xbox HTPC

traetox

n00b
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
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Is it within the rules to discuss Xbox HTPC usage? I know it has some stigma associated with it. Just figured I would ask before proceeding.
 
traetox said:
Is it within the rules to discuss Xbox HTPC usage? I know it has some stigma associated with it. Just figured I would ask before proceeding.

I don't think it's a problem.

I am in the process of getting one up and running.

I am pretty sure I will be using XBMC as the frontend but I haven't totally ruled out Myth-TV for the Xbox.

XBMC is pretty darn neat and I like it a whole hell of a lot so far. It is amazing how well it is put together.

For the price, you can't beat a modded XBox for a HTPC.

My backend will be an Ubuntu Linux box with a Hauppage PVR-150 capture card (still working on getting this running under Linux) and about 750GB of storage.

Of course this is all a work in progress and I am sure it will be that way for a long while. ;)

If you have any questions, fire away!
 
i am going to say no.. just because i cant afford another xbox right now to play with.. so i dont want to hear about anybody elses!
JK
fire away with questions ... this forum is such a great resource
 
aggiec05 said:
i am going to say no.. just because i cant afford another xbox right now to play with.. so i dont want to hear about anybody elses!
JK
fire away with questions ... this forum is such a great resource

Ah HAH!!! So you already have one.

That's OK because I only have one right now too.

It will still fully function as the console you know and apparently love after you mod it and turn it into a dual-purpose box. (gaming and HTPC goodness)

The definitive place to get information is www.xbox-scene.com.

I really worried alot about modding my xbox but after some research and a lot of reading on the site above, I took the plunge. I haven't looked back since. It was probably the best $75 (Xecuter3 mod-chip) I've spent in the recent past.
 
I just got mine completely up and running. I am using a 1.6b, with Avalaunch as a dashboard and XBMC, and a few emulators. As far as file support the XBMC is second to NONE. This thing plays files that Vdub won't read, and has codecs for EVERYTHING.

I am serving the media from a slackware box, through SMB.

Which way are you going, to mod your box? I have been reading alot, and did a softmod. WHich once you have all the tools takes a total of about 8 minutes, and you don't even have to open your box.
Word of caution though. the FIRST THING YOU DO is backup your EEPROM, BIOS, and dashboard, and get it OFF the XBOX and in a safe place. IF you have those files, no matter how bad you botch it, xboxHDM can revive it.

I have run a 1.6ghz HTPC for a year or two and decided to try an XBOX instead, and your right, NOTHING beats a XBOX for HTPC ussage. I personally think that XBMC completely outclasses microsofts own windows XP MCE.
According to IRC traffic a a foreign company is getting ready to release a USB, external recorder specifically for the XBMC, so it can be a total HTPC solution.

I have done 4 of these, from 1.1 Xboxs to 1.6b.

I just figured the XboxHTPC should be represented.
 
With the xbox only supporting usb 1.0 wouldn't you run out of bandwidth? I brought the same idea up a while back and it was decided that usb couldn't provide the bandwidth needed for a stand alone pvr. (no server with a tv card)
 
I stream over the xbox 100mbs lan... I don't know how you would that would work over usb. Xbmc is great. I can stream from the replaytv in my bedroom, through the xbox, to the bigscreen in the living room. It's awesome.. and to top it all off.. I have 6000 shoutcast radio stations at my disposal. and you can even record the streams to mp3. It also has a webserver that allows me to control my radio stations over the web and change what's playing. That's not even the tip of the iceberg either.. I also have a doppler radar script that tells me real time radar images from the weatherchannel.com for my area.

I was going to build a bad ass media center pc.. but I think the xbox combined with my replaytv can't be topped by anything that a pc could do except record HD content.
 
I'm not totally sure if USB 1.0 would get choke but I do know that with a Happauge USB2.0 Tuner CPU usuage goes up and quality goes down when used with USB1.1. Hauppauge lists a 733Mhz CPU as the bare minium so I would expect the Xbox to be the one choking because of it's little CPU and not because of the USB 1.1 and not to mention it can't handle HD. ;)
 
I'm just about to make my own xbox media center project. Good stuff here guys. I just bought an xbox last week and am already to mod it. Good info on XBMC - it seemed like it would do everything I wanted so its good to hear how much people like it.

I need to figure out what I want to do with my backend. I own a copy of BeyondTV and a Hauppauge PVR 250.
 
i have a couple hi-def trailers from divx and they play just fine using xbmc. not to mention it upscales to the resolution you are using. I read an explanation on that on tomshardware a while ago because i didn't think if would make that much of a difference but all of my videos look best when they are coming from my xbox. you can also stream videos from a replay tv PVR. which, in my opinion, would be the easiest/best idea. considering there will probably never be PVR support within the xbox. and if you make a computer be your pvr, you already have a HTPC and the xbox would just be redundant for that.
 
