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Android Media Software

XBMC Ported To Android 121

Posted by Soulskill from the xbmc-around-town dept.
New submitter TheUni writes with news that XBMC has been announced for Android. Quoting: "Not a remote, not a thin client; the real deal. No root or jailbreak required. XBMC can be launched as an application on your set-top-box, tablet, phone, or wherever else Android may be found. The feature-set on Android is the same that you have come to expect from XBMC, no different from its cousin on the desktop. Running your favorite media-center software on small, cheap, embedded hardware is about to become a hassle-free reality. And as Android-based set-top-boxes are becoming more and more ubiquitous, it couldn't be a better time. ... We will begin releasing apks for interested beta testers in the coming weeks. But for those who are up to the task, as you would expect from XBMC, the source code is available. We have decided not to push to Google Play until we are satisfied that users with all kinds of devices get the same great XBMC experience."

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XBMC Ported To Android

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  • In other news (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    xbox one gets replaced by a pie.

  • Let me be the first to say: "Wicked!!!" :)

  • If anyone wondered what to use the Q for (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TyFoN ( 12980 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @11:40AM (#40648811)

    This is it :)

    • Re:If anyone wondered what to use the Q for (Score:4, Informative)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @11:45AM (#40648839)

      $300 for something that could be done for less than $75 with a Pi (which includes case/ps/cables)? Or an old Linux box lying around? Or a used Xbox for $50? For $300, I could put together a complete microATX system with tons of storage and CPU.

      Sorry, I don't see the "Q" fitting into the picture for most people. At least those looking at the price tag. If it were $150, that would change the equation considerably.

      • Exactly what i was thinking. Also, this quote from the submission... "Running your favorite media-center software on small, cheap, embedded hardware is about to become a hassle-free reality." is a little confusing to me because, well, i have a hassle-free installation of my favorite media-center software (XBMC) on small, cheap, embedded hardware already, as many others do as well.

        Further to the point, can anyone tell the court what the hardware requirements for compiling Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich i

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by TheUni ( 1007895 )

          Hassle-free meaning: Buy some hardware, take it out of the box, open up Google Play, Search for XBMC, install. That will be the reality soon.

          XBMC on embedded Linux is my preference, and it's where I spend most of my time. But it's hardly that simple.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Lumpy ( 12016 )

            it's awefully close. Open box, set up net-top PC on TV. insert XBMCLive CD click yes about 6 times. all done

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by TheUni ( 1007895 )

              CD? XBMCBuntu does not have an ARM build (yet). We're talking embedded here.

            • set up net-top PC on TV

              And there's the problem. The average user (who is not the kind of geek who reads Slashdot) either A. owns an SDTV, B. doesn't know that a PC can use an HDTV as a monitor, or C. isn't aware of the advantages of an HTPC running XBMC over dedicated video streaming hardware such as the Roku. How can each of these three be fixed?

              • set up net-top PC on TV

                And there's the problem. The average user (who is not the kind of geek who reads Slashdot) either A. owns an SDTV, B. doesn't know that a PC can use an HDTV as a monitor, or C. isn't aware of the advantages of an HTPC running XBMC over dedicated video streaming hardware such as the Roku. How can each of these three be fixed?

                Boxee has done a great job of it.
                through word-of-mouth from her friends she and her husband bought one (no interaction with me whatsoever on the topic), however as a port of XBMC (at least originally), it does everything they need it to do, which was to play videos she had on her pc in her living room on their tv/projector.
                The same can be said of XBMC now, once our community finds a suitable OTS nettop to play it on (that is supported by things like harmony remotes)

      • Spoken like someone who has never tried a Raspberry Pi.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Indeed, and for anyone who is wondering what Vahokif is talking about, I have tried using XBMC on a raspberry pi, and while it isn't awful, it also isn't a great experience.

          Problems that can be solved:
          * I'm using OpenELEC and it has a fixed root password! Seriously, in this day and age.
          * I was amazed to find that there is something called CEC that lets you use your TV's remote to control XBMC. Unfortunately the CEC daemon runs as a separate process and controls XBMC through its web interface, which you cann

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        Let's see a Pi play all video formats in 1080p perfectly smooth. hell show me a Pi that can do just the Menu UI smooth.

