XBMC SOFTWARE

The XBMC app is not really something new and as always you can control the XBMC application either by using the ASUSTOR remote control (acquired extra), mouse/keyboard or Android Application.

We did receive the remote this time so all our reviews from this point regarding XBMC on ASUSTOR devices will be done with it.

If you happen to install extra applications aside just the XBMC you will see them at the initial screen once the AS-608T starts (in our case you can choose between Boxee, ADM, Chrome, YouTube and XBMC).

It may not belong in this page but i was quite surprised to see that you can also launch the ADM OS via HDMI.

The XBMC application transforms the NAS Server into a media server so it can do whatever an HTPC can do aside playing games that is.

You can personalize the XBMC application quite a bit (for example change the skin of the menus and set the region/language/audio language options).

You can also check the various hardware/software information screens and of course adjust video and audio settings.

Usually we test XBMC with our Blu-Ray MKV rip of Pacific Rim which is around 27GB in size but for the AS-608T we took things a step further and so we ripped our Blu-Ray of Avatar S.E resulting in a 42GB MKV file (slightly higher bitrate than Pacific Rim). Now what's quite interesting is that either the AS-608T or this version of XBMC allowed us to take screenshots from within the software and that's a lot more accurate than taking shots with a camera. Unfortunately as you will see in one of the screenshots the playback was not smooth at all times and although i really doubt many people will be using 40GB MKV files i do think that some tweaking of either XBMC or the units firmware is in order.