XBMC is really an awsome program and all you'd need. It doesn't have the best support for DVD playback but beyond that it cannot, I repeat cannot, be touched.

Just to share... I had my ultimate HTPC experience last night (being fairly new to them, been using mine for only 2 weeks now). I was out for the weekend and there was a show I remembered I wanted to watch. Good 'ol SageTV thanks to its favorites recorded it on my HTPC for me. So I come home 2 days later, go up to my room and boot up the xbox. Go to Videos, choose the HTPC file share, pick out the show I had missed, and watch it up in my bed through the Xbox without ever touching the HTPC.

I just thought the whole thing and how seemlessly it functions is sweet.
 
What is XBMC and how does it work? I'd love to get my Xbox all modded....but sadly, I'm a major n00b to console modding.
 
Lesmen, I was a complete n00b as well. Check out Xbox-Scene.com, it has all the information you'll ever need... and much more beyond that. Basicly you just need to get a modchip, theres solderless ones but I'd suggest soldering yours on. I did it with 0 knowledge and 0 soldering experience so I'm sure you can to. Then you get a program onto your xbox called XBMC. Its a dashboard interface where you can listen to music, watch movies, etc through. Really awsome.
 
n64man120 said:
Lesmen, I was a complete n00b as well. Check out Xbox-Scene.com, it has all the information you'll ever need... and much more beyond that. Basicly you just need to get a modchip, theres solderless ones but I'd suggest soldering yours on. I did it with 0 knowledge and 0 soldering experience so I'm sure you can to. Then you get a program onto your xbox called XBMC. Its a dashboard interface where you can listen to music, watch movies, etc through. Really awsome.
Alright, I'll check it out! Thanks a lot, n64man....hey, the last 3 letters in our name is "man" heh heh heh! :) :p
 
as far as the 733 CPU remember that the XBOX doesn't have to run all of windows extra crap. I had to have a 1.2ghz cpu to make movies smooth with a window MCE, but the 733 is like glass when windows isn't involved. So in the Xbox format 733 is plenty.

For modding an Xbox I SERIOUSLY reccomend softmodding with mechassault and the the "softmod auto-installer deluxe" package. Then download the plain old Auto-installer deluxe 1.01 to install any different dashboards, emulators, or extra applications.

After toying with mine, I would never go the mod chip route. THis takes 8 minutes max, and can be completely reversed, should you ever need to take your xbox in for service.
 
I just ordered the X3 chip.
I plan to try out the XBX media center. ...and drop in a large HDD. Apparently the X3 can format & partition a new HDD.

any suggestions?
 
fore1337 said:
I just ordered the X3 chip.
I plan to try out the XBX media center. ...and drop in a large HDD. Apparently the X3 can format & partition a new HDD.

any suggestions?

That is the chip I went with. Don't worry, it has been very good to me so far. I certainly have no regrets.
 
xecuter 2.6ce here
pics here - if this is NOT supposed to be posted, can a mod just remove my pics instead of closing this guys thread? i own everything shown, games have been copied to the xbox, movies streamed from my network


1.jpg


2.jpg


3.jpg
 
great screen shots.
I'm really looking forward to messing around with the apps out there.
 
hey.. what's the button for capturing a screen shot in xbmc?
 
so can it be outputed in 1080i?

I have nothing not even an X-box how much would a htpc x-box cost me to make?
 
Milenko said:
Click and hold down the left joystick.
thats cool, i never knew that, i will have to try it on my xbox sometime :)

i have not used mine in so long, but i dont think i could sell it just because it is one of those things you can always go back to in the future.
 
Milenko said:
xecuter 2.6ce here
pics here - if this is NOT supposed to be posted, can a mod just remove my pics instead of closing this guys thread? i own everything shown, games have been copied to the xbox, movies streamed from my network

Do you have to install a mod chip to copy your games to the hard drive? Or can you just replace the dashboard, and maybe drop in a bigger hard drive?
 
compslckr said:
you can softmod it and flash the tsop which is not too hard to do. check out www.xbox-scene.com for some great tutorials etc.

Yeah, I was going to check there when I got home, but it is blocked here at work, so I was trying to chort cut an answer out of someone here.

Thanks by the way.
 
skins for XBMC have improved since those screenshot posts....now with sweet visualzation/video overlay goodness!!!!

just to let you guys know there is more sweetness
 
I just installed my X3 last night after work. Looks like it's installed properly. Then I dled X3 3108 - 1024k Bios. Tonight if I got some time I'll update the bios and start copying files.
it seems like slayer 2.6 is the latest. Is this true?
 
fore1337 said:
I just installed my X3 last night after work. Looks like it's installed properly. Then I dled X3 3108 - 1024k Bios. Tonight if I got some time I'll update the bios and start copying files.
it seems like slayer 2.6 is the latest. Is this true?


