Australian Control4 announced integration with XBMC - open source cross-platform media center software. Using a web interface provided by XBMC Control4 users can control media playback from touchscreen panels, ZigBee remove control and keypads.
You can see that integration after jump.
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I left the LinuxMCE core/hybrid and didn’t assemble the new one yet. So, I use my laptop or old desktop to watch movies. With desktop is everything fine. It run Kubuntu 0804 and I installed there Boxee - nice looking, social media center software. But there is Fedora 9 on my laptop and Boxee doesn’t offer binaries for it. There is an only one way to install Boxee from the source.
I found nice tutorial which explains how to install XBMC on Fedora 9. Since Boxee is based on XBMC I tried to use it to build Boxee. But without luck. By some reason the xbmc.bin wasn’t created.
Then I tried to build XBMC using recommendations from that tutorial. Finally I did it. XBMC is run under Fedora 9 without any problems. Will try to build Boxee again as well. Maybe the second time will be successful.
UPDATE: Finally I built Boxee under Fedora 10 (for 9 should be the same). The trick is that. Instead of running make install after make finishes the script make-boxee.sh should be run. I didn’t adjust it for Fedora 10 and it gave me a lot of warnings. But as result I was able run Boxee successfully.
UPDATE2: There is a problem with Boxee under Fedora 10. Instead of playback I see the fast-forward. Also Boxee crashes with Segmentation Fault very often. Will try to build with the fresh sources tonight.
Recently the Beta 1 of Linux-based media center software XBMC was released. Originally created for Microsoft XBox it’s available now for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. There is a possibility to try Atlantis without installation (thanks to LiveCD).
XBMC offers a full set of features for HTPC: organize media library, playback video files, listen music, show photos. Its functionality can be extended using plugins and GUI can be customized using themes. There is an only one missed feature - Personal Video Recorder (PVR). But according to rumors XBMC development team is working to implement it. Definitely it won’t be in this release. Because the final version is scheduled for October right after Ubumtu 8.10.
I played with Boxee - another media center software with social features. XBMC team participates its development. I like Boxee. It’s really good and user friendly. There is only one reason why I don’t use it on my media center - lack of PVR functionality. I’m going to play a bit with Atlantis too.
Recently I found information about new HTPC software - Boxee. The Boxee is a first “social” media center. it plays media from your computer and other devices in your home network, as well as connect you to various Internet sources that allow you to stream or download movies, tv shows, music and photos.
The Boxee was started in 2007 and is based on the XBMC open-source project. Currently two alpha versions of Boxee are available - for Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X. The Windows version is planning later this year.
There are no sreenshots or details on the project’s site. I sent request for alpha testing but didn’t receive invitation yet. Will share my experience when get and install it on my PC.