You don’t need any plugin to listen to podcasts, but the method of doing so isn’t entirely obvious and the official documentation isn’t exactly helpful. I spent two weeks playing around with plugins that didn’t really help before stumbling upon this method, so I feel like I should share it.

Simply put, there are no good plugins, as of this writing, for managing your podcasts in XBMC, but there is a way to listen to and watch podcasts by default. Your media center will be way better if you do this.

Adding Your Podcast Using The GUI

So what’s the trick? Basically, it’s adding the RSS feed as a media source. I know, it’s not intuitive. The media source menu seems like a place to add folders with media files and nothing else, but that’s simply not the case.

Head to the “File” menu of the music or video section of XBMC, depending on what sort of podcast you are adding. Then click “Add Source.” Instead of adding a folder on your computer, type the RSS feed yourself, beginning with “rss://” instead of “http://”.

So far as I can tell, you can’t paste the URL into XBMC, meaning you’ll have to type the URL by hand. Keep reading if this is too much work; there’s another method.

Repeat the process for all of your podcasts, being sure to put video and audio podcasts in their proper places. That’s it; you can now stream music from your podcasts by browsing the “File” section whenever you like.

Editing Sources.xml

Do you prefer editing a text file rather than messing around with the GUI? That makes sense. You can manually add your sources in Sources.xml, if you’re geeky enough to figure it out.

Where is Sources.xml? It depends what operating system you’re using. Here’s the list:

• Windows XP: Documents and Settings\Application Data\XBMC\userdata\
  
• Vista/Windows 7: Users\\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\
  
• Mac OS X: /Users//Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/
  
• iOS: /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/userdata/
  
• Linux: $HOME/.xbmc/userdata/

Once you’ve found the file, you’re going to need to add code. Use this code:

<source>
<name>RSS Feed</name>
<path>rss://</path>
</source>


You’re going to need to replace “RSS Feed” with the name of your podcast, and “rss://” with the URL of your podcast. Remember: you need to replace “http://” with “rss://” or this may not work. You’re also going to want to make sure that audio podcasts are within this <music> tag, while video ones are within the <video> tag.

Are you confused by this method? Stick to the GUI, then, but know that learning this can save you time.

Using The Favorites

Once you’ve added your podcasts you’re going to want to browse them regularly. They’ll be a lot easier to find if you add them to your favorites. Doing so is easy – simply right-click on the podcast in the “File” menu, or press the “C” key while the podcast is selected. Then click “Add to Favorites”

You can add just about anything to your favorites, including shows and sections from addons and even shows on Hulu, so this menu will quickly become the center of your media center.

Conclusion

XBMC is complicated, but rewarding. Adding podcasts is no exception. I don’t know why this needed to be so hard, but I really like having access now that I figured it out. I hope I’ve helped you solve a problem too.

What podcasts do you like to watch or listen to on your media center? Share, along with any other thoughts, in the comments below.

A couple weeks ago I discovered that Boxee on the desktop is dead. I was disappointed, but was thrilled to discover that XBMC is not only a capable replacement but better than Boxee once you collect some amazing add-ons. What I didn’t get working right away was Hulu. So I used the Hulu desktop for that, despite its many faults. No longer. Thanks to a very quick and capable plugin from the Bluecop repository, I now have full access to Hulu from within XBMC. I can even turn off ads if I want, although I don’t think I will.

Using Hulu In XBMC

Load this plugin and you can start browsing immediately. Not sure where to start? Click “Popular“.

From here you can pick to browse popular shows, episodes or movies. Pull up popular shows and you’ll see a pretty great example of Hulu’s selection:

I know: this looks pixelated. It looks much better on a TV screen, if that matters.

Anyway, you can pick a show you want to watch and you’ll see the free episodes available, typically about six.

Are you a paying Hulu Plus user? Be sure to log in and get access to complete seasons for a staggering number of shows. You can do this in the settings, where you can also configure the advertising options:

That’s right, this plugin gives you total freedom to customize when and whether you see advertisements. Remember, if Hulu is to remain free it’s vital that people watch the ads, so use this feature wisely or you might end up ruining the fun for everyone.

Installing The Hulu Plugin

Do you want to check this plugin out? There’s only a few steps you need to follow.

