[snowjim]

Hi,

I have been running XBMC since XBOX (not 360) and back then it worked really well!

Now the last years I have been running XBMC on different environments (Linux/Windows) and on different hardware to find the best working solution but there is none that works totally flawless?

I know that there is allot of users that says that they are happy with XBMC, but when going in to "details" there is almost always something that is not working vary well. I suspect that users are not always vary picky because there is vary little real competition, finished products as Western Digital TV Live and Boxee is not even close.

I do see that there is vary much work put in to the XBMC project and its a free software so there should not be much to complain about. But I can´t avoid thinking that the XBMC team should focus on getting XBMC running really really well in a specific environment and maybe also suggest a hardware that will for sure work flawless (including necessary accessories).

I would gladly pay for XBMC just to get a "finished" product with a hardware that is working out of the box. Im not much for Apple products but maybe the Apple TV is the way to go, I do however not have any experience with it so I do not know current limitations/problems.

Some of the problems I had/have during the last years is : freezings in menus, freezings in videos, video lag, Audio sync problems, library not finding new media, Installation problems and so on and when looking up the problems on internet its clear that Im not alone. Hardware I have used is Zotac Zbox (Windows 7/Linux), Intel Nuc (Windows 8/Linux), PC Build (i7, 8 GB, SSD, Geforce)(Windows 8).

Pleas don´t take this the wrong way, I are vary grateful for all the work that is put in to XBMC!

[spiff]

of course it's in the beta stage. all software is always in a beta stage, anything else is just devs (or more likely; phb's) trying to cheat gullible users into thinking otherwise.

[Memphiz]

Its working flawless for my use case (mac mini latest 2012 running ubuntu 12.10). This statement is true (see the words "my use case"). Pick a software and i will construct a use case where it doesn't work flawless. Just open your eyes a bit there is no flawless software anywhere.

[snowjim]

of course it's in the beta stage. all software is always in a beta stage, anything else is just devs (or more likely; phb's) trying to cheat gullible users into thinking otherwise.

Hehe of course but all I think is that the basic stuff should be solid before moving on to new platforms and other less important extra features.

Its working flawless for my use case (mac mini latest 2012 running ubuntu 12.10). This statement is true (see the words "my use case"). Pick a software and i will construct a use case where it doesn't work flawless. Just open your eyes a bit there is no flawless software anywhere.

YES! There is cases where it works extremely well (i suppose), but then there is a degree of flawless. One thinks that there is no lag, another thinks there is lag but not to much to call it a flaw, another things there are alot of lag. One thinks that the 2 sec freeze in menu is no problem, another thinks its a flaw and so on. But if there is hardware that XBMC runes totally FLAWLESS on, then it would be grate if the XBMC team would state a recommended hardware setup. I would of course only hope for FLAWLESS experience in the basic features(playback, library, menu, things that belongs to XBMC).

As I said, I have had problems with all 3 of the hardware I have tried and I have done alot of reinstallation and followed guides. When using Windows, the operating system have been working really well but even then I have in some cases thought that the hardware could be faulted based on how XBMC runned, that's however unlikely on 3 different setups.

Its possible that some of the problems is not based on XBMC itself, for example lag in menu could be the skin that is used and that would be fine but I have had problems with more or less all basic features of XBMC(as stated)

Open my eyes? I work a lot with software (developer my self) and the most important thing is to get the basic feature solid, else it will be a broken product. Yes most software have flaws BUT the question is how big, do you have problems with them each time you use the software?

What Im sying is simple that if XBMC is vary sensitive about hardware and environment then the team should first focus on getting basic features totally flawless on a recommended hardware/environment. XBMC is not that new you know.

See WDTV, Boxee and so on, thay even got problems to get there solution running on 1 hardware.

Finally, I have invested alot of hours to solve the different basic problems and I'm definitive not alone in that boat. Some problems can be fixed, others cannot.

Im however extremely thankful to the team that works on XBMC, I just hoping to see better stability.

[Martijn]

I always love those comments done by people who are developers themselves and who are payed for doing their job of delivering a product and telling people who are doing this for fun and free what to do

[vicbitter]

@snowjim, what do you mean by "basic features"? For example, I for one love the new AudioEngine being able to play HD audio... With your suggested approach the AudioEngine would be a long way off from being available in XBMC.

I have XBMC running on a couple of ATV2s and a custom built HTPC in my Home Theatre. For my use cases, it works flawlessly and when I do discover issues (as a developer) I try and help fix or identify the root cause.

Remember, XBMC is open-source so you can jump in and help make XBMC an even better product than it already is today.

P.S. I have used a number of hardware-based Media Players over the years and XBMC beats all of them hands down...

