Download movie torrents? Have a bigscreen TV? Read on...

[phosphor]

Do any of you download bittorrent movies and music? Do you have a bigscreen TV?

How would you guys like to have a gorgeous TV experience like no other? One where the interface and ease of use and feature set blows pretty much everything out of the water. One that can hold as many movies and music files only limited to the capacity of you HD space - easily upgradeable and virtually unlimited.

[GEEK]
It's XBMC.

I know, this is borderline uber-geek, but thought I would share my experiences and help others to enter this world of media nirvana. It blows away the competition on the look, feel, features and compatibility. Some of you, this may be old news, but many havn't a clue this is even out there and thats why I felt the need to post it up.

Some sample screenshots, 100's of skins available:

This is a sample frontpage

This is a sample movie listing, fully animated with changing backgrounds as you scroll through the selections.

and this is my remote: my ipad.

The setup requires a dedicated computer system of some degree, whatever storage your willing to pay for, and some time for setup and possibly restructuring your movie and music collections. Once XBMC is installed, you can allow it to auto download all the covers, backgrounds, and file/movie information. When downloading new movies (from another system), I directly DL them into the XBMC recognized directories and name them appropriately as needed by XBMC. You can eather build your own system on the cheap or get a premade mini-system that would look nice, but would need external storage. Example:
Newegg.com - ASUS Eee Box EB1012P-B007G Intel Atom D510(1.66GHz) 2GB DDR2 250GB HDD Capacity Next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

As for the iPad, it was icing on the cake, since I already had one prior to this setup. I sit on my ass and select whatever I want through a very clean interface where the iPad communicates via wireless to the XBMC server. You can get a regular remote to work on a system as well and there are many different kinds to buy. Example:
Newegg.com - AVS Gear GP-IR01BK Windows Vista Infrared MCE Black Remote Control

Currently, I have over 300+ HD movies, 800+ cartoons/anime (for the kids), and 20+ full series in HD. Not worried too much about music, because thats not what I want it for in the living room. It is a dream and for the guys, it has a WF (wife factor) rating of A+.

Again, it takes a bit of work and cost, but it is the best purchase I have made in a long time (aside from aas, of coarse). If any of you are interested in it, take the plunge and need assistenence then just ask.

links to get you started:
XBMC
XBMC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
XBMC Community Forum

I highly suggest this tutorial series, he has many parts:

XBMC Pt 1 The Noobs Guide To Creating The Ultimate HTPC

YouTube Video

[/GEEK]

 

[min0 lee]

It's good to have a geek here.

 

[SloppyJ]

Might not be as pretty but I just use my PS3 and Xbox hooked up to my network to stream movies.

 

[OfficerFarva]

I have my 360 hooked up to my tv and use tversity to play my files. Sometimes the frame rates drop though, I'm not sure if this is from the quality of the file, the tversity program, or my xbox. I was thinking of trying out the boxee box.

 

[min0 lee]

 

[phosphor]

Just to let you know, sloppy, the xbmc was originally made for the xbox - hence the xb in the name. The interfaces for both game systems without any mods are quite acceptable for most. For me, I was on a quest for a while for the ultimate in everything media player (at this point) and I found it, I think.

 

[KelJu]

I use mythTV instead. It works pretty good. Using an xbox or playstation as a DLNA is just as efficient.

 

[phosphor]

I use mythTV instead. It works pretty good. Using an xbox or playstation as a DLNA is just as efficient.

More need to be done with DLNA, I love it. Soon hopefully, I will have a silicon dust device that accepts cablecard and have 3-6 tuners that can be transfered to any dlna device over the netork.

This gives someone an idea of the remote features you can have with an iphone/android/ipad, etc. My interface is much more user friendly and better looking imo

YouTube Video

 

[KelJu]

More need to be done with DLNA, I love it.

It depends on the user. I went with mythTV because it was open source, and I could buy a cheap remote instead of having to control it with a laptop. I despise having to go through and reorganize my media to be linux friendly. I used mezmo for a bit, and loved that it was NTFS friendly, but no remote capabilities, only a wireless mouse.

 

[maniclion]

I have my laptop connected to the living room 60" plasma and my netbook connected to our bedroom 40", I carry my 500Gig external drive to which ever room and plug it in.

For remote I use Mobile Mouse on my iphone and Ipad, my gf uses her iphone too...

 

[fletcher6490]

Do any of you download bittorrent movies and music? Do you have a bigscreen TV?

How would you guys like to have a gorgeous TV experience like no other? One where the interface and ease of use and feature set blows pretty much everything out of the water. One that can hold as many movies and music files only limited to the capacity of you HD space - easily upgradeable and virtually unlimited.

[GEEK]
It's XBMC.

I know, this is borderline uber-geek, but thought I would share my experiences and help others to enter this world of media nirvana. It blows away the competition on the look, feel, features and compatibility. Some of you, this may be old news, but many havn't a clue this is even out there and thats why I felt the need to post it up.

Some sample screenshots, 100's of skins available:

This is a sample frontpage

This is a sample movie listing, fully animated with changing backgrounds as you scroll through the selections.

and this is my remote: my ipad.

The setup requires a dedicated computer system of some degree, whatever storage your willing to pay for, and some time for setup and possibly restructuring your movie and music collections. Once XBMC is installed, you can allow it to auto download all the covers, backgrounds, and file/movie information. When downloading new movies (from another system), I directly DL them into the XBMC recognized directories and name them appropriately as needed by XBMC. You can eather build your own system on the cheap or get a premade mini-system that would look nice, but would need external storage. Example:
Newegg.com - ASUS Eee Box EB1012P-B007G Intel Atom D510(1.66GHz) 2GB DDR2 250GB HDD Capacity Next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

As for the iPad, it was icing on the cake, since I already had one prior to this setup. I sit on my ass and select whatever I want through a very clean interface where the iPad communicates via wireless to the XBMC server. You can get a regular remote to work on a system as well and there are many different kinds to buy. Example:
Newegg.com - AVS Gear GP-IR01BK Windows Vista Infrared MCE Black Remote Control

Currently, I have over 300+ HD movies, 800+ cartoons/anime (for the kids), and 20+ full series in HD. Not worried too much about music, because thats not what I want it for in the living room. It is a dream and for the guys, it has a WF (wife factor) rating of A+.

Again, it takes a bit of work and cost, but it is the best purchase I have made in a long time (aside from aas, of coarse). If any of you are interested in it, take the plunge and need assistenence then just ask.

links to get you started:
XBMC
XBMC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
XBMC Community Forum

I highly suggest this tutorial series, he has many parts:

XBMC Pt 1 The Noobs Guide To Creating The Ultimate HTPC

YouTube Video

[/GEEK]

Thank you sir, this is amazing. I highly advise anyone that has a HTPC to follow this tutorial and set up XBMC. The look and feel is amazing and I love being able to watch my movies on my big TV using my Iphone as a remote. This is seriously awesome