XBMC is beautiful, the development teams have done a wonderful job, nothing I write here disputes that. If it were a car, it would be the most customizable, luxurious, vehicle ever made... a vehicle that could drive on virtually any road surface, under a wide range of different conditions... a joy to drive, and handles like a dream... But it has one major flaw.... it's not allowed on public roads. As long as you stay on your property, we guarantee that you will absolutely love it.
I think we can all agree that the world of TV entertainment is moving to internet streaming services, such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc. And unfortunately, XBMC does not support those. As a PVR supplement to existing cable/TV services, support is highly experimental at best. I look at the list of new features for EDEN, and the requested features in the forums, and just scratch my head. The new features are nice, and the requested features people are asking for seem to be largly niche features, it seems to me that everyone is overlooking the critical aspects that need to be met (such as reliable streaming service support, reliable and easy BluRay / DVD playback, reliable PVR capabilities, etc.)
I really *really* wanted to use XBMC. I built a Mini-ITX PC, purchased a bluetooth keyboard/dongle, got the IR remote, Installed Linux (no bluetooth, No Netflix) then installed Windows7 (apparently no functional Netflix) and spend 3 full evenings till the wee hours of the morning, trying to get some kind of reliable operation...the whole 9 yards. But without Netflix working reasonably well (about 60% of our viewing) and without XBMC as a whole working reliably once I've taken the time to set it up, I can't expect it to be the center of my living room entertainment center, nor, expect my wife and family to use and understand it.
I'm sure there must be political/legal reasons why the streaming services can't just be built into the software, but this is really driving me crazy. Netflix is a large portion of our viewing experience, and without that functionality, it's really hard to justify building the media center PC (That I just built). I love the appearance, and customization of XBMC, but once I get it setup, I want it to just work and work reliably. (oops Hulu died again, oops the skin you spent hours configuring isn't compatible with the last update, oops Netflix is nowhere to be found (in any repository) and 30% functional when you do hunt it down, so all in all, apart from NAS movie playback, it's largely pointless for our uses.
I can't understand why the developers don't just give up on trying to build in the player, and just make it launch a full screen IE window with the Netflix site already logged in. The XBMC site/silverlight keeps track of your movies, etc. Why even try to integrate it? When the IE window with Netflix is in front, it remaps the keys to work with the standard controls, when you are done, it closes the window returning you to the XBMC experience. If you have to use IE, just use it and quit trying to do some kind of hybrid thing.
The other part is the Netflix/Linux thing. I guess there may be legal issues around obtaining the secrets to building it into linux with an open source project. But clearly Netflix works with Linux (unless it's an x86 cpu thing) Boxee has a functional implementation of it (built on XBMC), Boxeebox (which runs on linux) works fine, Tivo has it (linux), or how about almost any one of the BluRay players on the market (generally flavors of linux) all have it.
Random idea from an outsider: If the issue with Hulu, Netflix, etc. is that XBMC is an open source project, why don't the developers segment off a small group to work alone on those projects. Incorporate as a non-profit if needed, the "employees" of the organization sign the NDAs, and then develop and release locked modules that will then play nice with the overall larger project. This way the deepest darkest secrets of Netflix aren't being released to the general population.
Regardless, I've come to the very disappointing and frustrating (if you can't tell) conclusion that I have to stay with my Boxee box, despite having just built a complete media center PC. Sure the Boxee box skin is butt-ugly compared to XBMC, but, it works. Youtube works, Hulu works, Netflix works, and streaming video from a NAS works (and the scraper works pretty well too). No configuring hidden xml files, no remapping keys or completely different control interface for Netflix. If the twits at Boxee would just allow some custom skins, it would absolutely dominate. Boxee's "car" isn't as pretty and luxurious as XBMC's, but at least I actually get to drive it somewhere.
Just my perspective as an outsider trying to understand and make use of a really cool piece of software.
I think we can all agree that the world of TV entertainment is moving to internet streaming services, such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc. And unfortunately, XBMC does not support those. As a PVR supplement to existing cable/TV services, support is highly experimental at best. I look at the list of new features for EDEN, and the requested features in the forums, and just scratch my head. The new features are nice, and the requested features people are asking for seem to be largly niche features, it seems to me that everyone is overlooking the critical aspects that need to be met (such as reliable streaming service support, reliable and easy BluRay / DVD playback, reliable PVR capabilities, etc.)
I really *really* wanted to use XBMC. I built a Mini-ITX PC, purchased a bluetooth keyboard/dongle, got the IR remote, Installed Linux (no bluetooth, No Netflix) then installed Windows7 (apparently no functional Netflix) and spend 3 full evenings till the wee hours of the morning, trying to get some kind of reliable operation...the whole 9 yards. But without Netflix working reasonably well (about 60% of our viewing) and without XBMC as a whole working reliably once I've taken the time to set it up, I can't expect it to be the center of my living room entertainment center, nor, expect my wife and family to use and understand it.
I'm sure there must be political/legal reasons why the streaming services can't just be built into the software, but this is really driving me crazy. Netflix is a large portion of our viewing experience, and without that functionality, it's really hard to justify building the media center PC (That I just built). I love the appearance, and customization of XBMC, but once I get it setup, I want it to just work and work reliably. (oops Hulu died again, oops the skin you spent hours configuring isn't compatible with the last update, oops Netflix is nowhere to be found (in any repository) and 30% functional when you do hunt it down, so all in all, apart from NAS movie playback, it's largely pointless for our uses.
I can't understand why the developers don't just give up on trying to build in the player, and just make it launch a full screen IE window with the Netflix site already logged in. The XBMC site/silverlight keeps track of your movies, etc. Why even try to integrate it? When the IE window with Netflix is in front, it remaps the keys to work with the standard controls, when you are done, it closes the window returning you to the XBMC experience. If you have to use IE, just use it and quit trying to do some kind of hybrid thing.
The other part is the Netflix/Linux thing. I guess there may be legal issues around obtaining the secrets to building it into linux with an open source project. But clearly Netflix works with Linux (unless it's an x86 cpu thing) Boxee has a functional implementation of it (built on XBMC), Boxeebox (which runs on linux) works fine, Tivo has it (linux), or how about almost any one of the BluRay players on the market (generally flavors of linux) all have it.
Random idea from an outsider: If the issue with Hulu, Netflix, etc. is that XBMC is an open source project, why don't the developers segment off a small group to work alone on those projects. Incorporate as a non-profit if needed, the "employees" of the organization sign the NDAs, and then develop and release locked modules that will then play nice with the overall larger project. This way the deepest darkest secrets of Netflix aren't being released to the general population.
Regardless, I've come to the very disappointing and frustrating (if you can't tell) conclusion that I have to stay with my Boxee box, despite having just built a complete media center PC. Sure the Boxee box skin is butt-ugly compared to XBMC, but, it works. Youtube works, Hulu works, Netflix works, and streaming video from a NAS works (and the scraper works pretty well too). No configuring hidden xml files, no remapping keys or completely different control interface for Netflix. If the twits at Boxee would just allow some custom skins, it would absolutely dominate. Boxee's "car" isn't as pretty and luxurious as XBMC's, but at least I actually get to drive it somewhere.
Just my perspective as an outsider trying to understand and make use of a really cool piece of software.
