Release 0.1.1: Baby steps
This release is Intel/Leopard only.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this next release out; the weather here has been great, and the call of real life has been strong, with all of the nuances and commitments of paid work, dog walking, cooking, and socializing.
The new release can be found here. I’ve tried to focus on a few core areas:- Graphics quality: With the help of d4rk (him doing the hard stuff and me just filling in the bits and pieces), YUV to RGB conversion should now be perfect, both on low-end video hardware (GMA950) and higher end video hardware. In practical terms, this means blacks are really black, and whites are really white. No more washed out looking video. Next up is higher quality video upscaling.
- Also along these lines, I’ve improved the SDL video mode selection code to be a bit smarter about picking modes, and now I consistently get 1080p output from both my machines, whereas before I only got 1080i. I’m not sure whether to blame OS X or SDL.
- OS X experience: People running OS X applications expect certain things, and I’ve tried to move XBMC closer to those expectations. Notably, log files are written to /var/tmp, and user data and profiles are accessed at ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC. This means that you can upgrade by simply replacing the application, without worrying about overwriting files.
- N.B. For this release, before you overwrite the application, you may want to move your UserData folder and your guisettings.xml to ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC, and your Keymap.xml to ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC/UserData. Alternatively, you can simply let the first run of XBMC create reasonable defaults. This is what it should look like if you want to move things around:
- Similarly, I’ve tweaked a few of those reasonable defaults. Under OS X, thumbnails default to 512×512 pixels (thanks to Martin Blom for the tip), video resolution defaults to 720p, and audio settings have been subtly tweaked to help ensure people don’t get fast video and do get sound output when possible. (Downmixing has not been implemented!)
- Second Screen Support: If you’re running the second (or third, if you’re Al Gore) display to your HDTV, you’ll be happy to know that you can now run fullscreen to a display which is not the primary one. Unfortunately, you have to do it through setting some environment variables. Setting SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_DISPLAY=2 results in fullscreen video going to your second display. Also, if you set SDL_SINGLEDISPLAY=1, this means your primary display is not blanked, so you can see incoming email or whatever it is you do while XBMC is running. You’ll need to either start XBMC from the command line, or logout and then back in again having set those environment variables. I think.
- Bugfixes: A number of bugs have been fixed, both by myself and by the other XBMC team members. Playing consecutive videos after each other will work even if you haven’t stopped the first one. Thread safety issues have been addressed in background thumbnailing (solving various crashes). The first frame of video no longer displays before it’s ready.
- When adding sources, all mounted volumes will now be displayed for your convenience. This makes adding sources much easier.
- Videos with AAC audio should now play that audio.
A few other notes, unrelated to the release:
- I’ve retired my Xbox. That’s right, XBMC is solid enough on OS X that I packed up my loyal Xbox and carried it out to the garage. Not having it there will free up room and inspire me to work on getting MAME support in there.
- We’re looking for talented developers. Gamester17 wrote up a nice press release. If you’re interested in getting involved, please drop me an email, or come visit on IRC.
- We’re interested in keeping track of the Apple hardware purchases that have been made because of XBMC. We figure this might help keep us in good standing with Apple, and plus it’s cool to know. So if you’ve bought a piece of Apple hardware to run XBMC on, drop us a line. We’ll post statistics to the blog.
- Last, but not least, a big thank you to all who have donated. The money really helps us pay for the bandwidth, and bits of hardware to test with (i.e. controllers). We really appreciate it.
Oh, and for some reason RSS feeds seem to be broken in this release.
68 comments68 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Fantastic,
Thanks for the new release, It works wonderfully.
Wow – secondary screen support already!
And I didn’t even have to bother you day and night about it for the last couple of weeks Elan (ok, maybe I did)
)
I will donate shortly (not my kidney though).
i have a sd plasma 852 x 480.
with 0.1 i had full screen xbmc and now it’s too huge. i cant recall what i did to get a fullscreen xbmc but when i enter 852×480 in video settings nothing happens , anyone?
[...] información: OSXBMC Descarga: OSXBMC [...]
You and the other teammembers are doing excellent work! Since my xbox isnt powerfull enough to run nowadays hd standards, this is a fantasic project. Out with the xbox, in with the macmini. Keep it up!
