NamelessFragger

Tuesday Nov 11 2008, 10:05 AM

Perhaps if I could get my X360 wireless pad working with it...

NamelessFragger

Wednesday Nov 12 2008, 07:06 PM

-Apparently, XBMC has a database of movies, TV episodes, and whatnot for whatever you have. How do you get all the art, episode info, etc.? I could understand movies having that info if XBMC lets you rip DVDs to the hard drive, but Xboxes don't have capture cards for recording TV episodes...or is it that you just download the info for a specific video file in a similar manner to updating album info for music files? (I'm still not too in-depth with the whole media center/HTPC concept, as computers are generally gaming and Internet machines in my eyes.)

The database is not built into xbmc itself. Rather, it uses a gopher system that it calls SCRAPERS. Basically, you tell the scraper where your content is, what is contained in the folders and which online database to search. It then downloads the information and caches it locally on your PC/xbox. It's not as easy as that I found however as your files have to adhere to some common form of naming convention which you can set up by creating an xml file and placing it in the userdata folder of the xbmc install directory.

-When used on a system with a TV tuner, capture card, or some other device of that nature, will XBMC recognize it? I was thinking about the possibility of connecting a USB tuner/capture device to one of the Xbox's controller ports with the proper cable (all of which are really a somewhat proprietary variant of USB).

I don't watch television so I don't have any experience with that. However there are plugins to add EPG (electronic program guides) so I'd assume that some type of support for it must be present.

-Does the Windows version support DirectInput or XInput? This is crucial if I'm going to get one of my Xbox pads working.

I've tried making original xbox pads work under windows. It's really hit or miss. The drivers are there but the POV hat doesn't seem to work at all. Also, I'm not sure if you would be able to use it inside xbmc unless you used something like joytokey or similar.

-Why the hell does MC360 have no visible text in the Windows version, but works just fine on my Xbox? (Admitted, it's not suitable for PC use due to the aforementioned slant towards Xbox gamepads, but imagine using it on your PC with a wireless X360 pad!)

I do not have that particular skin installed on my copy (However I do have it on my original xbox and it trips out my buds). I'll have to install it, test it and get back to you

-I don't expect this to be implemented until after Atlantis hits a stable, final release, but is it too much to ask to be able to view animated .GIFs beyond the first frame? It always irks me how so many photo viewers in media-oriented apps and devices don't handle those properly, be it a media center app, the one in my PSP, or whatever else.

couldn't tell ya. I don't have any animated GIFs on my computer.

I only have one more remaining thing on my mind-how much space do I free up from removing Windows Media Center from my Vista install? Even in its current, still-largely-designed-around-the-Xbox state, XBMC is still a far superior solution in terms of usability and flexibility on the PC.

I'd venture to guess that Vista's MCE install takes up around a couple hundred megabytes. You gotta think, it includes several DLL files with embedded graphics. HD videos which the end user calibrates their monitor/TV with, a backend with support for various tuner cards/remotes and if you want to get down to it, MCE cannot work without a full install of media player as it uses that as it's media database. Any changes you make to your files in your media player library are instantly shown in media center. The opposite is also the case however not much can be changed from within media center itself.