        My $300.00 XBMC pc i built for only using XBMC kicks the crap out of a Pi for media playback. Use the right tool for the right job. Pi is not for HD media center use.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The Pi is a fantastic piece of kit for what it is but it truly astounds me how people try to use it for things it clearly was not intended for. If you want a media center, you are going to want to watch videos at 1080P, you are going to want Netflix, you are going to want Hulu, you are going to want http://www.tubeplus.me/ [tubeplus.me] you are going to want to transcode DVD's you rent at redbox, you are going to want to rip blu-ray's, you are going to want to store TB's of data, you are going to want to play AAA games

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            It was my impression that the Pi was specifically meant to be used for things it was never meant to be used for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cynyr ( 703126 )

        does your old linux box have HDMI and enough grunt to play 1080P h264 video? Mine has HDMI, but it is an ATI X1000 and can barly display chrome at 1080P let alone moving video. The 1080P is not going to happen either as the 5 year old low end dual core won't do it.

        The Pi doesn't seem to have an I/O interface that will sustain the 20-30MB/sec needed for high end video and audio. 10/100 ethernet won't, SDcards won't. Also the Pi has minimal codec support.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by repvik ( 96666 )

          What kind of high end audio/video are you talking about? Blu-Ray is <40Mbit/sec. Which is no problem with a Class 4 or 6 SD-card. And certainly no match for a 100mbit network.

        • Grab the Intel Compiler (non-commercial free for linux) and recompile the codecs. Make sure that '-O2 -xHost' flags are there. Experiment with the '-parallel' flag as well. Mixed success with '-ipo' flag.

          My old chip (machine turned off so can't get you /proc/cpuinfo, but is a core duo) was suddenly able to play h264 1080p .... barely, but could do it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amiga3D ( 567632 )

            My Dell D630 running Mepis Linux with 2ghz core2duo and Nvidia Quadro 135m is pretty old but runs 1080p video pretty well.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by poltsy ( 1897872 )

          I think you meant 20-30Mbit/s. 10/100 ethernet is plenty for HD video.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by repvik ( 96666 )

        No, the Nexus Q can do way more than the RPI. The hardware decoding support on the RPI is abysmal due to licencing costs. While it may play 1080p .mkv just fine, it can't decode most streaming video I've tried. Eg. Norways national broadcaster NRK has most of its programming online, available for streaming, including live TV. On the RPI it's useless. On pretty much everything else I've run XBMC on, it's awesome.
        If the Q work well with XBMC, I'm considering replacing my mini-ITX system with it. And I'd rathe

      • $300 for something that could be done for less than $75 with a Pi

        $75 for a complete solution [dealextreme.com]

        Or an old Linux box lying around?

        That is gigantic and power-hungry by comparison.

        Or a used Xbox for $50?

        Gigantic, power-hungry, and limited to 1080i.

        For $300, I could put together a complete microATX system with tons of storage and CPU.

        Now that is an excellent point.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by amiga3D ( 567632 )

          Honestly I am so in love with my Western Digital TV Live HD. It plays damn near everything. I hooked up a 1TB external hard drive to one of the USB ports and loaded it up with 1080p quality movies and tv shows. It's the best 99 dollars I ever spent. It's rare it wont play something.

        • I prefer this model [dealextreme.com], but I think that's mostly because I'd want the Boxee remote, twice the ram, and Ice Cream Sandwich.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 )

      You could do it for less with an original Apple TV (before the second gen mini one) and a reasonable amp for less than the Q. It is in fact what people have been doing for some time.

      Adding a native Android version of XBMC is great though, but using the Q puts you in that potentially perilous territory occupied by Apple users: "You are only using that hardware for the name/novelty/etc, you should use [$cheaper_option] that works just as well".

      Still, if you didn't have a dedicated home theatre amp setup, the

      • I have yet to use a Windows PC that works as well as my Mac. Even the Windows Bootcamp installation on my Mac sucks compared to OS X.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jo_ham ( 604554 )

          I have yet to use a Windows PC that works as well as my Mac. Even the Windows Bootcamp installation on my Mac sucks compared to OS X.

          Ditto, but I'm just heading off the argument at the pass. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and in this case the Q is the hardware on the premium side of the line in comparison with other products.

          Whether that premium is worth it is another discussion entirely (for me, the decision to go for an iMac made sense, it may not for someone else).

