isn’t ready for the
    masses yet but putting it on the front page instead of being buried in the forums is pretty nice. Wouldn’t mind seeing even more of the “important” active threads on the homepage.

  6. theuni
    October 23rd, 2009 at 15:13 | #6

    @pletopia
    Hmm? Compared to the beagle, an ion board is a nuclear reactor. Beagle runs somewhere around 2watts under load.

  7. Starscream
    October 24th, 2009 at 05:34 | #7

    That is pretty awesome the low power and silence offered by the Arm platform and tiny form factor could be a real winner.

  8. pletopia
    October 24th, 2009 at 15:30 | #8

    @Tacoguy
    okay .. so it uses that little power .. but what kind of video can it actually decode and play ??

  9. Evan
    October 24th, 2009 at 18:05 | #9

    pletopia :
    @Tacoguy
    okay .. so it uses that little power .. but what kind of video can it actually decode and play ??

    Agreed, Until this thing can handle a 30GB bluray rip, like my 25-30watt ion can, its not viable. it might be able to squeak by some low res 720p stuff, but 1080 30Mbit videos is what I’ll wait for .

  10. XIYL
    October 24th, 2009 at 23:03 | #10

    This excites me because it could mean at some point we could port XBMC to a PMP or something. I’ve always thought that it would be bitchin to have XBMC in my pocket.

  11. Caoboth
    October 25th, 2009 at 07:03 | #11

    Very very impressive, i look forward to hearing more updates on the project, (guess i should go order a beagleboard then in preperation :) )

    Please keep up the good work.

  12. Andy
    October 25th, 2009 at 13:05 | #12

    Does this mean that we could see XBMC Media Center ported to Android operating-system in the not so distant future for running on ARM powered Netbooks and Portible Media Players?

    And someday possibly even a port to the iPhone 3GS which also uses an ARM processor and support GLES?

  13. Bob
    October 25th, 2009 at 19:00 | #13

    @pletopia

    It isn’t power sipping compared to an ARM machine.

  14. Bob
    October 25th, 2009 at 19:05 | #14

    @Evan
    That will come from Tegra or ZiiLabs currently, or probably from many vendors when the A9 and newer DSPs come out.

  15. red
    October 26th, 2009 at 08:25 | #15

    Is this somethin that may make the a PS3 version more possible? Wasnt it a problem that the PS3 Linux could only do OpenGL ES and not proper OpenGL that XBMC requires?

  16. coriscow
    October 26th, 2009 at 15:11 | #16

    kudos man…KUDOS!!

  17. October 26th, 2009 at 19:29 | #17

    This is Brilliant work- I am glad to see continuing development with ARM- the world needs a new direction in computing power and process, simple is better.

  18. October 27th, 2009 at 08:31 | #18

    Great, i’d like to it running smooth video :) Super Duper.

  19. dafranca
    October 27th, 2009 at 16:15 | #19

    I am looking foward to have XBMX on a mini box pluged in my TV with a 2GHZ arm cortex a9 next year

  20. realjobe
    October 28th, 2009 at 04:17 | #20

    WAH!! awesome stuff! I can imagine running XBMC on future Nokia N900 phone.. There is OpenGL ES 2.0 also with ARM 600Mhz processor and plenty of memory to run it!

  21. October 30th, 2009 at 18:39 | #21

    You guys should get your hands on a SmartQ 5 and see if you can get it running on that. I’d pay for that kind of functionality. XBMC in my pocket? That would be great.

    The SmartQ 5 is a handheld linux based device, with a 4.3 800×480 screen, 128 mb of ram, 1 gb of internal flash and touch screen interface. It has bluetooth and wifi as well as an SDHC slot all for $150 shipped. I’d love to see xbmc run on this arm device. It also has a 667 mhz ARM proc.

    Come on guys hook it up!

  22. Lewis Donofrio
    October 30th, 2009 at 23:13 | #22

    Humm, makes me wonder how long till it runs on my iPhone…

  23. November 2nd, 2009 at 12:57 | #23

    AMAZING! I’m ready for ARM in media applications. This is long overdue.

  24. November 3rd, 2009 at 05:09 | #24

    McGeagh or theuni please email me to discuss a commercial project based on this work. jack@aboutjack.com

  25. Benson
    November 6th, 2009 at 08:07 | #25

    The board is looks like OMAP3530 MINI board, which is not a pure ARM CPU but ARM + TI DSP C64x+.

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