XBMC verses Meedio / MeediOS - what is the XBMC attraction that makes it so popular?

I recently switched over to xbmc from meedio. I installed XBMC and had it running with all my music and videos the same day.

Meedio took a lot more effort but after weeks of tinkering, it worked exactly as I wanted it to and looked almost identical to XBMC.

I don't really mind the set up process and being able to change any aspect of Meedio makes me hesitate to leave it. What switched me over was XBMC's speed. It runs a lot faster and doesn't need to wait to load the fanart before continuing.

Meedio is kind of dead with very few updates, but MeediOS looks promising. After seeing the MeediOS previews, I think I'm going to switch back once they release a beta, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to it.

I think it ends up being a trade-off between customization and ease of use, so it really depends on what you're looking for.

i agree. meedio was crap. mediaportal, on the other hand, was good.
nice program, superior video quality over XBMC (sorry, it is), more
options, but imdb scrapers are hell to work with, especially if your
movies are scene tagged. XBMC kicks MP's ass when it comes to
importing movies. but, on the other hand, MP can read tags from
your files, xvid, divx, etc, subtitles. no need to manually scan every
movie with a 3rd party program.

so yeah. XBMC vs mediaportal. XBMC wins, although, there has to
be a way to incorporate postprocessing methods into XBMC. at last
for xvid and divx. dunno 'bout x264.

all in all, both programs acquire a lot of input and a lot of time.
which is kinda contraproductive, but hey. supposedly, you only
have to do the hard work once on your libraries. and i must say,
when it comes to that, XBMC is way better and easier to use.

oh, yes. MediaPortal had a great plugin for TV Shows, and that plugin
beats the hell out of XBMC's TV Shows capabilities.

also, moovida? anyone tried it? it emerged from elisa_mediacenter
and imho its crap. elisa had the fastest playback support i've seen
so far. no delays, ffwd works perfectly... just a tiny program that
works as advertised. too bad it had only a few extra options.

XBMC kicks ass!

I'm probably pretty qualified to talk about this since I help run the meedio forums and am a recent XBMC convert

XBMC is great, smooth, trouble free, beautiful but what it still misses from Meedio.....

- Multiple library support
- Customized menu support
- Index view for the first letter (so you can group media by the first letter, e.g. Movies >> index view >> All movies starting with G)
- Grouping movies or songs into a set (Alien trilogy shows as one movie entry, then goes down to a second level with all movie sequels in order)
- Rating songs from the list view with 1 click on the number keys (currently takes 5 clicks to rate a song 5/5 in xbmc)
- Internal system messaging (so plugin developers can easily interact with xbmc internals with a standard set of messages "music.play" "movies.pause" but for all parts of xbmc, not just media playback)
- Internal datafeeds so plugin authors can send messages to the user and GUI in standard ways. Also allows plugins to talk to other plugins.
- External player support with conditions for video extensions, or filenames, or types. E.G. different players for youtube videos, or x264 videos.
- A standard plugin repository linked to the xbmc.org site
- A user voting system for working and non working plugins
- Media flagging (think this just got in, awesome work)
- Music jukebox (all music actions on one screen with no popups or need to go to a menu to browse music, works like a traditional jukebox)
- Ability to launch external applications from a menu item (currently have to click about 5 times just to launch a games emulator or web browser)
- Internal XBMC GUI web browser
- Client server setup (multiple htpc's attached to a central database or server somewhere else in the house)

So for this reason I wrote a guide to integrate xbmc with meedio as a menu item, best of both worlds

krow Wrote:i agree. meedio was crap. mediaportal, on the other hand, was good. nice program, superior video quality over XBMC (sorry, it is)

As far as I know MediaPortal does not have a built-in video player as XBMC does so the video quality depends on which external player you use with MediaPortal. XBMC now also has external player support, all be it does not work as integrated as the XBMC's embedded video player.

krow Wrote:MP can read tags from your files, xvid, divx, etc, subtitles. no need to manually scan every movie with a 3rd party program.

