Easily install skins and more with new Add-ons Manager

A new beta version of XBMC, the media center that seems like the granddaddy of them all, has been released. [XBMC] Dharma has been in development for over 9 months now, and we’re quite happy with the result says Team-XBMC. I’m quite happy and impressed as well. XBMC Dharma Beta1 brings many new features and improvements such as a new Add-on Manager, DXVA2 hardware acceleration in Windows and Mac OS X H.264 hardware acceleration.

What I’m most excited about is the Add-ons Manager. Team-XBMC has created this repository serving as a centralized, organized place to find, install and update XBMC add-ons making it much easier to enhance the look and functionality of XBMC. If you remember anything about the prior builds of XBMC, it was often a pain in the ass to use the SVN Repo Installer plug-in. It used to be hard to find what you need and while you’re installing, XBMC couldn’t do anything else. With the Add-on Manager, however, everything is different. Here is what I love about it:

• Well organized and easy to use.
• Add-ons are downloaded and installed in the background. You can navigate away from Add-ons.
• Add-ons are auto-updated unless you select not to.

No more manually downloading files and extracting folders around here, folks. Everything is done directly from the XBMC interface by simply going to System > Add-ons > Get Add-ons, finding your add-on and then clicking Install. That’s it.

Here are a couple notes Team-XBMC wants you to be aware of prior to installing Dharma Beta1:

• As always, treat this as beta-quality software. Be sure to back up your profile in case you decide to roll back.
• The clunky old web interface has been removed. We’re working hard to have a new one ready for final release.
• svn-ppa users may have to remove old xbmc packages before installing Dharma.
• You may have to reset your screensaver and visualization settings after upgrade. These are now addons.
• Pre-Dharma scripts/plugins/skins will NOT work with Dharma, but most have been updated accordingly.

To try out Dharma Beta1, head to http://xbmc.org/download/ and grab the testing release.

In this guide I’ll show you how to offload h.264 playback to your graphics card in XBMC for Windows 7 and Windows Vista which means lower CPU usage and less playback issues.

Prerequisites

• Windows 7 or Windows Vista only with latest updates.
  Note: Windows XP doesn’t support DXVA2 so you have to use DSPlayer.
• Video card that supports DXVA2 such as one of the following:
  • ATI Radeon HD 2000 series (e.g., Radeon HD 2400 Pro)
  • ATI Radeon HD 3000 series (e.g., Radeon HD 3850)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4000 series (e.g., Radeon HD 4650)
  • ATI Radeon HD 5000 series (e.g., Radeon HD 5770)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series (e.g., GeForce GTX 260)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 9000 series (e.g., GeForce 9400 GT)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8000 series except 8800 GTS/GTX (e.g., GeForce 8800 GT)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7000 series (e.g., GeForce 7600 GT)
• Latest Dharma build of XBMC. Until the official stable version of Dharma is released you’ll have to use a nightly build. DXVA2 support was not enabled in 9.11 Camelot.
• Latest driver for your video card from the manufacturer’s web site.
  NOTE: It is recommended to download the driver directly from the manufacturer’s website instead of using Windows Update.

Enabling DXVA2 in XBMC

Once you have met the hardware and software requirements, you’ll need to enable DXVA2 hardware acceleration in XBMC. It’s simple.

In the default skin, go to System > Settings > Video > Playback. Select Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2).

If DXVA2 is enabled and working properly you should see your CPU usage in XBMC significantly lower.

To test and verify, while playing a video press the O key to enable the on-screen display.

When DXVA2 is in use, on the 2nd line you will see dc:ff-h264-dxva2. When DXVA2 is not enabled this line will read dc:ff-h264.

The bottom line will display an average which is your CPU usage. It may be helpful to toggle the DXVA2 setting to do a before and after. In my example I received 40-50% without DXVA2 and 4-8% once it was enabled. Some lucky bastards even report 1% or even 0% usage.

