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+--- Thread: Port XBMC to Android OS so that it can run on Google TV based platforms and such? (/showthread.php?tid=134031)
- phat - 2011-11-12
So I spoke to the manufacturers in China and they are also ready to donate to this project. They also said they would speak to Rockchip and find out if they are willing to give something as well.
If any of the devs are interested I could get back to you with any info you need.
Out of curiosity, how big of a project is this and how long would it take approx.? Just asking to get a better understanding of what we're talking about and have more knowledge as an "arm chair pundit".
- Haxta - 2011-11-16
Charcharius
I remember you from quake. Thanx it was great.
I book marked this thread and will be watching while biting my nails in anticipation.
If this happens its going to be an amazing year.
- bilybob - 2011-11-20
I just got my first android tablet. I was thinking the same thing - XBMC would be awesome on it. When I started looking, I found this thread.
I'm a C++ dev, mostly, but have worked in some other languages as well. I've written some stuff for Android phones, so I'm ok with Java too.
I don't have a ton of time, but I would be interested in helping out with an XBMC port. I don't really know how/where to start either...
- jjd-uk - 2011-11-21
First of all can I just say a big thank you to all the developers for all the great work you do on XBMC
topfs2 Wrote:IMO its better to get xbmc on android than xbmc and general Linux on one device. We are investigating android and the recent versions of the ndk adds lots (perhaps all) of the needed tools. So if anyone wishes to donate for android development (with hardware) please.use the contact info on thr homepage and perhaps we can do somethingWith the release of devices using the Samsung Exynos 4210, TI OMAP 4460 & Nvidia Tegra 3 the hardware for 1080p High Profile now seems to be available.
AFAIK no device even have a tablet running Android, even less something htpc like. (Tegra devices have never counted as they are to slow) .as always don't see this as any type.of promise as it depends on some developer taking lots of his freetime and devote to this (big project) .
So I was just wondering if the new NDK for Android ICS 4.0 (released 7th Nov 2011) with OpenMax API's makes the porting of XBMC to the Android platform any easier? and if so would this enhance the chances of a port if a developer was willing?
Some release notes on the new NDK are at http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html
- jordiboy - 2011-11-21
While it is not XBMC, you may want to check out Mizuu http://mizuu.tv/ while we wait on an XBMC port. Mizuu is pretty slick (does not do music, just TV and Movies) and worth the $1.85 to me since XBMC is not available.
- sflxn - 2011-11-22
Hi, I had to register and join into this thread. I'm a big fan of xbmc and boxee. I have never looked at the XBMC source base, but I trust it is quite massive. I used to work at a company where I lead the media development team. We got both GStreamer and FFMpeg running on Android. Unfortunately, the Android port was canned and we focused on Mac, Win, and Linux. These two media component was the underlying tech that sat below our technology.
Trust me, this is a lot of work, but it can be done. Donations of $20-50 isn't going to do it. I'm not sure it's a matter of financial resource. Most developers in the media space can afford to buy several tablets with their own money. I have 2 iPads and will pick up an Transformer Prime soon. It's a matter of the most valuable resource necessary -- skilled people's time. I had 6-8 people on my team, working paid full-time for one year. We burned the midnight oil for far too many days to count. XBMC is a much larger project that shows the years and number of contributers in the finished product.
Then you must consider the rethinking of the UI, both the Java and the touch portions. The XBMC devs are correct in saying it's a technical matter not a political matter. If I knew there were a bunch (I mean a bunch) of devs who were interested, I may be interested in contributing myself, but count on maybe 2 years before you see anything. Most people don't appreciate how much time we developers sacrifice to bring you polished software. I've been burned out far too many times in my career. Porting XBMC to android would take too much of too many developers' free time to make it happen quickly. I really like how Boxee set themselves up. They were able to get funding so they could develop it full time, and even then, I bet they burned the midnight oil very often.
