Xbox Media Center - XBMC

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Xbox Media Center - XBMC

Post by D_N_G »

Figured this could use a thread so it wouldnt be lost in the other one. That way we can discuss setups and problems and finds :D

Would suggest no posting of download links, but support/info sites are OK
ThrillKillWill wrote:
Heath wrote:
D_N_G wrote:
Softmodded my original Xbox and turned it into a media center box, pretty neat way to stream content to your TV. now i just need to buy an external storage solution to store my dvd backups
When you say "Softmodded" does that mean you modded the Xbox in software only without using a mod chip? Does this give you the full range of capabilities that a mod chip does?
Basically, you will be rewriting the HD on the Xbox. If you look at the specs of the original X-box it is nothing more than a pretty powerful computer in a very small case. This basically allows for you to network the X-box just as you would the 360 with your computer. Of course along with that you can stream movies off the internet, receive RSS feeds and stream music and movies directly from your computer. The only downside is that as far as I know you have to do a hardware mod that requires quite a bit of work in order to get it compatible with a universal remote so that you can turn it on and off with a remote. But I can live with getting up and turning it on so I can stream movies to my TV.

Here is the first article I saw about it.
lifehacker.

The website.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/

Modchip and softmod both have the same end result, you get the XBMC interface and an awesome media streaming frontend

The only benefit I could see to doing it the Modchip way is that it has an additional Operating System installed on the chip itsself, so in case you bork up the hard drive, you can always boot into the chip and fix it

As long as you backup your eeprom and hdkeys to your pc after you softmod the Xbox, you can always create a new drive or even swap with a bigger drive using a drive create utility. So withis ability, I figured why spend an extra 60 on a chip

Overall, softmodding was a fairly painless process, you can have an Xbox fully functional as a media streamer in under 5 minutes. The installer software will setup either the EvoX or the UnleashX dashboard. This even allows you to boot into the standard Xbox dash as it backs it up in a different folder.

After the softmod, the most time was spent FTPing the XBMC dashboard over and that took about an hour. XBMC has better compatibility with file types, a better interface, and better plugins than the EvoX or UnleashX interfaces

Other features aside from Audio/Video streaming, there are emulators for almost every game system including MAME, utilities to copy xbox games/DVDs to the hard drive and run them from there, lookup scripts for movies/music to present cover art and content information, web browser, youtube plugins, weather, etc. Plus you can still do everything you did with the standard out of the box setup (play games, play dvds, play online)

As an added bonus when viewing content, the xbox can upconvert to 720p or 1080i :thumb:


If you decide to do it, you'll need:

Action Replay (24.99 on ebay)- to transfer save file to mem card from pc
Memory Card (4.99 @ gamestop)
An older copy of Mech Assault (2.99 @ gamestop) - newer versions patched the exploit hole. Also Splinter Cell the original or one of the Bond games will work
DVD Playback Kit (4.99 on ebay/9.99 @ gamestop) - if you want to use a remote, it adds an IR sensor
HD AV kit or Component cables (5-10 @ Gamestop) - HD AV kit adds an optical port for audio + component out.
Installer software/Save File/XBMC (FREE)

So total ~50 bucks + ship/tax

To save $25 off that total, you can always hack up an xbox + usb cable to create a pc adapter and then DL the action replay software from the net

There is also a version of the XBMC frontend for linux, but it lacks advanced driver support for newer video cards, but has support for more file types and compression. you could always go this route if you have an older pc lying around that needs a purpose.


My main objective is that I have many many DVDs that I would like to store away, yet be easily accessable. Backing them up to PC and then streaming to the TV makes the perfect solution.

After I get my content on the network, I plan on setting up a streaming device on each tv :thumb:
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Post by D_N_G »

Also, was able to get my Harmony remote to work with this setup, and aside from the On/Off problem the TKW mentioned, it behaves beautifully.

