Is XBMC for me?

TeeJayHoward

Limpness Supreme
Joined
Feb 8, 2005
Messages
12,258
I could have sworn I made a thread about this earlier, but I can't find it. I'm looking to have something like netflix, but using my own media library. I've got .ISOs of most of my movie/TV collection on my NAS. I want cover art, information about the movie, the ability to select one episode out of a TV show and have info about that, and to be able to control it via my iPad. I want to be able to stream to my iPad or my AppleTV2 using my iPad as the remote. I'd like to be able to fast-forward, turn on/off subtitles, and sort by categories. I'd also love to be able to pause the movie on my AppleTV2, and resume it on my iPad at a later time. I'm not against batch-ripping the .ISOs to whatever format they need to be in, but would prefer to be able to mount the .ISO. Oh, and if I wipe my computer, I want to be able to back up the database if need be so I don't have to manually enter metadata for 400+ DVDs/BluRays.

Before I jailbreak my iPad, can XBMC do all this? Or should I be looking at different software?

edit: Thought of one more thing - I don't want to HAVE to use my iPad for all this. I'd like to be able to use the AppleTV by itself as well. For example, if my wife wants to watch something, and I'm using my iPad, I want her to be able to select a movie from our collection and play it using nothing more than the (already set up) TV remote.
 
Last edited:
Its hard for someone to tell you if its for you....you'd obviously have to get a setup and determine that for yourself.

The XBMC forums are very helpful and are a good place to start asking questions.
 
Spent three freaking hours last night jailbreaking my ATV2. I had previously updated it whenever it was needed. I tossed it in a box sometime last year, and didn't think about it until just recently. When I powered it back on, it had 5.3 on it. Well, that's not a problem. It can be jailbroken. Which I did. I then unplugged it, walked it over to the living room, and plugged it in. That's when I learned about "tethered" jailbreaking. Your device is a brick if the power goes out... Or if you unplug it because your computer's in a different room than your TV. It will not turn on unless you disconnect certain cables, plug it into a PC, run an application, wait a bit, disconnect one cable, and reconnect some other cables.

Okay, so I'll just downgrade it to the previous OS, which doesn't require a tether. That's when I learned that Apple requires a network connection in order to install an OS. Oh, and they can tell you "No" if you want to install an older version. What the heck? I understand not supporting older OS, but to flat out tell the customer that they cannot use the hardware they paid for with the software they paid for is ridiculous. Could you imagine if Microsoft refused to let you install Windows 7 once 8 was released?

It looks like I lucked out, though. An un-tether is available (for now, until Apple decides to stop supporting 5.3). And all I had to do was reboot the device twice... Each time requiring the cable swap. Thank GOD my wife has a laptop. All this just to get a gorram app installed. I adjusted the screen (720p max? Gah!), fiddled around with the menus to see if it all worked, and then put it away. My wife and I went out and had some fun for a little while. I'll revisit it today and see if it can do what I want it to.
 
Manually entering meta data for 400+ movies/shows. F that. lol.

I use XBMC but I don't enter meta data for anything, nor do I watch Netflix with it. I hear they came out with a new way to accomplish netflix but it's just not worth the time to setup IMHO. I spent a good bit of time trying to get Amazon's Prime to work with XMBC and in the end it just wasn't seamless enough to have been worth the time. I haven't used it since and I think I will have to do reconfigure it to get it to work again due to some changes Amazon has done.
 
The results of my attempts:
Cover art, movie info, etc - Automatically downloaded via XBMC. Very nice
Controlling via iPad - Using a remote control app.
Streaming from iPad to ATV2 - Only via airplay. XBMC doesn't keep a central database to know where you left off on the show, so it doesn't know to resume.
Subtitles - Suck on XBMC. "On by default" means off. Turn them off then back on to get it working.
ISO mounting - Works great! Like, seriously great. Could not ask for better. No need to rerip.
Database backup - Haven't tried. Haven't needed to. Metadata's automatically filled in quite well.

It looks like the only thing XBMC can't do that I wanted it to is to pause on one device and resume on another. It doesn't seem to be handling my TV show episodes very well, either. Gonna do some fiddling on that.

Oh, and there's a new untethered jailbreak out for 5.3 as of today. Trying that out now too!
 
It doesn't seem to be handling my TV show episodes very well, either.

You didn't really specify what the problem is but I'll guess that it has to do with file names. My TV library was a bit of a mess when I started. I used a standalone program called 'The Renamer' and even then it did require some manual renaming on my end of a few shows, but everything works perfectly now.

Also +1 on plex if you're looking to start/resume across different devices.
 
You didn't really specify what the problem is but I'll guess that it has to do with file names. My TV library was a bit of a mess when I started. I used a standalone program called 'The Renamer' and even then it did require some manual renaming on my end of a few shows, but everything works perfectly now.