Yesss, with the new graphics work, I also don’t get the “windowpane” effect on videos (there were some horizontal and vertical lines dividing the screen, like texture limits, or somesuch).
I know that AC3 decoding still isn’t there, but the good news is with my output set to digital, the “fast speed” issue was gone… I just don’t have a digital receiver, so the sound was less than stellar.
Only other thing I’d like to see added from an “osx app” standpoint, would be to add apple-q as a default shortcut to quit. Choosing shutdown from the menu makes me nervous.
I just picked up an extra Mac mini on ebay to run XMBC. For almost 3 years I’ve been using a WinXP-based SFF as my htpc. I run Macs everywhere else, but it seems like the htpc world was more advanced on the Windows side and 3 years ago I couldn’t find anything for the Mac to play the videos I needed. I’ve been looking on and off the whole time for a good Mac solution, and this project was reason enough to finally try that switch. Everywhere I looked the answer was always that XBMC was the best htpc solution, but I didn’t want to start another project buying an XBox to hack and getting that up and running when the SFF box did mostly what I needed. I never expected XBMC to come over to OS X. This is a big thing. Thanks for the hard work. After my budget recovers from the new purchase I’ll be sure to add to the donations.
Hopefully with this new release xbmc will be able to see my network shares. With the first release I could not get it see or connect with my Video folder on my windows network share. My Xbox xbmc had no troubles finding and connecting to my shares. Keep up the good work.
Great work on the second display support!
Just a thought…it might be worth redirecting the skin folder to Application Support as well.
I tried the MC360 skin, which works very well, but it was a bit annoying to install, since you can’t just drag and drop the folder without opening the Application Contents first. Also, this would help with upgrades, as you mentioned with the UserData folder.
Looks like it’s all great .. thanks,
only thing im missing is that downscaling ac3 (or whatever you call it).
If i’d take my laptop anywhere i can’t play movies in the train/work whatever.
This rules! I’m so happy to see XBMC coming to the Mac platform.
I’ll donate as soon as I have a chance.
Keep up the good work!
(Btw, does the remote work?)
Great work, guys.
Any chance we could get a user support forum going? I’ve been hesitant to ask questions in the forum linked off this page because it screams developer-only.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to get a mac mini to recognize the IR codes from the xbox remote? if so, I won’t have to reprogram my harmony
@Scott
There is another section on that forum for users only (not developer related)
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=56
@Elan and team
Really great work, thanks..
One thing I have noticed. On my mini, when I open XBMC the fans starts to go faster and get a bit noisy, that doesn’t happen when I play a movie file in eg. VLC. Also in XBMC it’s speeding up fan when I am in the menus, so it’s not only when playing a movie. If it’s not something I can fix myself? Then I hope you can look into this, when you reach the end of your todo list
Thanks again
So no Apple Remote support yet? Maybe a high priority for the next release?
Thanks for this new release in any case!
Great Job!
I would hope that AC3 and DTS downmixing is the highest priority now?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ac3filter
I pray to thou oh might code god, bring video playback to us all
@SoerenV, XBMC has fan controls for Xbox, maybe that is the problem?
Please include a few more skins by default in the next release, thx
Latest version doesn’t work on Mac OS X 10.4.11, MacBook Pro 2.16GHz/2GB.
Date/Time: 2008-02-13 18:09:29.059 +0100
OS Version: 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
Report Version: 4
Command: XBMC
Path: /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/MacOS/XBMC
Parent: WindowServer [531]
Version: 0.1 (687)
PID: 695
Thread: Unknown
Link (dyld) error:
Library not loaded: /opt/local/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
Referenced from: /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/MacOS/XBMC
Reason: Incompatible library version: XBMC requires version 7.0.0 or later, but libiconv.2.dylib provides version 5.0.0
Is 1080p component-out supported on any Mac Mini model?
I have a 1080p TV but it does not have DVI/HDMI input
I will buy one just for XBMC if it does support 1080p
@jonas, it has been clearly stated over and over again that this port of XBMC is for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (on Intel hardware) only! That is unless you can program 10.4 support yourself.
