*** Official Kodi (née XBMC) Thread ***

OK, I'm going to try a Raspberry Pi for XBMC.

Can anyone suggest which power supply to go for? I hear it needs to a high miliamp one? I also need to buy a HDMI > HDMI+SPDIF splitter box.
 
Thanks! Those are all interesting options. I have a 6450 waiting at home so I have much fiddling to do anyway (mostly involving using my wired kb+m 3 feet away from a 42" TV :( )
 
OK, I'm going to try a Raspberry Pi for XBMC.

Can anyone suggest which power supply to go for? I hear it needs to a high miliamp one? I also need to buy a HDMI > HDMI+SPDIF splitter box.

I'm running mine (OC'd with HDD plugged in) off my old Samsung phone charger which iirc gives out 5v 1000mA. Not had any crashing yet :)
 
I have xbmc as the only startup item, but something steals focus and minimises it every time I boot my htpc. Any ideas how I track down the offending process or force xbmc to stay active?

Off the top of my head (so most likely wrong), I believe the XBMC debug log will tell you what process is taking it's focus away.
 
I'm in need of some guidance. I recently entered the world of XBMC. Sadly it was not meant to be as the Zotac Zbox AD04 I specifically bought for the task had some annoying issues (not related to OpenELEC or XBMC) so was ultimately returned to supplier for a refund.

I'm hoping someone can spec me a suitable XBMC solution which meets the following criteria;

  • Will only be used for XBMC, nothing more
  • Smooth playback of high bitrate 1080p MKV files
  • Must pass through Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 through SPDIF optical
  • Must be silent or quiet
  • After spending nigh on £275 previously, I'm hoping I can find a solution for less than £150?

A moment ago I very nearly pulled the trigger on a Raspberry Pi, complete with SD card, mains charger, case and a ViewHD Premium HDMI to HDMI + Audio (SPDIF + RCA L / R) Audio Extractor (http://www.amazon.co.uk/ViewHD-Premium-A...mi+spdif). This lot amounted to nearly £100. Considering the Pi itself is only £30 and I'm still unsure from various opinions if its suitable for me or not, especially given that I'm making it an expensive option by having to buy the HDMI/optical splitter at £40+, more than the Pi itself.

Is there seriously no off the shelf options that can run 1080p stable with a built in optical out? If not, what a hell of a gap in the market. Until then I'm stuck with my trusty old WDTV Live Gen 1.
 
I'm in need of some guidance. I recently entered the world of XBMC. Sadly it was not meant to be as the Zotac Zbox AD04 I specifically bought for the task had some annoying issues (not related to OpenELEC or XBMC) so was ultimately returned to supplier for a refund.

I'm hoping someone can spec me a suitable XBMC solution which meets the following criteria;

  • Will only be used for XBMC, nothing more
  • Smooth playback of high bitrate 1080p MKV files
  • Must pass through Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 through SPDIF optical
  • Must be silent or quiet
  • After spending nigh on £275 previously, I'm hoping I can find a solution for less than £150?

A moment ago I very nearly pulled the trigger on a Raspberry Pi, complete with SD card, mains charger, case and a ViewHD Premium HDMI to HDMI + Audio (SPDIF + RCA L / R) Audio Extractor (http://www.amazon.co.uk/ViewHD-Premium-A...mi+spdif). This lot amounted to nearly £100. Considering the Pi itself is only £30 and I'm still unsure from various opinions if its suitable for me or not, especially given that I'm making it an expensive option by having to buy the HDMI/optical splitter at £40+, more than the Pi itself.

Is there seriously no off the shelf options that can run 1080p stable with a built in optical out? If not, what a hell of a gap in the market. Until then I'm stuck with my trusty old WDTV Live Gen 1.

An Acer Revo has all the connections you want and isn't much above your £150 budget if you shop around. I use a Revo with AMD cpu+gfx with Win7 installed just running XBMC. Works a treat.
 
