Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re itching to park that AMD or Intel PC beside your TV as a dedicated home theater device, OpenELEC would like to offer up the first stable release of its Linux distro, version 2.0, for your consideration. The new build is now available for free (with the option to donate, of course), and the group behind it says that the installation takes less than five minutes and requires “zero Linux experience.” Once you’ve done that, it’ll be ready to serve your media needs in less than 10 seconds from a cold start, according to OpenELEC, with only a remote control needed to start surfing. The system updates automatically, including the XBMC V11 media core, and now includes PVR support, improved AMD functionality, CEC adapter compatibility, NFS, AFP, CIFS and SSH shares and Airplay / Airtunes support. If you’re already Mac- or Windows-centric, an OpenELEC system will play well with all your existing media, so if you’re ready to see how the Linux media crowd rolls, hit the source.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD

OpenELEC-2.0 Linux distro released, turns your PC into an ‘appliance-like’ home theater device originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  OpenELEC  | Email this | Comments

Attention do-it-yourself home theater fans, GeeXboX 3.0 is now available. Primarily based off of XBMC 11, the latest software bump for this long-running Linux distro introduces a few nifty features, such as: PVR support for DVB-T (watch and record live TV), full HD video for PandaBoard systems, full HD support for CuBox and improved HDD installation. A year in the making, GeeXbox 3.0 weighs in at a hefty 140MB, nearly double the size of the platform’s last official release. In addition to its new bells and whistles, version 3.0 has “preliminary” Raspberry Pi support baked into its development tree. So, if you’ve been plotting like Wile E. Coyote to build your next HTPC, then you may want to give this ISO a download.

Update: Having trouble accessing the GeeXboX site directly? It seems to be running slowly at the moment, but you can also grab the latest ISO from Softpedia at the link below.

Filed under: Software, HD

GeeXBox 3.0 now available, XBMC 11 calling the shots originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Softpedia  |  GeeXboX  | Email this | Comments

It seems that the word has gotten out from developers of the popular open source XBMC media center application, where they have managed to port this particular software to have it play nice with the Android operating system from Google. While the app itself cannot be downloaded from the Google Play Store at the moment, the source code is already readily available, and this did lead to some folks to make a compilation, which logically results in an installable pre-release version of XBMC for Android.

For those of you who absolutely need to remain abreast with the latest developments, there are unofficial nightly releases available for the XBMC for Android, thanks to XDA Developers forum member “kemonine96” who is behind this nightly versions. Folks who want to perform a download will need to take note that there are a couple of XBMC for Android versions at the moment, so it bodes you well to peruse the list of supported devices beforehand so that you can know whether you should use the build for NEON or non-NEON devices.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: XBMC announces Android app, LG Optimus 2X to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich?,

OUYA’s slew of collaborations isn’t letting up, even with less than two days to go before its fundraising round is over. The XBMC team has just pledged that its upcoming Android app will be tailored to work with the upcoming console. While the exact customizations aren’t part of the initial details, the media center app developers will have early access to prototypes of the OUYA hardware. There’s suggestions that there won’t be much of a wait for the Android port of XBMC, whether or not you’re buying the cuboid system — XBMC’s developers note that Android work should be merged into the master path once “final sign-offs” are underway. All told, though, the OUYA is quickly shaping up into as much of a go-to media hub as it is a game system.

Update: OUYA itself has also posted word that TuneIn’s radio streaming is also on its way. And just to top off its efforts, the company has posted rendered images that better show the scale of the console: our Joystiq compatriots note that it’s really a “baby GameCube” in size, and its gamepad looks gigantic by comparison.

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

OUYA, XBMC sitting in a tree, media s-h-a-r-i-n-g (update: TuneIn, new pics) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  XBMC  | Email this | Comments

Content is king, and so far Google TV is sorely lacking content. However, with the launch of the famed Xbox Media Center on Android, Google might have a chance in the battle for living rooms. The group behind the classic media player software announced the project and released the source code over the weekend. This could be big.

XBMC was a pioneer in media streaming software. Originally developed for the first Xbox (hence the name) back in 2003, the open source project is still the de facto standard of media streamers. I bought an Xbox just to run XBMC. The wildly popular project spawned many derivative projects and companies like Boxee, Plex and several others. Several key elements are still missing from the just-released Android port, but it reportedly runs on most devices — except Google TV.

Google TV still needs a lot of work. More than two years after its launch, the box is nothing more than a fancy Netflix device. Most of the GTV apps are garbage and a hassle to use. Worse yet, even if there are worthwhile GTV apps, Google has yet found a way to highlight them. Google TV already has several, albeit far inferior, media streamer apps. Essentially, Google hasn’t shown consumers and developers exactly why they need a Google TV in their respective lives. And now, with the odd Nexus Q competing in the same space, consumers are likely even more confused. Google TV needs a killer app like XBMC.

XBMC is nearly 10 years old and it’s by far the most mature media streaming solution. XBMC circa 2005 was better than many of today’s options. But XMBC was never available on its own Boxee Box-like device.

It’s entirely possible that I’m a bit too bullish on XBMC for Android. There is a still a lot of work to be done on the project. The XBMC Android port currently lacks the hardware decoding ability, and instead leans on software to playback video. This makes it difficult to playback 1080p videos wrapped in MKV containers. But if the original Xbox had enough computing horsepower, then modern devices shouldn’t have any trouble once the software is properly compiled.

As it sits right now, XBMC doesn’t run on Google TV. I tried running it on both the Logitech Revue and first generation Sony Internet TV. The app installs but fails when launching. I’m not alone. I have yet to find someone running the current build on a Google TV. That said, it runs on the Nexus Q, foreshadowing what could be for the legions of Google TV boxes and their bored owners.

XBMC doesn’t need an Android set-top box to be successful. The software won that title years ago. Google needs killer software like XMBC or even Boxee to advance its assault in living rooms.