XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3 is out

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3 has been released. A smaller update again, but includes some weather and scraper fixes, and some library updates. Changes since 3.5.1 include:

  • Improved compatibility with some Kodi addons.
  • Fixes for the TMDB scraper.
  • Fix for weather location search and data.
  • Python updated to 2.7.11 (including updated SQLite3/OpenSSL)
  • Fix for a problem with stuttering video.
  • FFMpeg libraries updated to 1.2.12 (the last of the 1.2 series)

Thanks

Thanks to Dom and tim619 for contributing patches. Thanks also to everyone who helps out on the forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5.3 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5.3/.

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3 is out

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3 has been released. A smaller update again, but includes some weather and scraper fixes, and some library updates. Changes since 3.5.1 include:

  • Improved compatibility with some Kodi addons.
  • Fixes for the TMDB scraper.
  • Fix for weather location search and data.
  • Python updated to 2.7.11 (including updated SQLite3/OpenSSL)
  • Fix for a problem with stuttering video.
  • FFMpeg libraries updated to 1.2.12 (the last of the 1.2 series)

Thanks

Thanks to Dom and tim619 for contributing patches. Thanks also to everyone who helps out on the forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5.3 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5.3/.

jwills.co.uk website update

Have been updating this site a little bit. I launched jwills.co.uk a short while ago as a way to connect things I work on in one place, and act as a bit of a portfolio site. I also had an old Magento blog, and a small website for the O2 Joggler which I wanted to manage in a single place.

So what’s new? Well, I have now switched the theme (off the shelf WordPress theme with minor tweaks – sorry!), and have added the following sections to Projects:

These are all projects I work on, or have contributed to. I also automatically pull in the news feeds from XBMC4Xbox and ExoticA to this site.

In other news, I have been busy on RetroPie getting it ready for the final 3.0 release, which I hope will be ready v.soon – there is an issue with a single emulator I want to look at, and then I’m happy to push out a new image.

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.1 is released

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.1 is now available. It is a minor update from 3.5 to fix some recent problems with scrapers and the Addon installer:

  • Fixes for the TMDB scraper – including search, certification, and images.
  • Updates to the Addons installer script – it now includes the XBMC Gotham repository, as well as the Kodi Helix repository. Unfortunately we have no working youtube addon currently as there was an API change on youtube which stopped the older youtube addon working. There is a newer one for Kodi, but it requires some changes to be made compatible with XBMC4Xbox.
  • Moved our XBMC4Xbox Addons repository off Google Code, since that service is closing down. It is now hosted on our own equipment along with the main XBMC4Xbox repository.

Thanks

Thanks to Dan Dar3 and Dom for contributing to the TMDB fixes. Thanks also to everyone who helps out on the forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5.1 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5.1/.

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.1 is released

XBMC4Xbox 3.5.1 is now available. It is a minor update from 3.5 to fix some recent problems with scrapers and the Addon installer:

  • Fixes for the TMDB scraper – including search, certification, and images.
  • Updates to the Addons installer script – it now includes the XBMC Gotham repository, as well as the Kodi Helix repository. Unfortunately we have no working youtube addon currently as there was an API change on youtube which stopped the older youtube addon working. There is a newer one for Kodi, but it requires some changes to be made compatible with XBMC4Xbox.
  • Moved our XBMC4Xbox Addons repository off Google Code, since that service is closing down. It is now hosted on our own equipment along with the main XBMC4Xbox repository.

Thanks

Thanks to Dan Dar3 and Dom for contributing to the TMDB fixes. Thanks also to everyone who helps out on the forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5.1 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5.1/.

XBMC4Xbox 3.5 is released

SettingsAfter more than a year’s work since v3.3, we are very pleased to announce XBMC4Xbox version v3.5. A large number of new features and improvements have been made since v3.3, including the integration of Python 2.7, improved video playback, updates to the skinning engine, scraper fixes, and plenty of bug fixes.

Key improvements:

Python 2.7 & API improvements

Python support in XBMC4Xbox has been overhauled, with the out of date Python 2.4 replaced with Python 2.7. This update, along with the addition of some missing API functions brings much better compatibility with Kodi (Formerly XBMC) plugins. The Addons4Xbox installer has also been updated, allowing many plugins written for Kodi to work right out of the box. The Python 2.7 update also brings performance improvements, and comes with fully working libraries for sqlite3, and SSL amongst others.

DVDPlayer updates

DVDPlayer (The main video player in XBMC4Xbox) has received numerous changes, including having the FFMpeg core libraries updated to v1.2.8 which brings a variety of new codecs, bug-fixes, and optimisations from the previous 0.10.x version. The libraries used for DVD navigation have also been updated which should bring better compatibility with problematic DVD menus.

Scraper fixes and clean-ups

We had a lot of broken and unmaintained scrapers with the previously version of XBMC4Xbox. With the 3.5 release only a few are included, but they are all maintained and working. We have scrapers for themoviedb.org, thetvdb.com as well as theaudiodb.com for music. Please do support and contribute to these open database projects, as the content and results are only as good as the information people have contributed.