• First of all, on your XBMC computer, download the ZIP file of the Bluecop Repo.
• Next, open up XBMC and head to the settings, then to the “Add-Ons” section. Pick the option to add a plugin via a ZIP file, then browse to the ZIP file you downloaded.
• Finally, head to the “Add Add-Ons” section of the settings menu. You’ll find “Hulu” under “Video“. You may need to restart XBMC before it shows up, so don’t panic if you don’t see it. Install Hulu and enjoy your newfound television-related happiness.

Joyful outbursts of laughter, similar to those of a a child with a new video game console at Christmas, are an acceptable reaction but by no means mandatory. Enjoy the free TV shows.

Conclusion – Adding To Favorites

Want quick access to your favorite shows? You can add them to your XBMC favorites easily: just right-click or press “C”  on any show and you can add the show to your XBMC favorites. This means you’ll have a quick shortcut to to your show, though where this shortcut lives depends on your XBMC theme.

So, is this plugin useful for you? As always I’d be happy to hear from you, and to hear of any other add-ons I need to check out. I learn a lot from you guys.

Last time, I lamented the end of Boxee on the desktop, but I got over it quickly when I started using XBMC. It’s the software Boxee is based on, and it’s fun to use. Sure, where Boxee is clean and organized, XBMC can be chaotic and hackerish, but that’s part of the fun. But the real fun comes when you discover the various plugins you can add to this system. I’ve been digging in the past couple of weeks, and was surprised to find very few of these great plugins are written up anywhere.

So here they are – the best plugins for the XBMC media center I’ve found so far. Try them out, and point out anything better in the comments below.

Adding Repos

Before we get to the fun part, a brief explanation of repositories. Installing these is important if you want to get updates for your plugins, but happily it is very easy to do. All you need to do is download a ZIP file, then point XBMC towards it. You can do this in the settings: just head to the “Add-Ons” section, then select “Add from ZIP file.”

Once you’ve added the repository you’ll be able to install the software from it, though I’ve sometimes needed to restart XBMC to see the new plugins. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

NaviX

If you want to browse, watch and download videos from across the Internet, this is where you should start. NaviX is a collection of user-generated playlists that we’ve covered before. You can find pretty much anything here.

Download NaviX and you’ll find it under “Programs“.

Free Cable

Do you want to watch content from TV networks around the US? This is the plugin you’re looking for. Featuring streams from NBC, FX, CBS, SyFy, USA Network and more, this plugin gives access to lots of American television content.

You’ll need to install the Bluecop Repository to install this add on. Once you do, you’ll find “Free Cable” in the video section of the add-on menu.

PsuedoTV

Imagine TV stations with only shows you like and no commercials. That’s the fun of PsuedoTV, a plugin that brings the mindlessness of channel surfing to your personal media collection.

The best criticism of media center software is how active it is. You, yourself, need to pick what you want to watch, as opposed to TV where you can mindlessly channel surf. If you just want to relax and just watch whatever for a while this is the plugin for you. It makes up TV channels based on the shows and movies in your collection, and you’ll never know what you’ll stumble upon.

You’ll find this add-on under “Programs” in the add-on menu, and there’s no need to add a repository.

Rom Launcher

Have a ROM collection? You’ll want this plugin, which lets you browse all of your ROMs from within XBMC. It even collects cover art and game descriptions:

You don’t need to do much to get this working. Just tell the plugin where your emulators and ROMs are and it will figure out the rest. This works great, and is a great deal simpler than the Boxee method I outlined last year.

You’ll find this extension under “Programs” in your add-on menu, and there’s no repository you need to add.

Sports Devil

It’s no secret – you can easily watch sports not broadcast in your country online if you know where to look. Sports Devil makes this even easier, allowing you to browse several online streaming sites with your TV remote.

Not every stream will work, but if you read through the directions you’ll find that most of them do.

You’ll need to add the Max Mustermann repository to get this working. Once you do, you’ll find this extension under “Videos.”

Other Favorites of Mine

I’ve found a few other great plugins, including Reddit, Al Jazeera, The Guide and YouTube. These can all be found under “Video” and work great.

I’m wondering, though – can you guys point out any other awesome XBMC media center plugins? I’d love to hear about them, because I’m relatively new to XBMC. Fill me in using the comments below.

The New Dashboard

The dashboard layout has gone all Metro, and I’ll be the first admit it’s quite nice. While I’m not a fan of the style for a general computing experience, it does look beautiful on a 50″ HDTV. The previous incarnation of confusing and hidden layers has been broken down into clear sections that you can switch through effortlessly. Additional functionality is provided by apps.

