> Currently, for most devices only software decode of audio and video is hooked up.
This is a good start, but ultimately, you need hardware decoding. Even if a modern phone or tablet could decode 720p x264 in real time (many cannot), the battery usage would make it entirely untenable.
Yes, but you could put your tablet on a charger and hook it to the TV. If you then had a remote control app on your phone, that would be perfect. Even better, someone designs a snazzy dock for this function, which may or may not have its own purpose-built remote/controller.
Voila, your tablet is now also a media center box. (And could even function as a low-power game box.)
Or get a Gen 1 or Gen 2 AppleTV, both of which are (very) easily rootable and can run XMBC smoothly and cost less than half the price of the Android tablets I've seen.
But what about the AK802 Android 4.0 micro-pc network player with 1.5ghz Cortex A8, 1GB RAM, 4GB flash, HDMI for less than $70 ?
Its the size of s thumb drive, so you could make a keychain out of it. XBMC for Android should make this playable out of the box (no root necessary).
Practically any device (eg, $60 Deal Extreme set top boxes) has some hardware decoding these days (H264 decoding at least). Whether it is used by XMBC is another matter.
"will make": XBMC is here now, plus has a track record of delivering.
The "true potential" of Android isn't about gaming. Its true potential will be realized when it can run on the disposable pay as you go handsets used by the other 5 billion people on the planet as their primary and only computing device.
First, we don't know what Android's "true potential" is yet because it hasn't realized it yet.. unless it has and its what its doing now, but we still don't know that its not more than that. Maybe its true potential is that after Windows takes over all phones Android will power the UI to your car, who knows.
Anyway, Android is moving down the chain and inasmuch as smartphone economics look like mobile phone V1 economics, they should be getting too at the <$1000pa earners within a few years. Incredible when you think about it. Mobiles went from stock brokers and movie stars only to sustenance farmers in the worst run countries on earth in only a decade. People who haven't been reached by things like electricity, piped water or paved roads. A half a generation old technology has, in some cases, better market penetration than things so old we can't even think of them as technology. Things like literacy & money.
That XBMC exists as a product and Ouya doesn't is not subjective. The GP comment used the wrong verb tense for each. You or me remarking on this objective fact is not subjective either.
I'm sorry, but "major" is seriously jumping the gun. The GP32 sold ~60k units in its lifetime, and came nowhere near disrupting the handheld gaming world.
For those more knowledgeable than I: would this run on Google TVs? It looks like it's an NDK app, and I was under the impression that GTV didn't support the NDK.
If it's an NDK app, then no it won't run. The Logitech Revue (aka Google TV standalone box) has an Intel Atom processor, not an ARM, unlike most every other Android device.
1. It might run. APKs support packaging more than one machine architecture for NDK code in one apk. Currently, there is built in support, in the SDK, for both ARM variants and x86. You can get add-on support for MIPS. Possibly others, IDK.
2. If it doesn't run and you have source access, and if the native code is all in C and C++, you can compile it by adding the option to generate x86 code. It will be packaged in the resulting apk file, and should be installable on Google TV, unless it uses other APIs not available on Google TV.
What about Plex? IIRC it's a fork of XBMC and has been available for both iOS and Android for the last 6 months or so. Nothing against XBMC but Plex is probably a better choice right now if you want something stable.
Plex for iOS and Android is just a front end, you need the server-side of the software to convert video.
XBMC can convert video on-the-fly, to do this on iOS it uses private API for hardware acceleration (and that's why you need to jailbreak your device to install it)
Unfortunately, Plex is very slow - it requires much more powerful hardware than XBMC does (the PC version, that is - haven't tried the iOS version, and I couldn't get the Android version to work)
Awesome, I've been thinking about building an HTPC, but beginning to balk at the power cost compared to some sort of streaming device and low power storage unit connected over N wifi. If there's box that has spdif out I'll buy it straight away (for high quality DA audio conversion).
Check into the ZOTAC Z-Box. The power consumption is pretty decent compared to a full Micro ATX or ITX. It has optical and HDMI audio. Wireless N... I'm running OpenElec on mine and it's very responsive.
Remember all of the cheap, hardware decode capable ARM devices we've seen lately?
This is awesome, awesome, awesome. XBMC is an impressive piece of software. uPNP AV/DLNA, AirPlay, can play from every network sharing technology I've ever heard of.
I always say that its the best software I've ever used and I've been using it since the OG xbox ~2005. It is perfect for a television and somehow they manage to constantly improve it.
Inexpensive set-top hardware coupled with xbmc is a definite win
I am the author of that post. The person who tipped me on the news told me that the APK was leaked, and Not compiled.
However, later on, as soon as I found out that the APK was compiled, and not leaked, along with the person who compiled it, I immediately updated the post.
Sorry, but this was not about PVs. Getting some 2-3k PVs and destroying the site's image is not going to do any good.
I would like to apologize to everyone for the confusion created.
This is a good start, but ultimately, you need hardware decoding. Even if a modern phone or tablet could decode 720p x264 in real time (many cannot), the battery usage would make it entirely untenable.