[APP][2.3+][Weekly Builds] XBMC For Android Nightlies

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kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
There are official releases for neon and ICS+ devices over on xbmc.org.

For Tegra2 / GB devices I'm likely not going to be working on them much, if at all going forward. I no longer have a Tegra2 or GB device and version 13 of the upstream code base has some changes that will make it very difficult to support the Tegra2 going forward.


Thank you to staticaDK, repvik, lavero.burgos, and XBMC Android for their help with mirroring.

staticaDK has suffered equipment failure and his mirror is down. Any links / bookmarks to his mirror will no longer work. Please DO NOT use old links to this mirror

The xbmchub.com guys are launching http://www.xbmcandroid.com/. The forums are open for registration for anyone that is interested.

We also have a FreeNode channel #xbmcandroid for those that are interested.

I have also broken out a lot of the information from this XDA thread as separate threads on xbmcandroid.com


Please note these are unofficial builds of XBMC, please report issues here or xbmcandroid.com ONLY

Builds are now auto-run every Sunday (through out the day). I will no longer be directly linking to the builds, please head over to the mirrors (links below) to download a given build.

XBMC, What is That?
XBMC is a media player / HTPC software package that does just about anything you'd want on a home theater box or a portable media device. See http://www.xbmc.org for more information.

Why Here?
I have been maintaining nightly builds of XBMC for Android and after a few requests and realizing my posts have been cross-linked it's time to create a central spot for the builds.

Schedule of Builds
Builds are now run automatically every Sunday.

What Is Special About These Builds?
I have re-built the CrystaX NDK that is required for XBMC from sources and made some compiler flag changes in order to improve NEON device support and to support the Tegra2 or other non-NEON devices. These are unsupported changes, particularly the Tegra2 and any other device without NEON. The official XBMC stance is NO device lacking NEON will receive support.

What Is / Is Not Supported
All builds are now built for 2.3.x (GingerBread) or higher devices. ARM ONLY. I will not be releasing MIPS or x86 builds.

Google TV devices are UNSUPPORTED. I do not know if / when the XBMC dev's will be supporting Google TV.

I will not be releasing aplayer builds. I will be leaving it up to Pivos to do releases. Please visit the Pivos forums for the latest builds with AMLogic hardware decode support.

Which Build Do I Want?
There are two builds, one for Tegra2 devices and another for NEON devices (see below for specifics). If you are not sure which type of device you have, try the NEON build and if it crashes, then use the Tegra2 build. If you have a non-NEON devices that is not the Tegra2, the Tegra2 build will run, but not all that great.

XBMC Compatibility List (Clickable link)

FAQ
  • Why is the APK so large?
    This is a full build of XBMC including dependencies, resources and the like. There is a lot to the build and output. See http://pastebin.com/LgnWzdHW for a breakdown of what is contained within the APK including file sizes.
  • Does zipalign help with the size of the apk?
    I ran zipalign and it didn't reduce the file size, likely won't help given what is packed in the apk.
  • Is there a better skin for touch screens?
    Under the appearance settings there is a skin named "Touched" that works much better on touch screen devices than the default.
  • Does my hdmi out / dock / etc work for tv playback?
    There are reports of this working properly in this thread and others.
  • Can I change the resolution for hdmi / similar playback?
    Initial reports indicate this is not possible currently.
  • Does it work with CyanogenMod 10 (CM10)?
    Maybe. Some users have reported success with CM10, others have had issues.
  • How do I get Fahrenheit Temperature?
    Settings > System > International -> Change your region to USA if you want Fahrenheit