And that’s that! You should now be enjoying improved H.264 and VC1 playback and system performance in XBMC for Windows. If this was or wasn’t helpful, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

QR Code

An updated version of XBMC Remote for Android is available on the Android Market. This update offers the following enhancements over v0.8.2 beta1:

• Added: Configurable option for remote control key repeat
• Added: TV show details page
• Added: Sorting by title, year and rating for TV shows and movies
• Fixed: Some ANRs. App should be more stable no.

Read more about XBMC Remote for Android at its Google Code site and the XBMC community forum.

Team XBMC has gone against their word, but in a good way. Previously they only distributed their awesome Official XBMC Remote for Android app on the project’s Google Code page stating “once we’re happy with it, we’ll put it on the Android Market.” Well, apparently Team XBMC is as happy with the app as I am because they added it to the Android Market today.

Official XBMC Remote for Android is not the v1.0 version they scheduled to hit the Market but it’s more than good enough to be appreciated by the masses. The current version is v0.8.1 beta which introduces the following changes over v0.7.1:

• Added: Customizable home screen.
• Fixed: Potentially wrong sort order when queueing songs.
• Fixed: Wrong rounding in movie ratings.
• Fixed: Various other bugs

Holding off adding the app to the Market was understandable, well, because people can be idiotic and leave nasty ratings on a work-in-progress beta app. Don’t be that way. If you have questions or issues with the app, hit up the XBMC forums and you’ll be taken care of.

Android owners, use the QR code below to download the app. Enjoy and share you love (or hate) for this app in the comments!

XBMC has functionality to allow itself to be controlled by a multitude of options including smartphones. XBMC Remote for iPhone by collect3 is the undisputed champ when it comes to controlling your XBMC using your iPhone or iPod Touch. I personally use it when I don’t forget my iPod touch in my car.

Key Features    Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

XBMC Remote for iPhone is packed with features allowing full control of XBMC without ever looking at your HDTV.

• Play, queue and shuffle the media on XBMC
• View cover art for music, TV Shows and movies while navigating
• Customizable ‘Button’ remote mode
• ‘Gesture’ remote mode
• Music library mode
• TV show library mode
• Movie library mode
• File browser mode

Screenshots of a few features:

Looks    Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Unlike other remote control apps that appear to be designed by a 5th grader, XBMC Remote for iPhone is a polished, professional looking product. With a splash of your media library’s cover art here and there, overall, it rests heavily on the standard iPhone OS interface that iPhone users and wannabes users love. The only design element that I would like to see changed is the button remote control. It is extremely usable but rather plain.

Ease of Use    Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Using XBMC Remote for iPhone is as simple as any iPhone application. It supports your standard swipe and press finger gestures. The layout has your standard Settings and Now Playing buttons at the top and access to your media libraries as “tabs” at the bottom. If you can use your iPhone you can use XBMC Remote for iPhone with no problem. In fact I can start a video in half as much time on my iPod Touch than I can with my Logitech MediaBoard Pro keyboard.

Performance    Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

There is a 1-2 second “Loading” when navigating from screen to screen each time you reopen the app. Once the app caches cover art and data, switching between screens is extremely responsive. Remote gestures, button commands and media playback are instantaneous which gives the all-important feeling of holding a real remote control.

As long as your iPhone or iPod Touch isn’t having WiFi issues the remote application works great.

Value    Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

While some are outraged and for some strange reason feel downright cheated at the $3.99 price tag. I feel XBMC Remote for iPhone is worth every penny. It’s the best XBMC remote app in the App Store so naturally it should cost a bit more. Considering I’ve owned this app for about two years, I think I got more than my money’s worth compared to buying a hardware keyboard.

Final Thoughts     Overall Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars

Not only is this the best remote available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it’s also one of my favorite XBMC remotes for any smartphone. Its features allow you to do pretty much anything you want with XBMC without even being right in front of the TV.. Something a regular remote will have a pretty hard time doing.

Pros:

• Sleek, responsive interface that iPhone apps are known for
• Customizable remote
• Library modes
• Cover art for music, movies and TV shows

Cons:

• It’s not free..?

If you are an iPhone or iPod Touch owner XBMC Remote for iPhone is a must-have (or should-have). Again, the price is $3.99 US. Head over to the Apple App Store to get XBMC Remote for iPhone.

