I know many readers of TDL like trying alternative media applications and one that is very popular is XBMC. The new Dharma Beta 1 brings a new add-on framework to XMBC along with hardware acceleration, improve skinning and a big list of playback enhancements.
I must admit to only recently started playing with XBMC, I have occasionally been using Boxee as an alternative to Media Center and recently got XBMC setup on my Apple TV. So far I have been impressed with the features and am going to spend some more time with it, I will probably give this beta a try.
Today we announce the first beta in what we hope is a very short pre-release cycle. Dharma has been in development for over 9 months now, and we’re quite happy with the result.
The improvements are too many to name, but head over to the milestone page to get an idea. By far the biggest new feature is the Add-ons system. Our community is full of talented script-writers, skinners, and designers; we wanted XBMC to display their full potential. The result is a powerful and flexible system that allows for complete customization of the XBMC experience. Gone are the days of digging for the latest version of buggy plugins, or incomplete skins in our forums. Most of our users probably never even made it that far.
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