PAPlayer updates

PAPlayer (the core audio player in XBMC4Xbox) has received some updates since the last version of XBMC4Xbox. DVDPlayer’s FFMpeg libraries are now used for decoding of some audio formats which means some of the old out of date libraries we used previously are no longer needed. This simplifies maintenance, and brings with it better performance and compatibility. The FFMpeg libraries are now used for OGG, FLAC, AAC, AC3,and DTS.

Skinning improvements

A variety of improvements have been backported from Kodi for the skin engine. This allows skins and features for Kodi to be more easily implemented. Thanks to the skin developers who requested changes/features and helped with testing. We currently ship with the same selection of skins as with v3.3 – Confluence Lite, Confluence, Project Mayhem III, and the PM3HD skin, but more can be found on the skin development section of our forum (such as the excellent Xbox Extended skin from Dom).

New branding

Thanks to SwedishGojira we now have our own project branding – our new XBMC4Xbox logo is used on our project site as well as for the XBMC4Xbox boot-up splash. Since the renaming of XBMC to Kodi, there has been some discussion regarding our name. I can confirm we are keeping the name XBMC4Xbox for our project. Changing it now would just introduce more confusion.

Transifex integration

Thanks to Kodi and their useful tools for handling translations, we are now using the on-line service Transifex to manage translations for the project. This means anyone who wants to help improve translations can now go and sign up over at https://www.transifex.com/organization/xbmc4xbox and start translating the software to their favourite language via the easy to use web interface. The updated translations can then be merged back into the XBMC4Xbox code base by us.

Bug fixes

There have been many bug fixes around the software with around 44 issues on the bugtracker resolved/fixed as well as more reported via the forum. Thanks to all those that have reported bugs, provided fixes & patches, and helped with testing.

Thanks

As well as the key features above, many other changes have been made with a lot of backported features and fixes from Kodi. Thanks to Team Kodi for creating our favourite media center software 🙂 Thanks also to all those who help and contribute to our project and forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5/.

XBMC4Xbox 3.5 is released

SettingsAfter more than a year’s work since v3.3, we are very pleased to announce XBMC4Xbox version v3.5. A large number of new features and improvements have been made since v3.3, including the integration of Python 2.7, improved video playback, updates to the skinning engine, scraper fixes, and plenty of bug fixes.

Key improvements:

Python 2.7 & API improvements

Python support in XBMC4Xbox has been overhauled, with the out of date Python 2.4 replaced with Python 2.7. This update, along with the addition of some missing API functions brings much better compatibility with Kodi (Formerly XBMC) plugins. The Addons4Xbox installer has also been updated, allowing many plugins written for Kodi to work right out of the box. The Python 2.7 update also brings performance improvements, and comes with fully working libraries for sqlite3, and SSL amongst others.

DVDPlayer updates

DVDPlayer (The main video player in XBMC4Xbox) has received numerous changes, including having the FFMpeg core libraries updated to v1.2.8 which brings a variety of new codecs, bug-fixes, and optimisations from the previous 0.10.x version. The libraries used for DVD navigation have also been updated which should bring better compatibility with problematic DVD menus.

Scraper fixes and clean-ups

We had a lot of broken and unmaintained scrapers with the previously version of XBMC4Xbox. With the 3.5 release only a few are included, but they are all maintained and working. We have scrapers for themoviedb.org, thetvdb.com as well as theaudiodb.com for music. Please do support and contribute to these open database projects, as the content and results are only as good as the information people have contributed.

PAPlayer updates

PAPlayer (the core audio player in XBMC4Xbox) has received some updates since the last version of XBMC4Xbox. DVDPlayer’s FFMpeg libraries are now used for decoding of some audio formats which means some of the old out of date libraries we used previously are no longer needed. This simplifies maintenance, and brings with it better performance and compatibility. The FFMpeg libraries are now used for OGG, FLAC, AAC, AC3,and DTS.

Skinning improvements

A variety of improvements have been backported from Kodi for the skin engine. This allows skins and features for Kodi to be more easily implemented. Thanks to the skin developers who requested changes/features and helped with testing. We currently ship with the same selection of skins as with v3.3 – Confluence Lite, Confluence, Project Mayhem III, and the PM3HD skin, but more can be found on the skin development section of our forum (such as the excellent Xbox Extended skin from Dom).

New branding

Thanks to SwedishGojira we now have our own project branding – our new XBMC4Xbox logo is used on our project site as well as for the XBMC4Xbox boot-up splash. Since the renaming of XBMC to Kodi, there has been some discussion regarding our name. I can confirm we are keeping the name XBMC4Xbox for our project. Changing it now would just introduce more confusion.