Maybe the app should pop up a message stating that if someone tries to run it on a older OSX version
Hmm, this build works nothing like the real
XMBC for the Xbox. The whole point with XBMC
is that EVERYTHING just works (Except HD-movies).
That is the strength of XBMC.
Iv’e been fiddeling around with this build for
some hours now and there is sadly not much that
it plays without flaws or crashes.
Movies speeding away at different speeds etc.
(Running it on the latest Mac book Pro)
Step one whould be that it should at least
play everything that the Xbox ver. can.
Step 2. High def.
Im sorry for being so negative. I really
enjoy your efforts and I’m looking forward
to the day when I can throw out my ugly Xbox. =)
@vivafontana
Yes I know it is an option in XBMC, but the option is not there in OSXBMC, so I was wondering what to do.
@mange
I found that the fast play video is only there if you have the audio turned to analog. It plays correctly in digital.
The 0.1 version out before this worked full screen when I selected my screens resolution. this new release doesn’t.
Was the refresh rate changed on this version by default?
I’m running this through a 32in LCD TV and I think it can only run at 50Hz
When I select the (Desktop) res…. I get an “Invalid Format” error from my TV.
I’d love to see this fixed… I was using 0.1 as my main media player.
For those that’s interested in Mac Mini, I just tested a 1080p file downloaded from an MS demo page, in the format vmw.
Ran completely smooth on my Mac Mini 2GHz core 2 duo with 2GB mem
In response to your post, I just bought a new Mac mini 2.0Ghz for the use of XBMC in my living room. Once ISO and IMG images, as well as VIDEO_TS folders can be played within XBMC, it will be replacing my xbox on the shelf!
I have noticed that it (the mini) doesn’t QUITE keep up with full 1080p if there is full digital 5.1 sound, but it plays 720p perfectly. It is very close though and it seems to depend on the codec used, as well as the type of sound included weather or not it will play smoothl. All things considered, I’m very happy with it.
Sorry let me clarify my previous post:
It has been my experience that the 2.0Ghz mac mini plays any/all 720p content perfectly regardless of codec/sound format. 1080p however seems to be just beyond it’s ability to handle comfortably. I have had some good luck with some formats and 2 channel sound, but most H.264 files with digital sound end up being a little choppy, at least on my machine.
keep up the great work! awesome player that needs some minor tweakes (sound, speed @ some movies and remote control )
Money is on the way
mac mini off of ebay just for this, once the apple remote support is in it will be replacing the xbox!!
[...] just tried the latest release of XBMC on OS X (0.1.1) today. Coming along very, very well. This release seems to be solid as can be. It supports the [...]
@B1ngo: Thank you, I’ve missed that part. :>
Unfortunately on my MacBook (latest generation) the “pink screen problem” ist still there. So XBMC is still completely unusable for me. Bummer, I’d like to try it out too. :-/
I’m happy.. At the time I switched my trusty Xbox for a Mac Mini, I thought I did it for Front Row. Since FR didn’t cut it for me I have tried most media centers. There are so many problems with them. So finally I found osxbmc and this is the reason why I bought my Mac Mini, even though I didn’t know it at the time.
Mange: Why oh why do you come in here ranting about those things regarding a 0.1.1 release of an application? I actually got pissed off when I read it. That is quite unusual.
It’s one thing to rant about that if this was a 1.0 release. But come on… They have been at this for 8-9 weeks (coding) and when you realize that you must agree that noone should be able to put it down like you did. Apologize and move on.
@Mange: I agree with Atrus. The reason osxbmc has been released before 1.0 is so we can gauge interest, get testing help from the community, potentially attract other talent and most of all to get constructive feedback. Telling us that a .1 release doesn’t work perfectly is not constructive feedback, someone telling us that GMA3100 graphics card shows a pink screen instead of playing video is.