Common Problems
  1. My screen starts flickering / freaking out: Kill the app, clear the app cache, restart devices, try again. Continue until the problem goes away.
  2. I cannot play SD / 720p / 1080p content without stutters / dropped frames / audio sync issues / etc: Tough luck. Right now hardware decode support isn't complete, if your CPU can't process the video in software, you're stuck for the time being. The XBMC devs are working on hardware decode support and it will be done in due time. Do not ask for a deadline, there isn't one right now.
  3. Battery life: Expect a pretty bad battery drain. This has been confirmed by a few others as well as the devices I tested. Given the project is targeting set-top boxes and similar equipment I would not expect this to be addressed until other, larger items are taken care of. Please do not complain to the official team about this item, complain here.
  4. Resource utilization is high: This is known. Not going to change for awhile, do not complain to the official team, complain here.
  5. Audio does not work: The XBMC audio levels and Android audio levels are not the same, you will need to adjust the volume in Android up to a higher level before launching XBMC most likely.
  6. DVD Navigation may or may not work properly: This is known and being worked on by the main XBMC team.
  7. /data is inaccessible: This partition is not accessible from XBMC.
  8. Touchscreen Non-Responsive: Some users have reported the touchscreen taps aren't registering well or at all. The Toshiba Thrive 7" and 10" tablets seem to suffer the worst from this.

Tegra2 / non-NEON Problems (Must Read)
If your device does not have NEON, DO NOT COMPLAIN TO XBMC. Complain here.

Problems Under Investigation
  • XOOM 3g's running EOS ROMS appear to crash with a 0xdeadbeef pointer dereference

Working Add-Ons
  • 1Channel -- Developer PM'd me and the choppyness is fixed in latest version (url in add-ons links below)
  • Anarcintosh's Icefilms
  • BBC iPlayer 2
  • dpstream
  • Freecable
  • fs.ua
  • FTP Sources
  • Icefilms
  • Navi-X
  • PBS
  • Samba Sources
  • Shared Library: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29899425&postcount=57
  • TED Talks plugin works great.
  • The Trailers plugin
  • Tuxbox
  • TVCatchup
  • Tvlinks

Broken Add-Ons
  • Bluecop's Amazon (crashes trying to unload librtmp.so -- symbol not found)
  • Bluecop's Hulu
  • MLBMC: Major League Baseball Media Center
  • myvideo.de
  • Trakt.tv stable. The version on github works on Windows, can anyone validate the version from git works on Android?
  • TuneInRadio
  • WebDav HTTPS
 
Last edited:

kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
Sources
XBMC
Official: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc
My Fork (Includes Tegra2): https://github.com/mcrosson/xbmc/
Android NDK
Official: http://www.crystax.net/en/android/ndk/7
The above NDK is no longer used in my builds. I have tweaked the sources to include better NEON / Tegra2 support. My customizations are not available currently, but I am working on an NDK release based on the CrystaX changes and will be publishing my work once I am further along.

Add-On Links

Jezz_X's re-touched skin
This is an alternative to the included "Touched" skin.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=128494

Builds (~50Mb each)
  • See above for compatibility. If you are unsure, try the NEON build first, if it works use it. Otherwise use the Non-NEON build.
  • Google TV devices are UNSUPPORTED. I do not know if / when the XBMC dev's will be supporting Google TV.
  • I will not build AMLPlayer builds, If you have a Pivos device, visit their forums for build information and releases
  • I will not build MIPS or x86

I have setup a goo.im mirror in addition to those below. It will contain the 2 most recent builds linked below. You can find the files here or within goo manager (devs/kemonine/xbmc and available in play store)

Mirrors / Builds
Builds are now auto-run every Sunday (through out the day). I will no longer be directly linking to the builds, please use the following mirrors to obtain a release.

Please note the box mirror contains every build that has been previously published and is more complete for legacy builds than the google code mirror

Box (link)
 
Last edited:

kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
Great thread.

Is there any chance you can include a changelog of commits as you are building them then it will have all the information in one place without having to go to github etc.

Just a suggestion ;)


I will be calling out any noteworthy changes with the builds. Right now I haven't seen anything of note coming in on the commit logs. It looks like they are doing general cleanup and some under the hood work.
 

flumpster

Senior Member
Apr 4, 2011
2,726
2,229
Rhondda Valleys
I will be calling out any noteworthy changes with the builds. Right now I haven't seen anything of note coming in on the commit logs. It looks like they are doing general cleanup and some under the hood work.

