XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support - Page 88

Not trying to be smart but did you even read the description, the clues in the name 'Official XBMC Remote' the second screenshot shows the remote and yes it can be used to control from a gui as well. I don't think at this time there is the ability to playback media to the phone using that app - its merely a 'remote'

Bitstreaming is part of the Beta build and has been available since around May in the nightly builds.

Go with Yatse. It's a great remote for XBMC on android devices. You can try the free version, then buy the unlocker (cheap) to add more skins. It was just updated with some very cool new themes!

BTW, the "official" XBMC remote has not been updated for some time... the developer is said to be woking on a new version for XBMC 12 (Frodo).

Is there a way to (without bitstreaming using protected hardware to external device) decode TrueHD and DTS-HD MA without forced down sampling to 16bits/48kHz? It is really silly the studios try to make it so hard. Why even bother with anything more than 16bits/48kHz and what pirate actually cares about 16bits vs 24bits uncompressed???

EDIT: Or wait, it looks like XMBC actually can decode DST-HD MA fully now since last May I take it, so I guess all should be good then. Awesome! Finally.
Edited by skibum5000 - 11/17/12 at 4:05pm

Can anyone point me to some "Feature Presentation" and "Coming Attraction" videos to use for Cinema Experience ? I've got all the DTS and Dolby videos, and I'm using THX videos for the theater intro.

I'm also using those pixar trivia slides, but I'd like some more movie slides. A lot of the links I've found via AVS go to megaupload which is gone.

XBMC cannot decode DTS-HD, only to 'core' DTS, TrueHD can.

Haven't seen GreenEyez around in a while. Does anyone know if he is still around? He did such a great job with the setup guide, that I am excited to see what he does for the new stuff, e.g. Aeon MQ4, etc...

12 Frodo says it has "HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine" so you may be incorrect, now.

No it supports those formats on 'passthrough/bitstreaming' (and has done since early May this year), but not on decoding - 2 entirely different methods of achieving audio, other than what I already posted.

Well then, I guess I'll stick with Splash Pro EX media player for files and PowerDVD 12 Ultra for BD play back. Both support Master and TrueHD play back.

Can you explain the difference, I'm confused. Passthrough?

The audio signal is passed raw from xbmc to a receiver (and the little logos on the front of the AV Receiver light up), which then decodes the signal into either DTS-MA HD, TrueHD, DD or DTS.

The other method, the signal is decoded by the player and sent to the receiver in PCM format. Using this method xbmc will decode TrueHD, DD and DTS, but with DTS-MA HD it will decode and play only the 'core' DTS stream.

Why? from what I can see Splash Pro EX doesn't 'decode' the formats either - it will 'bitstream' them to a receiver, as will xbmc. PowerDVD I don't know about, but doesn't it downsample?

Splash Pro EX plays back all files that have Master or TrueHD as Master and TrueHD, if you have an HDMI connection to an AVR as I do. It does not need to decode the files, it just plays back DTS, DD, Master and TrueHD files with DTS, DD, Master and TrueHD audio.

Please re-read my answer - so does XBMC. XBMC will natively bitstream those formats to a receiver via HDMI, in the same way. I never said it needed to decode, but was responding and correcting a comment that DTS-MA HD could be decoded by XBMC, which it can't.

So for the avoidance of any further doubt on your side - XBMC can bitstream all HD audio formats, providing you have the correct equipment to do so.

I am trying to use XBMC on an Asus laptop.V 11 will freeze at the welcome screen, V12 will load and work for movies. When I hit the music tab it locks up...
Any thoughts ?

Need more info... what is the hardware (CPU, mem, etc) on your laptop? Are you running windows7, 32bit/64bit, older windows, linux? Any other problems with other applications?

I'd stick to V11 for troubleshooting since it is the stable release.

Intel pentium, Windoes 7 Premium, 4G, 64 bit, no problems with other programs.
Winamp plays music fine, VLC plays movies.

^well, it should run without a hitch on your system. That is strange. You might try to uninstall and re-install and see if you get the same problem. Might be a driver issue, you could try updating video drivers.. You could try disabling antivirus software to see if that is part of the problem. Might want to post the error logs on the XBMC forum. You could try to "run as administrator" to see if it is some kind of permissions issue.

That's all I got.

Brand new to XBMC and I read the guide but it doesn't cover live TV / PVR from what I see. I have read a few posts mentioning it, but haven't seen one explaining how far along EDEN or even Frodo is with PVR.

I tried out OpenElec on my Raspberry Pi and didn't get too far because I don't understand Linux at all or how to load my HdHomerun drivers with OpenElec or its embedded XBMC Eden. If I run XBMC on windows, do I have to worry with any other drivers, or just load a PVR front end and back end (terms I am just learning since Media center didn't have those)?

Is the live TV and PVR/guide capability in XBMC with addons as robust as Media center? I am mainly interested in this as I have a Media Center install that seems to have become corrupted and I am going to do a full wipe and reinstall. I figured this would be a good time to play with something else.