Now, just have to remap a few keys to make it perfect :hm:
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Post by schi0249 »

I've been running XBMC for a few years. Thing runs great. I love being able to stream content to my TV. Even simple things like photo slide shows works great.

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Post by Heath »

I'm dying to do this now. I've been wanting to install a mod chip, but I don't want to spend the money on the chip to have my poor soldering skills kill the thing. But this looks perfect. I can build an adapter cable (instead of buying the Action Replay) no problem.

But right now, I don't have my Xbox networked. It would be a real pain to run a network cable to it and a wireless bridge is too expensive. BUT, I do want to run emulators and have the ability to protect my original discs by using the backups. Then later, when I can network it, I'll already have the streaming capability.

I may just tackle this this coming weekend.

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Post by TKWill »

In response to the upconvert. I could be horribly wrong but I thought that the vidcard in the Xbox wasn't capable of 1080i and would be best suited for 720 applications. And I think I read somewhere that there was a maximum size for the HD that you could mod into the Xbox is that true? I wouldn't want to put anything to terribly large in there but I do want more than the 5-6 gigs that is currently on the thing.

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Post by TKWill »

Heath wrote:I'm dying to do this now. I've been wanting to install a mod chip, but I don't want to spend the money on the chip to have my poor soldering skills kill the thing. But this looks perfect. I can build an adapter cable (instead of buying the Action Replay) no problem.

But right now, I don't have my Xbox networked. It would be a real pain to run a network cable to it and a wireless bridge is too expensive. BUT, I do want to run emulators and have the ability to protect my original discs by using the backups. Then later, when I can network it, I'll already have the streaming capability.

I may just tackle this this coming weekend.
Make sure that the game is not a "Platinum Hits" version. These have been corrected so that they will not allow for the Softmod to work.

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Post by D_N_G »

Heath wrote:I'm dying to do this now. I've been wanting to install a mod chip, but I don't want to spend the money on the chip to have my poor soldering skills kill the thing. But this looks perfect. I can build an adapter cable (instead of buying the Action Replay) no problem.

But right now, I don't have my Xbox networked. It would be a real pain to run a network cable to it and a wireless bridge is too expensive. BUT, I do want to run emulators and have the ability to protect my original discs by using the backups. Then later, when I can network it, I'll already have the streaming capability.

I may just tackle this this coming weekend.

If the adapter doesnt work, or if you dont mind shipping off a mem card, I can load the files for you :thumb:

Also, if you are patient, you can score a wireless bridge off ebay for 20-30 bucks

I just loaded some emulators last night and boy are they beautiful interfaces. The games look great fullscreen over component too :D
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Post by D_N_G »

ThrillKillWill wrote:In response to the upconvert. I could be horribly wrong but I thought that the vidcard in the Xbox wasn't capable of 1080i and would be best suited for 720 applications. And I think I read somewhere that there was a maximum size for the HD that you could mod into the Xbox is that true? I wouldn't want to put anything to terribly large in there but I do want more than the 5-6 gigs that is currently on the thing.
I heard the vid card has a hard time decoding already made 1080 content, havent tried anything like that yet. But at least so far for me, upconverting files/DVDs or any 480/720 content to 1080 has been no prob. It does however give the best performance for the buck at 720.

With the newer builds of XBMC people are adding 500 and 750 GB drives. For the internal drive though there is a 4gb file size limit due to the FATX file system, anything bigger and it cant be used.

This is perfect for copying XBOX games to disk as none are over 4gb

But for uncompressed DVDs (8GB+) network attached storage or storage on a PC are the way to go.
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Post by Heath »

Found a really great tutorial here:
http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to- ... 299809.php

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Post by D_N_G »

this one is pretty good too, and with the ftp path change in this link, it will set xbmc as the default dashboard instead of a selectable menu item


http://www.productwiki.com/microsoft-xb ... nutes.html
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Post by Heath »

I built an adapter cable using an extra Xbox "breakaway" cable I had, and the female end of the USB cable. Came out pretty nice, I must say - not the ugly mess I've seen some people do. (I'll post some pics later.)