XBMC can do this too now! See => http://xbmc.org/theuni/2009/06/15/media-...g-support/

krow Wrote:XBMC vs mediaportal. XBMC wins, although, there has to be a way to incorporate postprocessing methods into XBMC.

Note that post-processing filters only alter the perceived video quality which is subjective, though many like to have it.

...and XBMC for Linux with VDPAU enabled on NVIDIA also has post-processing filter capability for H.264
The Windows equivalent, DXVA, is discussed here => http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33323

zag2me Wrote:- Internal system messaging (so plugin developers can easily interact with xbmc internals with a standard set of messages "music.play" "movies.pause" but for all parts of xbmc, not just media playback)
- Internal datafeeds so plugin authors can send messages to the user and GUI in standard ways. Also allows plugins to talk to other plugins.

XBMC already has this, they are called "built in functions", commands that can be used by both skins, plugins, scripts, and keymapping, see:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Built_In_Scripting
and
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=List_of_Built_In_Functions
and:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Web_Server_HTTP_API
(Yes these can not only use used via the web server)

Note that "plugins" does not mean the same thing in the world of XBMC as they do in Meedio/MeediOS and MediaPortal worlds:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Add-ons

zag2me Wrote:- External player support with conditions for video extensions, or filenames, or types. E.G. different players for youtube videos, or x264 videos.

Very latest XBMC SVN supports this:
http://trac.xbmc.org/milestone/9.10

zag2me Wrote:- Music jukebox (all music actions on one screen with no popups or need to go to a menu to browse music, works like a traditional jukebox)

huh? ...start a new discussion in the feature discussion forum if one does not already exist for this concept.

zag2me Wrote:- Ability to launch external applications from a menu item (currently have to click about 5 times just to launch a games emulator or web browser)

That is skinnable today via the above mentioned "built in functions", commands, ...maybe not very user-friendly but it works as a workaround until we get out own games library support.

Well having been a Media Portal user for few years I have (last week) switched to XBMC so my comments may be limited but, generally :--


I find XBMC :-

[INDENT][/INDENT]Far more user friendly - wife and kids agree here too.

[INDENT][/INDENT]More stable.

[INDENT][/INDENT]Has enough capabilities for our purposes

[INDENT][/INDENT]Friendly and helpful forum.

Compared to Media Portal

[INDENT][/INDENT]Media Portal is far more high maintenance just to keep [INDENT][/INDENT]relatively stable
[INDENT][/INDENT]Slightly slower on my set up
[INDENT][/INDENT]Complicated for complicated sake
[INDENT][/INDENT]Has too many (for us) functions/options
[INDENT][/INDENT]Slower to boot
[INDENT][/INDENT]Hangs more frequently than XBMC
[INDENT][/INDENT]Has a better system for image grabbing
[INDENT][/INDENT]Better options within the menus - but bordering on too [INDENT][/INDENT]much..." complicated for... "
[INDENT][/INDENT]More skins available
[INDENT][/INDENT]The SVN download procedures were much clearer for me


I guess it’s a case of get what suits you, and for me its XBMC all the way now. I appreciate that I may be a 'limited' user of my htpc and if you wanted more functionality, customisation options then have a look at MP.

Please all I’m not intending to start a battle with this post these are merely my opinions on what we need here.

Keep up the good work all and keep XBMC un-complicated

Compromises sometimes have to be made, and then the needs of the many may have to outweigh the needs of the few.

http://xbmc.org/about/vision/

Quote:Vision

Putting it into one sentence, the vision of Team-XBMC is to create the best cross-platform media center software there is, XBMC should always be the de facto standard that other media center applications are measured against, whether they are based on commercial or free open source software.

The XBMC manifesto

This XBMC ‘manifesto’ is Team-XBMC’s public declaration of the XBMC project members principles, philosophy, and intentions. This manifesto tries to outline the goals we aim and hope to achieve with XBMC, and sum up the XBMC project’s strategic direction vision for the present and the future.

