XBMC is a fantastic and free cross-platform media center application we’re nuts for. If you’ve wanted to start using it or just wanted to customize the XBMC installation you’re already running, this guide will walk you through everything, from installation to total customization. More »
Media center – XBMC – XBMC Media Center – Microsoft Windows – Operating Systems
The idea behind the previously mentioned LegalTorrents was good—a centralized, free, and legal BitTorrent search engine and tracker. It lacked in organization and immediate appeal, however. ClearBits is LegalTorrents' new version, and its got great stuff, and even no-software-needed downloading. More »
Linux only: Previously mentioned media center GeeXboX has finally released a stable version of their new interface, called Enna. Used with GeeXboX or as a standalone application, it handles all your music, photos, videos, and even ebooks—with style.
Enna features a very attractive interface, with direct access to all your hard drive's media in a very user-friendly way. It even automatically fetches covers, fanart, and information for you—and you don't have to switch in and out of a "Library Mode" to see them, making navigation a bit nicer than some of its competitors. It's also added books as a medium—and while one may wonder who would want to read books on their television screen, comic books are another matter. Enna currently supports GoComics and OneManga as content providers, meaning you can read your favorite comics in a whole new way.
Other than the bookstore, though, and an arguably more user-friendly interface, Enna is still relatively young, and it’s missing some of the more advanced features, such as UPnP and DLNA support, that front-runners like XBMC and Boxee have to offer. However, these and many other more advanced features are planned for the future, so Enna still has a chance of rivaling the top players one day—just not quite yet. If you do use Enna, let's hear what makes it your media center of choice in the comments.
Windows only: TVTrigger is like TV Guide for your desktop—if, in addition to keeping you up to date on your favorite shows, TV Guide also automatically found and downloaded the latest torrent of said show as soon as it's released.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
This weekend we highlighted an application called FreeGuide, which is essentially a personalized TV guide for your desktop. TVTrigger is a little like that, except rather than personalizing your listings by channel, TVTrigger lets you choose favorite shows—and then automatically downloads the latest for you as soon as it's available.
We've seen similar tools before—like previously mentioned TED—but TVTrigger takes things a step further. It's got full episode lists, cast lists, plot synopses, can play trailers of episodes, and fully integrates with BitTorrent searches and downloads. Although TVTrigger has a built-in BitTorrent client, you can choose to open torrent files with your preferred BitTorrent client if you don't want TVTrigger handling your downloads.
It’s a little rough around the edges at spots, but TVTrigger would probably feel a whole lot friendlier for beginners than the normal BitTorrent procedure. TVTrigger is a free download, Windows only.
Adam thinks XBMC is the best media center around, but I roll with Boxee for its awesome streaming web content. Here’s how I turned a relatively cheap yet powerful home theater PC into a DIY Boxee Box for my HDTV.
Why go with Boxee? A few reasons, really: it’s free to download, it’s got a ton of great applications and add-ins, and it was, like XMBC, built with a big-screen interface in mind. When I was done installing it on top of a basic Ubuntu desktop, I had a system that could easily handle 720p and even (with some very easy overclocking) 1080p video files, run Hulu streams in full screen with very little glitching, and let me show off Flickr streams, Facebook photos, Pandora or Last.fm music, to name just a few of many content streams.
Plus, with Ubuntu installed and set up, you can easily run any other Linux app on your TV—like Hulu Desktop, a huge-screen Firefox, or whatever you can imagine.
You could, of course, wait for the first official Boxee Box to be unveiled in December, then shipped sometime later. This way, however, you get a seriously powerful HTPC that can run most any media center, and tears up HD video streams while doing so.
Many thanks to the fine posters at the Boxee and Ubuntu forums, where I found needed help and inspiration. This ASRock how-to, and wake-on-LAN tutorial, in particular, were lifesavers.