Great mate.

It will help to keep things organised. No point in updating daily for minor things but I will definitely update weekly or when a major commit comes.

Thanks one again.
 

hunkyn

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2007
74
5
Can someone who has the files upload to adifferent location. I am interested in the tegra2 version

Thanks
 

dragontology

Senior Member
Dec 29, 2010
1,494
498
North Carolina
Can someone who has the files upload to adifferent location. I am interested in the tegra2 version

Thanks
Download works for me, I used the stock ICS browser (came with the ROM I'm using). Just hit download.

If you're websensed (at work/school, blocked by IT firewall/censored page), right click the link, copy link address, make a QR code here, install Barcode Scanner, and scan the generated barcode.

Testing on a Tegra 2 phone (it's the 3G version of the Sprint Motorola Photon 4G). I will edit/post with results. FYI, huge file size. Don't download on 3G/4G unless you're a light data user/you have a nice plan (US Cellular 5GB plan, FTW).

//edit: 48.82MB. Good lawd that's a big APK!

It starts...

It can play music... but it's kind of a PITA, vs. your favorite music app. First you have to add the source. Hit browse. "Android Music" is the place your music player is getting it from. It's a placeholder, like the Libraries in Windows 7/8.

You can launch apps from it. Neato.

Videos... Eh... They don't get added as easily as music. "Android videos" might refer to the camera roll, but it's not where I have my videos. I had to add that manually. I have a 720p MP4 of the Fallout 3 intro that MX Player plays like butter, but it plays like crap in XBMC. A 3GP video I took with a dumbphone of my niece b***h-slapping me (she was 2 at the time, and objected "but he's my friend" first, haha) played fine. A shorter 720p video, another MP4 from YouTube, but only 4.5MB as opposed to the Fallout video's 47.3MB, stuttered almost as bad as the Fallout video.

Scrolling is... um, difficult. On the main menu, and if you have to browse for anything. It's gonna fight you. Works if you can grab the itty bitty scroll bar. But if you just grab the directory tree and toss, it may work or it may not. Or it may open the folder you grabbed it by.

Basically... it's nice and fancy but not too practical. Can this receive streams from a PC or server?
 
Last edited:

kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
Download works for me

FYI, huge file size. Don't download on 3G/4G unless you're a light data user/you have a nice plan (US Cellular 5GB plan, FTW).

Downloads were down earlier today. I had forgotten DropBox had limits to how much data can be sent via public links. I also didn't expect to get that many downloads in the course of a day. I've moved my file hosting to another provider that provides more transfer and a dashboard that should let me keep an eye on my limits better.

I have updated the post with links to include file sizes and made a note to see about decreasing the file sizes.
 

kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
It starts...

It can play music... but it's kind of a PITA, vs. your favorite music app. First you have to add the source. Hit browse. "Android Music" is the place your music player is getting it from. It's a placeholder, like the Libraries in Windows 7/8.

You can launch apps from it. Neato.

Videos... Eh... They don't get added as easily as music. "Android videos" might refer to the camera roll, but it's not where I have my videos. I had to add that manually. I have a 720p MP4 of the Fallout 3 intro that MX Player plays like butter, but it plays like crap in XBMC. A 3GP video I took with a dumbphone of my niece b***h-slapping me (she was 2 at the time, and objected "but he's my friend" first, haha) played fine. A shorter 720p video, another MP4 from YouTube, but only 4.5MB as opposed to the Fallout video's 47.3MB, stuttered almost as bad as the Fallout video.

Scrolling is... um, difficult

Can this receive streams from a PC or server?

Which skin are you using? The default in the build is confluence which is optimized for keyboard / remote usage. The settings area has an appearance tab that will let you change to the "touched" skin which is infinately more managable on a smaller screen.

Once you add the sources you can scan the items to the library (including auto-scans on launch) that greatly improves visibility and access to content.