I never used any of the auto-installers.

I just got evox and put it on there, pointed the defualt dashboard in the x3 bios at the evoxdash.xbe file and away I went. Of course I had to tweak the evox.ini file so it met my needs but everyone will need to do that differently.

Then I downloaded XBMC and put it where I pointed my 'apps' section in the evox.ini file and tweaked its xml config file to again meet my needs.

It wasn't anything too difficult. If you can read and understand ini files and the same for xml files you shouldn't have any problems installing (ie. copying) things manually via ftp.
 
I gotta say guys, I'm changing my mind on the Xbox HTPC idea. I just started using Meedio and I think it is a much better solution than the Xbox. This of course, providing you don't want the Xbox media center for added benefit of "backing up" your games :D

Not to hijack, but since I already posted saying I am going to do the Xbox HTPC mod in this thread I figured I'd explain why I'm not anymore.... Meedio is just so clean and easy to mod and configure. There are some really great features and to top it off, it is only $20 right now (until April 30 I think). I didn't need the Xbox HTPC for TV though since I have other PVRs in the house.
 
Sort of off topic, anyone have any links on basic xbox programming?Just load up the Sage web interface server on the HTPC and then write a plugin to interface with it via XBMC. I'd put in the time on it if I had somewhere to begin with...

Imagine a XBMC skin that looked just like SageTV and could control scheduling and do playback... It would be nearly as good as SageTV itself and you could still load up games and play DVD's and all that. I'd buy an xbox for every TV and have a nice Sage network :eek:
 
wtf for XBMC you dont need any modchip,soft mod it its free god you people over spend :p,TSOP's dont work with newest xboxes,can easily fail and unless you have a v1.0-1.1 xbox with a 1mb tsop opposed to the 1.2+ 256k tsops you loose xbox live.but you do with the dashboard hacks to
 
Ballz2TheWallz said:
wtf for XBMC you dont need any modchip,soft mod it its free god you people over spend :p

Bah forget that :p

The absolute best thing you can do is search for an older xbox that has a samsung drive and then do a full TSOP mod
 
k1114 said:
Bah forget that :p

The absolute best thing you can do is search for an older xbox that has a samsung drive and then do a full TSOP mod
why it takes a total of 2min max to install and if something goes wrong and it wont boot,well if its in warranty a store sure as hell cant trace it back to that ive bought and returned like 4 i experimented with. only one died and that was gentooX's fault,oh and works with all versions of xbox :p
 
k1114 said:
Bah forget that :p

The absolute best thing you can do is search for an older xbox that has a samsung drive and then do a full TSOP mod

yeah well I get a big rubbery one when it comes to voiding warranties.

1.) I've got like 6 months of XBX Live I've been meaning to try out and didn't want to loose it by being banned.

2.) I like the idea of loading several BIOSes on a single system. Kinda like my DFI LP boards CMOS Unloaded.

3.) the X3 chip does a whole bunch of stuff which makes the XBX experience -enjoyable.
 
Ballz2TheWallz said:
wtf for XBMC you dont need any modchip,soft mod it its free god you people over spend :p,TSOP's dont work with newest xboxes,can easily fail and unless you have a v1.0-1.1 xbox with a 1mb tsop opposed to the 1.2+ 256k tsops you loose xbox live.but you do with the dashboard hacks to

That's why you get the option to disable the modifications with the MOD CHIP. Softmods can't be turned off.

With my mod chip I can have the original microsoft dashboard exist right next to my evox dashboard that boots when I have the mod chip enabled.

With just a slightly longer press on the poewer button the xbox boots with the modchip disabled and completely xbox live safe.
 
just slapped the latest version of XBMC on there. it's pretty sweet.
thanks for the suggestions guys.
I'll be trying out Myth as soon as I get comfortable with it.
DSC00379-vi.jpg


edit:
okay one more pic
DSC003891-vi.jpg
 
I'm going to be doing a Xbox Mod when I get home using Xecuter 3...

I want the XBMC to be my default dashboard, but I was wondering... can I copy the dvd of the games I own to the hard drive using XBMC? I can't seem to find information on this anywhere...

If not, I guess I'll have to use Avalaunch to boot XMBC.
 
Man, I want to do this badly. I read the guides over at xboxscence, but they just seem confusing. Anyone will to help me through this, I am not a noob to pc's, but this just seems weird to me. The XBMC looks awesome.
 
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