[slicemaster]

Is XBMC “modern enough” to stay competitive with the likes of “BOXXEE” and others?

First off I simply want to qualify myself as an avid XBMC user and supporter but I also wish to look at the future of XBMC from a practical point of view.

So let’s start: so from what I understand BOXXEE is a spinoff of the XBMC project. To me this is interesting if it is true but I would like some additional information about it: Is BOXXEE still using XBMC’s codebase as the core of their platform or have they since abandoned using this codebase?

I am not posting this to start a flame war, simply to understand better what I can expect XBMC to go in the future. I have always praised the XBMC team for all their hard work and am indeed grateful for the many innovations they have brought to the table.

The way I feel:
I feel social media is a bit of a gimmick so I really don’t care about the social aspect of BOXXEE however from a technical standpoint BOXXEE seems to be years ahead of even the most recent build of XBMC. The heavily integrated internet TV and radio modules seem to be far ahead of XBMC’s primitive plug-in system and offers a much larger selection of on demand internet content. I don’t thinks the interface is anything special and the diversity of XBMC I feel is actually an advantage of XBMC. However as I stated above, the full integration of internet content seems to be far superior in BOXXEE.

What do you guys think? This is just one feature that I feel XBMC is seriously lacking but I am sure there are more and I think it would be interesting to know what you guys feel is necessary for XBMC to remain competitive as the industry leading media platform. It would also be interesting for any BOXXEE users to point out where XBMC is stronger.

Signed Slice

[Jezz_X]

Its called having money and other resources to engage into agreements with the people who provide the services like. hulu netflix and so on

[jmarshall]

Yes, Boxee uses XBMC as the core codebase. Obviously they've changed and added bits here and there, but the underlying core code is still very much the same. And they have contributed some code back to the XBMC core code base.

Notice that Boxee requires a net connection to be of any use. This is how they get the social stuff and the info on media, and also how they can feed net based content. XBMC, however, can be run completely portably if you wish.

Obviously a lot (read the vast majority) of the net based content is restricted to folk residing in the US, and thus most of the XBMC team don't care about it.

And lastly, Boxee is (necessarily) very restrictive in what you can do with it. This is a necessity as they're reaching a different audience. You can't hack around with it and customize it to anywhere near the extent that you can with XBMC. Many people who love media want to be able to do that.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[rwparris2]

I feel social media is a bit of a gimmick so I really don’t care about the social aspect of BOXXEE however from a technical standpoint BOXXEE seems to be years ahead of even the most recent build of XBMC. The heavily integrated internet TV and radio modules seem to be far ahead of XBMC’s primitive plug-in system and offers a much larger selection of on demand internet content. I don’t thinks the interface is anything special and the diversity of XBMC I feel is actually an advantage of XBMC. However as I stated above, the full integration of internet content seems to be far superior in BOXXEE.

It's boxee, not boxxee


I have exactly the opposite feelings as you, the 'social' part is the only thing interesting in it. Of course I it isn't useful as I don't have any friends that use boxee, and if someone was looking for that type of software I'd recommend XBMC because of aesthetics, customization, frequent updates, supported on more hardware, etc.

But...their plugin/internet system is more integrated? And in xbmc it is PRIMATIVE? Thems is fightin' words! I'm not sure how you're getting that other than it comes with Hulu etc out of the box, where as in xbmc you have to install it yourself.

To access the streams, though, the interface is exactly the same:

xbmc: videos>plugins>select one
boxee: videos>internet>select one

[warwon]

I think the biggest areas that people see a difference in Xbmc vs. Boxee is that when you start it up under photo's it has direct access to picasa, flicker.

But the internet content is stupid since it's mostly US only.

Picasa, and flicker support in xbmc would be so nice if now similar to Boxee (hey a man can dream).

[tcman47]

If i wanted to socialize with friends i would call them on the phone, as far as watching multimedia on my home theater system, xbmc blows everyone else out of the water.