Kinect

Voice control is now across the board without needing to jump into a separate Kinect area. Say “Xbox” and speak whatever’s on-screen, or jump to a specific tab. I found it works well – it’s responsive and accurate. It stays in a listening state for a while, so you needn’t preface everything you say with “Xbox”.

The cross-media Bing voice search also seemed to work pretty well, pulling up a liberal torrent of content from all areas of the system – the Zune marketplace, live TV, movie contents, game tie-ins, videos – they’ve really worked on getting the Kinect stuff down and done well.

Gesture control is very much as it was before – clunky in my opinion – and unless you’ve got your Kinect set up in just such a way, you will find that your gestures will bounce all over the place making fine control for any kind of useful selection almost impossible. That’s obviously specific to my setup too – but I prefer voice control anyway.

Movies

In the UK, the streaming movie service is supplied only by Lovefilm, but I gather it’s basically the same thing as Netflix. After downloading the app, you enter your credentials and everything seamlessly integrates – voice control, Bing search, pulling content into the main dashboard – it’s nice, and best of all it doesn’t feel like an app – it just feels like part of the complete XBox dashboard experience.

I think with a little more choice in the way of apps and integrated services, this could really become the ultimate family media environment. As it is now, it’s a premium on top of your Xbox Live Gold membership (LoveFilm starts from about £8/month), but there are more free options like Crackle coming out soon also.

Unfortunately, there’s no full integration with media centers – it’s just running the same old tired Media Center Extender experience as before. Rumor has it that we may see some tighter integration with a Windows 8 Media Center, but that has yet to surface in the real world – and Microsoft has gone so far as to say that fewer than 6% of it’s customers even use Media Center.

Live TV

I’m afraid I’m not able to test this in the UK as the only option is Sky TV – and that’s at least £20/month. If you’re able to test this out in either the UK or US, do leave a comment and let us know how it works out for you. We’ve been promised both BBC iPlayer later this month, and 4OnDemand next year, so hopefully this is one area that will really improve with time as more services come on board.

Lack of Customization

As far as I can tell, the content displayed on the various tabs is not customizable at all. I am therefore destined to see Zune crap on the videos screen, despite the fact that I have deleted the app and would never pay to rent a movie when I have LoveFilm.

What I would like is for the LoveFilm app to give me multiple views on the video tab, one for a highlight movie, maybe one that suits my favourite genre, or trending this week – instead, the app is limited to one ‘tile’, and that one single tile will display whatever the LoveFilm developers want it to.

I can’t even access the LoveFilm app from the videos tab without saying the name of the highlighted movie – instead I have to go via Apps – LoveFilm. A minor irritation perhaps, but the lack of any real tile customization is very disappointing.

Advertising? Seriously?

On every single tab, in the bottom right, is a small video advertisement that rudely starts playing if you hover your selection there.

Frankly, I’m kind of disgusted that this is even here is the first place. Since when is it ok to randomly insert advertising onto my console? Remember – I’m already a paying XBox Live Gold Member. The live TV feature requires a paid Sky license; the Lovefilm service is paid too; everything on the Zune marketplace needs to be purchased; when they eventually add BBC iPlayer that’ll be paid for by my TV license money – so why the hell are you showing me advertisements Micro$oft? What additional content are you providing me with that warrants advertising on every screen?

Verdict

In summary – it’s a fantastic update that really demonstrates Kinect voice control done right, even if the gesture based controls are still sketchy. For accessing media content, I don’t think we could ask for more at this point and the choices will only improve with time.

Has it made me rethink my opinion that Metro UI sucks and will be removed from Windows 8 faster than you can say “desktop gadgets”? Not in the slightest – what works for my TV is very much not going to work for my personal computing experience.

I also think including advertising was really a low blow, considering that making use of all the functionality provided would already mean upwards of £50+ ($100) per month anyway for various services. And yes, I realise the Xbox already had advertising before, but it was fairly hidden away in the multitude of menus – now it’s on every damn screen.

Have you upgraded yet? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments, if you can pull yourself away from Skyrim for long enough.

Since then, I’ve been using a Windows machine with Windows Media Center as a PVR and haven’t really been bothered to hook up my Mac just to watch movies, so my Plex library has sat unwatched.

The great news is that Plex have finally got around to releasing a Windows client, as well as streamlining their server offerings. Let’s take a look at at it all.