PlayOn is a media server which streams videos from popular sources (Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, etc)  to your computer(s) via the UPnP protocol. In this guide we’ll be installing the PlayOn media server on your XBMC-running HTPC to stream to itself or installing on another Windows-based computer you plan to stream from.

Requirements

1. Windows XP SP2+, Vista, 7, Server 2003, Windows Home Server SP1+
2. PlayOn (14-day trail available)
3. XBMC (or any other media center with UPnP support)
4. Hulu account recommended if needed
5. Netflix account if needed

Setting Up PlayOn

1. Download and install PlayOn from http://playon.tv
   NOTE: For issues installing PlayOn, see system requirements.
2. Click the Channels tab. Configure your channels.
3. If desired, click the Social Network tab. Configure your social networks.
4. To enter your license information, click the Registration tab.NOTE: Free trial expires in 14 days from installation.

Adding UPnP Source to XBMC

1. Go to Videos > Files > Add Source.
2. Select <None>.
3. Type: upnp:// and then click OK.
4. UPnP Media Servers (Auto-Discover) will display in your Files list. Click it.
5. Click PlayOn (ComputerName).
6. Browsing the sources is identical to browsing your usual XBMC media.

Wrap-Up

Streaming to XBMC is not without its bugs. I’m not sure if this is unique to me but I have to click videos multiple times before they’ll start buffering. Nonetheless, this is a great, simple way to get Hulu and Netflix on your XBMC system. Head over and get PlayOn.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below. For any questions, please ask in the community forums.

Hot on the tails of Plex, XBMC also gains hardware acceleration after Apple finally released their Video Decode Acceleration Framework Reference to third-party developers. This means Mac OS X 10.6.3 users can now offload all that video decoding to their GPU freeing up the CPU to do other things.

Here is a snippet of Team XBMC’s announcement:

We are very happy to announce that Apple’s new API (VDADecoder) for exposing GPU accelerated H.264 decoding under OSX 10.6.3 is present and fully functional in svn (r29729 and above) trunk builds of XBMC for Mac, and will appear in the next stable version. Now, non-CrystalHD equipped XBMC for Mac users that can enjoy the pure pleasure of accelerated H.264 decoding that was enjoyed by XBMC for Linux (VDPAU/VAAPI/CrystalHD) and XBMC for Windows (DXVA/CrystalHD) users. The VDADecoder API will handle all H.264 video content including that in m2ts containers. The last bit is very important as it means accelerated video decoding of decrypted Bluray m2ts files that are in H.264 format. Bluray can be one of three formats, VC1, MPEG-2 and H.264, with about 75 percent being in H.264 format. There is no word yet on accelerated VC1 decoding but since VDADecoder interfaces to low level Nvidia VP3 functions which can handle H.264 AND VC1/MPEG-2 content, we might see VC1/MPEG-2 support added to VDADecoder API at later date.

Also, while performance is fantastic with VDADecoder, there is still room for improvement. Running XBMC for Mac under Shark (Apple’s profiler) shows that about half of the CPU usage is now due to copying and converting the video frame from UYVY422 (VDADecoder’s native format) to YUV420P (XBMC’s internal format). Future work on the XBMC rendering path will allow passing decoded frames directly up to our renderer and thus skipping the copy/convert step. Stay tuned :)

Keep in mind that just like Plex this only applies to Macs equipped with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M running OS X 10.6.3. Current supported models:

• MacBook (Aluminum) shipped between October, 2008 and June, 2009.
• MacBooks shipped after January 21st, 2009.
• Mac Minis shipped after March 3rd, 2009.
• MacBook Pros shipped after October 14th, 2008.
• iMacs which shipped after the first quarter of 2009.

As stated, to get this functionality right now, you need to get the svn (r29729 and above) trunk builds of XBMC for Mac. To do this run the # svn co http://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk command. Or you can wait for the next stable version of XBMC to be released soon.

If you try out the new SVN please share your thoughts in the comments and questions in the community forums.

Team XBMC has updated XBMC Remote for Android to v0.7.0–further improving on an already superb remote control. Most notable of the changes is the addition of the TV show library which was missing in prior releases.