TC

[theophile]

But...their plugin/internet system is more integrated? And in xbmc it is PRIMATIVE? Thems is fightin' words! I'm not sure how you're getting that other than it comes with Hulu etc out of the box, where as in xbmc you have to install it yourself.

To access the streams, though, the interface is exactly the same:

xbmc: videos>plugins>select one
boxee: videos>internet>select one

But "out of the box" is a huge selling point, as is the slickness of the interface. In Boxee, Hulu content is displayed in a very professional way, like one might expect in a Hulu STB. In the XBMC plugin, once you activate the plugin you have to drill down through menus and submenus to get to the playable file, and in my case, it still won't play:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=43708

I prefer XBMC too, but I agree that Boxee is lightyears ahead in terms of streaming internet content.

[kizer]

I do agree the Hulu plugin could use some sharpening, but honestly Its easier than looking for things on Hulu.com Their interface is pretty, but man its a pain in the butt when your trying to find a specific ep or season.

[slicemaster]

I am glad that a lot of opinions are being shared here.

Like I said before, I am an avid supporter of XBMC and I truly want it to succeed! I feel as many others here in this thread have mentioned that XBMC is by fare the most powerful core platform for a media center pc. However it was also noted by several others that support for internet content in an extremely user friendly environment is lacking/non existent in XBMC, and out of the box support is non existent. Personally I feel the plug-in system of XBMC is ingenious; however in my own experience, it is extremely unstable and doesn’t work very well across all the platform implementations (some many work on Xbox, some work on windows, and few work on Linux in my experience). Additionally, sadly most the plug-ins that you can get to work aren’t nearly as polished and easy to use as those presented in Boxee. Additionally, aside from some internet content that is US only, there is plenty of universal internet content that is supported in Boxee where XBMC support is lacking out of the box (notably QuickTime movie trailers, YOUTUBE, streaming news CNN NBC BBC etc.).

Additionally XBMC certainly has its strong points, most notably its content database/library system is very powerful and personally I feel it is second to none. Personally I would like to see a shared database design be implemented for off-site database storage (example: 5 XBMC endpoints 1 NAS with shared media content and a centralized database)

Slice

P.S. personally I think a plug-in regulation system should be implemented to remove older versions of plug-ins where new ones have been developed (who needs 6 YouTube plug-ins) and also a cross platform compatibility program should be put in place so that plug-ins are universal across all XBMC platforms. Perhaps integrating the plug-ins into a branch of the XBMC project would ensure more control and allow for faster bug fixing and additional development, not to mention a centralized location for getting the plug-ins.

[warwon]

I'll buy a pack of beer for everyone for those suggestions.

I'll also buy someone a sheep for photo support like Boxee

[slicemaster]

Well, I talked about this a little in my last post but I don’t think I gave the topic justice. I have been browsing the XBMC forums all day as I have had nothing better to do reading what others have written and what issues and problems are being discussed, and I couldn’t help but notice what a wonderfully diverse community we have here. We truly have a wonderful skinning community which certainly enhances many XBMC users’ experiences with the software, and out support sections are equally as enlightening. However, I couldn’t help but wonder as to why there are so many script and plug-in related problems. I mean just spend a few minutes browsing and you’ll find answers like “well, this plug-in only works on Xbox” or “for some reason this plug-in only works in windows”. To me these types of comments and answers to questions were very troubling. From my limited knowledge of XBMC’s inner workings, I believe all the plug-ins, scripts, and skins are written in a common language (Python, correct me if I’m wrong). What was so bothersome was the lack of universal support across XBMC platforms and little or no group centralized work. I feel this is counter productive to the spirit of the plug-in and scripting engine isn’t python supposed to be cross platform like java? Why are there these major compatibility issues? Is it a problem with the python scripting implementation in XBMC? Additionally with regards to universal support for plug-ins and scripts, I relies that some are simply designed for the XBOX platform but most the scripts are not particularly well documented and I feel much of the work done has been redundant…as I referenced in my earlier post; “how many YouTube plug-ins do we need?” would it not be better for those plug-in developers to centralize their efforts on one YouTube script and develop a very good plug-in through group efforts rather than six or seven mediocre or out of date plug-ins (I am not saying that current plug-in are of poor quality, I am simply trying to make a point)? To me the situation is clear; the script/plug-in development needs to be brought into the XBMC project as opposed to a side-line project or fork. This would allow for XBMC developers to help regulate and ensure compatibility of the scripts and plug-ins and enforce a certain degree of uniformity and quality control. As a result it would also increase the efficiency of the plug-in community and completely remove the redundant work being done and eventually lead to a better quality / better maintained body of work in addition to more time to develop further work.

