XBMC 13.0 Provides Hardware Acceleration of Video Playback on Android

Spread the love

The developers behind the cross-platform media center software XBMC have released version 13. Codenamed ‘Gotham’, the software provides hardware playback functionality on Android and extensive support for 3D rendering.

The Gotham release follows the Frodo build, version 12, and is of particular interest to Android users: XBMC 13 supports video playback hardware on a wide range of Android devices. This applies to devices with chips on both the ARM and x86 architectures, so that a ‘standalone’ media player app is no longer necessary. Exceptions are tablets and smartphones that have an AllWinner A1X/A20 soc.

Gotham also offers improved support for less powerful chipsets, such as the Raspberry Pi. In particular, building and browsing media libraries will run more smoothly, the makers promise. 3D video enthusiasts can count on support for sbs, tab, anaglyph and interlaced 3d images. The disadvantage is that Gotham does not yet correctly display 3d titles on blu-ray.

The XBMC developers also promise improved upnp/dlna support in Gotham. This should make it easier to request content on a smartphone or tablet. Gotham can also keep track of whether the viewer has watched a movie or not. The developers also report several improvements in the audio engine.

You might also like