          • Can't say for the Nexus Q. It's well-designed and cool-looking which is one selling point of Apple devices. Whether it's worth the money remains to be seen. I'm just saying that this particular Apple device, for all its higher cost compared to say a Dell XPS, was worth every penny. I discovered that it comes with Apache and PHP installed last night. No fucking about with finding and configuring them, it was a piece of piss. A consumer device with all sorts of developer tools and a full Unix is just br

    • I love XBMC, and use it a lot as my primary PC driven media platform. The phone could be a way to display it on an LED in the bathroom, my next room to conquer.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        I prefer a higher resolution than a single LED. the lowest I can tolerate is about 1280X720 led's

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Oakey ( 311319 )

      What the hell is 'the Q'? I don't even know how to start trying to find out.

      Google; Q

      About 12,070,000,000 results (0.19 seconds)
       

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Most folks probably already know as it was one of the things recently announced at the Google I/O conference. However, you are right - if you didn't hear about it already you aren't going to be able to find it without more context than just "the Q" (you could find some pictures of John de Lancie with that search though). Anyway, what they meant was this:

        http://www.google.com/nexus/#/q

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjr.cc ( 760528 )

      Personally, if theres anything i would be targetting to run this on, its not the q, its the mk802 https://www.miniand.com/ [miniand.com]

  • YAY (Score:4)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @11:44AM (#40648831)

    who do I throw money at to thank them?

    • Re:YAY (Score:5, Informative)

      by SScorpio ( 595836 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @12:10PM (#40649017)

      You could always just donate to the project.

      http://xbmc.org/contribute/donate/ [xbmc.org]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by godrik ( 1287354 )

        Thanks to you, I just gave them 5 bucks!

      • I've donated a few times. Usually after something like this where I think to myself "I wonder what this would cost coming from a company." I've been with XBMC since near the beginning. ~2004ish. It has come an incredibly long way. Everything is hosted on NFS now. I can press a button on youtube and send the current video to the TV. My iPod touch will stream video and music to it. It looks gorgeous and there is a theme out there for everyone's personal taste.

        I'm running it on a 1.8 gHz celeron that chokes on

  • When can I put it on my logitech revue?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by malakai ( 136531 )

      ditto this. My Logitech Revue has been pretty glitchy lately, would love to just run XBMC to do 99% of what I want Revue for.

  • It's source only, so not quite where end users will be able to use it yet.

  • Oooh-Ya (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yotto ( 590067 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @12:10PM (#40649021) Homepage

    I wonder if it'll run on the Ouya, or Oooh-yah. Or whatever that new console is named.

  • Be nice to run this on my sony google tv box. See if someone ever compiles it for the intel chip and gets it on the google tv's version of Play.

  • Just hopped on Google Play Store, and downloaded something purported to be the "XBMC Media" app. It required me to sign in (WTF?) and seems to be related to something called "ZappoTV".

    In short, it sucked. It went on an endless loop trying to access my DLNA media server, which even other Android media player apps can read.

    Hopefully, this "full" XBMC will fully support MKV containers. I'm also looking forward to getting the "real" VLC Media player.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You didn't even read the summary, did you? They said it's not in the store... You have to download the APK.

    • the real vlc has a beta and it seems to work fairly well with mkv i have had some artifacting on my dvd rip of red-dwarf i dropped on my kindel fire, not sire that is my rip or the beta software though

  • More applications that replicate desktop functionality are a must. Even using my tablet still feels like using a giant phone. Especially when older/poorly designed apps flip orientation and my screen is docked. Awkward. Chrome is pretty nice but asides from some ok games (even the games aren't great yet imo) that look kind of pretty, I haven't found anything all that awesome to do with my tablet. Photo editing software that didn't suck would be nice. Photoshop touch is just too limited. I have a quad core c

    • more desktop apps being ported are a must, i cant find a desent free ftp app that isn't full of cruft i don't need and adds. what i would like is filezilla port, a libra office port, pidgen port, transmission bit torent port, and calibre library port. vlc (beta) port is already on my tablet. oh and a air-crack-ng port would be nice too.

  • What is that little Andriod box that they show in the begining? I can't make out the name.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      its the Pivos AIOS DS. Pivos sponsored and supported the android port.

