XBMC - A Powerful Media Center

XBMC (formally Xbox Media Center) is an open source product that is designed to make any platform a true entertainment hub. XBMC is available for free on Xbox, Windows, OS X, Linux, and AppleTV. It is written in C++ and based on the x86 architecture.

XBMC supports almost all audio, video, and image formats and includes features such as playlists, audio visualizations, slideshows, weather reporting, and a massive array of third-party plugins. It is also fully network-capable for both local area networks and the Internet meaning you have access to wide range of Internet media such as Hulu, YouTube, QuickTime etc.

A major feature of XBMC is its metadata database which allows all media types to be automatically organised and information to be downloaded and associated to each file. For example TV Shows will display the series and episode name including the date aired, cast and crew information plus synopsis and reviews. This will then be combined with images to provide stunning backdrops and covers for all your media. This service works by scraping web sites such as IMDb, TheTVDB etc to match your file names up with their specific information found online.

Finally XBMC offers an amazing customization through an advance skinning and plugin system. This makes it possible to change the way XBMC looks and feels as well as add advance new features. There are literally thousands of skins and plugins that are created by the community and can be downloaded for free online.

Be sure to check out the screenshot gallery below provided by xbmc.org:

Format Support:

Video formats: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 SP and ASP, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, RMVB, QuickTime, Sorenson, WMV and Cinepak.

Container formats: AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, and DVR-MS.

Audio formats: A MIDI, AIFF, WAV/WAVE, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC/Musepack/Mpeg+, Speex, Vorbis and WMA.

Image formats: RAW image formats, BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX and Targa/TGA.

Physical media: CDs, DVDs, DVD-Video, Video CDs (including VCD/SVCD/XVCD), Audio-CD (CDDA), USB Flash Drives, and Hard Disk Drives.

Network protocols: UPnP, SMB/SAMBA/CIFS, XBMSP, DAAP, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT), MMS (MMSU, MMST), RTMP, Podcasting, TCP, UDP, SFTP and RTP.

In addition to XBMC’s amazing support it can also upscale all standard definition videos (480i, 480p, 576i and 576p) to high definition (720p, 1080i and 1080p).

To checkout XBMC for yourself, download it for free from xbmc.org.