@elan: you can add 5 mac minis to the total for me
Enjoying the progress so far, I donated hundred bucks $US for the cause (Elan, don’t go crazy buying too many controllers
)
I have a new macbook (gma 3100)
The video actually improved over 1.0 slightly there now is the pink shade over the video so not watchable but all the details can be noticed (at least in pink) whereas before it was just pink or green
The fixed video is awesome Elan.. no doubt there are a few dozen feature requests all clamouring for your and the team’s attention (hey, its even possible to see mounted drives/aliases from the file browser now)
Mingistech posted earlier about refresh rate changes… he could be on to something. About the *ONLY* problem I encountered is that to get XBMC to go full screen I use the 1280×720 (desktop) setting. After setting up XBMC and calibrating it, I find that each time I restart it the display is off centre – to fix, I have to select another resolution, accept it, then select 1280×720(desktop) then all is fine!
Hope this helps..
p.s. Is there any way to edit/create your own “DVD Sleeves” for your media library if XBMC can’t find one itself??
@SoerenV: Nothing changed that should have anything remotely to do with fans. I wouldn’t know how to control them if I wanted to. We may be pushing the GPU harder, now that I think about it, and that might affect fan speed.
@Juse and others: We will add support for skins living in Application Support-land, and always include only one with the package to cut down on size.
@Mange: Your glass is obviously half empty.
@mingistech: Check next post.
@Macless: Not sure if component out is supported. Use Google.
@Gordon Mackenzie: Thank you very much for your generous donation! It’s much appreciated. Hopefully AAC audio in videos is working well for you.
“Im sorry for being so negative.”
I have already apologized for my attitude. =)
But I’ll do it again if someone feels sad.
I’ve been searching and searching for years now
for a equal solution to be able to
throw out my Xbox. I even bought myself
a Mac mini last year. But I sold it after a month.
I still hold my hopes high for this guys efforts
and I will even considering to donate som money
when my Xbox hopefully will be retired. =)
@jms_uk, checkout the XBMC Online Manual, just do a search for “thumbnails” to find all the information you need. Basically you just rename a JPG (GIF or PNG works too) from the .jpg extension to .tbn and have the name the same as the movie.
TheMatrix.mp4
TheMatrix.tbn
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual
The first stop for all XBMC usability questions!
Many thanks B1ng0
Maybe I am too much of an OS X n00b, but how do I set specific environment variables?
One more thing on the Mac mini discussion (btw – anyone else unable to login to the user forums?)
I did download and test out some of the 1080p quicktime movie trailers from apple.com/trailers last night, and all of them played perfectly in quicktime on my 2.0Ghz Mac mini with 1gb ram. Unfortunately playing the same content from within XBMC on the same machine doesn’t play so smoothly. I noticed today that the new OSXBMC FAQ (http://dn-0.com/xbmc-trac/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions) addresses the fact that the team is working on optimizing the code with the hopes of resolving this. For now, I’m quite pleased with my 720p movies, but I look forward to a future were I can play the full 1080p files on my new 1080p tv from this little box too.
Thanks again for all that you guys are doing!
Not hardware, but I bought Leopard for my mac mini after trying it on my macbook that already had Leopard.
I set the environment variables, but I can’t get XBMC to start full screen on my second display. Has anyone had success doing this yet? If so, let me in on the secret! My second display is the only place I need to run XBMC and for now the only way I can do it is by making my secondary display my primary display in system prefs, a bit of a pain.
Thanks for any info.
You’re welcome Elan.
The movie with the AAC audio (stereo) that I couldn’t play in the earlier release plays just fine now with version 0.1.
My native resolution I am playing divx and H.264 files at is 1600×1024.
Now I have to go out and buy a 1080p 42″ or 46″ flat screen and a new 2.0 GHz Mac Mini to run this on in my living room.
@fall-line, for forum login problems see
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31189
@cyantist
Secondary monitor:
You have to set the Screen resolution to (Desktop) in OSXBMC.
Then I ran these two commands in Terminal:
—
$ export SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_DISPLAY=2
$ open /Applications/XBMC.app
—
Result: 1080p fullscreen on my Pioneer 1080p plasma §:o)
Used this today with my high school video production class. I was able to stream their projects from my AFP share to my macbook pro, connected to a 32″ HD LCD.
Only problem was some buffering, but that is a problem on our network, not XBMC.
Cant get fullscreen on my mini anymore
All I get is a black scrren and my tv says display mode not supported 
The old version I used the 1360×768 desktop setting. It doesnt work anymore. Should I use something else?
