from XBMC Media Center //

Team-XBMC is proud to announce the first cross-platform Beta version of XBMC media center for Linux, Mac OS X Leopard and Tiger , Windows, and Xbox, in preparation for the upcoming stable release of XBMC, code NAMEd ‘Atlantis’. There are three important news items associated with this release:

1. The first item that is new in this release is the brand new skin “PM3.HD”, a high-definition tribute to Project Mayhem III, which will be gracing screens as the default skin on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Xbox users can, of course, choose to use this skin if they wish as well, and the original Project Mayhem III skin is still packaged with Beta 1 for those who prefer the old-school look. This is in addition to the already awesome selection of skins available for XBMC.

2. The second item is the initial release of “XBMC Live“, a bootable CD which gives users the opportunity to try XBMC on their computer, without touching their harddrive. In addition, XBMC Live allows installation of XBMC, complete with an operating system, onto a USB flash memory sticks for a permanent, fast booting, dedicated set-top-box style installation of XBMC. XBMC Live is designed to support Microsoft’s MCE Remote and USB receiver out-of-the-box.

3. The third item is that the XBMC for Mac release now has initial support for integrating iTunes and iPhoto media into XBMC. For more information on this, please read this developers blog entry; “iTunes and iPhoto integration in XBMC“. The Mac release of Beta 1 also comes bundled with a bonus skin for XBMC, and that is MediaStream by Team Razorfish, this skin can, of course, be downloaded and installed on all XBMC platforms, like all other XBMC skins .

You should know that XBMC ‘Atlantis’ is still in a feature freeze, the final release of which is scheduled for October, and we really need your help in order to make ‘Atlantis’ as stable as possible. We encourage all users to download and use this Beta release in preference to using SVN or the Alpha builds, and test it thoroughly, reporting all bugs to our tracking system.