A homecoming

It's been years since I've used XBMC as my media center. I have a shitload of movies, TV shows, music, and pictures on my HTPC, and I'm always looking for a nice interface to deliver them to me. For a long time now I've been using Boxee's PC software. The latest (and final release) was something of a disappointment. The apps were terrible and so was the navigation and library integration. I decided to look around for another solution.

Unfortunately, I listened to stupid Tommy Jarvis and bought an Apple TV. There's nothing wrong with the product, but there's not a lot right with it either. Perhaps if the jailbreak for the Apple TV 3 was available, I'd be singing a different tune. It's not, so I'm not.

Tommy used a streaming app that allowed him to stream video from his PC to the Apple TV via his iPad or iPhone. It's a terrible idea for anyone that has HD content and surround sound. The image is compressed and all surround sound decoding is dropped. You're left with a shitty image and mono audio. Go fuck yourself.

XBMC had recently released their latest version, dubbed "Eden". I decided to give it a try. Holy fuck, is it lovely. Now, this setup is not for the novice HTPC user, just ask Viv. I've spent at least 4 hours getting everything setup, and I'm not completely finished. The end result is more than worth it. The guys at XBMC have outdone themselves with this release. Once your media is added to the interface and properly tagged (you can get as granular as you like), you're golden.

You access your movie library and the UI is just heaven. You have numerous views (cover art, scrolling, description, etc.) and numerous filters. You can have it show you all the movies in your collection by director, actors, genre, rating, etc. It's fucking ridiculous. Same thing with music. All of my albums have everything from band bios to cover/jacket art.

I cannot begin to go into detail with the options they've given you, let's just say it's everything imaginable. You can configure audio, video, and network access down to the finest detail. Yeah, they've added remote access now too.

The apps are another thing that pulled me in. Basically, you have video, audio, and program apps that you pull from a repository and add to your XBMC. Everything from live TV streaming, podcasts, web browsers, facebook, and disaster recovery. It's unreal. I've loaded tons of apps, but I have yet to go through them all.

To top it all off, they've created two magnificent remotes for the iPad and iPhone. The iPad app is stunning. I prefer the one that wasn't created by team XBMC. Constellation is just a work of art (the iPad app). You literally have full control of your XBMC from it. I prefer the team XBMC app for the iPhone though, it's sleeker and less busy.

The total cost for all this wonderful shit: $0.00. Unbeatable.