Can't answer all the questions very well, but I have a walkthrough with some screenshots of live tv and recordings in XBMC http://www.avsforum.com/t/1440470/xbmc-livetv-pvr-with-hd-homerun-prime-keeps-wmc-functional

Running XBMC on Windows gets a lot installed, but you'll need a PVR backend that works with your tuner. It may or may not come prebundled with the appropriate drivers. XBMCBuntu running a MythTV installation appears to support a lot of different tuners, including the HDHomerun

I'm happily running WMC and XBMC on the same system with the HDHomerun Prime. Live TV is working on both

A PVR backend will install and allow you to watch TV / schedule recordings independently of XBMC, so the required tuner setup and drivers will have to be done by the backend

I just installed XBMC Eden on Windows 7 Pro yesterday and with very little time/effort had everything up and running complete with tuned display, hardware video, and HDMI audio+video right to my receiver (Marantz - no scaling at AVR for this).

While that may not seem like a big deal or worthy of a post, I'm an old time Xbox Media Player/Center fan from the original modded Xbox days (circa 2002-2003). When those finally crapped out I've gone through a hell of a time with the Linux builds getting everything in order, have had random issues with file sharing, and never got HDMI sound correctly despite spending HOURS and doing optical and finally just settling on 2 channel analog after a while. This was amazing. Runs great right out of the box. I think we may finally be getting close to the age of HTPC ready for prime-time (except for Blu-Ray inflicted pain).

In addition to media the Windows change was precipitated by wanting to run this box as an emulator hub for MAME and classic consoles too. Very greatful I didn't go through my usual HTPC hell this time around.

I followed this guide to a T, and my XBMC setup went very smooth. The only thing I am having issues with is installing Skins and having them work as intended. Also, when I launch XBMC, it automatically goes to my "add movie file" page...which i dont understand why.

Switching from media portal. Transfer movie/TV database?

Any users of both know if this is possible? I spent hours getting all my shows and movies properly selected with the external movingpictures/mytvshows programs and would hate to have to rename every file again inside xbmc. Can I somehow have xbmc import the mp database or is there a 3rd party app which will allow me to batch edit everything?

As long as your folder/file is named accurately and in accordance with the source db they should scrape fine. AFAIK MP and XBMC db's are not cross compatible

It took a while for me to commit to XBMC, but I now feel the need to go create one of those "XBMC is so awesome why did I wait so long" posts and add it to my signature

Extra cool stuff so far . . .

-Passkey lite (free) running in the background (on startup) makes all of my blu ray discs playable with the "Play Disc" feature (Only main title, no menus)
-Official XBMC Remote in Play Store didn't work, but this one did https://github.com/tombriden/android-xbmcremote/downloads
-With the remote running (but screen locked) XBMC pauses playback and displays contact info for incoming calls, and a pop up notification for text messages

Running Eden on Win7. I use MCM for my metadata. When I add new movie sets or collections, XBMC no longer lists them as sets in my movies library. It just lists each movie individually as if they are not part of a set.

This only happens when a new set is added to the library. Existing sets are still displayed as sets. And it is not a metadata problem. If I remove an existing set from my library and then add it back, it is no longer recognized as a set, even though no metadata has changed.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

By the way, if you want to play blu-ray folders or menus with an external player using Frodo, you'll need to install one of the nightlies that came after the beta, as that bug was not fixed until after the beta came out There's still no support for blu-ray iso's yet.

Just downloaded Frodo last night and installed on my Win 7 PC. I must say overall its very cool. I REALLY liked being able to natively play back Blu Ray ISO files without mounting anything and without external software like Total Media Theater. Going straight to the movie with no menus is a mixed blessing though. Its nice sometimes to just start the movie with no extra screens, trailers, warnings, etc, but then there is the issue of not being able to pull up a menu if the ISO is a Blu ray of a TV show with multiple episodes. I guess the only fix for that is the launch a third party program like TMT?

I also got live TV working with a Mediaportal back end and Mediaportal client, but I cannot get the guide to pull the correct channel data along with my HDhomerun. WMC doesnt do this either until I manually set it, but I dont see where I can tell it "here is the channel, use this data" like I can in WMC. Is that in Frodo somewhere? (I did make the data in the HDhomerun tool match the callsigns from Zap2it, but that didnt help. (It didnt help WMC either, so like I said, I have to manually fix that).

I have no thoughts other than to confirm that it isn't working for me either

Since I'm new to XBMC, I didn't realize that it had ever worked None of my trilogies or anthologies show up as collections. Only mildly annoying, but I'd be interested in a fix as well

I got XBMC to recognize sets by manually editing the .nfo (as detailed in the XBMC wiki). I had to update the parameter, then remove the files from the XBMC library and then re-update the library.

What is odd, is that my old collections/sets do not have anything listed in the parameter of the .nfo yet they are still recognized as sets by XBMC.