Comments/Questions/Love it/Hate it/Lets hear it

Slice

[rwparris2]

“how many YouTube plug-ins do we need?” would it not be better for those plug-in developers to centralize their efforts on one YouTube script and develop a very good plug-in through group efforts rather than six or seven mediocre or out of date plug-ins (I am not saying that current plug-in are of poor quality, I am simply trying to make a point)?

I've tried this before. It doesn't work out as well as you think it would. Getting several people together, especially non developers, and having them all work with eachother in a useful on such a small project is extremely difficult and not so useful in the end.

To me the situation is clear; the script/plug-in development needs to be brought into the XBMC project as opposed to a side-line project or fork. This would allow for XBMC developers to help regulate and ensure compatibility of the scripts and plug-ins and enforce a certain degree of uniformity and quality control. As a result it would also increase the efficiency of the plug-in community and completely remove the redundant work being done and eventually lead to a better quality / better maintained body of work in addition to more time to develop further work.

We're working on implementing a system now, but the "real" devs don't need be testing and configuring third party scripts any more than they do skins. They didn't make the plugin & scripting engine so easy to jump into so that they'd have to review every thing that someone else writes...

There is a sticky in the plugins & scripts forums about scripts & plugins and exactly what platform they work on. If you would download a few scripts and test them on all the platforms you have avaliable and report your findings there that would be more helpful than anything.

[Swifty]

Just an idea that popped into my head, but how about being able to rate scripts as working/not working from within XBMC ?
If this response could be collated with the XBMC version currently running then XBMCScripts.com (or a similar service) could either;
Hide scripts known not to work with your current version
Prompt that the script is untested (eg. if say 20 people haven't rated it as 'not working' with your current version) etc..

Maybe that would allow the devs time to concentrate on more important things while still giving a good experience to end users trying out new scripts?

Just a thought..

[krypt2nite]

Well, I for one don't see how people think XBMC is in danger of anything. I've been using HTPCs for 10 years and have been through a lot of frontends. I was a myHTPC>Meedio user for most of that time. XBMC just works. It's smooth, it's easy, and it looks good not to mention how powerful it is. Go use Meedio for a week and you'll see what I mean. I had no problems with Meedio and I had it doing everything I wanted, but XBMC is just so nice I had to cut my loyalties short.

I actually sometimes get restless because I have nothing to tweak and fix with XBMC. It works too good with no user intervention other the the occasional pressing of my update library button.

In short XBMC is at this present moment the greatest solution for and media, htpc nut. Adding small novelties such as internet content and gimmicky social aspects isn't something of interest to me, and boxee has that can't edit, big corporation feel to it which is a major turn off.

Only issue I have with XBMC is the ffmpeg aspect. I love this software and have nothing but respect for the team and what they have done with nothing but their free time, but directshow would in the future be the better option. Not being able to utilize ffdshow and coreavc is a major downside, albeit a small one. Dont take that the wrong way. I'm completely happy =p

[rwparris2]

a major downside, albeit a small one

lol, wut?

coreavc & ffdshow are both windows only, iirc