User-friendliness is next to godliness

One major ongoing goal of Team-XBMC has always been to continuously try to make XBMC Media Center and its user interface feel even more intuitive and user-friendly for its end-users, based on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle of simplicity, (which is to simplify, without dumbing down). It is our belief that usability is the most important aspect of a media center like XBMC. Many other media center projects make user interface decisions by developers, who often have little experience in user interface design. In contrast, Team-XBMC does its best to listen to XBMC’s end-users to learn how XBMC is actually being used and how we can improve the user experience. We also aim to do regular overhauls, improving existing features/functions, and scrapping outdated code and features/functions (as “too much stuff” adds unnecessary complexity and can thus also be a bad thing). Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

XBMC as a whole must…

• First and foremost be aimed at a large-screen (28″ or larger) 10-foot GUI (graphical user interface) for the living-room experience. Large menus, text/fonts and buttons that is before anything designed to be navigated by a hand-held remote-control as the single input device capable of performing everything in the GUI.
• Be focused around the main features of playing music, watching movies, recorded television broadcasts, streaming online content, and viewing pictures. XBMC may be capable of converging other areas of digital media as well but those things should never take over the main focus in the interface.
• Be easy to install, set up and maintain, so that our valuable end-users do not get fed up with it and quit. XBMC Media Center should always be designed to let users be up-and-running as soon as possible after the initial installation, no need to to fiddle around with settings to get started, XBMC should work straight out-of-the-box.
• Have an user interface that is simple and intuitive enough so that less tech-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 encoded using DivX, XviD, etc. directly out-of-the-box.
• Be able to organize audio and video files in an easy and user-friendly way.
• Use standards and be consistent, (the Music section can for example not use completely different controls from the Video section).
• Perform all and any actions in the GUI with as few ‘clicks’ as possible.
• Be aimed at an international audience, internationalization and localization by supporting different languages, timezones and other regional differences
• Require no non-GUI configuration for normal operating and very little no non-GUI configuration for advanced configuration (and all such non-GUI configuration should be done in just one file: advancedsettings.xml). There is still a little work to be done here, for example RSS-feeds configuration need to moved to the GUI.
• Last but not least, be beautiful to look at, after all, we hope you will be using it a lot!

Team-XBMC members should always strive to…

• Promote open source - XBMC is based on the ideas of FOSS (free open source software), licensed under the GPL and builds partly on other open source projects which we do our best to support. The GPL should be respected at all times. All code should be committed to the XBMC project’s SVN before any public binaries are released.
• Promote the sharing of knowledge and collaboration - Through the use of information sharing tools and practices XBMC is a collaborative environment.
• Understand that development is a team effort - Treating our users as co-developers has proven to be the most effective option for rapid development. Always strive to work as a team at all times. Actively promote discussion on new features and bug fixes, and respect others comments and criticisms with replies in a timely fashion.
• Apply the Law of Diminishing Return - The majority of the effort should be invested in implementing features which have the most benefit and widest general usage by the community.
• Try to make all code, feature, and functions to be platform agnostic - XBMC is a multi-platform software, thus any single platform specific features should be discussed with other team members before implemented, and software portability should always be kept in mind. All major new features and functions should be developed in a separate branch or committed in small increments so that other members have the opportunity to review the code and comment on it during development.

The fact is as XBMC Media Center is no longer only a niche product for a people that mod their Xbox for it, XBMC can not be everything including the kitchen sink to everyone, some people might feel that this limits or restricts them, however others might understand that this bring stability and makes it more user-friendly to use for the larger majority of end-users. So while we are not Microsoft or Apple, thus we can still be very flexible, XBMC is today aimed for the masses, as a product by the people for the people.

marcus d Wrote:I find XBMC :-

[INDENT][/INDENT]Far more user friendly - wife and kids agree here too.

[INDENT][/INDENT]More stable.