Setting up Ubuntu is something I’ve done many times, and it’s just as easy on this system. Here’s the quick walk-through:
Ubuntu, like XBMC, can run entirely off a thumb drive, or be installed to a hard drive. We’re going for the latter option here.
1. Create your Ubuntu installation media:
The fastest and quickest installation is to put the Ubuntu 9.04 desktop ISO you downloaded on a thumb drive using the free Unetbootin tool on a Windows or Linux system.
You can also have Unetbootin automatically download Ubuntu 9.04 for you, or burn the ISO to a CD or DVD, but thumb drive installations are much faster and don’t require wasting a disc.
2. Set up your ASRock
Take the unit out of its box, and find a location for it where it can breathe and exhaust a little—not flush against a corner, in other words. Plug in an ethernet cable straight from your router (or Wi-Fi bridge), and connect it to your TV via an HDMI cable. You’ll also need to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse to get through the initial setup. Make sure all the connects are snug and not stretched, then plug in your USB thumb drive, or power it on and insert your CD/DVD.
3. Install Ubuntu
Make sure your TV is switched to the HDMI source your ASRock box is plugged into. After you power on the ASRock, hit F11 immediately on your keyboard to open the boot options, then select your USB drive.
You'll be launched into Ubuntu's setup screen. Choose your language, then select the "Install Ubuntu" option. You'll launch into a bare-bones Ubuntu desktop and then into the installer application. Most U.S. users can hit Next through the first three language/location/keyboard screens. When it comes time to partition your system's hard drive, though, I'd recommend splitting it into three parts: One for the Ubuntu system, one for a swap partition, and another NTFS-formatted drive for your media. Why NTFS? It makes sharing media from your HTPC box to Windows computers easier, and it can hold gigantic files—like the kind of high-resolution videos you'll be viewing. If media sharing isn't a concern for you, go ahead and tell Ubuntu to use your whole hard disk.
Otherwise, choose the “Specify Partitions Manually,” click on the big, unallocated space in the next screen, and hit “Add” at the bottom. Set up Ubuntu’s own partition like so:
Hit “OK,” then create another partition, about 2 GB, or 2,000 MiB in size, and choose “Linux swap” under the “Use As” heading. Finally, add one more partition by hitting “Add,” choose NTFS as its format, and have it use all the rest of your space.
Click through the rest of the setup process, wait for it to finish installing, then reboot your computer and remove your thumb drive or CD when asked to do so.
When your system boots up next time, you'll get a menu asking which system you want to boot into, with a 10-second timer before it heads to default (which we'll fix soon). Log in with the username and password you gave during setup—something else we'll get to optimizing.
One quick little command we have to run before getting started: Hit Alt+F2, check the “Run in Terminal” box, then enter this line and hit Run:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CEC06767
That authenticates a repository with some necessary graphics drivers to install software on this system.
Now, down to the real business. Head to the System menu in the upper-left corner, mouse over the Administration sub-menu, then choose Software Sources. On the first tab, check off the “Proprietary drivers for devices” and “Software restricted …” options. Head to the Updates tab, and check the unchecked items. Finally, head to the “Third-Party Software” tab.
We’re going to add in three lines to this list by hitting the “Add” button at bottom-left and pasting in this text. The first is Boxee’s Ubuntu repository for Ubuntu 9.04, and the other two are a Ubuntu repository for the NVIDIA ION chipset inside our HTPC, known as “VDPAU” hardware. Here’s all the lines in one spot:
deb apt.boxee.tv jaunty main
deb ppa.launchpad.net/nvidia-vdpau/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src ppa.launchpad.net/nvidia-vdpau/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
Hit Close, and agree to Reload your software list when prompted. Now head up to System->Administration and select Update Manager. You'll get a list of everything that needs updating, and it might be rather long.
Install the updates, then make a cup of coffee or tea while you’re waiting. When you get back, you should be updated and ready to actually install some new stuff.
