Those following the XBMC (a.k.a. Xbox Media Center, although they'll probably need a name change soon, considering all the platforms they've jumped off to) development for the Mac have some good news coming to them: the release has reached version .1.It's still as shaky as these things come, but new to this version are fullscreen support, "bleeding edge" ffmpeg libraries, and a regular FPS in video playback. It's still not anything the average user should be running, but as I said, for those interested in following along with the development, it should be welcome news.
The download is available from the wiki, and we're told it's now super simple to install (though actually running stably may be a little tougher) -- just drag into your Applications folder and cross your fingers.
Thanks, Yuval!
Update: They got that name change: here's the new site.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-04-2008 @ 10:16PM
Maxwell said...
That's XBMC, not XMBC
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2-04-2008 @ 10:20PM
Mike said...
What's the point of this again? XBMC was great on an xbox, why run it on OSX? Can you use it to stream to a 360 or something?
2-04-2008 @ 11:29PM
Scott said...
XBMC was great on an xbox, but it wasn't powerful enough to run 720 or 1080 programming. a Mac Mini, on the other hand, can do 720p without trouble and most 1080i stuff as well.
2-04-2008 @ 10:21PM
Mat Lu said...
This thing would be really great on an Apple TV.
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2-04-2008 @ 10:54PM
mattsoft said...
Freaking awesome. This is great news for the Mac community.
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2-04-2008 @ 11:35PM
adisor19 said...
This is great news ! XBMC is absolutely amazing and a most welcome addition to OS X !
Adi
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2-04-2008 @ 11:36PM
aaron said...
Why would you use this on your mac?
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2-05-2008 @ 12:20AM
LD said...
Why wouldn't you?
2-05-2008 @ 12:58AM
rich said...
why you'd want this: completely skinnable and customizable, great 10-foot UI, and it plays just about every file type under the sun (including subtitle support).
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2-05-2008 @ 4:07AM
oligore said...
Couldn't you just use VLC?
2-05-2008 @ 1:31AM
Evan said...
It'd be nice if they release this for NON-INTEL systems. I have an old PowerPC machine laying around I could put this on. Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if it was just for Intel systems.
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2-05-2008 @ 2:44PM
Piotr Malecki said...
Too much effort.
With the port from Xbox to Intel Mac they only have to port the interface and some other stuff (which is still a lot of work), because the original Xbox has a 733 MHz Intel Pentium III-based Mobile Celeron so both it and the Intel Mac are x86 compatible. Porting to PPC would require a lot more effort.
2-05-2008 @ 4:44AM
Jasper said...
Did anyone get this started yet?
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2-05-2008 @ 5:22AM
2shae said...
Yes I did.
In order to mount the .dmg you need to remove the .bz2 extension, just extracting won't work.
2-05-2008 @ 8:11AM
Jasper said...
Weird. After mouting the DMG and copying the .app to my .app folder, XBMC doesn't start. I see the icon appearing in my dock but it immediately dissappears and crashes.
Will try later on my mac @ home.
2-06-2008 @ 1:03PM
Jasper said...
Ah, it works at home. My work Macbook Pro is acting a bit weird lately.
2-05-2008 @ 5:23AM
basscadet said...
if this could run on AppleTV it could make it kinda useful.
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2-05-2008 @ 7:14AM
Converge said...
Why would anyone install this on their Mac?
Because a Mac Mini with XBMC running connected to your Plasma od LCD makes one hell of a media center. I'm still using XBMC on my old xbox because of it's awesome media support. Just about the only thing i miss is hardware support for 720p/1080i, and that's where the Mac gets into the picture. I'm psyched about this.
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2-05-2008 @ 7:54AM
santiago said...
They should call it OSXBMC with dashes or something :-)
Can't wait to get home to try this out.
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2-05-2008 @ 9:01AM
jason said...
So the Mini can defiantly do 1080i ? I thought there was an issue with it doing 1080i
This is perfect I love XBMC but have been waiting for 720/1080 support
This is even better then connect 360 and a xbox 360
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