[INDENT][/INDENT]Has enough capabilities for our purposes

@marcus d, you seem to be in XBMC target audience sweetspot there

Again, IMHO, XBMC is almost perfect, not just the way it operates but the whole ethos of the devs. Keep it lean and simple as a base product yet if anyone wants to code up some add ons go for it but make them an option... if you want it get it and use it, if you dont want it, well at least you dont have a ton of options that you will not ever use, clogging up the UI and the sw.

From my Media Portal days it seemed that a lot of good add ons were available yet too many were incorporated into the base product. MP fans dont get me wrong its a stunning bit of kit but a tad too stunning (!!) for us simple/base users. Im confident that I was nowhere close to using MP to its full potential, because I never needed/wanted to.

My final plea to the devs....." If it aint broke, dont fix it " keep it lean and mean.

Oh and a big thanks for all the hard work put/being put in, Im here to stay

Hi. I am a long time Meedio user (and before that it's predecessor MyHTPC) who recently spend several weeks evaluating XBMC. So here is the view from "the other side"!

As has been mentioned earlier MeediOS is in Alpha. This needs to be considered when evaluating.

Whilst there is no doubt that XBMC is easier to get up and running there is also no doubt that Meedio and now MeediOS offers infinitely more powerful user configuration and library manipulation. This does make it hard to setup if you are not familiar with it. Much of this will be addressed by pre-packed themes nearer to full (or even beta) release. But, yes, it is likely MeediOS will always have a steeper learning curve than XBMC. However in return you get:

- A very flexible plugin architecture that allows even relatively inexperienced programmers to enhance MeediOS though importers (meaning web scrapers), modules, themes, and (with MeediOS) even audio/video players

- An infinitely more flexible UI allowing the configuration e.g. of nested menu items with any name, icon, background you wish. This, for example, allows you to have a single "TV" button at the top level with a sub menu showing "TV Shows" (normal XBMC TV Show style module) and "HULU", "NetFlix", "BBC iPlayer" and any other online or offline TV resources you may want. You no longer have to hide all your non-standard stuff under "Games".

- A very powerful library that though use of multiple importers (scrapers) or direct editing can contain just about anything you want. You can have as many libraries as you want all individually accessible from the menu.

- Even the screens are editable by the "power user" so you can change the tags from your library displayed on any screen and rearrange/resize things to your heart's content.

- More powerful multi-player capability with "Playmee" plugin

All this needs to be considered when trying out MeediOS when you are used to the simple but, for a Meedio user, limited user capabilities of XBMC.

Whoa, Zag is on the XBMC forum. I used to use your plugins with meedio. I wanted to say this and clear any misconception. Maybe I miss understood, but it was said that meediOS's core is based on an outdated core from developers who dropped it years ago. MEEDIO was canned years ago and has been hacked to death. Fanart loads very slow on MEEDIO.

MeediOS on the other is being written from scratch and if you watch the new videos which are found here http://www.meedios.com, you will see that fanart and the GUI in general are much faster and run smoothly.

I just wanted people to realize that Meedio and MeediOS are two different programs based around the same idea. MeediOS is built to resemble everything that their community loved about Meedio, but incorporate all the features that will benefit the software to run more efficiently and perform better.

visiti http://www.meedios.com and read trough the forums. They have some great coders, but unfortunately there aren't as many people skinning for them. XBMC has the best skinners around, NO DOUBT.

I used Meedio Waaaaay back when it was MyHTPC, and paid for a Meedio license the day it was available. I used it up until the day that Pablo sold out to Yahoo.

What I liked about Meedio
- massively configurable, but still fairly simple
-- the backend and databases were a thing of beauty
-- the menu was simple to configure in the backend, allowed easy entry creation using built-in components, plugins and external players and associated with appropriate database tabel for media
- Meedio Add-Ins Directory(MAID)
- control scheme/remote setup was easier/less time consuming than XBMC

What I didn't like
- Performance, when Pablo started using .NET the software started being too much for for my EPIA platform ( I saw this as an unnecessary bloat)
- Windows only, hey you get more performance out of linux as we all know
- wasn't as stable as it could be(and of course support went bye-bye after Yahoo bought Pablo out)