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PDF is useless on xbmc and tv's, please close thread.
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agreed it belongs to the addon section, agreed it's not core functionality... but I personally (and with me a lot of other people I think) would love to be able to look at their ebook magazines. So if somebody is able to develop such an addon, people could decide for themselves if they would install this functionality or no. I don't think anybody should complain about such an initiative. Keep this thread open and see whether there are people who like the idea and have the knowledge to develope this addon
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2011-02-10, 17:23
(This post was last modified: 2011-02-10, 17:26 by therealjoeblow.)
I disagree. Completely.
XBMC is a MEDIA center. And I guarantee you that every magazine and book publisher consider their products to be MEDIA. And while I can't guarantee this, I would bet you a *whole* lot of money that in a very short time, over the next few years you won't be able to buy paper magazines, newspapers or books anymore.
I personally have cancelled all of my paper magazine subscriptions (well, we only got 4 or 5 in our household anyway), and now receive those as digital editions, all perfectly legit right from the publisher's distributors who offer this as an alternative to paper versions. As well as holding all of the content, these are generally interactive with weblinks to additional value added content. Check out a digital interactive edition of National Geographic - you won't go back to paper. Consider it the BluRay version of print media.
Now where would XBMC be if when development was started someone said "Music, that's absurd, who's going to listen to music through their TV?" and stuck with the narrow minded view that Media=Movies and that's it.
To remain current and relevant, XBMC *needs* to evolve with media as it's form dynamically evolves.
That includes digital versions of print media.
I currently have hundreds of eMagazines and eBooks in PDF format, and they are perfectly usable on a TV whether the naysayers in this thread want to believe it or not.
XBMC=MEDIA center; MEDIA=Movies,TV,Music, AND DIGITAL PRINT DOCUMENTS
It would be nice to see some forward thinking of the future and relevance of XBMC's core functionality rather than closed minded opinions that something that a handful of dinosaurs don't think is worthy doesn't belong in the application.
Cheers
The REAL Joe
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To be honest though PDFs and eMagazines in general really don't suit the 10-foot interface HTPCs have. You may say they are perfectly usable but I would hazard to guess you would be in the minority on this one. I know, myself, I would absolutely hate to have to sit and read a magazine, that is designed to be read from a close distance, on the couch. They are more suited toward handheld devices which is why products like the Kindle are doing so well.
Perhaps if XBMC was able to say 'pass' a file to another device like a tablet from the main screen then I would completely agree with you - include magazines in the database. But until that happens, you're best bet is to use something like Advanced Launcher which will do exactly what you're after albeit it's not part of XBMC's core features.
This is sort of the beauty of addons. They allow anypne to expand the feature sets and help cater to these niche kind of user segments.