Changelog for v0.7.0:

• Added: TV show library support. Browse by show, season and episode. Details view for shows and episodes.
• Added: Remote texture support for HTC Tattoo
• Added: Basic integration for XBMC’s shiny new JSON-RPC interface. Looking good but still a lot missing. Deactivated by default.
• Added: Default cover for “Now playing”
• Added: In file mode, added support for playing FLAC and m4a.
• Fixed: Rewrote cover download code. Images are now resized smoothely and a recent XBMC build will download 10x faster. Also, it doesn’t start downloading thumbs that are still scrolling.
• Fixed: Batch cover download should now be faster, eat less memory and crash less. Also you can abort the process and restart it.
• Fixed: Crash when closing screen while covers were still downloading
• Fixed: Crash on calls from people without image
• Fixed: “Hide artists who only appear on compilations” was broken due to change of XBMC’s preference setting
• Fixed: Remote control GFX was messed for Nexus one
• Fixed: Moved WOL port and timeout setting to the host preferences
• Fixed: List view brushup
• Fixed: Dpad events were too sensitively treated
• Fixed: Query issue with old XBMC versions <Camelot (thanks Steve)
• Fixed: Long press issues
• Fixed: Some NPEs
• Fixed: There were still medium sized thumbs showing up instead of small

The application still won’t be available in the Android Market until hits version 1.0. Until then, you can download the latest version from Google Code. Check out the screenshots of the TV show library in the gallery below.

Source: XBMC Remote for Android on Google Code

XBMC is a feature-rich media center with an attractive interface. Through it’s EventServer XBMC has seemingless endless support for both physical and software remote controls. Smartphone users can use their phones in “smarter” ways by turning them into XBMC remotes.

A real XBMC remote goes beyond mere mouse and keystroke control. Instead, it allows browsing of your XBMC media library directly from your phone’s screen. Imagine changing a song or starting an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars for your 5 year old from the next room. There are currently three notable remotes providing this functionality: XBMC Remote for Android, XBMC Remote for iPhone (and iPod Touch) and XBMC HTTP-Remote.

Check out the feature comparison:

	XBMC Remote for Android	XBMC Remote for iPhone	XBMC HTTP-R
Platform(s)	Google Android	iPhone, iPod Touch	Google Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm WebOS
Cost	Free	$2.99	Free
Developer	Team XBMC	collect3	XiniX88
Version	0.8.1	1.7	0.4
Where to get it?	Android Market	Apple App Store	XBMC Forums
Movie Library	Yes	Yes	Yes
TV Shows Library	Yes	Yes	Yes
Music Library	Yes	Yes	Yes
Media Sources (File Mode)	Yes	Yes	??
Remote Control	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Trackball works in Remote Control mode.		Also has a VNC-like control feature.
Gesture controls	--	Yes	--
Customizable remote buttons	--	Yes	--
Show incoming SMS on TV	Yes	--	--
Show incoming calls on TV	Yes	--	--
Notifications on phone Statusbar	Yes	--	--
Sorting	Yes	--	--
Pros	Trackball support. Incoming SMS and phone notifications.	Sleek interface. Customizable "tab" items.	Scalable, broader support of mobile OSes beyond Android and iPhone.
Cons	Basic design right now.	It's not free?	Doesn't use XBMC's built-in web server. Instead requires additional software (i.e., PHP, Apache).

Update: My initial thoughts were that while XBMC Remote for Android offered more features, the XBMC Remote for iPhone was a better app overall due to XBMC Remote for Android’s lack of TV show library support. My views have changed since v0.7.0 which launched after this article was published. XBMC Remote for Android is a better app feature-wise and the iPhone app is prettier and more responsive.

Both of these applications will continue to evolve alongside XBMC. Hopefully awareness of XBMC will grow resulting in more competition and options for remote software… And perhaps other media centers will take note.

Share your thoughts on which is better in the comments.

Note: Lifehacker also has a good article describing different XBMC remote control software. Somehow they mentioned HippoRemote for iPhone but failed to mention both the Android app or even the XBMC Remote for iPhone. Both in my opinion are far superior solutions in terms of XBMC usage.