Xbmc on Pieter Viljoen's Blog

XBMC on NUC's and Pi's

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:44:44 +0000

I’m still looking for the perfect XBMC hardware; must be small, silent, low power, low heat, 1080p, HD audio, and play anything I throw at it without a hiccup. The number of options is increasing, but no clear winner.

I previously tested an XIOS DS running XBMC on Android, and XBMC on Linux. At that time the builds were pretty unstable. I retested the latest Linux builds, that also include XBMC 12 Frodo RC2.

RIP Boxee Box

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:02:11 +0000

After nearly six months of no software updates for the Boxee Box, Boxee announced the Boxee TV, and, as far as I’m concerned, the death of the Boxee Box.

Boxee is releasing an updated hardware platform, but they are abandoning all local media playback and cataloging capabilities, and instead focusing on a, US only, cloud storage DVR device.

I have no need for such a device, and based on the Boxee community forum posts, the blog comments, and even comments from their XBMC roots, I am not alone in expressing my disappointment.

XBMC for Linux on Pivos XIOS DS

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 02:41:59 +0000

Pivos released an XBMC build for Linux, and I tried it out.

The Pivos XIOS DS is a very small (less than 5" x 5" x 1") HTPC supporting hardware accelerated 1080p video and HD audio playback. The XIOS DS supports XBMC for Android, and XBMC for Linux, with native hardware acceleration. I reviewed the Android port of XBMC in a previous post.

The XIOS DS is available for $115 at Amazon, placing it, price wise, between the $98 Roku 2 XS and the $178 Boxee Box.

XBMC for Android on Pivos XIOS DS

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 20:36:07 +0000

In my ongoing quest to find the perfect Home Theater PC platform, I was excited to read that XBMC had been ported to Android. This opens possibilities for XBMC on low cost, low power, low noise, small form factor hardware, with hardware accelerated media playback.

The XBMC Android development was done on a Pivos XIOS DS device, and I ordered one from Amazon. At $115 it is not exactly low cost, especially compared to mature platforms like the Roku 2 XS for $98 or Boxee Box for $180.

Zotac ZBOXHD-ID11 MKV H.264 Video Playback Performance

Sat, 29 May 2010 00:28:00 +0000

When I started writing about the ID11, my intent was to document video playback and use as an HTPC, several posts later, and I am finally getting to MKV H.264 playback configuration and performance.

This is the sixth post in a series of posts related to the Zotac ZBOX ZBOXHD-ID11.

Summary:

The CPU is not powerful enough to render / decode H.264 video, and GPU acceleration via DXVA is required, as well as a DXVA capable player.
The Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder, included as part of Windows 7 x64, worked perfectly for H.264 playback, and compared to other H.264 decoders had the lowest CPU usage.
As a standalone player, Media Player Classic Home Cinema, is a perfect choice, it supports MKV, H.264, DXVA, and subtitles without the need of any other software.
Playback of MKV H.264 in Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, MediaPortal, or XBMC requires the installation of Haali Media Splitter, and ffdshow audio and video decoders.
For AC-3 / DTS pass-through playback via S/PDIF / HDMI, the ffdshow audio decoder is required.

I am not an expert in how these things work, but I have a basic understanding of video playback on Windows platforms, so let’s start with the file format; an MKV file is a Matroska Media Container file. An MKV file can contain multiple audio-, video-, subtitle-, and other, streams. An MKV file is not a video or audio compression format, it is just a container.