[Iceman-UK]

...as topic, I need ideas to show XBMC off to it's best. I'll be an exhibitor with a stand, an LCD widescreen TV, stereo speakers and an Xbox with the 2.0.1 release. I may or may not have internet access though.

The exhibition is LUGRadioLive 2007. More info at: http://lugradio.org/live/2007/index.php/Main_Page

I need your ideas!

Some of my ideas:

- get YouTube client software working (the conference organizers have some promotional youtube videos that would be cool to get playing on XBMC).

- show particularly cool music videos that are freely downloadable that I can use to show off the video functions.

- the same as above but with music and using it in tandem with a selection of the most impressive visualizer modes - but what modes are the most impressive?

Thanks guys !

[NineT9mustang]

Wide Icons

[sho]

Go beyond 2.01 and showcase the Music and Video libraries (incl. TV Shows coupled with wide icons).

[Bigfoot87]

...as topic, I need ideas to show XBMC off to it's best. I'll be an exhibitor with a stand, an LCD widescreen TV, stereo speakers and an Xbox with the 2.0.1 release. I may or may not have internet access though.

Use a local RSS feed, at the moment a local RSS feed will only work with a internet connection but the team is working on that issue.

[Iceman-UK]

Thanks for such prompt replies!

Sorry to be a dunce but where can I get the wide icons from? Step-by-step instructions on getting it installed would be great. I've got tonight and tomorrow evening to prepare only!

As the conference is Linux oriented, I'm planning on publicizing the Linux port (currently on the front page of http://xboxmediacenter.com/).

I'd better get up-to-speed on the status of that project as I'm sure to be peppered with questions about it.

For Linux port, please can anyone reply with
- who the project leader(s) are and email address/contact details
- who/where to contact if folks what to get involved

[Iceman-UK]

Nevermind, the news posting explains it :-)

[sho]

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/inde...Wide_Icons

[Gamester17]

Cool!

For Linux port, please can anyone reply with
- who the project leader(s) are and email address/contact details
- who/where to contact if folks what to get involved

as with (almost) everything, it is dokumented in the official XBMC online-manual (which is wiki-based):
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/inde...rt_project


...and here are my my demo suggestions:

First of all make sure you use use a XBMC build from the very latest SVN (like from this month) made by yourself or a known source like T3CH, (do not show of the 2.0.1 point release as that is old by now). Secondly I suggest you also demo a computer with XBMC for Linux on it (for the hardware a laptop or any midi-tower computer with relativly new graphics-chip should do fine but a HTPC case-type desktop be nicer for apperence), (oh, and do not use VMWare for the demo, instead run Linux nativly). For the Xbox make sure you use a HDTV-adapter with component cables and run it in 720p (not 1080i) mode if the TV can handle that.

Music and Video libraries (the library functions are real important features, maybe even the most important?)

Mention that almost all audio/video formats 'known to man' plays straight out-of-the-box.

Music playing with visualiser (Milkdrop)

Playing DVD-Video movies from ISO/IMG files (DVD-images), also from RAR archives, (could also be tied to video library demo).

Python scripts
Remember to show of both "Favourites" and the "script" list view, and the XBMCScripts download script as well.
AMT (Apple Movie Trailers) OF COURSE!!!

Wide Icons

Yes wide-icons (for TV-Shows) look VERY nice! Use the "thetvdb.com" scraper (and not the tv.com scraper) with a few series and seasons of different shows, (350MB or 700MB DivX/XviD DVDRIP).


The convenience and device convergence spirit that drives XBMC development:

XBMC is designed to...
* Be easy to install, set up, and maintain, (so that the end-users do not get fed up with it and quit).
* Have an user interface simple and intuitive enough so that less geek-savvy people are not intimidated by it.
**Make common usage easy, simple 'Human–Computer Interaction (HCI)', from the viewpoint of an ordinary user.
* Be able to play audio and video files that have been compressed using divx, xvid, etc. directly out-of-the-box
* Be able to and organize audio and video files in an easy and user-friendly way.
* Use standards and be consistant, (the music section can for example not use completely different controls from the video section)
* Perform actions in the GUI with as few 'clicks' as possible
* Require little to none non-GUI configuration (and all such non-GUI config should be via AdvancedSettings.xml)
* Look nice.

[Gamester17]

oh, one more thing you MUST demo is skins as XBMC skinning-engine/framework is also one of the most impressive features of XBMC. So do not only demo eveything in the default PM3 skin, use a few third-party skins as well, (got to love the xTV skin for one, get a T3CH build and it nornally comes with a few popular skins )

PS! I personally usually refer people to the wikipedia.org article on XBMC when people want to find out about XBMC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC

[elupus]

as somebody else said, don't go with 2.0.1, go with for example latest t3ch, it seems to be very stable, and has quite some more features.

oh and to be on the safe side, have 2.0.1 release installed in parallel on the xbox, so you can switch if needed.

[Bigfoot87]

Use a local RSS feed, at the moment a local RSS feed will only work with a internet connection but the team is working on that issue.

Problem solved, fixed in latest svn version.

[Iceman-UK]

Thanks and yes, I agree. I have a dual installation "crystal" Xbox with 2.0.1 and the XBMC-SVN_2007-05-07_rev8807-T3CH release. Not the latest but enough for me to show of the Wide Icons and the Vision beta skin.

I'm spending the time before tomorrow on practicing my demo, making sure I know what I'm talking about, pre-empting questions and reading up on the history of the XBMC project. I'm going to publicize the Linux port as this is a Linux community conference. There are going to be many Python nuts there too so I'll mention the in-built Python engine.

The lack of a working YouTube client is a disappointment. It would be really cool to show the conference youtube video while demo'ing it.

Again, any reliable ways of getting youtube working with the versions above?

[nate12o6]

just upgrade to lastest version and use youtube2

[Iceman-UK]

Well I'm back from the conference and it was a very positive experience for many reasons. Feedback about XBMC was very, very good. People were wowed at the slickness of the Project Mayhem III GUI, the wide-icon packs and how the humble Xbox could do all of this. Showing all of this off on a nice 32" widescreen LCD with a crystal Xbox also helped a bit!

I was asked about the legality of XBMC in general - can anyone respond with a quick primer on the legality or point me to an article explaining it all? Thanks.

[ralob]

sure, check here:

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/inde...Disclaimer

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#Legality