I have given up on Ubuntu for a bit (again). Just can’t seem to get graphics drivers to work with the latest version (9.10) and have spent SO much time battling to get things running that I have just given up …

Initially, all was running fine, but my onboard Intel graphics in the Media Center were not being used properly. Ubuntu was recognising them, but everything was jerky as hell. In the past (on occasion) Windows struggled with them too, so I made the decision to pick up a cheap PCI-E graphics card. Settled on an Nvidia 210, a low profile card that fits my Media Center case and handles HD decoding etc (my onboard gfx left that to the processer, which was fine most of the time but did occasionally cause jerky video). The new card also has a HDMI slot on it but I was very surprised to find that the picture quality from HDMI to HDMI was worse than the DVI to VGA connection on the back of my TV!

One of the best things to come out of all this wasted time is that I can now happily use XBMC. This is quite simply the best Media Center application I have come across. It’s cross platform and also open source, which means it’s free! I have had it installed for a while, but again, it didn’t get on with my onboard Intel graphics chip.

It’s interface is so much nicer than the Window Media Center app I have been using up until now. Rather than just listing your media, it also scrapes various websites of your choice (such as imdb, tv.com etc) to get full info on each media file. I could, for example, choose to sort all my movies by their IMDB rating and then choose a movie based on it’s acclaim. Quite cool! It also incorporates artwork & fanart which along with it’s slick looking skins makes for such a pleasurable user experience. I can also see what format the video is in, be it 4:3, 16:19, Standard Def, High Def, 2 channel audio, 5 channel audio etc etc.

I was also very pleased to find that XBMC’s BBC iPlayer plugin now works like a dream, it plays great quality video and even plays the HD streams in full HD quality! I can see me using the iPlayer more and more as a result.

All in all, Ubuntu has beaten me again .. but the end result is not so bad at all.