Games - Xbox Media Center

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	Games - Xbox Media Center

Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is a feature-rich open source media player for the Xbox.

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.

XBMC's media player core is based on the MPlayer source code, a cross-platform and open source media player that is known for playing proprietary media-formats without having to pay license fees.

XboxMediaCenter can be used to play/view common multimedia formats such as:

MPEG-1/2/4
DivX
XviD
H.264
RealMedia
QuickTime
MP3
AAC
FLAC
JPEG
GIF
BMP

XBMC can play media from CD/DVD using the Xbox's built-in DVD-ROM drive. It can also play media from the hard-drive, or stream it over a SAMBA share. It can also stream iTunes-shares via DAAP. XBMC takes full advantage of the Xbox's Ethernet-port and broadband Internet if available, using the IMDb to obtain pictures and reviews on movies, and CDDB (via FreeDB) for Audio-CD track listings, stream internet video streams, and play internet radio stations (like SHOUTcast for example). XBMC also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to Audioscrobbler and Last.fm, it has music/video-playlist and picture/image-slideshow functions, a weather-forecast (via Weather.com) and MP3+CDG karaoke function, plus many audio-visualizations. XBMC even includes an Xbox Live alternative (called "XLink KAI" tunneling) enabling you to play system-link/LAN-enabled Xbox games online.

XBMC supports Python scripts as Widget plugins, so users can add functionality without an illegal copy of the XDK. Current scripts include services like TV, cinema and weather guides, train-timetables, scripts to control PVR software and hardware (like: MediaPortal, MythTV, TiVo ReplayTV), internet-radio-station browsers (example SHOUTcast), internet TV browsers, email clients, P2P file sharing (BitTorrent), IRC and more.

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. Also included in XBMC is international translations to many languages, (and if your language is not available you can easily make your translation by simply editing an XML-file, plus by submitting that into the project you contribute to the experience of others who use the software). 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).

Legal

Although XBMC is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), it is written for use with Microsoft's XDK and so is not legally available as an executable program. Users are encouraged to compile their own binaries using the XDK and the daily source code release, rather than downloading a questionable illegally released executable. XBMC's full source code is however legal 'as is' and is available on SourceForge.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Xbox Media Center ]

Games - Xbox Media Center

Legal

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