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Amlogic will release M8 chipset on June, and bulk chipset production to be available on OCT.
only if Geniatech going to change its solution.
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I think this is kind of just ridiculous. I can only talk about Frodo release since I think I rarely really used Eden. Since Frodo though I've rarely ran into a crash. Is the interface a little hard to navigate DEPENDENT on skin? Yes. However lets break this down. HTPC is home theater personal computer. XBMC runs a software for this. Now Home Theater Personal Computer is a BROAD concept. Some people use it for movies, tv shows, streaming, live sports, live TV, DVR, GAMING, etc, there are SO many uses that it's a wonder XBMC can handle so many of them. Can you name another software that works better than XBMC for HTPC use? I can't. I remember when I first wanted to organize my movies I loaded WMC up and did some work with it. Got no where real fast. Then, I FINALLY tried XBMC, after a long time of saying I never would (for no good reason either). Boom, it scraped all my movies or 95% of them, and 70% of my tvshow library. I didn't know of the naming conventions back then so I learned them and worked on getting all my stuff to scrape. Then recently I learned of TheRenamer which helped a ton. Now my whole library shows up. Then I have the 1channel addon for shows I haven't yet added or that are on my other PC, and I have my Sports Devil app for watching live sports. In fact, not only do I have these apps, they make using those websites a better experience than actually GOING to them. No more ads, just click on a stream and it works. It's AMAZING.
Where does XBMC run into trouble?
Interface - The interface can sometimes be hard to navigate. SOMETIMES. But, I attribute this as a learning curve of the interface. Windows 8 was also hard for me to pick up, and so was using Apple's OSX. My productivity in OSX is so low that I refuse to use it in school, and will ask to go home to use my windows laptop if the classroom only has Apple computers (almost every week in my English class).
Hardware - So many hardware configurations are used for XBMC. It's amazing XBMC can run on so many different hardware configurations given you are reasonable in what you ask. My Athlon 64+ 3200 with 4 gigs of ram and got only knows what videocard I have in that rig still runs XBMC confluence quite well. My brother's 400 dollar Asus laptop with a weak i3, 4 gigs of ram, no GFX card, runs Confluence easily when watching movies using XBMC from my XBMC library. I showed him XBMC and he switched to using it with the 1channel app + my tvshow and movie library and never looked back. The MetaData, lack of ads, etc. is just amazing.
Operating Systems - XBMC runs on a LOT of operating systems. It's amazing they're able to support them all. It's hard to. But yet XBMC STILL manages to have stable releases that are able to use a WIDE variety of OSes and Hardware.
Price - XBMC IS FREE. People are making contributions for FREE! Yet, we're wondering if it will ever be polished? The answer is YES I think it will be. In fact, I think we're almost there. I remember I had a large number of reserves about moving to XBMC. Mainly that the streaming wasn't as easy as Tversity, and you couldn't stream to remote locations or something like that. Either way, I was upset about a number of features so I didn't adopt it. Now, all these features are there. Not only that, they're in a pretty interface, with tons more metadata than I could ever hope for. I had started adding this data MANUALLY in WMP because I wanted to stream easily with that data. Now it's a joke. XBMC does everything.
All in all, you ask if it will work smooth and be user friendly? I think we're ALMOST at that point. XBMC's MAIN problem to me is not smoothness (it's smooth as hell), not that it's not user friendly (any new software has a learning curve and XBMC is a brand new interface you have to interact with, try switching your cable to a new provider an being able to find what you want as fast as you used to). It's tutorials. Why hadn't I heard of TheRenamer, Fold Monkey, Sickbeard, etc. without EXTENSIVE searches on google using all types of different terms. Information isn't easy to find sometimes. You get general setup and that's it. Some things of course can't be talked about here for setup, but I think XBMC should definitely consider adding a section on applications that work well with XBMC that could help people out like TheRenamer and FoldMonkey. Let people know they exist. That's my only tip.
Otherwise, I don't even know how I lived without XBMC. Truly an amazing problem, I'll be donating as soon as I get a job now that I'm out of college to support this.600 movies and 150 full television series in my library which I can sort by Genre, Rating, etc. I had never dreamed of this being possible I'm very VERY happy.
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My take on when XBMC will reach it's prime is based on when ANY hardware will be able to run it at it's full potential without slowdowns for very cheap.
2-6 years from now, when Intel's Silvermount is mature, it's going to be game over. Intel has decided to implement tick tock to it's Atom type processors. Just for a reference, after Intel got trashed around 2005-2007 by AMD's Athlon 64 which destroyed Pentium 4's, Intel got back to being serious and release the Core2Duo processors (Conroe). These chips were monsters. Not only did they destroy AMD, they overclocked. You could buy the low end one an OC it to their $1000 premium chip levels. Intel has said they will now start this development on Atom type processors. I'm guessing within 2 years we see intel have extreme dominance and in this extreme mobile/mini PCs. Development of XBMC + Hardware that's cheap enough that $200 dollars gets you the majority of things to run flawlessly, beautifully, without slowdowns or even a thought of "Can this handle XBMC?" is when I think it will reach it's prime. I'm excited for Silvermount though for the mobile/ultrasmall PC market. When intel released Conroe it changed the desktop scene forever. Replacing your PC because it's too slow takes MUCH longer. If this type of performance reaches our hands in the ultra mobile/small pc market, we'll all be in a very happy place.