So about a year ago I dismantled my HTPC as I decided I wanted the 256GB M4 out of it in my main PC instead of the 60GB Vertex 2E that was in it. Recently I got round to setting it back up again with the smaller SSD. I used to use it with a logitech harmony with a Media centre IR receiver however since I reset it up I discovered I could use my nexus 7 and the XBMC remote app which can do all the stuff the remote can plus navigate my library and this works well. However I followed the instructions to get XBMC to start of PC start and it worked the first couple of times but now it seems to keep minimizing just after it boots up, I think i have the extension right but it might be something to do with some other start up service stealing the focus? I read something about putting a delay on XBMC starting up? Any ideas?
 
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I think either Catalyst Control Center or the Windows Home Server LaunchPad which steals focus if I start up XBMC too soon on my HTPC.

You can add -d xx to the end of the XBMC shortcut to delay startup by xx seconds. I use this on the laptop on the wall in the kitchen, because it takes a few seconds to connect to the wireless.
 
I think either Catalyst Control Center or the Windows Home Server LaunchPad which steals focus if I start up XBMC too soon on my HTPC.

You can add -d xx to the end of the XBMC shortcut to delay startup by xx seconds. I use this on the laptop on the wall in the kitchen, because it takes a few seconds to connect to the wireless.

Thanks that seems to have done the trick. Installed Remote droid as well at the same time so I don't have to keep moving my keyboard in to the lounge every time in need to type anything in. Just need to rip all my bloody DVDs onto my server now
 
Bought a FLIRC for my PulseEight box running Openelec. Took all of 5 mins to map all the XBMC buttons to my TV remote in VCR mode. So much simpler to use then the rii mini keyboard I was using. Even the missus can use the thing :p
 
Yesterday, I followed the instructions in the first post to create a MySQL database, and set up two profiles.

It worked fine, and the databases exist on the mysql server, library works, etc.

Tonight i tried to create a 3rd Guest profile, and it's just not working. Here are my steps:
* I create the profile, shut XBMC down,
* add the advanced setting file, with the new databse names (Guestvideo, Guestmusic)
* start6 xbmc, add a source and try to scan it. Nothing happens.
* check the mysql server, and no new database has been added

Any idea what is going wrong?

Ah, just logged into the other profile, and they aren't showing the library - so I'm not connecting to the mysql server any more with any of my profiles. My android tablet still connects okay though.

Any idea how to restore this connection?
 
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Wth?! my TV Shows has stopped working for some reason :confused:

I can still access them through the file menu, and pseudotv still works fine with them, they've just disappeared from the tv shows menu, says 0 shows.

Does anyone know how to refresh the XBMC TV Shows to rescan or whatever? I don't want to lose my playlists or anything though :(

Lame, may take this opportunity to upgrade to win8 and frodo...
 
NVP are you using the MySQL server or the standard local library?

If MySQL, your library might be fine, you might just have a connection problem with your server. I dont know enough about that to fix it. Maybe reboot your media centre and/or your server and start up xbmc again, see if the library is back.

If local, go to Video -> Files -> and pick your media source, press C to bring up the context menu, and select edit source.

Click OK to click through to the next screen, and where it says media type, change it to None, click okay.

Then go through the above again, and this time set it to TV shows, click okay, and let it refresh.

Your playlists should be fine either way.
 
Just about to start using XBMC for the first time. I've managed to get hold of a cheap E8400 & 4GB based system which I'm gonna pair with an MSI HD 6450 and a 2TB HDD. Will be plugging into my Onkyo amp which will then hopefully distribute a 1080p picture to my 50" plasma and HD 5.1 sound to my speakers!

I'm in the process of using 'theRenamer' to get all my files named correctly then I'm gonna use MCM to get the metadata. This is all being performed on my main PC before I put the HDD with the movies into the HTPC. I'm hoping this way I can reduce any headaches.

Only thing I'm not sure about is how I'm going to get XBMC to work with new files. Ideally I want to download directly to the HTPC and once the file is completed it is renamed, moved and the metadata sourced. I want to be able to queue the downloads, return later and select them from my library. Is this easily possible?
 
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