Plex For Windows Client:

There’s not an awful lot to say here – the client is now available for Windows, and it’s exactly the same interface as on Mac. So if you’d like to learn about the main features of Plex in general, I suggest you check out my previous article.

MyPlex Overview

MyPlex is a radical new online element to the Plex universe. It’s primary function is to allow you to privately share your movie collection with friends, though this does of course mean they’ll be using your bandwidth and you’ll need an always on server.

PlexIt Bookmarketlet and Media Queue

MyPlex also introduces the PlexIt Bookmarklet, which allows you to queue web videos to watch later on any of your MyPlex connected devices.

It requires Flash and Silverlight to be installed, but other than that it just works. Find a video you want; click the bookmarklet; it get’s saved to your Plex. Easy!

Setting It Up MyPlex:

The in-server signup process was a bit buggy for me, so if you’re having trouble, just head over to my.plexapp.com and create a new account there.

On your local Plex server, enter your sign in details and be sure to click on the “publish server to myPlex” option. If your router supports uPnP, the tests will clear and you’ll be all good – otherwise you’ll need to manually specify the port and open it with a bit of router management.

Once you’re done, refresh the Servers tab on my.plexapp.com and you should see your server listed.

Click on Share and enter the email address or username of anyone you’d like to share your entire collection with. For more finer control, uncheck the option for “Share All Sections” and choose precisely what get’s shared.

Viewing Videos In your Queue:

This confused me a little and I spent ages trying to figure out how to actually view the videos in my queue. The short answer is: go to Preferences -> System -> myPlex and enter your login.

The long answer is: if you try to do this on your existing Mac client, you won’t find the option. Curiously, the automatic update checking doesn’t indicate that a new version is available, so you’ll need to actually go to plexapp.com and download the latest (beta) client. The latest client is separate from the server, so if you download the combined package, you’re doing it wrong. Having done that, you should now see the login option.

You’ll then find the Queue on your media list.

For me, this is now the ultimate Media Centre app, bar none. myPlex sharing is a nice feature to have, but I’m not sure how many people will actually give up their bandwidth so friends can watch their movies. Queuing media from internet sources might be a big hit for some people, but it’s not something I’ll make heavy use of myself. The release of a Windows client is the most important takeaway from this though, and should open up this superb app for a lot more of you. I would strongly encourage you check it out.

Media center computers are great. Hooked up to your television and armed with Boxee or similar software, they make watching the files on your hard drive from your couch simple. Unless, of course, the files on your hard drive aren’t named properly. For TV episodes in particular, poorly named files may not be recognized by your media center of choice. We’ve recommended TV Rename in the past for just this reason, but it’s far from perfect. It can be a little buggy at times, and only runs on Windows. FileBot is fast, stable and cross platform. There are versions for Windows, Linux and OS X.

Even better is that it does more than just rename files. You can use this tool to download subtitles for any show or movie, in any language. You can look up complete episode lists for any show. You can even split video files into smaller pieces, if you want.

Rename Files En Masse

Like I said: the main reason people should check this program out is for renaming videos. For TV shows in particular, FileBot is extremely useful.

FileBot can scan the current filenames to figure out which show, season and episode the videos contain. Then you can can file the proper episode list using one of several sources:

Between all of these sources, every show on planet Earth should be covered. Just pick one and your files will quickly be given filenames your media center application can recognize.

Find Lists Of TV Episodes

Renaming files isn’t the only reason to use this software, however. It’s also great if you want to see a complete list of every episode a TV show has ever broadcast. Just search for your show and pick a source:

Not life-changing, but still nice to have around. You might notice a season of your favorite show happened without you noticing.

Download Subtitles

Subtitles are great. They make content not produced in our native tongue accessible and makes life better for the hearing impaired. FileBot can quickly find subtitle files for any show or movie:

Again, there are a variety of sources used to accomplish this, so if a subtitle file exists you’ll be able to find it here.

Other Tricks

But that’s not all! This program can also make playlist files for you, perfect if you want to set up a loop of files. You can analyze the contents of a given file, and even cut it into pieces for burning to CD. Finally, there are a variety of tools for checking file authenticity; you can create sfv, md5 and sha1 files.

Download FileBot

Ready to check this software out? Download FileBot now. You’ll find installation files for Windows and Mac. Linux users will find a Debian file and the source code. Finally, if none of these work for you, there is a Java .jar file that works on all platforms with Java.

