Media Center Delivery With XBMC Live
Joe M posted in free stuff, homelife on December 15th, 2009
I have been indulged in my media center, lately.
I am enjoying the delivery of content, via the web.
I was thrilled to stumble across XBMC a few weeks ago, and especially the Linux port.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been playing with getting it operational.
I went through some gyrations with the interface.
Messing around and searching sites… I found that there was an actual, bootable live CD version, complete with a USB installer… XBMC Live!
I downloaded it, and I can say that I am pleased with the operation.
It’s not exactly intuitive, but it is effective.
The plain vanilla interface for XBMC is great, for local music and video files.
For web content, you need a little help. (I did, anyway.)
After Googling, I found that the best way to get the plugins for it, is to install SVN Repo Installer.
The initial boot screen for XBMCLive offers an option for creating a bootable USB drive.
It seems to work pretty well.
As for the SVN Repo Installer, I used the following guidelines and instructions:
From a command line on your XBMC Live machine…
1. Enter plugins directory
cd /home/xbmc/.xbmc/plugins/programs
2 Download installer
$ wget http://xbmc-addons.googlecode.com/svn/packages/plugins/programs/SVN_Repo_Installer.zip
3. Expand the file
$ unzip SVN_Repo_Installer.zip
OR You can also use tar to expand the file, as it comes in most Linux distributions.
$ tar -xvf SVN_Repo_Installer.zip
4. Configure the XBMC GUI
Settings >> skin settings >> home window
Turn on the show programs option in the main menu.
Go to main menu and choose Programs.
From inside of Programs, you can navigate and find the plugins. Within that listing, you will find the SVN Repo Installer, and subsequently several plugins for video, scripts and music.
With the interface for XBMC, I love the fact that I have web delivered media, at the convenience of a menu-driven system.
Prior to discovering it (and Boxee), I was resolved to simply downloading individual media files, through a web browser, then trying to find a suitable player (and settings!) with which to play each one.
XBMC is becoming a great addition to my media center.
With XBMC Live, you can use a regular machine in your household, and make it dual purpose… without ever touching the hard drive, or your Windows install.