  • Thin client is not a bad thing (Score:3, Informative)

    by DCstewieG ( 824956 ) on Saturday July 14, 2012 @02:18PM (#40650059)

    I have to think that while something like Plex [plexapp.com] would be better for a lot of people, XBMC still gets used on name recognition alone. If you have more than one device that you watch media on (TVs, Roku, tablets, phones, whatever) why wouldn't you want a central server managing the library, downloading metadata, saving watched flags, holding resume times, and serving up video to the devices? I turned a friend on to Plex from XBMC and he's amazed at how often he stops watching in one room and resumes in another. I love it too. I can't count the times that I've started watching something on the iPad in the kitchen while cleaning up and then going into the bedroom to finish on the TV. That's a way bigger feature to me than getting "the real deal" running everywhere I need it.

    The people above wanting this for Google TV...check out Plex, it may be exactly what you're looking for.

    Sorry to not gush for XBMC, I know it's the best solution for many people and I truly appreciate the heritage and the fact that it's the foundation for Plex, but until they have a centralized server (if ever), I can't even consider it for myself. And no I'm not going to jump through hoops [xbmc.org] to get it.

    • I have to think that while something like Plex would be better for a lot of people,

      Why?

      XBMC still gets used on name recognition alone

      No, it gets used because I've been using it, I'm familar with it, it works great for the most part (except for some plugins) and it runs on everything I want to run it on and plays everything I want to play with it.

      If you have more than one device that you watch media on (TVs, Roku, tablets, phones, whatever) why wouldn't you want a central server managing the library, downloading metadata, saving watched flags, holding resume times, and serving up video to the devices?

      I would, but I'd also like a fully open-source solution, and I'd rather have multiple media libraries (which does involve some overhead, but only significantly when a new player is brought online) than have a closed-source component hanging out in the middle of everything. As well, you can us

    • Sorry, but I couldn't find Plex for FreeBSD or Plex Source Code on their download page.

    • I have to think that while something like Plex [plexapp.com] would be better for a lot of people, XBMC still gets used on name recognition alone. If you have more than one device that you watch media on (TVs, Roku, tablets, phones, whatever) why wouldn't you want a central server managing the library, downloading metadata, saving watched flags, holding resume times, and serving up video to the devices? I turned a friend on to Plex from XBMC and he's amazed at how often he stops watching in one room and resumes in another. I love it too. I can't count the times that I've started watching something on the iPad in the kitchen while cleaning up and then going into the bedroom to finish on the TV. That's a way bigger feature to me than getting "the real deal" running everywhere I need it.

      The people above wanting this for Google TV...check out Plex, it may be exactly what you're looking for.

      Sorry to not gush for XBMC, I know it's the best solution for many people and I truly appreciate the heritage and the fact that it's the foundation for Plex, but until they have a centralized server (if ever), I can't even consider it for myself. And no I'm not going to jump through hoops [xbmc.org] to get it.

      Plex transcodes and the resulting video looks pretty terrible. XBMC plays video natively.

      • On a local network, nothing will transcode with a PC/Mac client, nor anything a device supports (and everything does h264 these days, and most do XviD). It remuxes if it has to but leaves the streams alone. Also over a local network the transcoding can have a huge bitrate and look fine. Admittedly it requires a beefy server. Remote streaming obviously gets a lower bitrate but you're trading quality for quantity with the ability to browse terabytes of media.

        Look, I'm aware it isn't for everyone. I'm not goin

  • Figures. I just spent $400 on an ASUS nettop.

    That being said, the Google Nexus 7 is looking pretty damn good at $200.

    I hope that XBMC on the Nexus 7 will give Apple some impetus to allow the XBMC app into the appstore.

    Of course, knowing Apple, they'll try to litigate themselves out of this. And before you say I'm an Apple basher, my family and I own 4 iPhones and a MacBook. I just don't like this patent litigation route that they've gone recently.

  • ...on a platform that's already got a perfectly reasonable browser?

    Seriously, it took me the better part of a minute to realize that I wasn't seeing "XKCD" in the headline. I was still puzzled afterward, as I'd never heard of XMBC, but not as puzzled.

  • Like everyone else I'm going to be stuck waiting for the first build to try out. Key for me will be whether it supports the new 10-bit h.264 encoding. Seems like almost every player has issues - the only one that consistently works for me is mPlayer - and the softsub support support on that player still needs some work to bring it up to a desktop standard. Nice to see a release at least, especially considering that after the announcement that VLC is being ported to Android we're still to see a stable offi

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by negge ( 1392513 )

      The latest nightly builds support Hi10P playback, although like someone already mentioned, all decoding takes place in CPU.

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