Transifex integration

Thanks to Kodi and their useful tools for handling translations, we are now using the on-line service Transifex to manage translations for the project. This means anyone who wants to help improve translations can now go and sign up over at https://www.transifex.com/organization/xbmc4xbox and start translating the software to their favourite language via the easy to use web interface. The updated translations can then be merged back into the XBMC4Xbox code base by us.

Bug fixes

There have been many bug fixes around the software with around 44 issues on the bugtracker resolved/fixed as well as more reported via the forum. Thanks to all those that have reported bugs, provided fixes & patches, and helped with testing.

Thanks

As well as the key features above, many other changes have been made with a lot of backported features and fixes from Kodi. Thanks to Team Kodi for creating our favourite media center software 🙂 Thanks also to all those who help and contribute to our project and forum.

If you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox and want to show your support for the ongoing development please consider making a donation to the project. Please also do join in the discussions over at our Forum.

Obtaining XBMC4Xbox

See the development page for links to the source code and the SVN repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page. For those that want to build from source, 3.5 is tagged here: https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5/.

XBMC4Xbox Remote 2.9.9 for Android


 

 

Changes:

  • v2.9.9 (Sun, 21 Sep 2014):
    • New: Main > Programs:
      – Apps / Games / Emulators;
      – available to premium only;
    • Mod: Main > Touchpad:
      – available to all;
    • New: Analytics > Versions;
  • v2.9.8 (Sun, 13 Jul 2014):
    • Fix: Crashes on Android 2.1 & 2.2
  • v2.9.7 (Fri, 4 Jul 2014):
    • Fix: Cannot share / play “youtu.be” URLs (thanks sahib12);
    • Fix: Widget > Currently playing thumbnail (thanks AwesomeNurd);
    • Fix: Movies > Files > cannot play video files (thanks Fastlane);
    • Fix: Crashes on Android 3.2
    • New: Commands > Screenshots
  • v2.9.6 (Sun, 19 Jan 2014):
    • Main :
      – Remember last used XBMC4Xbox;
      – Allow to delete XBMC4Xbox entry (from “edit” dialog);
    • Main > Network Scan
      – Allow to cancel scan;
      – Update entry with same MAC address (instead of adding new one);

For guides on how to configure & use, see more at:
https://sites.google.com/site/xbmc4xboxremoteandroid/

For support / feedback / suggestions use this forum thread:
https://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=203

Download from:

XBMC4Xbox Remote 2.9.9 for Android


 

 

Changes:

  • v2.9.9 (Sun, 21 Sep 2014):
    • New: Main > Programs:
      – Apps / Games / Emulators;
      – available to premium only;
    • Mod: Main > Touchpad:
      – available to all;
    • New: Analytics > Versions;
  • v2.9.8 (Sun, 13 Jul 2014):
    • Fix: Crashes on Android 2.1 & 2.2
  • v2.9.7 (Fri, 4 Jul 2014):
    • Fix: Cannot share / play “youtu.be” URLs (thanks sahib12);
    • Fix: Widget > Currently playing thumbnail (thanks AwesomeNurd);
    • Fix: Movies > Files > cannot play video files (thanks Fastlane);
    • Fix: Crashes on Android 3.2
    • New: Commands > Screenshots
  • v2.9.6 (Sun, 19 Jan 2014):
    • Main :
      – Remember last used XBMC4Xbox;
      – Allow to delete XBMC4Xbox entry (from “edit” dialog);
    • Main > Network Scan
      – Allow to cancel scan;
      – Update entry with same MAC address (instead of adding new one);

For guides on how to configure & use, see more at:
https://sites.google.com/site/xbmc4xboxremoteandroid/

For support / feedback / suggestions use this forum thread:
http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=203

Download from:

XBMC4Xbox 3.5 RC2 is out

Unfortunately RTMP streaming was broken in RC1 due so it’s time for another release – XBMC4Xbox 3.5 RC2. It also gives us the opportunity to show off the new branding before the final 3.5 release.

Changes since 3.5 RC1 include:

  • Fix for the RTMP streaming issue.
  • Updates to PolarSSL, librtmp and libcurl as well as the Curl VFS.
  • Update FFmpeg Libraries to 1.2.8.
  • Update translations from Transifex.
  • Added missing hard disk / DVD information on Confluence Lite system info page.
  • New splash screen / branding.

More changes have been included than we expected after the initial release candidate. This is due to some updates that were planned before, but got overlooked, as well as some fixes for problems reported by users. Thanks to everyone who tested 3.5 RC1 and reported back to us. In addition our PolarSSL was rather out of date, so it made sense to rebuild librtmp and libcurl against a newer version (and update them in the process) . Thanks to Sean for reminding me to pull in the Transifex translation updates.

We finally have a new branding/logo design – massive thanks to SwedishGojira for his work on this. The logo is already being used on this site, but you can also find it on the new XBMC4Xbox splash screen. Hope you like it – we do! 🙂

For those building from source, 3.5-rc2 is tagged in SVN at https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.5-rc2

The new XBMC4Xbox splash