Your success with video is pretty much par for course on the Tegra2. XBMC currently does not have hardware decode support and relys on software rendering. It has 1/2 of the floating point units (why it won't receive official treatment) that you would find on a newer chip which greatly impedes its ability to decode video content. Things will improve once hardware decode support is available (it's being worked on in mainline). I will be working on improving the builds as much as I can while the mainline devs finish up general hardware decode support.

You can setup smb / ssh / upnp / similar sources and they should generally work.
 
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bahman123

Member
Mar 1, 2011
34
4
finding a bit hit and miss opening the app on a Tegra 3 - TF300
will try and reboot and see if it's any better - have tried the force close/reopen

anyone else with more luck?

Edit: Reboot has helped - app opens no issue anymore
Thanks for the NEON build - using the Touched skin
Confluence looks better, but Touch is more functional by far!

On a Tegra 3 TF300:
720p AC3 mkv - playback OK but not watchable - stutter. Audio appears to play mostly uninterupted.
1080p DTS mkv - playback OK but not watchable, but audio and video stutter.

Keep up the good work!
Looking forward to a stable build with HW acceleration!
 
Last edited:

dragontology

Senior Member
Dec 29, 2010
1,494
498
North Carolina
Yeah, I wasn't expecting much out of XBMC. I knew the limitations going in. 0% of the blame on you. Some is on nVidia (Tegra) and Motorola (Photon 4G/Electrify) but some is also on XBMC themselves. MX Player plays HD video beautifully on my phone, although I do have it formatted for my screen. So it's scaled down to 960x540 (not 720p as I stated above). So video playback is possible in Tegra 2. Not sure if MX Player's drivers are open source. Might be worth looking into.

And I was using Confluence, didn't think to change the skin. I use a ROM that has a hybrid tablet mode, so I'm used to touching smaller screen items than many Android users, particularly those on stock builds. I actually had little trouble hitting the tiny touch controls for media on the main screen, and those were some tiny buttons, but I'll check out the other skin.

Other skin checked out, works a lot better, thanks.
 

MassStash

Senior Member
Sep 26, 2008
3,838
2,446
36
Chicago
This is pretty awesome development to see bro, good stuff! Keep up the good work, will be tryin it out on my TF101 after work. Man, now I feel I'm really going to want to cop a hdmi mini adapter....

~Poisoned Viper4g LTEvOne by TeamVenom, Lionheart Cranked to 1.72Jigawats Deadline: Ca1ned.
 

kemonine96

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 27, 2011
1,349
1,288
Michigan
Man, now I feel I'm really going to want to cop a hdmi mini adapter....

I'd hold off until you know if it will perform or not. On the Tegra2's there is hit or miss support for even SD content. Support seems to boil down to container format and audio stream. I know my SD content stored in mkv with ac3/dts audio stutters badly at times. I've heard reports of xvid avi + mp3 audio being much better for playback.
 

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  • 308
    There are official releases for neon and ICS+ devices over on xbmc.org.

    For Tegra2 / GB devices I'm likely not going to be working on them much, if at all going forward. I no longer have a Tegra2 or GB device and version 13 of the upstream code base has some changes that will make it very difficult to support the Tegra2 going forward.


    Thank you to staticaDK, repvik, lavero.burgos, and XBMC Android for their help with mirroring.

    staticaDK has suffered equipment failure and his mirror is down. Any links / bookmarks to his mirror will no longer work. Please DO NOT use old links to this mirror

    The xbmchub.com guys are launching http://www.xbmcandroid.com/. The forums are open for registration for anyone that is interested.

    We also have a FreeNode channel #xbmcandroid for those that are interested.

    I have also broken out a lot of the information from this XDA thread as separate threads on xbmcandroid.com


    Please note these are unofficial builds of XBMC, please report issues here or xbmcandroid.com ONLY

    Builds are now auto-run every Sunday (through out the day). I will no longer be directly linking to the builds, please head over to the mirrors (links below) to download a given build.

