Mediacenter with VDR and XBMC

article published on: Sat 16 Jan 2010

I changed my mediacenter configuration from VDR to VDR with XBMC as frontend.

I am using VDR for about 5 years now for receiving DVB-S/T/C and I am really happy with it. I am using it as a PVR and also it's streaming capabilites to watch TV on my notebook at the terrace or in the kitchen and some of it's useful plugins (e.g. no-ad to cut off adverts).

The VDR OSD doesn't look modern due to it's technical adjustment. So I decided to look after an alternative setup. I wanted to keep VDR as my receiver software because of it's various plugins and functionalities. My prefered solution seemed to be using VDR as a backend for XBMC (the XBoxMediaCenter). XBMC has got a very nice interface with good mediacenter capabilities. XBMC itself doesn't support receiving DVB. So I thougt they'll fit well together. It doesn't work out of the box right now, but there are patches and scripts that can easily be used to make my prefered setup run.

So I setup a test installation and it seems to work good: I am going to use this setup in my productive installation as well when I've got some spare time again ;-).