The mature and feature-rich free media centre solution XBMC has just been updated to version 11. Codenamed “Eden”, the latest version builds on the already strong feature set of XBMC 10 “Dharma” with a vastly improved default skin, the ability to roll back add-ons to previous versions and a new XBMC Linux distribution, XBMCbuntu.

There are also a plethora of other improvements under the hood including speed improvements thanks to a new JPEG rendering engine, a simpler library, better networking support and improved handling of unencrypted Blu-Ray data. Other improvements include Windows remote control support and better handling of GPU video decoding for some AMD devices running under Linux.

XBMC 11 also marks the first stable release for the AppleTV 2 and iOS devices that is in-sync with the main release – i.e. not running outdated versions. Users of Apple hardware will also be pleased to see proper AirPlay support, for streaming video from their iPhones, iPads and other devices.

Finally the new live release – XBMCbuntu – has been built on top of the LXDE desktop environment, providing users with a fully usable desktop and web-browser underneath XBMC (don’t worry – by default the release automatically launches XBMC).

Download: XBMC 11 “Eden” @ XBMC.org

Do you use XBMC? Have you tried out Eden yet? What do you think? Sing your praises in the comments box, below.

Source: XBMC