XBMC4Xbox

It’s been a few weeks since the 3.3 release, and here is a small update to fix a few issues and the addition of a bonus skin theme. Read on to also find out what may be coming soon to XBMC4XBox.

Changes:

• There were problems accessing the video/music playlists when nothing was playing.
• Adding plugins to the home screen of Confluence Lite cause script failures when launching.
• There was a minor text positioning bug in the seek dialog with PM3.HD.
• We now ship with a lovely green XBox theme for Confluence Lite – Go to Settings -> Appearance -> Skin -> Theme to switch.

Thanks to Dan Dar3 for the plugin fix, and DavPow for the green Confluence Lite modification, and the main XBMC project.

The playlist bug was reported by multiple people after the 3.3 release was out. To avoid annoying glitches in future releases, please do get involved and try out the earlier Beta releases. You can then report problems, and help us get them fixed before we do the final release.

I am currently busy working on a major python upgrade (Python 2.7.5 is actually in trunk and already working!) and implementing proper Addons support from the XBMC code base. It is a huge amount of work, with many long days already spent on it. 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 and say hello.

The XBMC4Xbox Wiki is currently very out of date, having been re-constructed over the last year from old xml dumps after the last server admin went AWOL. We would very much appreciate anyone that could lend a hand, updating the wiki with information regarding latest features, and correcting / fixing many of the issues. If you are interested you can register right away and start editing.

See the development page for links to the source code and the svn repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page.

The XBMC4Xbox team is proud to announce the release of XBMC4Xbox 3.3.

Improvements include

• New default Confluence Lite skin.
• DVDPlayer improvements – including:
  • Updated libraries for DVDPlayer (FFMPEG/libdvd et al).
  • Recognises additional video extensions as used by some XBox games.
  • HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) support.
  • Other playback improvements from XBMC.
• Updated VFS and Cache
• Improved 128MB Ram support.
• Built-in support for recently added videos/music for skins (without the need for Python).
• Updated MythTV support.
• Better out of the box support for universal / Microsoft Media Extender remotes.
• Password Manager for Samba shares allowing different usernames/password per share.
• Skinning improvements.
• Scraper updates.
• Various other code / library updates and improvements.

Big thanks to all those who have helped with this, including JezzX for Confluence Lite and XBS for his work porting it over to XBMC4Xbox. Thanks also to the developers at the XBMC project, as the majority of features were backported from their code base. Thanks to Dom, Jan, Kozz, Temhil, XPhazer and XMan as well as others over at the XBMC4XBox Forum for their help with scripting, code testing, moral support and help running things.

Please do join in the discussions over at our Forum, and if you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox please feel free to make a donation to the project.

See the development page for links to the source code and the svn repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page.

Here are some screenshots from the latest release. Enjoy.

The XBMC4Xbox team is proud to announce the release of XBMC4Xbox 3.3.

Improvements include

• New default Confluence Lite skin.
• DVDPlayer improvements – including:
  • Updated libraries for DVDPlayer (FFMPEG/libdvd et al).
  • Recognises additional video extensions as used by some XBox games.
  • HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) support.
  • Other playback improvements from XBMC.
• Updated VFS and Cache
• Improved 128MB Ram support.
• Built-in support for recently added videos/music for skins (without the need for Python).
• Updated MythTV support.
• Better out of the box support for universal / Microsoft Media Extender remotes.
• Password Manager for Samba shares allowing different usernames/password per share.
• Skinning improvements.
• Scraper updates.
• Various other code / library updates and improvements.

Big thanks to all those who have helped with this, including JezzX for Confluence Lite and XBS for his work porting it over to XBMC4Xbox. Thanks also to the developers at the XBMC project, as the majority of features were backported from their code base. Thanks to Dom, Jan, Kozz, Temhil, XPhazer and XMan as well as others over at the XBMC4XBox Forum for their help with scripting, code testing, moral support and help running things.

Please do join in the discussions over at our Forum, and if you enjoy using XBMC4Xbox please feel free to make a donation to the project.

See the development page for links to the source code and the svn repository. For binary builds, read the information on the download page.

Here are some screenshots from the latest release. Enjoy.

