While XBMC functions very well as a standard media player application for your computer, it has been designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC.
Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.
Currently XBMC can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available.
Use your media as-is: XBMC can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive, and even files inside ZIP and RAR archives.
It will even scan all of your media and automatically create a personalized library complete with box covers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.
Changes in XBMC 12 rc2:
- HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine
- Live TV and PVR support
- h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
- 64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
- Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types
- Support for the Raspberry PI
- Initial support for the Android platform
- Improved Airplay support across all platforms, including Airplay audio in XBMC for Windows to match the other platforms
- Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
- Advanced Filtering in the library
- Advanced UPnP sharing
- Translations now powered by Transifex