[dhole]

Hello All

Ime new on this forum as Ive just recently installed XBMC . My initial impressions were good, having installed it and playing around it looked cool.
I soon noticed that the legacy of the interface put it at a bit of a disadvantage but this minimal approach is part of its appeal.

I wanted to use XBMC on my newly aquired mac mini to play all my flacs and movies, this is ok if not a little backward. I find the way XBMC handles the various dvd formats such as iso and ts folders as frustrating. Something that vlc seems to get around by recognising the files contained ( not that vlc does the rest but just that it has been programmed to assist.
This is a minor gripe I guess.
My audio files play fine, thumbnails for albums are found 60% of the time but thats beaten by several android apps Ive had that find 100%....

I installed the iplayer plugin and again first impression were good. When I used it in anger I was plagued by crashes that crippled XBMC. Shame as this was a good feature nearly well executed.

So Im starting to look for another media centre that isnt a legacy system because it seems XBMC cant really cut it.
Am I being to short to judge ? Is there alot of tweaking to do here....? or do I just expect too much from a mac mini and XBMc... ?

dave

[branlr]

Don't really know what you mean by "legacy"....

I've never had a problem playing ANY format in xbmc, including isos and video_ts...

The thing about scraping fanart--it isn't magic with xbmc... if something isn't showing up, it's because the naming or metadata does not match the database being scraped.

I can promise you... if you stick with it long enough to learn how to structure things so that everything is showing up and your formats are playing, it is the best damn interface there is, and it will take any format you throw at it as far as I know.


Regarding the plugin that crashes xbmc, post in that plugin's forum and see if you can get some help. It may be there is something you can do, and the forums have tons of info.

[dhole]

[quote=branlr]Don't really know what you mean by "legacy"....


Hello

By legacy I mean X-box legacy, the interface was first designed for a games console and to be controlled in a limited way by limited users .

Yeah I read about scraping and stuff, thats the thing shouldnt the software be doing the work in finding my art and not me ? this is a computer not a child waiting for instuction. But yeah I get what your saying.... Just that good programming is good programming.... or..... some programming is good programming

dave

[jmarshall]

XBMC is designed to be used on a TV, primarily with a remote control.

If you're using it on a desktop machine with a mouse or similar, then yes, it's not what you want - use something else designed for that purpose. Finder + VLC may suffice for your needs.

If it can't find your artwork, then it's usually due to clashes in names, but it may be something very simple you can fix. You'll need to be specific about exactly what artwork it doesn't find, what the tags are in the music files and so on in order for us to be of any assistance to you.

It's also helpful if you try to stay positive/constructive with your remarks or criticism - the text-only forum means that sometimes the nuance of language can be missed and things taken the wrong way. Folk are more willing to help out those they perceive to have positive attitudes rather than those perceived to be negative.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[jonheal]

Hello All

Ime new on this forum as Ive just recently installed XBMC . My initial impressions were good, having installed it and playing around it looked cool.
I soon noticed that the legacy of the interface put it at a bit of a disadvantage but this minimal approach is part of its appeal.

I wanted to use XBMC on my newly aquired mac mini to play all my flacs and movies, this is ok if not a little backward. I find the way XBMC handles the various dvd formats such as iso and ts folders as frustrating. Something that vlc seems to get around by recognising the files contained ( not that vlc does the rest but just that it has been programmed to assist.
This is a minor gripe I guess.
My audio files play fine, thumbnails for albums are found 60% of the time but thats beaten by several android apps Ive had that find 100%....

I installed the iplayer plugin and again first impression were good. When I used it in anger I was plagued by crashes that crippled XBMC. Shame as this was a good feature nearly well executed.

So Im starting to look for another media centre that isnt a legacy system because it seems XBMC cant really cut it.
Am I being to short to judge ? Is there alot of tweaking to do here....? or do I just expect too much from a mac mini and XBMc... ?

dave

I'm using XBMC on a fairly lame machine, a 1.66 GHz circa 2006 Mac Mini, and I'm using it with great satisfaction. I rarely have a crash, and when I do, it's hardly crippling. I relaunch XBMC and carry on. Most of my audio is FLAC and all my movies are ripped VIDEO_TS folders. No issues.

As for cover images, fortunately, I'm anal and like to scan my own so I don't care if XBMC can find them or not. YMMV and apparently it has.

Anyway, I think it's probably unrealistic to expect a FREE open-source project like XBMC to be "set it and forget it." Things like this tend to require a little care and feeding.

