XBOX Media Player 2.0

smashr writes "If you can't afford the new Windows XP Media Center edition, why not grab yourself a modded XBOX, and check out the XBOX Media Player 2.0. The official site has some screen shots and previews. I am sure Gates will be real upset about this one. Somehow $300 for an x-box setup is cheaper than the $2000 XP boxes."

Comments

Still has some bugs to iron out

[Anonymous Coward]

But impressive nonetheless. Beats the crap outta the Dreamcast Divx player. Although my personal fav is the SNES emulator, it runs without a hitch, and is offically the coolest thing a nerd could ever want.

gates could care less

[eht]

i'm sure gates could care less, as he's not selling the 2000$ media center pc's, hp is

Re:modded xboxes

[DBordello]

He tried. He released a new version of the xbox. Something in the kernel changed. Now you can use the same mods as before! just need a new bios on it. db

MPlayer

[Doug Neal]

Its worth noting that this project is based on MPlayer, the Linux video player. There were some GPL violation issues recently with XBox Media Player but they have apparently now been resolved...

Re:MPlayer

[zurab]

There were some GPL violation issues recently with XBox Media Player but they have apparently now been resolved

Still not resolved with the old source code that was violating GPL from ffmpeg and xvid. If you read the mplayer website:

Their reasoning: the Win32 version that is/was available for download at http://xboxmediaplayer.com was an older version which didn't contain ffmpeg or xvid, and has non-GPL license, equipped with a DivX3 decoder which was 20-30% faster (!) than ffmpeg. Well that's what they say. Unfortunately, the source of that version was lost (??!!).

They also insist on us providing an apology. For what? They nuked any topic on their forum which was discussing GPL. The homepage did not contain enough information about licenses - only the success story of porting ffmpeg and xvid..

And the "losing" of the old source.. Either way, let's hope they are more tolerant to (L)GPL licenses now.

They took the code, distributed it violating both GPL and copyright, came up with lame excuses, conveniently "lost" the source code, and now demand an apology? Gimme a break! The only apology they get is "I'm sorry I won't go near your products for quite a while because I don't trust you!"

Re:modded xboxes

[MonTemplar]

For the same money, you could go buy one of those Walmart/Lindows PC's and load a copy of Mandrake or Redhat on it to achieve a low cost useful PC.

The difference, of course, is that you can fit an Xbox in your front room alongside the TV and VCR.

Before this german site gets slashdoted...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since I got there early here's the feature list:
Coming Soon - December 2002

I guess we've kept quiet for long enough - time to make some noise :)

For all the folks that have supported us, heres a preview of a little number we like to call 'XBOX Media Player 2.0'

More screenshots over here.

Major:

* New user-interface inspired by Microsoft Windows Media Centre.
* In-menu preview of running movie and currently playing music.
* View media by cover or list, album or artist.
* Sort, shuffle and queue media, M3U playlist.
* Photo Slideshow and settings.
* Customize with thumbnails.
* Screen calibration.
* Automatic Zoom to full 4:3 or 16:9.
* Post-Processing (based on yamp - uses the same lib).
* ISO9660 Joilet compatible (streaming and caching).
* TTF Subtitle font.
* SVCD and latest XVID (B-FRAMES).
* Select audio stream from multi-stream avi.

Minor:

* Movies and music now visibly end when playback has completed.
* Fixed a bug preventing mp3's greater than 8 mb from playing to completion.
* Seeking implmented across more formats.
* Movie clipping and aspect ratio tweaking.
* TTF Subtitle font shadow (based on yamp - simple but effective!).
* Simpler gamepad and infra-red controller button layout.
* Auto tray retract when accessing DVDROM drive.
* Popup-dialog errors/warnings/status
* Enable/disable subtitles setting.
* Slide show settings.

(and many more!)

Looks like they made the thumbnails real small, expecting slashdot, but they're already feeling slow... the screenshots all look like standard FisherPrice interface for XP, of course.
In all fairness, though the modded Xbox doesn't compare the the $2,000 system... since it can only rip mp3s, and would be really really slow to encode DivX.

Site Mirrors

[JavaTHut]

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.0catch.com
http://www. xbox.homebrewers.co.uk
http://www.xboxmediaplayer .de/
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.it/
http://intra net.ktg.se/~andbje/xboxmediaplayer/

Re:Even Less Price

[moorg]

Ok, I'll bite.