Let's do this. Head to System->Administration, then select Synaptic Package Manager. Click the "Search" button at the top right, and in the dialog that pops up, change the "Look in:" to "Maintainer," and search for "Snider."
In the results that come back, check off these packages to install. There might be newer versions of them to try out, but I know these work with this system, on this version of Ubuntu, running this version of Boxee:
Back at the Synaptic main screen, hit “Search” again, change the “Look in:” to Name, and search for mplayer. Check off the version with “+svn2009″ trailing in the “Latest Version” column for installation. Search again for boxee, then check to install it. If you’re looking to use an infrared remote, also search out and install the lirc package and whatever dependencies it asks for. Ubuntu’s own wiki offers a guide to getting set up with LIRC.
Finally, hit “Apply” in the top toolbar to install all these things on your system.
Once Synaptic is done installing those goodies (or while it's running, if it's taking a while), head to the System->Administration menu again, and open Login Window. Head over to the Security tab, and enable timed and automatic login for your username:
Assuming you don’t expect a burglar to break into your house, fire up your HTPC and start watching your Blu-Ray rip of “Up,” you should be fine with these options. They free you from needing a keyboard or mouse to get into Ubuntu, and automatically log you in when resuming from a suspend.
Next up, let’s speed up that boot-up process with a quick GRUB menu edit. Hit Alt+F2, and enter this command:
gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
In the editor that pops up, head down just a bit to the “## timeout sec” section, and change the value there to 0. Just one section down, remove the “#” from in front of “hiddenmenu,” if it’s there.
Two quick fixes, to make HDMI audio work perfectly for both Ubuntu and Boxee. First up, follow this Boxee forum poster’s instructions to set up a .asoundrc file that tells Ubuntu how to route its sound. Next, open up a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), type in alsamixer and hit enter.
Hit your right arrow key over to where you see the columns for “IEC958,” and be sure none of them read “MM,” or muted. If they do, hit “M” to unmute them. Hit the escape key when you’re done.
Your second-to-last tweak makes Boxee run right at start-up. Head to System->Preferences, choose "Startup Applications," and hit "Add." Give it a name like, oh, Boxee, and make the command /opt/boxee/run-boxee-desktop. Hit OK on that screen, then close out your Startup Applications.
Now, for the final piece: Remote desktop access from any other computer on your network. Head to the System->Preferences menu, select Remote Desktop, and configure your system to accept remote desktop connections, with a password for safety.
If you’re the geeky type who knows how to remotely administer a system by SSH command line, be sure to install the openssh-server package in your Boxee box.
Finally, if you're using a Microsoft Media Center remote with your Boxee box, and you've plugged in your USB IR Receiver, you should be good to go in Boxee—it automatically works with the Media Center setup. If you're using something different, like a Hauppage remote, this guide might point you in the right direction. Myself, I mainly use the free Boxee Remote applications found in both the Android Market and Apple App Store to control Boxee and type in text with little fuss.
Reboot your system, and you should shoot through Ubuntu’s boot-up process, arriving straight at Boxee’s log in screen.
The only major tweak you’ll need to make is to Boxee’s audio setup. Head to the Settings menu in the lower-left corner, then to Hardware, and then to the audio tab. Set your settings to look like those on the left, or, in text form:
Digital
Off
Off
default
default
From there on out, Boxee should be your multimedia workhorse. You can suspend it and wake it up with the power button (or a wake-on-LAN tool, as detailed at the Ubuntu Forums). You can use it to download torrents, directly drop files into it over SFTP, give it more video feeds, and other tweaks we’ve covered in our Apple TV/Boxee guide, and in Adam’s XBMC guide (the latter mostly for the SFTP guide). If you want to actually use your Ubuntu desktop on your TV, just exit out of Boxee from the log-in screen or the main menu
You won’t find a better media center than the open-source XBMC, but most people don’t have the space or desire to plug a noisy PC into their TV. Instead, I converted a cheap nettop into a standalone XBMC set-top box. Here’s how.
