[olug] more XBMC info

[Adam Haeder]

In honor of XBMC 11.0 coming out this week, here are the notes from my XBMC
presentation (so they're in the OLUG mail archives). Also, check out the
3rd party repository by "BlueCop" detailed at
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=121023. It's got video plugins for
Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and ESPN, and they work pretty well.


*

XBMC Version 11.0: EDEN

Presentation to the Omaha Linux User’s Group

2012-03-06 by Adam Haeder (adam at adamhaeder.com)

XBMC resources:

   - http://xbmc.org
   -
   http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO_compile_XBMC_for_Linux_on_Fedora_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_CentOS
   - http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
   - http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_Quick_Start_Guide
   - http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_for_Linux_specific_FAQ
   - http://forum.xbmc.org/
   - http://www.xbmcsvn.com/ <- XBMC for XBOX
   - http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Category:All_add-ons


What can it do?

   - Play almost all video formats, in most kinds of containers, including
   .iso
   - Play almost all audio formats
   - Display images/slideshows
   - Display weather information
   - Work with a remote control or keyboard or mouse
   - Extensible via community written Python plugins
   - Connect to many different network services (LAN and WAN) for content
   - Query online databases for tv show, movie and audio data
   - Play DVDs
   - Play Karaoke mp3/cbr files
   - Be remote controlled over the network
   - Act as a PVR frontend


What can’t it do?

   - Act as a PVR backend to record tv shows
   - Play DRM content
   - Access Netflix (natively)


Other options:

   - Plex
   - Boxee
   - Mediaportal
   - MythTV


   1. Installation
      1. Versions?
      2. Packages
      3. From Source
   2. Moving around the interface - the primary modules
      1. Common keys
         1. Arrow keys = menu movement
         2. Backspace = go back a screen
         3. Left Arrow = bring up the view menu
         4. c = context menu (kind of like the right mouse button)
         5. m = When playing a video or listening to music, brings up the
         menu
         6. i = information about the media that’s playing
         7. spacebar = pause
         8. s = bring up the Exit menu
      3. Identifying video sources and updating the library
      1. TVNamer - https://github.com/dbr/tvnamer
      2. spaces_to_underscores.sh:
         1. ls | while read -r FILE
         do
         mv -v "$FILE" `echo $FILE | tr ' ' '_' | tr -d '[{}(),\!:]' | tr
         -d "\'" | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' | sed 's/_-_/_/g'`
         done
      4. Identifying audio sources and updating the library
   5. Selecting and playing videos
   6. Selecting and playing audio
   7. Popular Video addons
      1. Academic Earth
      2. Al Jazeera
      3. cnet Podcasts
      4. DIY Network
      5. Engadget
      6. ESPN Video
      7. Food Network
      8. Fox News
      9. G4TV
      10. Giant Bomb
      11. Khan Academy
      12. MythBox
      13. Nasa Videos, TV and Vodcasts
      14. NascarX
      15. National Geographic
      16. PBS
      17. Revision3
      18. Screened
      19. TechCrunch TV
      20. TED Talks
      21. Tested
      22. The Trailers
      23. TWiT
      24. YouTube
      25. Vimeo
   8. Popular Image Addons
      1. 500px
      2. flickr
      3. Picasa
   9. Popular Music Addons
      1. Grooveshark
      2. Icecast
      3. Internet Archive
      4. NPR
      5. International Radio
   10. Popular Program Addons
      1. Facebook Media
      2. Gmail Checker
      3. Rom Collection Browser
      4. rTorrent
      5. XBMC PBX Addon
   11. Interfacing from remote devices or web browser
      1. Configure the system for remote access
      2. Access from a web browser
      3. Access from an Android application
      4. Send commands via ‘curl’ through the JSON API
         1. curl --data-binary '{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method":
         "VideoLibrary.Scan", "id": "mybash"}' -H 'content-type:
application/json;'
          http://${USER}:${PASS}@${IP}:${PORT}/jsonrpc ; echo
      12. The Basics of setting up a remote through lirc
      1. Assuming Streamzap - kernel module “streamzap”
      2. Start the lirc daemon
      3. Test the communication with ‘mode2’
      4. Create the /etc/lirc/lircd.conf file with ‘irrecord’
      5. Test the config with ‘irw’
      6. Configure $HOME/.lircrc to accept remote codes as keypresses with
      ‘irxevent’


*--
Adam Haeder
adam at adamhaeder.com

Check out my latest book: LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell from
O'Reilly: http://bit.ly/bvQQ0I