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Full Version: Downloading XBMC on a Mac
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I am new to the concept of XBMC. So here are my questions:

1. Can I download XBMC on a Mac and stream it to my HDTV using Chromecast?

2. If I can, how do I do that? I have Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E2520) on my MacAir.

3. Is there a plug in where I watch a non-English film and I get English sub titles automatically?

4. On the nature of XBMC, we get data from the internet, right? So we usually do not get TV stations straight from the broadcasts of TV stations. If we get live broadcast, its a little delayed. Please advise.

Thanks.
1. No

2. see above

3. Yes, there's a subtitle search add-on

4. I don't understand this question
If you wish to stream movies from your Mac to your HDTV buy Apple TV through which you can stream anything (XBMC, other video or audio files).
XBMC is a Media Center peace of software. Fundamentally its a media player like VLC, Windows Media player or Apple Quicktime, however its packaged into an interface that's designed to make watching your media files easy, by creating a library of your movies, TV servers and music. There are however many features and addons which expand on this and streaming is one of them.

As its a peace of software that exists of your hardware, such as a Mac or Windows PC, it can be output to a TV. I don't believe you can hack the chromecast device and install XBMC, but someone please let me know if you can!

Chromecast is itself a media player, however it focuses on providing media to you from services/providers. If you wanting to run XBMC on you Mac and stream material to Chromecast, like you can with a Android phone, then I think your out of luck. Chromecast streaming appears to be proprietary to Google. Look into DLNA as an alternative.

Your question 4 is confusing so I'll try to explain. XBMC uses scraper's to collect information from around the internet for the Media files you have, such as I have a movie file, XBMC nicely finds out what this movie is, collects information about it, including artwork and adds it to a library so you can watch it. You can get plugins such as BBC iPlayer, which enables you to watch streaming material from the BBC services. XBMC does not provide streaming services. XBMC now has TV functionality (although I haven't used it), but this uses a tuner, which receives Broadcasts over the air, satellite, cable, etc.

Hope this explains the concept of XBMC.
You can stream to Chromecast, but I have not figured out how to get the sound to stream over the TV.

To stream XBMC to your Chromecast:
1. Open the chrome browser.
2. Click on the google cast extension icon.
3. In the top right corner, click the down arrow.
4. Click Cast screen/window (experimental).
5. Click your Chromecast device
6. At this point your MAC screen should be mirrored to your TV.
7. Start XBMC.
@herblo, you can stuff about trying half baked solutions that produce less than satisfactory results or just do like most of us do here, that is buy a RPi2 and directly connect that to the TV.

If you dont like the look of the RPi2, Velcro the thing out of sight to the back of the TV or bury it in a TV cabinet and control it via your TV's remote control using HDMI-CEC. Your TV naturally has to be HDMI-CEC compatible. A FLIRC usb IR receiver is another control option.

Its a very very popular cost effective solution for running Kodi.