Turn your Mac into a whole new media centre
In 2002, to the delight of all who owned modded Xbox consoles, a media centre application going by the name of Xbox Media Centre (XBMC) was launched.
The free open source software eventually became a GUI that replaced the Xbox dashboard and provided one of the most well received media centre interfaces to date, providing users with full access to all of their media and a whole lot more.
In 2007, XBMC was ported to the Linux platform and now in 2008, Mac users who're looking for a similar port are in luck. A team of programmers led by Elan Feingold have come together to port the popular media application to Mac's OS X operating system and declare the project, titled "OS X XBMC", to be from "people who like the best OS coupled with people who like the best media centre".
Mac users are probably wondering; what's the point of XBMC on a Mac system? Well, you do already have apps such as iTunes and FrontRow, but in an interview with 9to5Mac.com, Elan Feingold points out the following features that iTunes, Front Row and AppleTV don't offer:
- Resolutions up to, including and even surpassing 1080P (AppleTV is currently at 720P)
- DTS/AC3 passthrough (which is great for playing DVD/BluRay/HD-DVD sourced audio). This means if you have a surround receiver you can have it decode multichannel audio
- Almost unlimited video and audio format support since we can play anything ffmpeg supports
- A great virtual file system layer with support for protocols like UPnP
- There is a great looking weather item that puts very useful info in front of your eyes.
- Since it is an open platform, the sky really is the limit, things like Youtube browsers, RSS readers, visualizers, MAME/Other emulators are all being integrated seemlessly. Heck, one could even imagine running an Xbox emulator on my quad-core machine...now that would bring us full circle!
The OS X version of XBMC is currently in very early stages, v0.1 to be exact, but it's already performing admirably and could prove to be one of OS X's killer apps. If you're itching to put it through its paces, you'll find the download link below.
Useful links
Official website (OS X): OSXBMC.com
Official website (Xbox): XboxMediaCenter.com
Download: OS X XBMC v0.1
Interview: 9to5Mac.com with Elan Feingold