How do I reset my display settings cause now I cant do anything. Just a black screen.
Martin’s suggestion doesn’t work here as well (iMac 24″ 2.4 GHz). Too bad for now
Fullscreen works fine with latest binary. Looks better than ever here. Blacks and whites are a lot better. THX!
Whoops sorry, after setting the right resolution in XBMC this works for me
GREAT work!
Could you submit your FFMPEG tweaks to macports.org or Fink?
Looks like setting environment variables is a bit of a task in OSX.
From the docs I found to get the dualscreen support I had to create a .MacOSX directory in my home and then a environment.plist file inside that with the following contents:
SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_DISPLAY
2
SDL_SINGLEDISPLAY
1
Ya, pink screen when playing any type of video file on my MacBook – GMA X3100 video. Great progress guys, look forward to seeing what you can do. Thanks so much for doing this.
Why not submit those FFmpeg tweaks directly upstream to FFmpeg instead as then MacPorts and Fink and all other software that uses FFmpeg can get the tweaks with the rest of the FFmpeg code? Checkout their mailing list
http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu
How about starting a specific donation drive to buy Elan a Mac with Intel X3100 GMA graphics (like the MacBook Air)?, or alternaive money for him to build a new HTPC computer based on a motherboard with onboard X3100 GMA? He could then run that as a dual-boot Hackintosh with OSx86 and Linux for development
I’m still getting the fast video problems with AAC and analog output. So i’m wondering how to fix that, and wondering if it has to do with possible left over information from the previous versions. How would i go about making sure everything has been removed so i can install a clean copy of the 1.1 release?
There’s a minor sound drop-out issue when playing back .mkv x264 files with AC3 audio. Don’t know if any of the devs were aware of that.. basically the sound will periodically drop out and return a second or so later
Anyone know what the Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 does exacly? (it is just under 50MB in size, and all it sais is that it “improves stability and compatibility” and that is not exacly specific). The update becomes available once you have installed the 10.5.2 update of OS X
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/leopardgraphicsupdate10.html
One assumed it may contain updated graphics drivers and OpenGL fixes which could indirectly be of benifit to XBMC.
@Lavaweb, there is still no AC3/DTS software downmix to analog stereo support in OSXBMC so you will not be able to correctly playback any files that has a AC3/DTS audio-stream unless you are using digital passthrough output to a reciever that does the audio decoding. That is in the FAQ so do not be suprised if you now get flamed for not reading it.
iRAW: Thank you for the help and for not flaming, I will now hid myself from the hurdling flames and navigate my way to the FAQ.
@chris gillespie and LuchaLibre: I’m using plain vanilla ffmpeg trunk (well, I was until this weekend, anyway). The trick is to compile static libraries and not dynamic libraries, which is broken on Leopard.
@Televinken: Hey, I won’t turn down hardware, and having it in-hand would make it easier to track down these problems. A Macbook Air isn’t even needed, as any of the latest Macbooks also have X3100 video chips. We cannot accept any “Hackintosh” type donations as we’re doing our best to stay on the right side of Apple.
@Lavaweb: Make SURE your XBMC_HOME environment variable isn’t set. After that, whacking ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC will return you to the proverbial clean slate.
@jms_uk: I noticed that a bit on one or two videos, but whenever I’ve tracked it down it was because of a slightly corrupted MKV. If you have a short MKV that demonstrates the problem (and is know good with other players), please upload it to the wiki and we’ll have a look.
@Elan,
I’ll see if I can get you a sample to test – though I noticed it on most .mkvs I tried playing for any length of time. Perhaps the performance enhancements with your new release will fix it
On a side note, I know you and the team are busy getting the core functionality running sweet as possible – though do you know if anyone is looking at the Video Library issues I raised? To further test, I cleared all my sources out and started again.. now, I have to “Set Content” for an external drive, each time I start XBMC in order for it to grab the meta data..
XBMC’s normal files view still works fine with artwork, its just the library view that has to go off and re-fetch information each time (is it possible to cache or save that data once its been downloaded/edited so that it doesn’t have to go off again?)
Whoa, wasn’t expecting this but if AAC audio works, this is awesome awesome news! Thanks for your hard work!