[Jeroen]

Yeah I read about scraping and stuff, thats the thing shouldnt the software be doing the work in finding my art and not me ?

This baffles me. The software will do the work for you. But how on earth is the software going to be able to find the correct matches if your filestructure of file naming is a mess?

And why do people keep on comparing mediacenters with apps like VLC? They're two entirely different beasts. VLC doesn't do anything like scraping to my knowledge so how you come to the conclusion that XBMC lacks in comparison is beyond me.

I hardly do any big effort, yet XBMC scrapes 95% of the movies and tv shows correctly for me.

You put out a lot of criticism without actually pointing out what could be better (and how!), like most (of the few) people actually complaining.

By legacy I mean X-box legacy, the interface was first designed for a games console and to be controlled in a limited way by limited users .

Limited in what way? How should it be different? I operate my htpc in an identical way as I did with my xbox. Don't tell me you're using a mouse.

Funny how you never seemed to take any effort, yet feel the need to slam XBMC. Before this thread you posted once about a problem with iPlayer. You were advised to post a debug log in order to identify the problem (and thus possibly improving it), yet you didn't take any effort.

[toddwv]

I've been using XBMC for a little while now. I just recently started moving my dvd collection to storage after finally making the plunge and buying a 2tb hdd. I ripped some to iso and put them in a folder.

The scraping was pretty much automated. There were a few issues that were resolved by adding underlines, dates or a sequence number to the name of the file, but once I did wala, problem solved.

[winestock]

Hi dhole,

About a month ago I switched from using front-row to XBMC. I was using the DVDPedia front-row plug-in. I have all my DVD movies ripped as VIDEO_TS folders on 2 2TB HD. I share one XBMC library between 3 different rooms using a 2008 24" iMac, a 2009 17" Macbook Pro and a 2009 2.0 GHz Mac-Mini.

When I first stated using XBMC there was a slight learning curve which had to do with learning how to effectively use the media scraper. The naming of my movies does not strictly adhere to the XBMC naming convention and still the media scrapper has been able to identify about 99% of my DVD movies. For the odd cases, I created .nfo files.

I have my Mac-Mini running 1080p 60Hz to a 50" Pioneer Kuro Plasma TV and all my DVD movies play beautifully, no stuttering at all. I even stream the DVDs to two other rooms using XBMC with equal satisfaction.

Having XBMC show fanart is one of the reasons I wanted to switch over to using XBMC. The other reason was the ability to change the skin. Right now I am using the Transparency skin.

The only way you will know if XBMC is right for you is to spend some time playing around with trying to setup a few movies. This is what I did initially. I think if you attempt to tactical everything all at once then you may find yourself getting frustrated and declare XBMC not usable.

[branlr]

Everyone here is right on the money...

Plugins are basically separate programs entirely that need to be worked through on their own, and the best way to do that is to post debug logs in the forum for the plugin.

As far as scraping--it actually works really well, but your files need to be named correctly. It's that simple. Info on how to do that is in the wiki.

That said, I really hope you don't get too down on XBMC, because it is seriously an awesome program.

Also, the forum is actually really receptive to constructive criticism, but when people expect too much and post critical reviews out of disappointment about things that simply aren't the fault of the developers, people can get defensive. This is because lots of unpaid time and effort goes into making XBMC, and when people basically post "WTF?! This SUCKS! I don't get it..." it sort of degrades the people who gave us this great software for absolutely nothing in return.

[dhole]

Thankyou everyone for your replies! Looks like there is some helpfull info contained
I'll have a proper read through in a sec.

Maybe I have been harsh in my initial impressions but I am quite anal. I guess having to look into a ts folder to find the ifo file to play a dvd in that format is one of my main gripes. I refer to vlc in this instance as in windowz it recognises any folder containing a ts folder and ifo file as a dvd at top level alowing opening without delving into the folder. Just thought that this could have been implemented in the movie section of XBMc with the greatest of ease but seems to have been overlooked ( or I am missing something ? )

Also I cant seem to work out how to seek without ffwd in movies ( ie moving along a timeline ) to choose a specific time within a movie .