I have two USB drives I'm willing to have converted to Xbox memory cards. One of them wasn't compatible and the Xbox screen just "blinked" when it was connected. The other one worked great and is now a fully functioning 256MB Xbox Memory card.

But, I've hit a roadblock. I installed the Action Replay software, installed drivers (using USBview to get the Vendor and Product ID and add that to the driver file in Action Replay). The USB drive shows up in Device Manager as an Action Replay device. But, the Action Replay software will not see the drive. I tried it on two different computers (XP and Vista) and neither work.

I hope I can find another USB drive somewhere and that it will work. But right now, I'm pretty disappointed. I'm so close...

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Post by TKWill »

Heath wrote:I built an adapter cable using an extra Xbox "breakaway" cable I had, and the female end of the USB cable. Came out pretty nice, I must say - not the ugly mess I've seen some people do. (I'll post some pics later.)

I have two USB drives I'm willing to have converted to Xbox memory cards. One of them wasn't compatible and the Xbox screen just "blinked" when it was connected. The other one worked great and is now a fully functioning 256MB Xbox Memory card.

But, I've hit a roadblock. I installed the Action Replay software, installed drivers (using USBview to get the Vendor and Product ID and add that to the driver file in Action Replay). The USB drive shows up in Device Manager as an Action Replay device. But, the Action Replay software will not see the drive. I tried it on two different computers (XP and Vista) and neither work.

I hope I can find another USB drive somewhere and that it will work. But right now, I'm pretty disappointed. I'm so close...
I don't know if this will help but I did a little digging and this popped up.

http://www.xbox-hq.com/html/xbox-tutorials-194.html

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Post by Heath »

Yep, that's what I did.

The USB drive works fine on the Xbox and I couldn't be more pleased with my homemade USB to Xbox adapter. I just can't get the Action Replay software to see the USB drive to copy the files to it from my PC.

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Post by TKWill »

Unfortunately none of my thumbdrives are recognizable by the Xbox. I ordered an AR off of the 'bay since there are none at any of the resale stores in Lubbock. So I am astuck in a holding pattern for now.

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Post by thePike »

This is awesome info guys! I've been wanting to do this for a couple of months with an old x-box I got on the cheap but have jsut been too lazy to so all the research on a mod-chip.

This softmod is solid gold though!

Before I dive into this though, does anyone have the info on what is needed to switch the internal hard drive to a larger unit (like how big can I go, and whats needed to do software wise other than pulling the old one and inserting the new one?

You guys rock!

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Post by TKWill »

thePike wrote:This is awesome info guys! I've been wanting to do this for a couple of months with an old x-box I got on the cheap but have jsut been too lazy to so all the research on a mod-chip.

This softmod is solid gold though!

Before I dive into this though, does anyone have the info on what is needed to switch the internal hard drive to a larger unit (like how big can I go, and whats needed to do software wise other than pulling the old one and inserting the new one?

You guys rock!
As far as I can tell in order to do that it will require a Hard Mod with a modchip.

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Post by thePike »

ThrillKillWill wrote: As far as I can tell in order to do that it will require a Hard Mod with a modchip.
Doh! I was hoping that it was just a pull-n-swap. I was thinking that worst case, you'd have to clone the data from one to the other.

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Post by tssgery »

ThrillKillWill wrote:
thePike wrote:This is awesome info guys! I've been wanting to do this for a couple of months with an old x-box I got on the cheap but have jsut been too lazy to so all the research on a mod-chip.

This softmod is solid gold though!

Before I dive into this though, does anyone have the info on what is needed to switch the internal hard drive to a larger unit (like how big can I go, and whats needed to do software wise other than pulling the old one and inserting the new one?