In the spirit of our Winter Upgrades theme this week, this guide details how to turn a cheapo nettop (think netbook for the desktop) into a killer settop box running XBMC. It handles virtually any video file I throw at it with ease (including streaming Blu-Ray rips from my desktop), it looks tiny next to my Xbox 360, it’s low energy, and it’s whisper quiet.
Huge props to this guide on the XBMC forums, which served as the starting point for much of what I did below.
Getting XBMC Live up and running on your nettop is a breeze if you follow a few simple steps, so let’s get started.
XBMC Live allows you to try XBMC on any computer from a bootable CD or thumb drive, then optionally install the lightweight, XBMC-focused Linux distro directly to your device if you like. Since our nettop doesn’t have a DVD drive, we’ll need to first install XBMC to our thumb drive.
(There are ways around this. If you had a USB optical drive, you could probably burn XBMC Live to a disc and go from there. The thumb drive method isn’t much more difficult, though.)
Here’s how it works:
1. Download the XBMC Live installer with the updated NVIDIA drivers included on this page (direct link, torrent link). Update: Huge thanks to Mike and Aaron for the file hosting and torrent creating. It’s a 341MB file, so it may take a while.
2. Burn XBMC Live to a CD
Once the download completes, unzip the xbmc.zip file. What you're left with is an xbmc.iso file—the disc image of the XBMC Live installer. Now you need to burn this ISO to a CD. Install our favorite tool for the job, ImgBurn, then right-click the xbmc.iso file and select Burn using ImgBurn. (If you’re running Windows 7, you can use its built-in ISO burner, too, by selecting Burn disc image.)
3. Install XBMC Live to Your Thumb Drive
Now that you’ve burned XBMC to a CD, you’re ready to install it to your thumb drive. To do so, plug in your thumb drive, put the XBMC Live CD in your DVD drive, and reboot your computer. If it’s not already your default setting, go into your system BIOS (for most computers hitting Delete at the first boot screen will launch your BIOS) and set your optical drive as the primary boot device.
(All this means is that when your computer boots, it'll first check to see if there's any bootable media in your optical drive. If not, it'll continue booting to your secondary device—generally your hard drive. If your optical drive does contain bootable media—like your XBMC Live CD, for example—it'll boot it up.)
When XBMC Live loads, select “Install XBMCLive to disk (USB or HDD)”, then accept the first prompt (by pressing any key). Next you’ll end up at the “Choose disk to use” prompt, where you’ll tell the installer that you want to install to your USB stick. Be careful here not to choose your hard drive, because it would be happy to overwrite your operating system if you told it to. Remember, your thumb drive is the Removable disk. After you pick the disk you want to use, confirm that you want to proceed and let the installer do its magic. (It’ll only take a few minutes.)
Eventually the installer will ask you if you want to create a permanent system storage file, which presumably you’d want if you’re not sure whether or not you want to install XBMC Live to your Acer’s hard drive. I went ahead and created the system storage (even though we’ll install XBMC Live directly to the hard drive in the next step.) Once the installation finishes, you’re ready to proceed to the next step.
You’ll need to make a couple of tweaks to your system BIOS to get it working smoothly with XBMC Live. So plug in your thumb drive, boot up your Acer AspireRevo, and hit Delete at the first boot screen to edit your BIOS. Look for the “Boot to RevoBoot” entry in the Advanced BIOS features menu and disable it. While you’re there, set your XBMC Live thumb drive as the primary boot device. (You can set the primary boot device back to your hard drive later, after you’ve installed XBMC Live to your drive.)
Then go to the Advanced Chipset Features menu and set the iGPU Frame Buffer Detect to Manual and set the iGPU Frame Buffer Size to 256MB. (This is detailed here; the actual guide says 512, but that requires that you install more RAM—something I may do in the future, and will detail with a guide if I do. The 512 buffer size will help you stream the larger HD videos without hiccups.)
