XBMC - Overview

Overview

XBMC (which has officially been rebranded to simply "XBMC" from its previous old name; "Xbox Media Center") supports most common audio, video, and image formats, playlists, audio visualizations, slideshows, weather forecasts reporting, and third-party plugins. It is network-capable (internet and LAN shares). Unlike other media center applications like Windows Media Center, MediaPortal and MythTV, XBMC Media Center does not include native Live TV or DVR/PVR recording functionality, nor an EPG TV-Guide interface of its own, it does however offer the possibility to integrate such functionality through third-party plugins and an official native unified DVR/PVR front-end with EPG which via a common API will support multiple back-ends via PVR client add-ons is under development, with experimental builds already available.

Through its plugin system, which is based on the Python programming language, XBMC is expandable via add-ons that include features such as television program guides, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Veoh, online movie trailer support, and Pandora Radio and podcast streaming. XBMC also functions as a gaming platform by allowing users to play mini-games developed with Python, on any operating system.

XBMC source code is distributed as open source under GPL (GNU General Public License), it is sponsored via the tax-exempt registered non-profit organization, XBMC Foundation, and is developed by a global free software community of volunteers working on XBMC for free in their spare time without being motivated by financial or material gain.

Even though the original XBMC project no longer develops or supports XBMC for the Xbox, XBMC on the Xbox is still available via the third-party developer spin-off project "XBMC4Xbox", who forked the Xbox version of the software and have completely taken over the development and support of XBMC for the old Xbox. The ending of Xbox support by the original project is also the reason that it has officially been renamed to simply "XBMC" from the old "Xbox Media Center" name. The Xbox version of XBMC also had the ability to launch console games, and homebrew applications such as emulators. Since the XBMC for Xbox version was never distributed, endorsed, or supported by Microsoft, it meant that XBMC for Xbox always required a modchip or softmod exploit to be able to run on the Xbox game-console.