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First i just want to say hello to everyone here..
I stumbled upon the xbmc software when i was looking for a WMC alternative and found a video on youtube and thought it looked sweet and much more intuitive and flexible then WMC, so i jumped on it and i am pleased i did, it seems to be running super smooth and stable so far (only 2 days in) on a win 7 laptop that i dont use on the regular and is now my temporary xbmc in my livingroom (i got fed up with WDTV being so unstable and sluggish). The laptop is not exactly what i want to keep in the livingroom, eventually i would like to build my own set up (i already have an atx mobo, and core 2 quad processor just collecting dust waiting for some use) which leads to my questions.
1. Which OS is best suited for running xbmc the most stable, reliably, and quickly? ubuntu, or windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit? (i know typically 32 bit systems run a bit faster)
2. i would like to keep my set up simple as possible for my sake and my wifes sake. So which remote would be ideal for the set up? i am looking to have just one universal remote that can control everything, and a way to reset the system with the remote if for some reason it becomes unresponsive and freezes as computers tend to do every so often.
Thanks for all your help. I am located in the US if that makes a difference at all.
anyone ditch the cable company all together with an xbmc?
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opdenkamp
Retired Team-Kodi Member
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1) whatever OS you like best
2) a media center compatible usb remote would be the easiest to set up. if you want to control other devices too, have a look at the logitech harmony remotes.
opdenkamp / dushmaniac
xbmc-pvr [Eden-PVR builds] [now included in mainline XBMC, so no more source link here :)]
personal website: [link]
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I love XBMC! Period.
Now, in regards to your questions, for simplicity sake and for my wife, I actually made a very simply computer and installed the LIVE version of XBMC. This is one of the download options. With this version you can boot right off the CD and run XBMC for testing or demo purposes. Nothing needs to be installed – this is great to test. Now then you can also install to your system from the Live CD. This installs I believe a simple thin Ubuntu version and it’s completely hidden away – thus it just boots into XBMC. Makes for a great system for folks that don’t want to tinker.
Now this is not to say you can’t just run the version on top of your Windows 7 system. That also works great but kinda sucks if you are building an HTPC and have to go and buy a license of Win 7 or whatever ONLY to have it just run XBMC, when you don’t have to using the LIVE CD version. It works exactly the same way. The only difference I found is that if you are accessing movies etc, from another drive that is installed in that computer, by default XBMC live wont automatically mount those drives and thus can’t see your movies. Not hard to fix, just needs a few lines of code to be changed etc.
If on the other hand you are like me and access a network share that houses all your media then it’s just easy… no need for anything other than add that network share as a source.
In regards to a remote, I just use the Microsoft media centre one.. there are lots of versions and honestly I don’t know which I have… I paid $15 for it at my local computer store. I plug in the USB receiver and BANG it just works. I then figured out that my Logitech Harmony easily has the support for these media centre remotes through and bang… easy peasy. I can turn it off but I never did get the settings down right to turn it on with the rest of my gear. Thus I just leave it running all the time and tell the remote NOT to shut if off…
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Yes you can pull media from other Windows 7 computers on your network. However, I believe you need to do some small modifications (easy), on the various Windows 7 machines to give the XBMC access – by default if I am not mistaken it wont let XBMC access folders until you do a minor registry tweak. I don't have a link quickly but searching this site gives you the info. In my case I have a very old Windows Home Server box which has no such issues... everything is stored on that and the XBMC sees it right away.
Now in regards to wireless streaming... hum. I can tell you that with my XBMC wired by Ethernet even 35 GB BR rips have no issues. Wireless however is a bit iffy. I had it connected via wireless before and I could handle say 720p 4GB or so movies but anything over that it would stutter. Now that being said, it was not a newish N wireless setup… very possible that a wireless setup like that might be able to handle a bit more.
One side note with the Live version is that you really have to have hardware that is supported – video card, audio, Ethernet etc. Very important. In most cases it works brilliantly – there are many forum posts as to what is considered the best supported combos etc, if you are going to build something just for XBMC. In that regard the Live CD is just brilliant for having the ability to allow you to quickly JUST boot from it (don’t install), and see if everything works. If you can’t get audio to work, or your video card is not providing you proper hardware acceleration for those lovely H264/X264 BR rips… or if the wireless card is not supported… you will know right away. A very nice feature. I can tell you right away that I had issues trying to get it to work on a newer Intel H55 chipset. I gave up on that… I am sure there are maybe workarounds for it but I wanted to get a newish system with say an intel i3 and a mini H55 chipset board and using my friends system no matter what I did I could not get it to work using the LIVE CD version. If I just installed XBMC on his Windows 7 drive, it worked perfectly hence very important that if you go down the LIVE CD route that your hardware is supported. It’s funny but the older and crappier the system the easier it was to get it running.
Here are a few examples of systems I built for friends family that had NO issues with the Live CD:
Intel chipset P35 (asus P5Ke se) and Intel Core2duo e6600, Built in Realtek network and audio, and Nvidia 8500 GT. Works perfect
Intel chipset P45 (Asus P5Q SE) and Intel Core2quad (6600) – total overkill, ATI 4550 for both audio and video (HDMI)… works perfectly. In this one I have a wireless card installed it was a cheap crap Intel one… don’t remember the model with it worked well.
Acer Aspire One Netbook 11.6”. Perfect.
