[mikeandjeny]

Wanted to add a Q&A section here to collect Questions that users have about the new features in the XBMC Dharma release. The idea is to pose these questions to the developers and possibly present this as a news item around the final release.
Here is the roadmap http://trac.xbmc.org/roadmap for reference.
There are a metric ton of new features. Some may only be of interest to programmers. Some affect the end user.
I (like many others here) have been using the SVN so I completely forgot that some of this stuff wasn't in Camelot. So I am going to try to frame my questions from the perspective of someone either new to XBMC or coming from Camelot.

Some of the big user oriented changes I see are:
Add-ons Manager
Movie Trailers Scraping (a good one!)
Web Server
Initial Touch/gesture support (does it work well enough to feature?)
Movie Set support
I also see a lot of improved/added hardware support

Feel free to add your questions, and if I missed some new features add those too.

Here is a start: (I know some of us already know the answers to the questions)

What exactly are "Add-ons"?

Why did you change the way Programs/Scripts/Skins were handled?

What sort of features belong in the core and what features should be handled by Add-ons?

Are there different classes of Add-ons, like "Official", "Third Party", etc.?

What is the difference between Add-ons in the Official Repository and Third Party Repository?

Where do I go if I have problems with an Add-on?

Are Add-ons in the Official Repository supported by the XBMC developers?

What about my favorite Program/Script/Skin from Camelot?

[jmarshall]

Nice initiative - speak up folks!

[sho]

Jonathan, you were supposed to answer
(and I will not on my phone)

[Chris!]

- Do I need to re-scan my library for this new release or just to take advantage of ....... new feature?

- The use of hardware acceleration and the codecs it applies to (in basic terms, such as h.264 decoding - useful for blu-ray rip play back)

[ralob]

What exactly are "Add-ons"?

Why did you change the way Programs/Scripts/Skins were handled?

What sort of features belong in the core and what features should be handled by Add-ons?

Add-ons are anything not part of the core of XBMC. This includes scrapers, plugins, scripts, programs, skins, subtitles, etc. The core of XBMC is the guts of the program. For example, the media players, gui system, library, etc.

The way plugins/scripts were changed for a variety of reasons. Before the add-on manager, all plugins and scripts were usually found on the XBMC forum. Any new releases were subsequently posted in those threads, and it was a real mess both to developers and users to wade through 40 pages of comments asking if it was released, where to find it, etc.

The new add-on system allows for updates to be pushed to the user seamlessly with little-to-no hassle. As soon as a scraper is update and added to the repository, the user will get it next time XBMC scans for updates.

The add-on system also allows for users to organize their add-ons in a more sane way. Configuring an add-on can be done in the settings -> add-on page, and anything can be disabled, uninstalled, updated, etc. from that same location. The entire system is now centralized and easy to manage for everyone.

[ralob]

What about my favorite Program/Script/Skin from Camelot?

It is unlikely that your favorite script/plugin in Camelot will work in Dharma. Too much has been changed in XBMC in terms of add-ons and general code. However, it is possible (and even likely) that you can find an updated or equivalent version of said add-on in one of the repositories. Many of the more popular plugins and scripts have been updated to work with Dharma.

[jhsrennie]

- Do I need to re-scan my library for this new release or just to take advantage of ....... new feature?

- The use of hardware acceleration and the codecs it applies to (in basic terms, such as h.264 decoding - useful for blu-ray rip play back)

When you install Dharma it will upgrade your library. No rescanning should be necessary.

I'm not sure what your second question is asking, but all the common HD formats will benefit from the hardware acceleration.

JR

[Chris!]

The use of hardware acceleration and the codecs it applies to (in basic terms, such as h.264 decoding - useful for blu-ray rip play back)

- Was just clarification for users that it will not gpu accelerate some formats such as divX or some others.

Also with new features such as movie trailers for movies in the library surely you would have to refresh the information with, for example, themoviedb so it knew where the trailers were at etc?

@mikeandjeny perhaps it would be worth collating answers to questions as the thread progresses in you first post so people don't have to scan through the (not as yet) long thread.

[TheCycoONE]

Someone on the phoronix forms said that VA_API support would not be built in by default.

Yes, supported, but maybe one should mention also that it is not included in the build and you only take advantage of it by compiling the sources yourself.

Is this true? Why?

[Jamhandman]

Will ISO/DVD playback be hardware accelerated? It is choppy currently on my PC (Radeon 4550)

[darkscout]

Will ISO/DVD playback be hardware accelerated? It is choppy currently on my PC (Radeon 4550)

Your card supports it.

But that completely depends on what OS you're running, if you have external media players, etc.

[Jamhandman]

I have Vista 32-bit. I just see some jitter like a de-interlacing issue or something. I might go and uninstall all codecs and try again..

[JaxTom]

Hope I don't stun folks with my lack of knowledge.....

I used to run the XBMC updater. I know XBMC will notify me of updates to add-ons, will it notify me when there is an update to XBMC itself like Updater used to?

I'm not sure the above link about Cards is valid. I went to see if my card is supported NVIdia GeForce 9200.

If my card is supported, do I have to turn on acceleration or does it happen automatically?

Settings is showing my OS as Vista 32bit and I'm on Windows 7. Is that normal?

[JaxTom]

I guess I killed this thread.

[jhsrennie]

XBMC doesn't have updates in the way that add-ons do. Add-ons tend to be small apps with short development cycles. The next update to XBMC is likely to be v11.0 Eden, and there will be plenty of warning here when Eden is released :-)

I'm 99% certain that hardware acceleration is supported on the 9200. Go into System settings, Video, Playback and enable hardware acceleration. By default it is disabled.

JR