[Ned Scott]

Devs work on what they want to work on. If a dev wants to polish something core up, they do that. If they don't, they don't. That being said, check out the new read-only team forum where we're starting to publicly discuss some of these "publishing" ideas:

http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=183

[snowjim]

I always love those comments done by people who are developers themselves and who are payed for doing their job of delivering a product and telling people who are doing this for fun and free what to do

Have you even read my comments? I know that they are doing this for fun and free and that's great, I would however not mind to pay for XBMC if I was getting a more flawless core. And also, I do a lot of development for free on my spare time and Its important to me that the core of what I'm doing is working for the enduser, It may not always be fun but when I get great reviews back it is worth a lot more. How would for example my forum(built from scratch) look if it got stuck from time to time in some browsers when doing a reply on a thread? Would it be better to do extra futures then fixing this problem?

@snowjim, what do you mean by "basic features"? For example, I for one love the new AudioEngine being able to play HD audio... With your suggested approach the AudioEngine would be a long way off from being available in XBMC.

Sorry, I do not know what yoy are talking about here? Im not into Video/Audio parts of development.

I have XBMC running on a couple of ATV2s and a custom built HTPC in my Home Theatre. For my use cases, it works flawlessly and when I do discover issues (as a developer) I try and help fix or identify the root cause.

Remember, XBMC is open-source so you can jump in and help make XBMC an even better product than it already is today.

P.S. I have used a number of hardware-based Media Players over the years and XBMC beats all of them hands down...

Flawless? Thats nice, so never any freezing, never any audio sync problems? never any lag? Or are you maybe not as sensitive for this kind of problems? maybe you should submit that hardware as a flawless setup?

Devs work on what they want to work on. If a dev wants to polish something core up, they do that. If they don't, they don't. That being said, check out the new read-only team forum where we're starting to publicly discuss some of these "publishing" ideas:

http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=183

Yes I get that but sometimes you have to do the boring stuff to, I know, I have done a lot of development for free. Anyway, all I do here is suggesting a overlook of the core or maybe setup a section for recommended hardware.

[vicbitter]

@snowjim, what do you mean by "basic features"? For example, I for one love the new AudioEngine being able to play HD audio... With your suggested approach the AudioEngine would be a long way off from being available in XBMC.

Sorry, I do not know what yoy are talking about here? Im not into Video/Audio parts of development.

This has nothing to do with development, it is one of the new features of XBMC 12.0 (Frodo). See the following taken from the feature list on www.xbmc.org:
HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine (OSX/iOS not yet available)

I have XBMC running on a couple of ATV2s and a custom built HTPC in my Home Theatre. For my use cases, it works flawlessly and when I do discover issues (as a developer) I try and help fix or identify the root cause.

Remember, XBMC is open-source so you can jump in and help make XBMC an even better product than it already is today.

P.S. I have used a number of hardware-based Media Players over the years and XBMC beats all of them hands down...

Flawless? Thats nice, so never any freezing, never any audio sync problems? never any lag? Or are you maybe not as sensitive for this kind of problems? maybe you should submit that hardware as a flawless setup?

That is correct... I never have any freezing, audio sync problems nor any lag... My custom built HTPC has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor (2.4GHz), 4GB ram, 64GB SSD and a nVidia GT520. Very modest hardware running OpenELEC (a highly optimised Linux distro specifically for running XBMC)

[awp0]

As someone who has recently committed to XBMC after only playing with it occasionally for years, I disagree with the OP. I'm stunned at how stable and reliable XBMC is right now. Maybe I lucked out with my environment (core i3, Windows), but it's easily good enough for my family to use and that's a good test for me.

Couple other comments:
* You can't really use the term "flawless" and then use a characteristic like "lag" describe why it's not flawless. Flawless is an absolute term (and arguably impossible in software), whereas lag is highly subjective. What software doesn't have a measurable "lag"? What seems instantaneous for me, might seem slow to you.
* Boxee Box is a terrible example to use as a "finished" product. I recently abandoned my Boxee Box in favor of XBMC and one of the reasons was quality and performance. Anyone who's owned one of these things knows the terrible reliability and quality issues that they would routinely introduce with their updates. I had examples of videos that would freeze consistently in Boxee and play fine in XBMC.
* Lastly, IMO it's wonderful that XBMC is supported on a wide array of platforms. Luckily for people like you, one of those platforms is OpenElec, where you can get a very reliable appliance-grade XBMC experience. But if you're running in a heavyweight OS (Linux, Windows, OSX) then you're bound to changing drivers, unrelated processes, updates, etc that always have the potential to disrupt XBMC. I'm not sure this could ever be fixed by the XBMC team.

Just my 2 cents.

[Tobor]

snowjim,

I think I understand what you are trying to convey, but you have presented your question in a way that has offended some of the developers. I don't believe that was your intention (but you made an unfortunate choice of title for this thread).

