[MikeBeecham]

Ok...I know the title is a bit cheesy...I couldn't think of what else to put which clearly defines what the post is about.

For some time now, I have been dissatisfied with the skins that we have for XBMC. Probably the best one out there is PM3 without a doubt...it's classy and does the job it is designed to do but, lets face it, it's getting old now, and I'm sure jezz would agree?. HarshReality once posted that he gets tired of seeing exciting mockups come to nothing more than decent graphics on the forums...all style and no substance. I have to say that I find myself agreeing more and more these days with that statement.

In XBMC we have a media centre that blows ALL competition away in terms of feature-rich functionality. XBMC really does have all the bells and whistles it claims to have. Nothing (and I DO mean nothing) can come close to what we get in XBMC for free. AppleTV can't come close, HP Media Centre cant come close, and Vista MCE can't come close. In terms of functionality, we have the best that there is, and it's getting better with the help of people like Jezz, Spiff, Donno, and others on the XBMC Team

However, it saddens me to feel that the visual GUI of XBMC lets down the functionality...and this is where I want to step in.

I am calling out to the XBMC community, on both the XBMC and Xbox-Scene forums, and asking if there are people here that would like to be part of a collabroative effort to create a truly Professional-looking skin for XBMC. I'm talking about creating a skin that can MORE than match the paid-for skins provided by Microsoft, HP, Acer, etc.

Within the community we have people with staggering talents. We have designers and coders that can create amazing peices of work when the motivation is in place. What I want to do is pool these resources into one big team (or maybe maybe two smaller teams...I'll explain shortly) and make a collaborative effort to create something new, fresh, exciting and professional. I'm not wanting to create a new skin for the sake of a new skin. No disrespect of offense intended, but I dont want to create Halo skins, music skins or movie skins because they're the fave game or music at the time...I want XBMC to boast an exciting, visually-pleasing skin that ticks all of the boxes, and (as said before) can match the paid-for media centres that professional companies create and charge for.

We need to bear in mind that the project would have tosplit into two and run parallel with each other...obviously there is a need to embrace HD technology and create the skin to meet this standard...however many people are still using SD (myself included) and, therefore, this would need to be a consideration when taking the project forward.

So then...over to you. I am happy to project manage or share the responsibility with other people in order to get things going, but it wont happen without YOU. Do you want to be part of something that could change the face of XBMC forever? Do you want to be part of an effort to give XBMC a facelift and put it firmly in first place.

If this is something that you would like to be part of, then please email me at [email protected], letting me know what part you could play, along with any experience you've had in the past.

I really hope you guys take this opportunity with both hands and run with it. I think it's exciting, and I hope you will to.

Cheers for listening, and I hope to hear from you soon.




Mike