Another death nail on Google TV?

http://xbmc.org/theuni/2011/01/20/you-asked-for-it-xbmc-for-appletv2-ipad-iphone4/

by gaiusparx • 16 years ago

8 9 16 years ago

I've been running XBMC as my media centre for years now, first on a hacked XBox (original) and then on a hacked Apple TV (first gen).

It's a great piece of software, happily streaming from my NAS box, playing music, etc. Not found anything it doesn't play yet.

And there are remote control apps for iPhone and Android too!

fierarul• 16 years ago

I've heard of XBMC but I never saw the need for it as it seems to require all this ecosystem around it (storage for movies, computers for downloads, etc) so I might just as well use a laptop directly.

Has it reached a point where I can just install it on some hardware (which?) and leave it at my parents', connected to their TV?

General usecases I see: normal TV(maybe PiP, timeshift, record), youtube, local/remote photos, CD/DVD movie playback, ideally semi-automatic torrent download.

AndrewDucker3• 16 years ago

It's just a media (photos/music/TV) player.

It's better than a laptop because it just sits under the TV, and you can get it on a box for about $100. Personally, my TV is hooked up to an amp, sits in front of the sofa, and is a much better experience than watching things on a laptop.

If you want timeshifting and recording then you want something like a Tivo (or MythTV if you want to do that yourself).

anateus• 16 years ago

That sounds like an interesting eggcorn that I haven't heard before, probably derived from "death knell" with echos of "another nail in the coffin".

I see that it's been already discussed at the Eggcorn Database forum: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1195 so it's at least somewhat common

For reference, an eggcorn is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

lylejohnson• 16 years ago

"Death Nail" would also make a great name for a heavy metal band.

AndrewDucker3• 16 years ago

You'd probably want an umlaut over the a in "Nail".

tomelders• 16 years ago

Do you mean "nail in the coffin" or "death knell".

Sorry to be the grammar Nazi, just trying to help.

jbeluch• 16 years ago

One of my favorite things about XBMC is the plugins. The plugins are basically web scrapers that present content within the interface. If there isn't one you want for a particular website, build your own! They're written in python and could make a fun weekend project. Once your done commit it to the official repository.

teilo• 16 years ago

$99 for a box that can very effectively stream video from your NAS? Sounds like a winner to me.

I run Plex (a Mac-only XMPC derivative) on a Mac Mini, but $699 is a lot more than $99. If your storage is NAS already, about the only advantage the Mac Mini has over a jailbroken AppleTV2 is the ability to play Hulu through Safari and not get blocked. (Well, it's also a lot faster and mostly future-proof as new codecs are introduced.)

Another death nail on Google TV?

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