Kodi
[[Image:Xbmc.File:JPG|right|thumb|350px|Default XBMC main menu (Project Mayhem 3 skin)]]
Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is a free feature-rich open source media player / jukebox for the Xbox™ game-console - XBMC software program which plays video, music and displays pictures/images from the Xbox DVD-ROM drive, built-in harddisk drive, local-area-network or the Internet.
XBMC is the successor to Xbox Media Player (XBMP). XBMC is a complete rewrite of XBMP by the same developer-team. XBMC was publicly announced in October 2003.
Features
XBMC can play media from CD/DVD media using the Xbox's built-in DVD-ROM drive. It can also play media from the Xbox's built-in harddisk-drive, or stream them over SMB/SAMBA/CIFS shares (Windows File-Sharing), ReplayTV DVRs, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) shares, XBMSP (XBox Media Stream Protocol) shares, or stream iTunes-shares via DAAP. XBMC can also take advantage of the Xbox's Ethernet network port and a broadband Internet connection if available, using the IMDb to obtain thumbnails and reviews on movies, CDDB (via FreeDB) for Audio-CD track-listings), and album-thumbnails via AMG, it can stream Internet-video-streams, and play Internet-radio-stations (such as SHOUTcast). XBMC also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to Audioscrobbler and Last.fm, and a weather-forecast (via Weather.com). It also has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-slideshow functions, an MP3+CDG karaoke function and many audio-visualizations and screensavers. XBMC can upconvert all 480p/576p standard-resolution videos and output them to 720p or 1080i HDTV-resolutions. In addition, XBMC has an integrated front-end for an Xbox Live alternative (called "XLink Kai"), enabling you to both control the Kai engine and play system-link/LAN-enabled Xbox games online, without connecting to the Xbox Live service, straight from your console.
Awards
XBMC won two categories SourceForge 2006 Community Choice Awards, for Best Multimedia Project and Best Game Project. Winners were announced at the Slashdot Lounge at LinuxWorld Expo, Boston, April 5, 2006.
Running XBMC
XBMC requires a modchip or software exploit/hack to run, as it is not an authorized (a.k.a. "signed") Microsoft product. XBMC can be run as an application, or a dashboard that appears directly when the Xbox is turned on, it takes approximately ten seconds to fully load. XBMC also includes support for many different languages (if your language is not available then you can easily make your translation by editing an XML-file, which can be submitted to the project's database for use by others). In addition, because XBMC is an open source software program, it constantly undergoes minor to major changes on a daily basis (sometimes noted by the tags "CVS").
XBMC supports Python scripts as Widget plugins, so users can add new functionality to XBMC (using the Python programming language) without an illegal copy of the XDK and without knowledge of the C/C++ programming language. Current scripts include functions like Internet-TV and movie-trailer browsers, cinema and weather guides, e-mail clients, messaging, train-timetables, scripts to front-end control PVR software and hardware (like: MediaPortal, MythTV, TiVo, ReplayTV, Dreambox), Internet-radio-station browsers (example SHOUTcast, Xm radio, Sirius Satellite Radio), P2P file-sharing downloaders (BitTorrent), IRC, and mini-games such as Space Invaders and Sudoku, and much more.
At present, XBMC is in a "feature freeze" cycle, which means that the developers are concentrating on fixing bugs and only adding features that concern them. The result will be a stable point release, 2.0.0.
Format support
XBMC can be used to play/view all common multimedia formats 'straight out of the box'. It can decode these in software and optionaly pass-through AC3/DTS audio from video to S/PDIF output to an external audio-receiver/amplifier. For a detailed up-to-date list see the "Supported Formats" list in XBMC online-manual here. Currently the supported formats/codecs include:
- Container formats: AVI, MPEG/MPG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, OGG, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC
- Video codecs: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, QuickTime, Sorenson, Theora, WMV, Cinepak,
- Audio codecs: WAV/WAVE, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus, WMA, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, APE (Monkey's Audio), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC (Musepack, a.k.a. Mpeg+), Speex, Vorbis and WMA.
- Picture/image formats: BMP, JPEG/JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF/TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX and Targa/TGA
XBMC uses two different multimedia player cores for video playback:
The first is a ported version of the open source cross-platform player, MPlayer, which is known for playing proprietary media-formats without having to pay license fees. XBMC handles all codecs and containers normally supported by MPlayer (all FFmpeg supported codecs and also several external ones with the help of proprietary DLL-files: RealMedia, QuickTime, WMV9/WMA9, VP4/5/6), and the sources are synced at regular intervals.
The second is a in-house developed DVD-player for DVD-Video movies