6758100
story
Comments: 123 +- Technology: New XBMC Port Promises ARM-Powered HD In the Palm of Your Hand on Monday November 02, @11:48AM
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicsoftware.gif); width:65px; height:65px;
software
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topichardware.gif); width:64px; height:55px;
hardware
Engadget has a recent teaser video promising HD content via XBMC running on a 600MHz Beagleboard. This could mean great things for home theater putterers, with the Beagleboard tipping the scales at a modest $150 and the ability to fit in the palm of your hand. Already running on everything from MIDs to AppleTVs and now moving to ARM-powered devices like the Beagleboard, it looks like XBMC needs to be renamed from "Xbox Media Center" to "ubiquitous media center."
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the
number of participants.
-- Adam Walinsky
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
Cheapest (Score:3, Interesting)
This looks incredible if they can pull it off, but until this is out, what is the cheapest XBMC machine I could throw together that would be able to play any content I throw at it?
I'd love to jump on upgrading from my vintage Xbox XBMC, but I'd hate to drop a few hundred on an upgrade only to find out that it plays 99% of videos out there, but chokes on all high bit rate 1080p MKVs with lots of action, or something like that.
Re:Cheapest (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Cheapest (Score:4, Informative)
Hardware Decoder...
Right now people are working on getting the CrystalHD from Broadcom working under OS X and Linux. Supposedly they can't release it for NDA reasons. [xbmc.org]
Then there is also VDPAU. I know there isn't an ARM port (YET!). Feature Set C decodes nearly everything in HD. I was playing 1080p with 10% CPU.
There are a ton of those set top box devices from WD and other companies that advertise to 1080P with a small fanless device.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a ton of those set top box devices from WD and other companies that advertise to 1080P with a small fanless device.
The problem with this notion is that those devices usually can only decode a limited set of video codecs at 1080P, using a companion chip or coprocessor. Many of those OMAP devices don't even have the power to play an AVI and upscale it to 1080P if they have to do it with the CPU. Most of them will hw decode most MPEG streams, but they won't even handle all of those.
Re:Cheapest (Score:5, Informative)
The processor on the board, a OMAP3530, also has a ~500mhz C64x+ DSP and a POWERVR SGX video accellerator. There is plenty of power on it.
Parent
Re:Cheapest (Score:4, Funny)
The processor on the board, a OMAP3530, also has a ~500mhz C64x+ DSP and a POWERVR SGX video accellerator. There is plenty of power on it.
Yeah, its right there in the name!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Its not really the Arm doing the heavy lifting here. Its the coprocessors. Beagle board is based on the TI OMAP 3530 chipset that has hardware acceleration for a large number of video codecs and definately supports at least 720p HD video output.
Re:Cheapest (Score:4, Insightful)
does it enforce DRM?
XBMC? The media player that plays video files inside RARs on the fly?
No, enforcing DRM is not one of their priorities.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Cheapest (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Have there been improvements since this post? I just headed over to the XBMC forums and looked for relevant posts, and came across this post claiming they had some dropped frames with the Zotac IONITX-C-U and the Zotac IONITX-D-E:
http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=411435&postcount=5 [xbmc.org]
Thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
Oops, actually I just re-read my link, and realized that what he's saying is that the D-E didn't drop frames but the C-U did. Both the D-E and the A that you have use dual core Atom 330's. In fact, I can't seem to figure out what the difference is being the A and the D-E from Zotac's horrible website.
Maybe I'll look into getting one of the Atom 330 ones like you have for myself.
Have you tried many of the alternative fancier skins with transparency and title lookup/cover preview? Do those run smoothly on
Re: (Score:2)
The A model takes DC input and ships with a 90W power brick. The other Atom 330 model takes standard ATX power input.
I have watched plenty of trouble-free 1080p on my IonITX-A board running Ubuntu (no XBMC, just smplayer with the vdpau patches) all while seeding multiple torrents from the same internal hard drive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Plus you can get an Acer Aspire box for $200 which comes with a 160GB HDD and uses x86 so it can do other stuff (XBMC runs on top of Linux so you can install a full distro and run servers etc). The HDD is useful for recording to or using a local video storage, and the nVidia ION GPU does 1080p without problems as well as running many games.
While ARM is very low power and this is a clever solution, when it comes to the bottom end of the market it will have to be spectacular to compete with generic x86 nettop
Mine cost me $85 (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't have a spare old computer around, or you want to buy a complete solution, basically any of the "Ion-based" nettops should be cheap, tiny and get the job done. There's tons out there, and you can even get one from System76 that already has Ubuntu installed ( http://system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=95 [system76.com] ) at which point you only need to add the XBMC PPA to the repository list, click install and apply, and voila, a tiny cheap machine capable of 1080p video. For some anecdotal evidence on how easily these setups can run you can hunt around the XBMC forums a bit. Basically the key is just to get any kind of machine with a GeForce 8-or-later card in it, and the newer ones have even more features as far as using VDPAU is concerned.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
A recent Lifehacker article [lifehacker.com] suggested the $200 Acer Aspire Revo [newegg.com]. Pros: 160GB HD, HMDI output, Gigabit ethernet, reportably plays 1080p, runs XBMC. Cons: single-core, 1GB RAM, no built-in expandability, WiFi or IR.