You guys rock!
As far as I can tell in order to do that it will require a Hard Mod with a modchip.
You can do it with a softmod as well. There is a utility built that runs under Linux that will allow you to clone the pertinet parts of you XBOX drive to a larger drive. If you don't run Linux normally, you can use something like Knoppix or an Ubuntu Live disk.

I don't remember the details but they are around on the 'net somewhere

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Post by thePike »

Cool!

I found this, but its using a different dashboard (is XBMC considered a dashboard or an OS?)

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Post by D_N_G »

thePike wrote:
ThrillKillWill wrote: As far as I can tell in order to do that it will require a Hard Mod with a modchip.
Doh! I was hoping that it was just a pull-n-swap. I was thinking that worst case, you'd have to clone the data from one to the other.

you can do a swap without a modchip, but you will still need all the stuff required to do a softmod in order to do so

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/533828


edit: lol, didnt hit post and you guys already answered.. the link above is alittle more up to date
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Post by Heath »

Heath wrote:I built an adapter cable using an extra Xbox "breakaway" cable I had, and the female end of the USB cable. Came out pretty nice, I must say - not the ugly mess I've seen some people do. (I'll post some pics later.)

I have two USB drives I'm willing to have converted to Xbox memory cards. One of them wasn't compatible and the Xbox screen just "blinked" when it was connected. The other one worked great and is now a fully functioning 256MB Xbox Memory card.

But, I've hit a roadblock. I installed the Action Replay software, installed drivers (using USBview to get the Vendor and Product ID and add that to the driver file in Action Replay). The USB drive shows up in Device Manager as an Action Replay device. But, the Action Replay software will not see the drive. I tried it on two different computers (XP and Vista) and neither work.

I hope I can find another USB drive somewhere and that it will work. But right now, I'm pretty disappointed. I'm so close...
I'm back in business again! I had a friend gather up a few old, low capacity USB drives he had and one of them worked on both the Xbox and in the AR software. Evidently, there are compatibility issues with AR with some drives, even if they don't have issues with the Xbox.

So I've got all the files copied to the hard drive of the Xbox and I verified the exploit would run. My friend is going to bring his Xbox over on Saturday and we're going to mod both of them. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm itching to pull the trigger, but I promised him I'd wait on him. Plus, I need to get to bed soon as I need to get up earlier than normal in the morning for the 2nd day of a 2-day Cisco training course. But I'm stoked again!

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Post by thePike »

D_N_G wrote: you can do a swap without a modchip, but you will still need all the stuff required to do a softmod in order to do so

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/533828


edit: lol, didnt hit post and you guys already answered.. the link above is alittle more up to date
I haven't found it yet, but my question is this...

Just how big can I go?

With the hard drive that is...?

EDIT: Apparently anything over 137GB you gotta foramt a G: drive, but how far after that until you have format an H: I wonder?
Last edited by thePike on Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:57:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Heath »

Oh, and XBMC is a dashboard. The OS is still Xbox. You don't replace the Xbox OS, you just modify it to run unsigned code. That code can be a replacement dashboard, Linux, emulators, whatever. At least I think I have that right. Anyone care to correct me?

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Post by thePike »

that makes sense.

Can't wait to get this stuff ordered and start doing the mod.

I might even have to get another cheap x-box to do this for my upstairs tv... :hm:

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Post by Heath »

thePike wrote:
D_N_G wrote: you can do a swap without a modchip, but you will still need all the stuff required to do a softmod in order to do so

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/533828


edit: lol, didnt hit post and you guys already answered.. the link above is alittle more up to date
I haven't found it yet, but my question is this...

Just how big can I go?

EDIT: Apparently anything over 137GB you gotta foramt a G: drive, but how far after that until you have format an H: I wonder?

With the hard drive that is...?
I've no idea what the hardware limit is, but from that article I would assume that 137GB is the limit to the Xbox OS. To access more than that, you'll need to create a new partition with the UnleashX dashboard.

But I have no idea how big beyond the 137GB limit you can go.


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