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Someone got dyslexia ;P as it is "XBMC", not "XMBC". XBMC (formerly "XBox Media Center") is now a recursive acronym for "XBMC Media Center" more information on the official website http://xbmc.org/about/

Okay, now that you have tasted the XBMC Kool-Aid you need to be introduced to something REALLY cool! You see XBMC has been ported to Linux! In turn it has been ported from Linux to Windows and OSX and there's even a fork of OSX XBMC that's doing other neat things.

So, what does this mean? Well for me it means that HD-DVD and BD high def video can be viewed as easily as SD stuff could be on the old XBOX. Want high def TV shows? Download them - Linux XBMC plays them flawlessly!

Yes, it's still under development and yeah it needs a GOOD CPU but WOW does it look GREAT! Same interface you've grown to love already but now it's got the CPU power to play higher rez video. Yeah, you lose the ability to play XBOX games and the box costs more than $50 but IMO it's worth it! There's a bootable Ubuntu USB stick in the works for the AppleTV too BTW, that will rock. So check it out -> http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=52

P.S. Look at unRAID for your storage. I would bet you could set this up on the SAME hardware, lower your power bills, and have much more storage from the disks you're using now. I'm pushing up close to 7TB on one of my two servers with room to grow!

And yes, buying an Xbox so you can hack it is also retarded.

I just bought a used Xbox (not the 360) for $50. With a simple modification, I can get it to run XBMC. I've already done this once before. This is a very powerful and versatile platform, and it's dirt cheap. How exactly is this “retarded”?

Qute from the XBMC Wiki:
Does XBMC support High Definition (HD) resolution media?

Yes and no, but the answer is a little more complicated than that, see bellow:
XBMC for XBox

In general, it can not play native HD format videos, but can upscale SD or lower format video to HD resolutions

A standard XBox (with the XBox HD AV Pack) is capable of outputting HD signals. XBMC can quite easily upscale all low-resolution videos (like retail DVD Movies) to 720por 1080i.

Unfortunately, the XBox's 733Mhz Intel Pentium-III CPU, is to slow to play native HD video (Microsoft® and DivX® recommends a 2.4 Ghz PC + 384MB RAM for 720p MPEG-4 playback!). This means that you might only get maybe 10-20fps (frames per seconds) displayed which would appear so jerky because of all dropped frames that it will be un-viewable.

Upgraded Processor

It is possible to upgrade the processor in an XBox (for example, with the DreamX-1400 from FriendTech, to one which is at capable of decoding some native HD videos (i.e. those encoded with MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 ASP (H.263) at up to 720p). FriendTech do offers trade-in). Note! You must enable/setup your HDTV settings in Microsoft dashboard, (on NTSC Xboxes).

Likewise if a law is introduced that says you cannot modify your games console to allow it to play illegal games then your argument is incorrect

Fortunately that law doesn't exist! While I do have a modded XBox (original) it's only used for the excellent XBMC. Such a law wouldn't just 'hurt' pirates, it would also hurt actual legitimate enthusiasts (XBMC is coming out for Linux soon though soon, so it will be time to retire it! :)

Myth is a bit of a nightmare though, and personally I don't think the media player side of it is that great.

If you don't need PVR then I can heartily recommend XBMC, it's awesome.

http://xbmc.org/

XBMC for Linux is where I think money ought to go - that or the EFF to whom I donate to every DEFCON. Many of us have used XBMC on the old XBOX but it's now been ported to Linux using SDL so in addition it is also being ported to OSX and even Windows. The code can now handle HD video and while still "Alpha" I find that it works well enough that I'm using it on my main HTPC to watch movies often. EFF needs no introduction.

http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=52 for more information on Linux XBMC or check out the Wiki -> http://www.xboxmediacenter.net/wiki/?title=HOW-TO_compile_XBMC_for_Linux_from_source_code

P.S. ffmpeg is a project that MANY others benefit from including XBMC, if they need money they are also a worthy cause.

... and softmod it.

Then you can play original XBox games (which are cheap now), run emulators to play old NES and SNES games and run XBMC so you can use it as your multimedia center.

I'm running Linux and have multithreaded decoding of H.264 - works GREAT! CABAC patch to FFMPEG is apparently what does it and no my movies don't have funky stuff done to them during encoding. Lots of converted HD-DVD and one BD so far. Take a look at XBMC on Linux to see this in action. The developers there can tell you more about what they had to do. I see multicore decoding on more than just H.264 too....

http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=52/ XBMC needs more deelopers too guys, help them out - it's an awesome project! Now running on Linux, OSX, and Windows using SDL!

There's BBC's download service (obviously DRM-ridden) and there's the BBC streaming TV service (can't really see why shouldn't be open).
This "hole" is talking about the latter.
On the plus side, we now have BBC playback in XBMC, which is amazingly cool...

answer: XBOX + XBOX Media center.

It'll read from a network drive, rip CDs, rip DVDs, navigable with a remote, viewable on the TV, and above all, it's easy enough for your mom to use.