Acer Revo 1600 (small mini all in one). This one is just brilliant… there are walkthroughs for this baby – it’s as if it was made by Acer to run XBMC Live. Everything on it is supported from the get go. However the one I built I used the Ethernet and that was perfect, but it also comes with wireless and I remember we could not get that working but there were lots of posts in regards to replace the built in wireless with a $10 cheapy from Ebay that would be picked up by the Live install.
Now yet more info… the reason I say about all the hardware is that I honestly don’t want to fiddle with installing drivers. YOU CAN upgrade, install do whatever you want on the XBMC live version, but you have to willing access the console and start messing with some code that for some is not their thing. It’s NOT HARD… by any means but for some learning sudo apt- etc commands is not to their liking. I know that with these commands you can in theory update Nvidia drivers, ATI, audio, network even update the XBMC files to the latest version, whatever you want if search the forums for instructions. Once it’s done and you set up, the user never ever sees anything other than the perfectly running XBMC interface. This is just for you when you first install if you want to and if your hardware is not 100% supported.
In regards to stability, I know you wont believe me… but I have NEVER, ever had a crash or hang. It just…. Works. I have also have not found one movie that it wont play. It’s on all the time… when I turn on the TV and receiver (my system sends audio and video through the video card’s HDMI to my receiver and then off to the TV), it’s always there… waiting… wherever I last left it at. You can, by the way, simply tell it to reboot if you want to for some reason. The only time I rebooted it was when I updated it to the new Dharma 10 final.
I have connected external drives via USB with NO issues. I tried to connect a drive using the eSATA and that had some issues but again you would need to mount that drive I believe and requires some minor commands. Using USB at least for me I had no issues but again I now strictly run everything over the Windows Home Server.
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I run both the Live version on my Zotac MAG, and the Windows version on a purpose-built HTPC. Functionality is identical. Never had either one hang.
Personally, I prefer the LIVE install. It is obvious that a lot of thought went into it to make it just work, without any special tweaking. Bought a MCE remote with receiver for $15, it worked out of the box (YMMV). Added the Transparency skin and ...Wow!
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sounds like you guys have a sweet set up.
one more question about the xbmc live installation. From what i have read some addons may require access to the desktop and such, will i be limited in that aspect or is there a way to exit out of the xbmc and do whatever tasks is needed to install the addon. I have been looking at the "sickbeard" addon and it seems sick! The customizability with xbmc just seems endless, and i don't want to do a set up that will limit my addon options.
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2011-02-17, 05:38
(This post was last modified: 2011-02-17, 05:41 by Bobokatt07.)
Many add ons you simply install through the interface like skins, scrapers like imdb etc. If at any time you need in Live to update or install something outside the gui, then just Cntr alt f2 and you can start to manually do things. You can also ssh via terminal window on another computer and finally you can FTP into the system again from another computer, transfer packages, zip files and then get on the XBMC comp and actually add them through the gui... This works great if you want to add a skin that does not come with the Live distro or if you want to add any other add-on not again automatically included with the distro. There are many add ons outside the actual distro... I added a whole bunch of news add ons for my dad this way. Hope I am answering your question. The only hard part is figuring out WHERE to copy the add-on say via FTP so that once back on the XBMC computer you can actually browse to it and hit install. As a total noob took me few tries to find a directory that was proper.
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On a side note I have never ever added anything to xbmc live to scrape for movie info other than the IMDB plugin which is standard (for movies), or TVDB for tv shows. If you name your movies right like say Heat (1995) or say Big Bang Theory s01e01 the scrapers do a fantastic job. It's only if you wish to edit the standard fan art etc that you need to go to 3rd party programs. I have over 250 movies and BR rips 35 tv series and never had to go outside of what the Live distro included.
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This is all still new to me. So Your saying that there are scrapers that do the same thing that sick beard does, but are easier to install. From my understanding sickbeard searches and downloads automatically based on your settings.
I am not well versed in ssh, i do know a bit about ftp though, and i have only fiddled around with ubuntu for a week or so. Is there ever a situation where windows xbmc gets an addon that linux xbmc does not get?
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Live or the Windows one, makes no difference on the updates. In fact if you have an addon installed and there are updates, XBMC will auto update those.
I don't use SickBeard. All I care is that XBMC accesses IMDB or TVDB and retrieves movie or TV INFO and art for my movies and shows which I have ripped to my server. This funcionailty requires NOTHING else but XBMC the way it is. That's what I was referring to.
From what I read, Sickbeard integrates with external download utilities to search for shows/movies etc, plus other functionality. That's something totally different which I don't use or care for. If that is what you want then you need Sickbeard. Once again I know little about sickbeard but that runs on say a Windows platform and does all the work and searching for you. If you are using XBMC Live and that is all that you have installed on a system, you are not installing something like Sickbeard on that. You would install Sickbeard on a windows computer that is where you keep your movies and videos.
By the way LOADS and loads of great videos on Youtube showing the functionality of XBMC.. might give you a better general feel for the app.
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Sickbeard is a program that correlates your TV Series Collection with NZB RSS feeds to help automate filling your backlog of episodes and to keep you current. In doing this it can also grab the same info that the scrapers will do. It is a completely seperate project from XBMC, but it can alert XBMC to update its database when it processes new content. Sickbeard is also cross platform.