For $320, the Revo's big brother [newegg.com] also has dual-core, 2GB RAM and built-in WiFi.
Re: (Score:2)
Check out this lifehacker post:
http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap [lifehacker.com]
The Acer AspireRevo is $199 & seems to do it all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Cheapest - Under $300 (Score:2)
I am building a system from them to do XBMC on my TV
The Board I am buying is this one here Zotac ION [mini-box.com]
Slap it in a vesa mounted cheap case [mini-box.com] with a laptop hard drive and I'm done.
My whole media system will be under $300, vesa mounted to the back of my TV and controlled with my existing ATI/X10 Media remote.
All my cds/dvds have been backed up to my file server which has mountable network shares for XBMC to use.
Long live XBM
Re: (Score:2)
I've always played with MythTV...how would people that have used both compare them? Pros vs Cons of each system?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
XBMC is a media player only. If you want to record TV, you still need Myth. If you don't, XBMC is roughly 325 million times easier to set up and use.
Small Correction: (Score:5, Informative)
The Beagleboard runs at 500Mhz, not 600Mhz (they underclock the processor for reliability. I have one btw)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I just noticed that although a stock Beagle Board is 500MHZ, it's possible to change the clock speed in the BIOS [elinux.org], so maybe he's already driving/overdriving the processor in this instance.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And for those who have never heard of or seen a Beagleboard, it's worth noting that it doesn't have a built-in display. So the headline should be "New XBMC Port Promises ARM-Powered HD Source in the Palm of Your Hand." Which is still pretty cool but I thought they were talking about something that I could hold in my hand and watch. Note to headline writers: small is great, but "fits in your hand" isn't too special unless the device is intended to be used while in your hand.
Didn't XBMC drop the Xbox support awhile ago? (Score:2)
I seem to remember a year or two ago there was a call for maintainers of the Xbox port - seeing that they want to get away from it (old/obsolete hardware that few people have left, requires use of Xbox SDK that no one has access to now (legally)).
Of course, the ability to run elsewhere (Windows/Mac/Linux/etc) has given it a lot more legitimacy in the world, so I think the Xbox side has been downplayed to be almost non-existent now.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Someone is still making nightly builds: http://sshcs.com/xbmc/ [sshcs.com]
It's getting almost all the same new features and bug fixes as everything else. From what I understand it is one massive main source trunk. Everything platform specific is taken care of by #if statements and the config script.
Re: (Score:2)
I seem to remember a year or two ago there was a call for maintainers of the Xbox port
Funny, I recall a few years before that when the XBMC group were positively adamant that they would never, ever do a Linux port because so much of the code relied on DirectX (MS-only) routines.
I'm extremely grateful they decided to change their position.
So.... (Score:2)
Is that an HD Beagleboard in your pocket, or you just happy to see me in 1080p?
Pandora? (Score:2, Insightful)
Points wrong/missing in summary (Score:5, Informative)
2. Discussion about XBMC on ARM with a lot more background info is going on here in the official forum: http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=35139&page=14 [xbmc.org]
3. You might want to link to the first source i.e. the official xbmc webpage: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2009/10/23/xbmc-on-arm-gles-2-0/ [xbmc.org]
4. XBMC is not called Xbox Media Center anymore, just XBMC.
Arm powered (Score:2)
Reminds me of the arm-powered watches that you wear on your wrist. They wind themselves by the swinging motion as you walk.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re: (Score:2)
A better remark would have been something like:
"My palm is already arm-powered. Come to think of it, so is my sperm bank dispensal mechanism."
How does this compare to a Popcorn Hour? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Or other network media tank? I love my IO-100 and it plays everything I have ever thrown at it. Low wattage, runs linux, excellent audio/video connectivity and is I think 300mhz mips.
Do you mean the A-100? If so don't they have an overheating problem that the pricier version resolves?
I've been looking into the best ways to stream the most content from my PC to my TV, currently I am using a 360, but it's limited codec support leaves me wanting. I have researched the popcorn hour, both devices, the media jukeboxes from dvico, now that these nettops are coming out I was wondering too what peoples' experiences was with a pre-built solution versus rolling your own.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is nowhere near the cheapes media center (Score:3, Informative)
WD LIVE blows this away, and has better playback....
A much better bang for the buck.
http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735 [wdc.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The smart thing to do would be to offload the streaming to a suitable DSP chip. I have no idea to what extent the BeagleBoard supports this (probably does).
Re: (Score:2)
/me follows up self.
See other people's posts above. The BB has a TI decoder chip on it as standard.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't you ever get bored?
Re: (Score:2)
It's a recursive acronym. Like GNU.
Re: (Score:2)
No, because "XBMC" is now an opaque identifier, not an acronym. So "XBMC Media Center" doesn't expand to "Xbox Media Center Media Center", or to anything else.
Re: (Score:2)
It does now, after a fashion:
http://www.ps3news.com/XBox-360/video-xbmc-running-on-xbox-360-ubuntu-by-team-cygnos/ [ps3news.com]
but it's not usable.
Re: (Score:2)
So?
You can signup on their website to get the specs. You can't release the information to others, but then, GPL doesn't allow them to distribute GPL'd code the way they'd like to.
OSS can certain use the acceleration, it just requires binary distribution to fit their agenda. Just like GPL requires source distribution also to support its agenda.
They are two different sides of the same thing, restrictions on freedom.