You have mentioned that you are a developer yourself, and that you would be willing to pay for XBMC if that would mean a "flawless" experience with the software. I respectfully offer a suggestion: Keep your money, and volunteer to tackle some of those issues that you find so objectionable.

If, like myself, you are a developer in a field that is unrelated to video or audio, that door may be closed to you. Not everyone can contribute to this software, but I think everyone should be careful how they criticize those that give of their talents freely.

I hope I don't sound like I'm attacking you,

Tobor

[snowjim]

snowjim,

I think I understand what you are trying to convey, but you have presented your question in a way that has offended some of the developers. I don't believe that was your intention (but you made an unfortunate choice of title for this thread).

You have mentioned that you are a developer yourself, and that you would be willing to pay for XBMC if that would mean a "flawless" experience with the software. I respectfully offer a suggestion: Keep your money, and volunteer to tackle some of those issues that you find so objectionable.

If, like myself, you are a developer in a field that is unrelated to video or audio, that door may be closed to you. Not everyone can contribute to this software, but I think everyone should be careful how they criticize those that give of their talents freely.

I hope I don't sound like I'm attacking you,

Tobor

You are right, I'm sorry if anyone takes my thread as some kind of insult, its possible that my word choose isn't the best.

I have already said that I'm vary grateful for all the work that have been put in to making XBMC to what is is. Even with flaws it is still the best solution out there. What I´m suggesting is to make it a more streamline product, try to make the core more stable If possible. Maybe suggest a setup that you know will work as good as possible(that is suited for the livingroom).

Its of course possible that I have manage to choose just that hardware that is not fully compatible with XBMC but from threads on different forums it feels like I'm not the only one with these problems.

I feel that I should be able to say what I think and also suggest a solution. If the dev team decides to ignore it is totally up to them, maybe I´m to picky, maybe I have just had to much bad luck(hardware), maybe I´m a small fraction of all users...

The hardware I have runned XBMC on is this (if it matters) :

Zotac HD-ND22
Os : Windows 7/Open Elec
XBMC : 11

Intel NUC, 8 GB ram, 60 GB SSD
OS : Windows 8
XBMC : 11 and 12

PC Build : CPU : Intel Core i7 2600K Motherboard : Asus P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 Graphic card : Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Windforce Memory : Corsair 8GB (2x4096MB) CL9 1600Mhz XMS3 1,5V OS HD : SAMSUNG 128GB SSD Chassi : Fractal Design Define r3 Power supply : Corsair 650W
OS : Windows 7
XBMC : 11

Accessories : Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 and Logitech Harmony One + HP IR.

[spiff]

thing is, we closed the door on the one hw focus when we opened up for cross platform. this was a conscious choice on our part, knowing well what we abandoned by hopping from the walled xbox platform. depending on your pov, this has either been a huge success story, or a huge failure story. we have attracted more new devs the last week than we ever did on the xbox. at the same time, the complexity grows by immense factors and the number of hw/sw permutations where there will be issues explodes. win some lose some... obviously xbox couldn't have been the target hw in these HD days, but insert <relevant> replacement here.

my ion (first gen) + atom 330 works absolutely flawlessly. no stutter, no lag. however, you'll find others which have problems. it's not just about the hardware. it's also about the wielder of the tools; being a dev, i have quite the insight into what to do and what to avoid. and i know my way around the os. the point i am trying to make here is not that i'm the king of the world and that everyone with problems have only themself to blame.. just that there's so many factors, not just hw is relevant..

[Memphiz]

Just to say - if we deny all features (we are already denying most of them if you look close) - we will loose developers. That said - "tackling" the stability of "core" is nothing you can do that easily.

Most of the devs have really easy use cases which work (i for myself watch livetv, movies, tvshows using a centralised mysql db on my nas - i don't care if i do it on my atv2, pivosbox or on my macmini running linux - the experience is nearly the same while the macmini is the most snappy hw of course). So for me its hard to tackle anything because its just rock solid for my use case. And i'm not motivated to look into anything i don't see.

I don't think you offended anyone really - its just that we devs are in a position where we just can say "no we won't" and its what users pisses of some times - but then we can even say "no we don't care about you" and even that (though it's rude) has to be taken by users. Users like you maybe give the feeling to us devs like "XBMC is not the product it could be if you would get your asses together" or "XBMC is totally unusable because of its annyoing unstability" for giving us some sort of a bad feeling which would result in working harder or so - but thats something most of us won't take serious because we are the defenders of all this - you can't say anything against our "baby" without beeing treated like an offender (though most of us - including me are working hard on that attitude - but its not always easy). Ohhh and there are even power users here in the forum who take the role of the defender as you can see. Its just a human thing i guess.

