News

xbmcbetaIt’s been a productive few weeks in the race to release Eden. Since Beta 1, unencrypted bluray, dvd player, startup problems in OSX, airplay, subtitle issues, unofficial addon repository installations, and the frustrating TMDB scraper problems that have made it difficult for everyone to…

zappy-censoredOn January 18th, the entire XBMC.org website will go black in protest of SOPA/PIPA. XBMC prefers to avoid political activism. It is our opinion that we are builders of software. Awesome software, to be precise. And we, as a group, do not care one bit how our users choose to use that…

scale10xJust a quick note everyone. XBMC will once again be in attendance at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 10x), and we’d love to see everyone who isn’t TOO far away. Right now, it’s looking like Malloc (Sean), theuni (Cory), Keith (Keith), and I (Nate) will all be there with a primo…

We will be changing registrars and nameservers for xbmc.org tonight (US time), which could lead to a brief unreachable period (via DNS) while the records propagate around the net. The move will affect this site, the forum, the wiki, trac, our email, and addons in XBMC itself. No action should be…

It took a bit longer than expected due to a few bumps in the road, but we are excited to present the first preview release of (what we consider to be) the best version of the best home theater software out there. Ladies and Gentlemen, XBMC 11.0 Eden: Beta 1 is available to download. xbmc-eden-beta…

You may have noticed that for the past few weeks the Weather section of XBMC has become unable to provide updated information due to our default weather provider moving to a fully fee-based API. A brief scramble ensued, and the change provided the kick-in-the-pants we needed to move weather…

This is just a quick note for addon authors. XBMC API Changes "Please return your trays and seatbacks to upright position and prepare for Eden." XBMC 11.0 Eden represents the first update to the addon repository since Dharma was released and a number of API changes have occurred in between these two…

For this week’s Feature Friday, we decided to go a bit different in our theme. Rather than focusing on one setup, we decided to pull together as many setups as we could under a common theme, where the winning entries would receive a Pulse Eight USB CEC Adapter or a TotalMount. (Once again, thanks to…

Quick update: That does it folks! Thanks for your several dozen submissions. Just a quick glance tells me this is going to be a difficult one to judge. Looks like the non-busy members of the Team have some work to do.

Where's XBMC?As many of you know, we’ve set a challenge for this week’s Feature Friday for you to submit your best hidden HTPC. At present, we’ve already gotten quite a few entries. Keep those coming! We’d just like to update with the announcement that now we can confirm the addition of a prize for…

Thanks to some unexpected freeing up of time (and more news unrelated to Feature Friday), we are happy to announce that Feature Fridays are back on the menu. As always, if you have a setup you’d like featured, feel free to send it in to natethomas AT xbmc DOT org (also, see the end of this article…

happy cloudAs a quick followup to the previous article, we are happy to say that XBMC Eden-Pre now has working weather once again, using an addon created by Amet that connects with World Weather Online. To turn weather on, one must install a nightly build of XBMC Eden-Pre no older than 2011, Nov 1…

As many of you are aware, recent API changes have forced XBMC and most XBMC-based software offshoots to change the way they handle their weather app. We have refrained from commenting until now, because the Team wanted to internally discuss what the best step forward would be. .webp weatherWe were…

Sometime around 2006 or 2007, I modded my first Xbox. I admit it, I’m practically a n00b in the realm of XBMC hacking. I didn’t even know what YAMP or Xbox Media Player were until I researched them! I bring this up because since that amazing day I haven’t felt the complete astonishment of a perfect…

Team XBMC would happily like to congratulate Team OpenELEC on their release of v1.0. OpenELECOpenELEC, for those who don’t know, is somewhat similar to XBMC Live. The basic concept is that the user interacts with XBMC without once having to visit a non-XBMC screen. The similarities between XBMC Live…

Today we’d like to feature a much less visible component of the upcoming Eden that is, nevertheless, something the team deems extremely important. I have the power!!As a rule, we believe that a user’s install of XBMC is his or her own install of XBMC. That’s why you won’t be clicking through any…

super_smooth_xbmc_skin That's smooth skin! Confluence has been XBMC’s default skin for approximately 2 years now. In software dev terms, that makes it practically ancient. Fortunately, XBMC’s Jezz_X has been on the case to update Confluence so that it might better take advantage of a bushel bag of…

Today marks the first step in the long-awaited release cycle for Eden: soft-freeze. Other than what is already slated for entry, no new features may be added unless they’re deemed critical for release. After that comes a hard freeze, when all APIs are frozen and we prepare to release the first Beta…

Let’s talk about brilliant user Jon from Florida. Jon has two things going for him. First of all, he started using XBMC back in the glory days when “XBMC” wasn’t a recursive name for XBMC Media Center. Second, he doesn’t do things half way. When he decided to install XBMC into his home, he decided…

As you may have noticed, our blog has often been lacking in content, outside of the occasional Feature Friday. We would like to change that. Starting right now, we will begin accepting applications for up to five XBMC writers. The pay is terrible (i.e. you will not get paid), and you probably won’t…