    XBMC, What is That?
    XBMC is a media player / HTPC software package that does just about anything you'd want on a home theater box or a portable media device. See http://www.xbmc.org for more information.

    Why Here?
    I have been maintaining nightly builds of XBMC for Android and after a few requests and realizing my posts have been cross-linked it's time to create a central spot for the builds.

    Schedule of Builds
    Builds are now run automatically every Sunday.

    What Is Special About These Builds?
    I have re-built the CrystaX NDK that is required for XBMC from sources and made some compiler flag changes in order to improve NEON device support and to support the Tegra2 or other non-NEON devices. These are unsupported changes, particularly the Tegra2 and any other device without NEON. The official XBMC stance is NO device lacking NEON will receive support.

    What Is / Is Not Supported
    All builds are now built for 2.3.x (GingerBread) or higher devices. ARM ONLY. I will not be releasing MIPS or x86 builds.

    Google TV devices are UNSUPPORTED. I do not know if / when the XBMC dev's will be supporting Google TV.

    I will not be releasing aplayer builds. I will be leaving it up to Pivos to do releases. Please visit the Pivos forums for the latest builds with AMLogic hardware decode support.

    Which Build Do I Want?
    There are two builds, one for Tegra2 devices and another for NEON devices (see below for specifics). If you are not sure which type of device you have, try the NEON build and if it crashes, then use the Tegra2 build. If you have a non-NEON devices that is not the Tegra2, the Tegra2 build will run, but not all that great.

    XBMC Compatibility List (Clickable link)

    FAQ
    • Why is the APK so large?
      This is a full build of XBMC including dependencies, resources and the like. There is a lot to the build and output. See http://pastebin.com/LgnWzdHW for a breakdown of what is contained within the APK including file sizes.
    • Does zipalign help with the size of the apk?
      I ran zipalign and it didn't reduce the file size, likely won't help given what is packed in the apk.
    • Is there a better skin for touch screens?
      Under the appearance settings there is a skin named "Touched" that works much better on touch screen devices than the default.
    • Does my hdmi out / dock / etc work for tv playback?
      There are reports of this working properly in this thread and others.
    • Can I change the resolution for hdmi / similar playback?
      Initial reports indicate this is not possible currently.
    • Does it work with CyanogenMod 10 (CM10)?
      Maybe. Some users have reported success with CM10, others have had issues.
    • How do I get Fahrenheit Temperature?
      Settings > System > International -> Change your region to USA if you want Fahrenheit

    Common Problems
    1. My screen starts flickering / freaking out: Kill the app, clear the app cache, restart devices, try again. Continue until the problem goes away.
    2. I cannot play SD / 720p / 1080p content without stutters / dropped frames / audio sync issues / etc: Tough luck. Right now hardware decode support isn't complete, if your CPU can't process the video in software, you're stuck for the time being. The XBMC devs are working on hardware decode support and it will be done in due time. Do not ask for a deadline, there isn't one right now.
    3. Battery life: Expect a pretty bad battery drain. This has been confirmed by a few others as well as the devices I tested. Given the project is targeting set-top boxes and similar equipment I would not expect this to be addressed until other, larger items are taken care of. Please do not complain to the official team about this item, complain here.
    4. Resource utilization is high: This is known. Not going to change for awhile, do not complain to the official team, complain here.
    5. Audio does not work: The XBMC audio levels and Android audio levels are not the same, you will need to adjust the volume in Android up to a higher level before launching XBMC most likely.
    6. DVD Navigation may or may not work properly: This is known and being worked on by the main XBMC team.
    7. /data is inaccessible: This partition is not accessible from XBMC.
    8. Touchscreen Non-Responsive: Some users have reported the touchscreen taps aren't registering well or at all. The Toshiba Thrive 7" and 10" tablets seem to suffer the worst from this.

    Tegra2 / non-NEON Problems (Must Read)
    If your device does not have NEON, DO NOT COMPLAIN TO XBMC. Complain here.