So while we know that XBMC is full of bugs (i don't talk about the bugs we know of) - we won't change our development philosophy (which is - support as much sane platforms as we can - let the devs work on what they want - don't put hard constraints to anything). We are trying to increase the code quality with our github centric development process and merge windows + code reviews which is already some sort of constraint which might already frighten potential devs.

blah blah blah blah ...

[snowjim]

thing is, we closed the door on the one hw focus when we opened up for cross platform. this was a conscious choice on our part, knowing well what we abandoned by hopping from the walled xbox platform. depending on your pov, this has either been a huge success story, or a huge failure story. we have attracted more new devs the last week than we ever did on the xbox. at the same time, the complexity grows by immense factors and the number of hw/sw permutations where there will be issues explodes. win some lose some... obviously xbox couldn't have been the target hw in these HD days, but insert <relevant> replacement here.

Its of course your choice to go cross platform and its only you that knows I it paid of or not (how many happy users in different platforms, how much more development and so on). All depends on what you aim for. We already know what would have chosen if its was up to me

They say that OSx is incredible stable even from the beginning and this is probably because its hard bound to specific hardware (less complexity). Windows do run great today but It have taken some time to get there. Not a good compare but one most realize that hardware do play a big role even if its not all.

If cross platform is a most(obviously), then I strongly suggest to add some kind of system recommendation where XBMC will run as best because just as you say, multiplatform results in extreme complexity and there is no way to get it great on all systems.

I have always though of XBMC as a regular Windows program and never though of buying special hardware for it but with my experience I will definitely check for XBMC hardware recommendations next time to get it running as it suppose to.

my ion (first gen) + atom 330 works absolutely flawlessly. no stutter, no lag. however, you'll find others which have problems. it's not just about the hardware. it's also about the wielder of the tools; being a dev, i have quite the insight into what to do and what to avoid. and i know my way around the os. the point i am trying to make here is not that i'm the king of the world and that everyone with problems have only themself to blame.. just that there's so many factors, not just hw is relevant..

When I used the Zotac Zbox HD-ND22 I got 5 sek menu lockups from time to time, I got audio sync problems, I got slow moviewall(that is not XBMC foult), problem with finding new media when doing library update. And this is both with openelec and Windows 7. I come to a conclusion that it most be the hardware so I switched it for Intel NUC but then I got other problems.

Most of the devs have really easy use cases which work (i for myself watch livetv, movies, tvshows using a centralised mysql db on my nas - i don't care if i do it on my atv2, pivosbox or on my macmini running linux - the experience is nearly the same while the macmini is the most snappy hw of course). So for me its hard to tackle anything because its just rock solid for my use case. And i'm not motivated to look into anything i don't see.

Then why are we having problems with XBMC on Intel NUC? Im sure that I am not alone with problems on this computer. The hardware should be more then enouth for XBMC right?

I don't think you offended anyone really - its just that we devs are in a position where we just can say "no we won't" and its what users pisses of some times - but then we can even say "no we don't care about you" and even that (though it's rude) has to be taken by users. Users like you maybe give the feeling to us devs like "XBMC is not the product it could be if you would get your asses together" or "XBMC is totally unusable because of its annyoing unstability" for giving us some sort of a bad feeling which would result in working harder or so - but thats something most of us won't take serious because we are the defenders of all this - you can't say anything against our "baby" without beeing treated like an offender (though most of us - including me are working hard on that attitude - but its not always easy). Ohhh and there are even power users here in the forum who take the role of the defender as you can see. Its just a human thing i guess.

So while we know that XBMC is full of bugs (i don't talk about the bugs we know of) - we won't change our development philosophy (which is - support as much sane platforms as we can - let the devs work on what they want - don't put hard constraints to anything). We are trying to increase the code quality with our github centric development process and merge windows + code reviews which is already some sort of constraint which might already frighten potential devs.

blah blah blah blah ...

I understand, I just try to compare your development philosophy with mine. Of course you have to say just NO to a lot of things that users asks for, in some cases its about things that wont apply to as many users, some time its just way to boring development compare to the win. But as a developer you will have to do some boring parts and if it is to get the core stable on multiform then it simple is.

When I start a new project its always a vary fun development phace but after a while the fun part will become finished and I have to go back and also do the boring and necessary. When the product reaches end users there is almost always something(when not having a test department) that needs to be fixed and if its a bigger thing its not fun at all but I will do it if its a key function.

If you insist on choosing a multiform solution you also most understand that the complexity to get it working great on all ends will be a huge job and a lot of it will be boring I suppose. If you do not have developers that can help with doing the core stable on most platforms then maybe you should eather swap to singe but solid platform or at least make some hardware/software recommendations for the users.

I do get that you get more developers from offering a multiform but I'm pretty sure that you would not lose a lot of users by going with one solid platform. For example, I usually do not buy Apple hardware/software but if XBMC would demand it I would not hesitate a second just becouse of XBMC.