- sflxn - 2011-11-22
I'd also add that there is a fundamental tectonic shift going on in the world of media and computing that should be considered. XBMC and Boxee are great in the old world of people having home DLNA or Samba servers. The Plex and Boxee iPad model of server transcoding to stream to device also requires this mode of media storage. If we project 5 years down the road, I'm just not sure that model will last. There will come a day when the vast majority of people do not own desktops with big drives. Even home NAS will probably disappear. There is a lot of benefits of the industry move towards cloud storage and cloud streaming. This move obsolete the need to have a ton of storage at home. The days of buying hard drives and bluray discs are quickly coming to a close. 10 years from now, we'll be looking back at these quaint days when we ripped relatively low res DVDs and Blurays to store hard drives. The only obstacle right now is to get people to get over the years of ingrained belief that we must own the media at home. The iTunes music Match is the direction of the future. We either stream using Netflix/Amazon or we "own" a media descriptor that reference a movie somewhere in the cloud. In the latter case, the movie is stored in one location. Consumers would just own a small license descriptor... also stored in the cloud.
I know it's an anathema to most of us XBMC fans, but I recently had a near catastrophic failure in my ReadyNAS and nearly lost my entire media collection. I had already spent a lot of money on hard drives, NAS, blurays, and time to rip them and nearly lost all of that money and time. This was just a hobby for me. The cost analysis went through my head and I became very opened to letting go of my need to own the files at home. I had a huge change of heart towards cloud media. It's psychological, but I promise the vast market will eventually have this change of heart. In other words, by the time XBMC comes out for tablets, it may be shortly obsoleted by the changes in the computing and media landscape.
- Arcko - 2011-11-22
Partly agree with you sflxn, but I think cloud media should be a trend, but will not be all...
- sflxn - 2011-11-22
Arcko, cloud media isn't the end all, but developers like to work on cool projects. It's hard to get developers to work on something that will become more and more niche. It'll be like asking some developers now to developing some apps for the old Palm OS or Blackberry. Porting XBMC to a non C++ environment would be like moving a mountain compared to that.
I've never looked at the XBMC code, but if there was a good separation of the UI engine from the media engine, it maybe worth rewriting the UI engine in non C++. There could be benefits as media consumption changes for XBMC to stay relevant if that happens.
- davilla - 2011-11-22
sflxn Wrote:I've never looked at the XBMC code, but if there was a good separation of the UI engine from the media engine, it maybe worth rewriting the UI engine in non C++. There could be benefits as media consumption changes for XBMC to stay relevant if that happens.
Look at the code and you will see that this would be non-trivial. XBMC is very GL/GLES/win based.
- rflores2323 - 2011-11-22
jordiboy Wrote:While it is not XBMC, you may want to check out Mizuu http://mizuu.tv/ while we wait on an XBMC port. Mizuu is pretty slick (does not do music, just TV and Movies) and worth the $1.85 to me since XBMC is not available.
yeah but this doesnt stream movies/tv shows. it just plays it from your local content on your tablet. Doesnt do any good for me unless it streams it. any other suggestions?
- xbs08 - 2011-11-22
BSplayer will stream and play h.264
- jordiboy - 2011-11-23
rflores2323 Wrote:yeah but this doesnt stream movies/tv shows. it just plays it from your local content on your tablet. Doesnt do any good for me unless it streams it. any other suggestions?
Network support is in the works, see http://mizuu.tv/tag/network/
It is a kludgy workaround (copies temp files from the network and starts playing), but it is a step in the right direction.
androgenizer - s7mx1 - 2011-11-23
Was looking at Gstreamer Conference 2011 videos and noticed that in their Telepathy and android video androgenizer was mentioned which can handle configuration (libtool etc) under Android.mk. This should be very handy for the porting. Otherwise the developers will need to hand make hundreds if not thousands Android.mk files.
http://cgit.collabora.com/git/user/derek/androgenizer.git/
http://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/telepathy-and-android/
- SpenZerX - 2011-11-27
jordiboy Wrote:While it is not XBMC, you may want to check out Mizuu http://mizuu.tv/ while we wait on an XBMC port. Mizuu is pretty slick (does not do music, just TV and Movies) and worth the $1.85 to me since XBMC is not available.
My favorite is MovieBrowser. But actually MovieBrowser and Mizuu are both not ready for daily use. They are both slow when shares contain more then 100 movies. Also i think both tools need Android 3 or higher. I can't install both on my new Galaxy Note.