Changelog:

• v2.8 (Wed, 10 July 2013)
  • Add “Addons” (premium only, for now)
  • DVD Remote: repeat arrow keys on hold
  • TV Episodes: show “watched” icon
  • Main > Analytics (new), see:
    https://sites.google.com/site/xbmc4xboxremoteandroid/xbmc4xbox-remote/analytics
  • Misc fixes

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:

• Google Play (store)

Changelog:

• v2.8 (Wed, 10 July 2013)
  • Add “Addons” (premium only, for now)
  • DVD Remote: repeat arrow keys on hold
  • TV Episodes: show “watched” icon
  • Main > Analytics (new), see:
    https://sites.google.com/site/xbmc4xboxremoteandroid/xbmc4xbox-remote/analytics
  • Misc fixes

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:

• Google Play (store)

A new version of XBMC4Xbox Remote for Android was just released, including these changes:

• v2.7.5 (Sat, 15 June 2013)
  • Add “Voice” search (where available);
  • Music > Playlist – show song numbers instead of icons;
  • Keyboard – close when “done”;
  • Handle SetResponseFormat() change by Web Remote;
  • Image cache not working correctly;
• v2.7.1 (Sat, 8 June 2013)
  • Add: “Help” options menu item – Main;
  • Fix: CPU / battery drain while in background (thanks to Kozz);
• v2.7 (Sun, 2 Jun 2013):
  • Add: Send YouTube videos to XBMC4Xbox (requires YouTube plugin);

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:

• Google Play (store)

A new version of XBMC4Xbox Remote for Android was just released, including these changes:

• v2.7.5 (Sat, 15 June 2013)
  • Add “Voice” search (where available);
  • Music > Playlist – show song numbers instead of icons;
  • Keyboard – close when “done”;
  • Handle SetResponseFormat() change by Web Remote;
  • Image cache not working correctly;
• v2.7.1 (Sat, 8 June 2013)
  • Add: “Help” options menu item – Main;
  • Fix: CPU / battery drain while in background (thanks to Kozz);
• v2.7 (Sun, 2 Jun 2013):
  • Add: Send YouTube videos to XBMC4Xbox (requires YouTube plugin);

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:

• Google Play (store)

Following on from Beta 1, Beta 2 is now ready for testing. Changes since 3.3 Beta 1 include

• Skin / Navigation fixes
• Some locale updates
• Workaround for Exif orientation with jpeg-turbo code

One of the changes works around an issue with skins and upper-casing accented letters for non English languages. To workaround this we now include the main navigation strings capitalised (which is how XBMC mainline will handle it for the next release as they have similar problems on some platforms). Currently this has been done for English and Spanish. If you want to help fix this for your language, please open a thread over at the forum, and I will provide instructions. I may well automate a fix for other languages before the final 3.3 release.

Following on from Beta 1, Beta 2 is now ready for testing. Changes since 3.3 Beta 1 include

• Skin / Navigation fixes
• Some locale updates
• Workaround for Exif orientation with jpeg-turbo code

One of the changes works around an issue with skins and upper-casing accented letters for non English languages. To workaround this we now include the main navigation strings capitalised (which is how XBMC mainline will handle it for the next release as they have similar problems on some platforms). Currently this has been done for English and Spanish. If you want to help fix this for your language, please open a thread over at the forum, and I will provide instructions. I may well automate a fix for other languages before the final 3.3 release.

The upcoming 3.3 version of XBMC4Xbox has now reached a point where it should be stable for every day use, and can be put through more testing by end users.

The improvements in the 3.3 Beta 1 release include:

• DVDPlayer improvements – including:
  • Updated libraries for DVDPlayer (FFMPEG/libdvd et al).
  • Recognises additional video extensions as used by some XBox games.
  • HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) support.
  • Other playback improvements from XBMC.
• New default Confluence Lite skin.
• Updated VFS and Cache
• Improved 128MB Ram support.
• Built-in support for recently added videos/music for skins (without the need for Python).
• Updated MythTV support.
• Better out of the box support for universal / Microsoft Media Extender remotes.
• Password Manager for Samba shares allowing different usernames/password per share.
• Skinning improvements.
• Scraper updates.
• Various other code / library updates and improvements.

Big thanks to all those who have helped with this, including JezzX for Confluence Lite and XBS for his work porting it over to XBMC4Xbox. Thanks also to the developers at the XBMC project, as the majority of features were backported from their code base. Thanks to Dom, Jan, Kozz, Temhil, XPhazer and XMan as well as others over at the XBMC4XBox Forum for their help with scripting, code testing, moral support and help running things.

For those wanting to build from source, the 3.3-BETA1 version can be checked out with svn from https://svn.exotica.org.uk:8443/xbmc4xbox/tags/3.3-beta1