How do you like FileBot? Let us know in the comments below, along with any tips or tricks you may have for using this software.

Is it free?

Windows Media Center is included with most Windows 7 installations (though sadly not servers). It’s an entirely different application to Windows Media Player though, so don’t get confused between the two. It’s designed to run with a full screen 10-foot interface, and it’s actually quite a pleasure to use.

Tv-Card:

To get the best from Media Center, you really need to pair it with a TV card of some sort and it’s this functionality I’ll be focusing on today. I use an Elgato EyeTV hybrid (£110, comes with a remote) for it’s Mac compatibility, but most large brand name cards are generally well supported nowadays. You can find a list of all compatible cards here, and the menu on the left lets you explore by maker.

Note: if you’re in the UK make sure you check the various compatibilities for Freeview. The card I have is able to view digital Freeview channels, but not HD. If I want to view HD, it needs to be from Freesat (which requires a dish to be installed on the side of your house). This isn’t true of all cards, but do check as the UK has some odd standards.

It goes without saying that you also need a decent signal to get digital transmissions. If you card comes supplied with an aerial – don’t expect it to pick up much – you really do need to plug these things into something on your roof, from a satellite dish, or cable network.

I won’t run through the exact set up procedures here, but suffice to say if your card is connected with drivers installed you can open up Media Center from the start menu and head down to the TV > Live TV Setup. Installation should be painless but it takes a while to scan for channels.

Outstanding Feature – Movie Guide:

For me the most impressive feature so far is the movie guide. Set up from the regular TV guide interface, the movie guide is able to automatically extract all the movies that will shown on TV over the next 2 weeks, and presents them in an attractive wall of cover art, as well as allowing you to drill down by genre.

The first time I used it, I actually had no idea where these movies were coming from (some kind of free movies from teh internetz perhaps?), but looking at the info for each one revealed both the channel and time they would be shown on TV.

The beauty of this is that you no longer have to go trawling through a full TV guide view just to find the movies, or even venture into the dead TV time that is after-midnight. Of course, you can’t instantly watch them, but you can pre-set a recording in one-click right there. You switch over to the other menu items to see what you’ve recorded so far and are available to watch.

Compared to seeking out a movie in torrents and the rigmarole that comes with it, this is actually easier – and quite fun – to use. It’s also not illegal too, which is always a bonus.

TV Guide:

There isn’t much to innovate in the TV guide area, but the Media Center covers this basic functionality as simply as possible. While I find the native Elgato PVR software that came with my card to be rather too overpowering, the TV guide in media center is just intuitive. In no less than a minute, I’d already setup up regular recordings for the whole series of Family Guy and Gardener’s World – which pretty much covers everything I’d ever want to watch on TV!

The search function is also discreetly powerful, which I tested by pulling up all shows even remotely related to gardening. This certainly isn’t unique to Media Centre by any means, but it is as much functionality as I wish for without feeling bloated.

There’s also a ton of free content from MSN-TV. Never heard of that? Me neither, but it seems to hold vast archives of popular series previously run on British TV (see the screenshot below for some ideas of content). It’s ad-supported, but a fantastic option when TV really does suck and you have nothing recorded.

Media Center Extenders:

Windows Media Center also has some unique remote access capabilities that set it apart from the crowd. Tested with an Xbox 360, this allows your actual Media Center to be situated anywhere in the house, while the interface and content can be entirely accessed remotely. The interface is identical in fact, so apart from the slow initial connection you wouldn’t realize the center was situated elsewhere.

Having said that, I’m little disappointed that I can’t actually run Media Center on my server machine – since it can be remotely accessed, it doesn’t need to be in the living room – and the server is on 24 hours anyway so recording at night would be no problem. Media Center is strictly for use on client machines, not Windows servers.

I’m really in two minds about media centers in general right now, as I still absolutely love the meta-data abilities of Plex – for which there’s a Windows server, but no client application available – but it doesn’t handle live TV and probably never will. The EyeTV tuner I have ships with some acceptable Mac PVR software, but nothing groundbreaking compared to Windows Media Center. For now then, I’m forced to stick with both a Mac and a PC in my living room, as well as my always on server.

If you’re in the same situation, I highly suggest you check out Matt Smith’s guide to building a perfect media centre, as well previous articles on Plex and XBMC.