XboxMediaCenter 2.0.0 release!

[Cyberace]

Team-XBMC (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Team_XBMC_and_Others) and The XBMC Project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc) is proud to announce the release of XboxMediaCenter 2.0.0. XBox Media Center (XBMC) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC) is an award winning (http://sourceforge.net/awards/cca/), free and open source media player for the Xbox™ game-console (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox). The XboxMediaCenter 2.0.0 point-release source code (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=What_Is_Source_Code) has now been set in our CVS (http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=87054). We consider that the current code in the XBMC CVS (http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=87054) is as stable as a point-release should be. All XBMC users are highly encouraged to upgrade to this stable Xbox Media Center 2.0.0 point-release. Remember, the XBMC source code (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=What_Is_Source_Code) needs to be compiled with the XDK (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Microsoft_Xbox_SDK), and requires a modded Xbox to run. Our thanks goes out to everyone who has tested, reported bugs, and helped fix them in order to make this release possible.

There are many new features and functions that have been introduced since the 1.1.0 point-release, that we cannot list them all here. A few that are especially worth mentioning are; the enhanced GUI/skin-engine, the Project Mayhem III skin, DVD-Video menu/navigation support (with ISO/IMG image parsing), RAR/ZIP archive parsing, a new audio/music-player (PAPlayer) with crossfade, gapless playback and ReplayGain support, Karaoke CDG-file display, Xored Trainer Engine (gaming-cheats), XLink Kai (online-gaming) front-end, iTunes 6.x DAAP and UPnP-clients, and two surprise features; read-only support for FAT12/16/32 formatted USB Mass Storage Devices up to 4GB in size, and a brand new "skinnable" 3D visualizer.

For a full list of all features/functions and codecs/formats supported by XBMC please visit the "XBMC Features and Supported Formats/Codecs (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Supported_File_Formats)" page in our new online manual (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Xbox_Media_Center_Online_Manual).

Help is wanted to get our online-manual (WIKI) (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page), and all the language translations (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Information_on_Language_Support) up-to-date.

XBMC official web-site: www.xboxmediacenter.com (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com) (manual (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Xbox_Media_Center_Online_Manual) and FAQ (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Frequently_Asked_Questions))

[Cyberace]

hmm, does Doom9 have something against XBMC? :o ...I was just wondering since there has never been a news post about XBMC on www.doom9.net/www.doom9.org news-page, (even though I think it is very much related to the spirit of this site and forum) :(

I can understand if Doom9 has something against Microsoft, but that shouldn't affect any judgement on XBMC, should it? :p

[Nic]

I don't think it's entirely legal, as I think it can only be compiled using the Microsoft XDK Compiler and that is, AFAIK, used without license to compile the xbox media center. And hence you only really find downloads for XBMC on P2P/Torrent sites which Doom9 does not want to be associated with.

So you probably won't get much talk of it here, and there are alot of other forums where XBMC is discussed.

-Nic

[Cyberace]

Well this site has a lot of information, discussions and links on circumventing various DRM and I'm not sure that is entirely legal either, hehe :D

Anyway, while the question if a build-version of XBMC compiled with the Microsoft XDK compiler in a grey zone and might be debatable (which depends part on your own country copyright-law and part how you interpret that), but there is no question that The XBMC Project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc) is 100% legal. The XBMC Project members only maintain the source code (which is open source under GPL or LGPL), and it is the latest branch of that source code that been released as version 2.0.0 which the news is about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#Legality

For the record, Microsoft have never claimed or stated that The XBMC Project (or XDK compiled versions of XBMC) to be in any violation of their copyrights or other legal rights, neither have they tried to sue or have someone arrested for using XBMC on their Xbox. Microsoft have only been concerned themself about people who profit on pirated Xbox-games when it comes to the Xbox. Hell, Microsoft have even 'stolen' a lot of ideas, design and concepts from the XBMC-GUI and implemented those ideas/functions/features into the Xbox360 (and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005).

Here I go on rambling, back to the point, all I hoped on was to see a small news-piece on the Doom9 websites news-page ;)