coming back to XMBC
#1
after some time away playing with xtreamer and other devices I've finally decided to come back to XMBC. I previously ran on the XBOX and now I'm looking for a new hardware platform. I think a dual core atom with ION will work well, how about OS, should I go for Windows or Linux? I dont understand Linux so I think I will go with that - its always nice to learn something new. The system will primarily be for my childrens movie and music library so I will make it as friendly as possible. I want to try to integrate Skype so its easy for the kids to chat to their friends.... so I guess I need to figure out how to use python... anyway hello to all!
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#2
i*windows Wrote:after some time away playing with xtreamer and other devices I've finally decided to come back to XBMC. I previously ran on the XBOX and now I'm looking for a new hardware platform. I think a dual core atom with ION will work well, how about OS, should I go for Windows or Linux? I dont understand Linux so I think I will go with that - its always nice to learn something new. The system will primarily be for my childrens movie and music library so I will make it as friendly as possible. I want to try to integrate Skype so its easy for the kids to chat to their friends.... so I guess I need to figure out how to use python... anyway hello to all!

If you choose an Ion platform, XBMC on Linux has the major advantage of using the hardware decoding support provided by the Ion platform. You can choose to either install a Linux dist and then XBMC on top, or you can use XBMC Live directly, which is a bundle of Linux and XBMC easily run from a USB stick.

I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and XBMC 9.04.1, i e not XBMC Live. I also use Skype, the 2.1 beta version. It works well although I had some initial trouble with sound recording and PulseAudio. I don't think there's a Skype plugin for XBMC though but maybe it's possible to use the XBMC Launcher plugin to activate Skype.

Either way, Ubuntu + XBMC or XBMC Live should both be fairly easy to get up and running, and works quite well.
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#3
johan77 Wrote:If you choose an Ion platform, XBMC on Linux has the major advantage of using the hardware decoding support provided by the Ion platform. You can choose to either install a Linux dist and then XBMC on top, or you can use XBMC Live directly, which is a bundle of Linux and XBMC easily run from a USB stick.

I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and XBMC 9.04.1, i e not XBMC Live. I also use Skype, the 2.1 beta version. It works well although I had some initial trouble with sound recording and PulseAudio. I don't think there's a Skype plugin for XBMC though but maybe it's possible to use the XBMC Launcher plugin to activate Skype.

Either way, Ubuntu + XBMC or XBMC Live should both be fairly easy to get up and running, and works quite well.

I'll go for Linux, I think the acceleration on the ION platform is the key.
do you switch to Skype via keyboard or remote? or do you minimize exit XMBC to run skype?
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#4
i*windows Wrote:I'll go for Linux, I think the acceleration on the ION platform is the key.
do you switch to Skype via keyboard or remote? or do you minimize exit XBMC to run skype?

I haven't made any attempts to integrate Skype with XBMC. Skype (using the 2.1 Beta) calls with XBMC minimized should work since both use PulseAudio but I've only used it with XBMC shut down.
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#5
i use xbmc-live.
what i do is switch virtual termainals (ctrl-alt-f5).
use xbmc as the user and password.
type in startx and run ekiga.
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#6
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johan77 Wrote:I haven't made any attempts to integrate Skype with XBMC. Skype (using the 2.1 Beta) calls with XBMC minimized should work since both use PulseAudio but I've only used it with XBMC shut down.
@Johan77: FYI there are large number of people that would be interested in even a basic level of integration. If you've got the skills to write a script or a plugin or something, check out these threads for more background info + a number of users who'd be your fans if you pull it off Big Grin

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=60780
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=39371
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=52124
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#7
Check out the following forum: http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=112

Tons of discussion on hardware, what works good, what doesn't, etc. I personally have a Foxconn nettop and it works great for XBMC. Given, the sucker can get hot and I haven't figured out a way to have the lid on it and be happy but...with the top off it's great! (Kind of like some women...hehe)
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#8
johan77 Wrote:I haven't made any attempts to integrate Skype with XBMC. Skype (using the 2.1 Beta) calls with XBMC minimized should work since both use PulseAudio but I've only used it with XBMC shut down.
For those who haven't seen it - new member of the forum eoin is having a stab at building Google Talk / Google Video chat integration into XBMC...

If you are interested in seeing this come to fruition, make sure you support eoin with ideas, functional requirements and testing as much as you can!

Info:
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#9
wow, a video chat integration (especially using either Skype or Google Talk) would be amazing!!

I would also like to recommend running XBMC on Linux on an ION based setup, I cant believe how cheap the hardware is and how such a low power machine can run this setup so beautifully, I'm running a single core atom with 1 GB of memory and it streams 1080 videos from my media server flawlessly.
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coming back to XMBC0