Also +1 on plex if you're looking to start/resume across different devices.
I may have to try plex. XBMC on the ATV2 reminds me of molasses dripping off a wooden spoon. If a default install can't even hit 30FPS on the GUI, something's wrong.

As for my TV library, I was thinking specifically of my Doctor Who episodes. I've got .m4v files of the new series. It can't find them. At all. It sees Seasons 1-7 of the old series and season 20, but nothing in between. The files just aren't there. With XBMC's lack of stability on the ATV2, I'd not be surprised to see that it crashed when adding the files to the library, and that's why it can't find them.

Sad, because it works great on my iPad!
 
You can pause/resume on different devices with a shared mySql library. Not sure if you can do that with iPad though, never tried. Plex might be a good option if you want to use mobile devices. Personally I prefer to be able to play files directly from a share without needing middleman software, so I like XBMC.
 
If you want the netflix experience, being able to transcode your content on the fly to your iOS/android/web browser, as well as having a desktop couch mode player, then mediabrowser3 would be perfect for you. It is still pretty new under going plenty of development.
 
Mediacentermaster is great once you have it configured. It's a bit kludgy, but it works wonders for managing your metadata.
 
Never used XBMC on ATV2, however a couple of your problems might be that a) XBMC doesn't support M4V, so it would of skipped over those files. Also the tv scrappers expect the new dr. who to be named Dr. Who (2005) season 1-7

For M4V playback you most likely need a non open-source solution due to the licensing requirements.
 
XBMC doesn't support m4v? Somebody must have not told mine that cause that's what all my rips go to and it plays them just fine. :)

You are correct about the naming though. Remakes or shows that have the same name you have to put in the year so it knows witch one to grab. I would think this would not be unique to XBMC.
 
I would say what you want is Plex.

I would vote for Plex too, it does quite a few diffferent diverse devices more readily than XBMC because XBMC would do any transcoding locally while Plex does it mostly server side. So its easier for Plex to perliferate its Client to a range of diverse devices.

Plex will add meta data but its a stickler for naming files "correctly". The rule of thumb is you would use the movie title at the top of the page of a imdb page for that movie including the year. So you would do the first Christian Bale Batman as

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Batman Begins (2005).mkv.

Anything else is unpredictable.
 
I'm not sure what you are hosting your ISO rips on but XBMC does support a centralized library via an SQL server. I have a FreeNAS box that I have installed an SQL server onto and using that to sync my libraries across all my devices. I also setup XBMC on my main PC to do the initial library sync because it was much faster.
 
I really love XBMC so far but it has one major shortcoming...I can't figure out how to stream to other tv's in the house that on the network. Each TV has a PS3 or sony Blu-ray player with it but I can't for the life of me figure out if XBMC will stream/serve to these devices.

Locally on the HTPC, XBMC is beautiful however. Mounting iso's, etc and the interface is wonderful.

I really wish there was a way to stream iso's throughout the house...Plex will stream mkv's everywhere to via the Sony devices but that means I am keeping an iso and mkv copy of the same movie. I really want iso to work.
 
I really love XBMC so far but it has one major shortcoming...I can't figure out how to stream to other tv's in the house that on the network. Each TV has a PS3 or sony Blu-ray player with it but I can't for the life of me figure out if XBMC will stream/serve to these devices.

Locally on the HTPC, XBMC is beautiful however. Mounting iso's, etc and the interface is wonderful.

I really wish there was a way to stream iso's throughout the house...Plex will stream mkv's everywhere to via the Sony devices but that means I am keeping an iso and mkv copy of the same movie. I really want iso to work.

Just use the MKV file as it doesn't re-encode anything so the quality should be the same.

Test it out and see if you can tell a difference.

Plex will stream to alot of devices on the network. A strong network is key and you can use DLNA that Xbox360s etc have built in.
 
Have you tried plexconnect? Its a hack to get plex running on a ATV3. Yes 3rd Gen.

I have it running on mine currently. I'm actually pretty pleased with it. All my movies are MKV. Plex simply remux the file and transcodes ONLY the audio. The video is not transcoded since ATV3 can play it natively. But it can't decode DTS so plex transcodes it to DD 5.1. Still decent.

Coming from a boxee box. This is awesome. And you have all the other native apps in the ATV3 like netflix and hulu.
 
Just use the MKV file as it doesn't re-encode anything so the quality should be the same.

Test it out and see if you can tell a difference.

Plex will stream to alot of devices on the network. A strong network is key and you can use DLNA that Xbox360s etc have built in.

Yeah, i was trying to keep only one file (mkv or iso) to save storage space. I prefer iso just in case I have to create a disc again if the kids happen to destroy the original.
 
I think your needs more closely match Plex than XBMC. If you want to spend the time to get everything setup just right and running correctly, you can accomplished all your goals under XBMC; however, Plex does pretty much everything you want it to right out of the box without having to spend days configuring and customizing and testing.
 
Back
Top