The iplayer is admitedly a plugin yes. The fact it crashes xbmc to point I have to pull the plug on my mac mini is disturbing. Some debug feedback has been suggested and will be pursued.
Perhaps I am misssing the point of skins too , would I be right in thinking that they are more than visual formats and also contain different implementations of the interface ?
I will look at the scraping and see what I can do. It is just wierd that it shows the correct band/artist name and album but dosent find art in 40% of music files... I'll give it another go

I realised early on that using a mouse as a control device is undesirable as XBMC is optimised for ( originaly gamepad ) keyboard/remote control. This I am happy with.

I think the problems in general exposes the mac mini's weaknesses as it seems to be a bit underpowered for running a media centre and the os is quite bloated. The dvd drive is very slow ( I have found this with all macs I have used ) and dvd playback from drive or hd is hardly perfect. I only have 2gb ram so that is an obvious issue. The mac is ok in general but undermined by the os. I may stick windowz on as I know I can tweak it alot more.

I will persevere for the moment and try the suggestions.

Dave

[jmarshall]

Maybe I have been harsh in my initial impressions but I am quite anal. I guess having to look into a ts folder to find the ifo file to play a dvd in that format is one of my main gripes.

Turn on stacking - it's on the left in confluence. Ideally this would be enabled by default, I agree, however there are some issues with the way it's setup currently - it should be resolved in git HEAD soon. Note that if you scan your movies into the library then they're stacked by default.

If you're using the mouse, then unless you're on git HEAD (whereby you have a slider available), you don't have a way of seeking in most skins (again - it's designed for a remote). You can use the keyboard, ofcourse - the arrow keys do the seeking.

And yes, skins can definitely change the interface in substantial ways. I recommend sticking with Confluence or other similarly simple skins for a while - at least until you get the hang of things initially before exploring some of the more exotic skins. Some of the exotic skins require quite a bit of manual intervention to get the most out of them (collection of additional artwork and the like).

Let us know how you get on with the debugging - the iPlayer add-on should definitely not cause a crash regardless.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[sho]

XBMC is not optimised for gamepads and/or keyboard. It's optimized for remotes and always has been.
Anyhow, it looks like you should be looking into the Library function of XBMC.
Skip is usually via left/right (up/down big skip) on the remote (no idea on that horrendous Apple remote), or arrow keys on the keyboard.
I run XBMC Live on a 512MB machine with a shared video ram and it just works. (no optical drive as they are so 20th century), admittedly I mainly watch SD content.

[davilla]

TI think the problems in general exposes the mac mini's weaknesses as it seems to be a bit underpowered for running a media centre and the os is quite bloated. The dvd drive is very slow ( I have found this with all macs I have used ) and dvd playback from drive or hd is hardly perfect. I only have 2gb ram so that is an obvious issue. The mac is ok in general but undermined by the os. I may stick windowz on as I know I can tweak it alot more.

Nuke out OSX, Install Ubuntu Linux or Windows. That solves that problem about your dislike for OSX.

[winestock]

I think the problems in general exposes the mac mini's weaknesses as it seems to be a bit underpowered for running a media centre and the os is quite bloated. The dvd drive is very slow ( I have found this with all macs I have used ) and dvd playback from drive or hd is hardly perfect. I only have 2gb ram so that is an obvious issue. The mac is ok in general but undermined by the os.

Not sure why you think the MacMini is underpowered. I have a 2009 2.0GHz MacMini and it handles media center functions without a hickup. But then again I have 4GB installed in mine. Mac OS X is anything but bloated, quite the opposite. You sound like you are new to the Mac and OS X. I would suggest investing a few bucks for the 4GB upgrade. Once you get your movies ripped to the HD the optical drive speed will become a non-issue. I hardly use the optical drive in any of my Macs.

The button functions for the Apple remote are here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Glo...ple_Remote.

[dhole]

Again thanks for the replies. I'll try the stacking buisness too.

I think the iplayer hanging buiness is more the mac than anything. I had an external harddrive hang on copying files today and had to physicaly power down the drive to progress. It seems to be something with the os getting in toruble and not being able to stop its own processes. I thought this was a windows thing and people always tell me that their macs dont crash... now I know they are lying

Yeah I havent had my mac mini for long but Ive had macs before. I guess its a classic os and hardware thing isnt it. The os tends to evolve regardless of the hardware thus you always need a new machine ( not my idea but obviously the manufacturer ) The mac mini is essentially a low powered laptop without all the peripherals I know that. For me the osx interface is sluggish from the offset , long to boot and slow to do simple things but hey i didnt expect much more. I got it mainly for its size which is great and it looks cool, thats what mac does best.