Now that your BIOS are set, you’re ready to try out XBMC Live on your Acer AspireRevo.
At this point, you’ve got two choices. You can either restart your Acer AspireRevo and boot into XBMC Live to play around a little before you install it to your disk. If you’re sure you’re ready to install it for reals, just go ahead and run through the exact same installation as you did above, only this time install it to your nettop’s hard drive. When you install to the hard drive, you’ll also set a system password. This’ll come in handy later.
Okay, so far so good. XBMC should boot up directly from your hard drive now, and if you’ve plugged in your Windows Media Center remote, it should also be working without a hitch. You’ve just got to make a couple of adjustments to make it shine.
Now, what makes your little nettop work so well is that its onboard graphics processor can handle all the HD business without eating up your regular processor power, so you'll want to enable this in the XBMC settings. So head to Settings > Video > Play, find the Set Render to section, and set it to VDPAU.
Now, depending on how you’re planning on hooking up your XBMC Live box to your television, you’ve got a few more tweaks you’ll want to make. Namely this:
If you want to use HDMI for your audio out, head to Settings > System > Audio hardware, then set the audio output to Digital. Set your Audio output device to hdmi, and set the Passthrough output device to hdmi. Last, enable Downmix multichannel audio to stereo.
If you are using HDMI as your audio out (I am, and it’s pretty nice), you’ve got to make one final tweak if you want the audio output to work with menu sounds. (It’ll work fine with video without making this tweak, but the click-click sounds that play when you move around the XBMC menu are nice to have.) If that applies to you, create a new text file on your regular old computer (name it asoundrc.txt) and paste the following code (again, this awesome tweak comes from this post):
pcm.!default { type plug slave { pcm "hdmi" } }
In the next step, I’ll show you how to copy that file over to your nettop (a little trick that’ll also come in handy for manually installing plug-ins and copying files to your nettop).
If you want to transfer files to your XBMC Live box from another computer, you’ll need to get yourself an FTP client (I like FileZilla) and log into your nettop with the password you set when you were installing XBMC Live. To do so, create a new connection in Filezilla that looks something like the screenshot below (the default user is xbmc).
Once you’re connected, make sure you’re in the /home/xbmc/ directory, then copy over the asoundrc.txt file we made above. (The one you want to use if you’re running your audio through the HDMI output.) Once it’s copied over, rename the file to .asoundrc, restart XBMC, and the click-click menu sounds should be working along with regular old A/V playback.
The same SFTPing method here will be useful if you ever want to manually install any plug-ins or skins down the road, or just copy over media directly to your nettop's hard drive. (Though we'd recommend streaming—see below.)
As I said above, you can buy more expensive, meatier machines, but for my money this Acer nettop has worked perfectly. Apart from upgrading to better equipment, you can also add up to 2GB more RAM if you’re up for the job (RAM’s so cheap these days, anyway). Like I said, though, so far I haven’t seen the need for it.
I also quickly switched the skin to the MediaStream skin, which is the one you see in the photo at the top of the page. For a look at some other great skins you may want to apply to your XBMC box, check out these five beautiful skins—or just head to XBMC's main skins page.
Now that you’ve got it all set up, you’ve probably also realized that 160GB isn’t all that much space for your media. You’d be right, of course. You’ve got two pretty good options. First, the nettop should have something like four free USB ports still, so you can easily plug in a big old drive that way. Assuming, however, that you can run an Ethernet wire over to your nettop, your best option is just to connect it to a shared folder on your home network. XBMC works like a charm with Samba shares (Windows shared folders use this).
Whichever method you use, you just need to add your extra hard drive space as a source in XBMC. You can do so through any of the individual menu items (videos, for example), or you can add a default Samba username and password in the settings so it can connect automatically without asking for a password each time you add a new watch folder on that machine.