    Problems Under Investigation
    • XOOM 3g's running EOS ROMS appear to crash with a 0xdeadbeef pointer dereference

    Working Add-Ons
    • 1Channel -- Developer PM'd me and the choppyness is fixed in latest version (url in add-ons links below)
    • Anarcintosh's Icefilms
    • BBC iPlayer 2
    • dpstream
    • Freecable
    • fs.ua
    • FTP Sources
    • Icefilms
    • Navi-X
    • PBS
    • Samba Sources
    • Shared Library: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29899425&postcount=57
    • TED Talks plugin works great.
    • The Trailers plugin
    • Tuxbox
    • TVCatchup
    • Tvlinks

    Broken Add-Ons
    • Bluecop's Amazon (crashes trying to unload librtmp.so -- symbol not found)
    • Bluecop's Hulu
    • MLBMC: Major League Baseball Media Center
    • myvideo.de
    • Trakt.tv stable. The version on github works on Windows, can anyone validate the version from git works on Android?
    • TuneInRadio
    • WebDav HTTPS
    178
    Sources
    XBMC
    Official: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc
    My Fork (Includes Tegra2): https://github.com/mcrosson/xbmc/
    Android NDK
    Official: http://www.crystax.net/en/android/ndk/7
    The above NDK is no longer used in my builds. I have tweaked the sources to include better NEON / Tegra2 support. My customizations are not available currently, but I am working on an NDK release based on the CrystaX changes and will be publishing my work once I am further along.

    Add-On Links

    Jezz_X's re-touched skin
    This is an alternative to the included "Touched" skin.
    http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=128494

    Builds (~50Mb each)
    • See above for compatibility. If you are unsure, try the NEON build first, if it works use it. Otherwise use the Non-NEON build.
    • Google TV devices are UNSUPPORTED. I do not know if / when the XBMC dev's will be supporting Google TV.
    • I will not build AMLPlayer builds, If you have a Pivos device, visit their forums for build information and releases
    • I will not build MIPS or x86

    I have setup a goo.im mirror in addition to those below. It will contain the 2 most recent builds linked below. You can find the files here or within goo manager (devs/kemonine/xbmc and available in play store)

    Mirrors / Builds
    Builds are now auto-run every Sunday (through out the day). I will no longer be directly linking to the builds, please use the following mirrors to obtain a release.

    Please note the box mirror contains every build that has been previously published and is more complete for legacy builds than the google code mirror

    Box (link)
    8
    XBMC beta1 for android (4.2 working; NEON-only)

    As promised, here is a link to a stock XBMC for Android beta1, NEON-only, and working on Android 4.2.

    By stock, I mean no patches and using a vanilla ndk. The only change is to use the gcc 4.4.3 toolchain in place of 4.6 one to circumvent the issue introduced by Android 4.2.

    As an XBMC dev, I would also be happy that some non 4.2 users try this one, that I can know whether using 4.4.3 as adverse effects.

    https://www.box.com/s/qhwal8k9vjgawpy5jf2i

    - koying -
    6
    New build of vanilla XBMC for Tegra 2 is up on the mirrors. The build is the 12.2 Frodo release and should run pretty stable overall. I've been working a little on resuming the weekly builds, but at this time I'm fighting a number of underlying changes.

    The new build is xbmcapp-armeabi-v7a-debug-2013-05-14-no-neon-378f4cde88cfd777b7eeaba8846ebd5a15c79ef4.apk
    5
    @nbnion: Thank you very much for reporting this. I have tracked down the problem -- a failure that wasn't being reported by Jenkins. I have cleared up the issue and have kicked of new builds (see below for order). I'll be investigating a way to prevent this from happening in the future soon as well. Feel free to ping me in the future if there is >10 days between files posted to the mirrors.

    Files should start showing up on mirrors "soon". Each build takes 1-2 hours to finish completely.

    Builds are being run in the following order
    1. NEON
    2. NEON - XAF - Set Top
    3. NEON - XAF - Touch
    4. Non-NEON
    5. Non-NEON - XAF - Touch