At this point I could go into more detail on how to use and get the most out of XBMC (it can be a little hard to get your head around at first, even though once you do, it’s not actually confusing). We’ve covered souping up your XBMC—and building your classic Xbox XBMC machine—and both offer some help in those directions. But stick around; tomorrow we'll follow up with an updated guide to some of our favorite XBMC tweaks.
This guide covers in pretty close detail one method for putting together a dedicated, quiet XBMC media center without breaking the bank, but it’s certainly not your only option. If you’ve gone down this road before, offer your tips and suggestions in the comments. For my part: I’m completely in love with my new little media center.
Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker and loves a good computer-based DIY, especially when the results are as beautiful as XBMC. His special feature Hack Attack appears on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader, or follow @adampash on Twitter.
Windows 7 Media Center keeps getting better at online video. Earlier this week we showed you Netflix’s updated Media Center integration, you can already launch Hulu’s remote-friendly desktop app from WMC, and starting today, it also streams TV from CBS.
In addition to the CBS content, Microsoft is also adding support for Zune’s video content library and more from MSN and MSNBC. From the folks at Microsoft:
- CBS Audience Network: Featuring a variety of shows from CBS Primetime, Daytime, Extras, and TV Classics, including full-length episodes of current TV shows, CBS Classics TV shows, short clips, and Web originals.
- Full Zune Video Podcast Library: Thousands of hours of entertainment with full TV episodes, webisodes, clips, and videos from providers including ABC News, CBS News, CNBC, CNET TV, Comedy Central, Current TV, The Discovery Channel, Fox, G4 TV, HBO, MSNBC, NBC, Showtime, and Revision 3, along with some of the best user-generated videos on the Web. Some video podcasts are also available in HD.
- MSN and msnbc.com: Clips as well as full length episodes from TV shows such as Arrested Development, news and weather from MSNBC, editor picks and most popular videos, five day weather forecasts, news, video playlists, music videos, movie trailers and more.
Like the Netflix update from earlier this week, if you're not automatically seeing the changes, you can head to Tasks -> Settings -> General -> Automatic Download Options to manually start the update.
Microsoft added Netflix support to Vista’s Media Center back in May, and starting today they’re rolling out an upgraded Watch Instantly interface to Windows 7 Media Center for users looking to get their streaming TV and movie fix on their upgraded PCs.
Gadget weblog Engadget spotted the update this afternoon, and while the improvement hasn’t added support for Media Center extenders (like the Xbox 360) or HD streaming (bummer), it’s a great feature if you’ve turned your Windows PC into a media center powerhouse.
The Netflix update should become available to your Windows 7 Media Center automatically, but if it doesn't, Engadget says you go to Tasks -> Settings -> General -> Automatic Download Options to manually start the update. In the meantime, you can check out more pics of it in action over at Engadget.
If you’ve been using Netflix on your Media Center PC since it became available earlier this year, let’s hear how it’s been working for you in the comments.
Windows only: Free application Hulu Desktop Integration brings Hulu’s remote-friendly desktop app to your Windows Media Center.
Whether or not you’re a fan of Windows operating systems, there’s no denying that Windows has one of the best media center apps available (especially if you want to turn your PC into a media center powerhouse on the cheap). It’s got its problems (TV recordings are encoded in an absolutely irritating DRMed file format), but it ships with Windows (so in a sense is free) and it can extend to common hardware like the Xbox 360 with aplomb (see the media center powerhouse link above).
Now that sites like Hulu have become a viable destination for free TV, Hulu integration seems only natural, and Hulu Desktop Integration makes it simple for users to jump between Windows 7 Media Center and Hulu Desktop.
When clicking on HULU in Windows 7 Media Center, the software automatically closes Windows Media Center, Starts HULU Desktop Maximized in full screen. When you are done with HULU Desktop, click on Exit in the main menu, the software will automatically start Windows Media Center back up in full screen mode.
Hulu Desktop Integration is freeware, works with Windows 7. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with extenders.