Wal-Mart.com has two different computers for $200.

$300 (as quoted in the story) - $100 (as in this guys post) = $200 (Wal-mart.com computer)

Re:So far, he isn't.

[matguy]

Not so much, it's the perverbial Gillete syndrome. Ms sells the Xbox cheaper than it costs to produce in the plan that owners will buy the highly profitable games.

So, if an Xbox is sold, but it spawns no game sales from that one Xbox than MS should, in theory, actually loose money on that sale.

Re:xbox bias?

[CommanderTaco]

Actually, there was already a story about both the broadq and snapstream software available for tivo.

project info

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox Media Player is an open source media player for the Xbox(TM) from Microsoft. (Xbox Media Player is also known as "XboxMediaPlayer", "XBMP" & "XBPLAYER"). Currently the Xbox Media Player can be used to play supported direct file formats (AVI, MPG, MP3, ...ect.) from a CD-RW/DVD inside the Xbox(TM) DVD-ROM or of the Xbox(TM) hard disk drive, it can also play files from a PC/server over the network via the XStream Streamer/Server software.
(Note! Xbox Media Player does require a Xbox modchip installed in the Xbox to work).

Currently the Xbox Media Player 1.0 support the following:

DivX/XVID Playback, DivX 3/4/5 supported
MSMpeg4v2 and MSMpeg4v1 support
MP3 Playback (b6 bug fixed)
AC3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) Support (downmixed output to stereo)
VCD (MPEG-1) Support
SVCD (MPEG-2) support (buggy but plays) *NEW*
Network file streaming
ISO9660 caching support (limited) *NEW*
Subtitles (only support for SubRip .srt format right now)
Launch XBEs (Dashboard replacement mode)
Seeking during AVI (DivX/XVID) playback
Video resizing & scaling
JPG Pictures viewing
Control via Xbox(TM) controller & DVD Remote ...and more

Future goals of features & supported formats include (not supported now/yet):

FFWD/RWD of MPEG-1/2
True FFWD/RWD of AVI (DivX/XVID)
Playlist (MP3 & other file playsists)
Bookmarking
Post processing (reason why video quality is worse than on your PC)
AC3 (Dolby Digital) with true Dolby Digital 5.1 (optical lead) output
ISO9660/Joliet on-the-fly (without caching)
Audio-CD playback
VOB/DVD playback
HDTV (progressive scan)
OGG Vorbis audio codec
OGG containers
Files larger that 0.99GB of Xbox(TM) DVD-ROM (Xbox(TM) Limit)
AVI files over 2GB (XBMP does not yet support OpenDML AVI's)
WMV playback
Support for multiple audio streams (a.k.a BivX, Morgan Stream Switcher)
SMI, SUB, ...etc. Subtitles (XBMP only supports .srt format right now)
VCD/SVCD menus
Real video
flash
QuickTime
3ivx

History:

The Xbox Media Player was created by d7o3g4q (a.k.a. duo) & RUNTiME. It started out as two separate players by the two original developers each working on their own design d7o3g4q's player was called XboxMediaPlayer & RUNTiME's player was called XBPLAYER, they began by share some code & coordinating features to not duplicate efforts & by XboxMediaPlayer beta 5 the two player where totally integrated into one. In beta 5 they also started using FFMPEG as the video codec & in beta 6 they also added XVID support. The development & beta testing was done "behind closed doors" for this project (d7o3g4q & RUNTiME promising that when version 1.0 was made they would release the source code to the public, but after beta 6 was done there where a lot of complaining from many why the developers did not release the source code for the player sooner as they where using FFMPEG & XVID code as they lie under the GPL license. Even though the project was closed d7o3g4q & RUNTiME released the source code for beta 6 (Inc. a few bug fixes, SVCD/MPEG-2 & limited 9660 caching support) on the 15th of October 2002.

XStream Streamer/Server software was created by RUNTIME to share media to the player over a network. Since then it is being worked on by Pope-X, Jeff33, Ziki & jkw (with support from RUNTiME & d7o3g4q).

(of course the ultimate goal is to make this the best available media player for the Xbox(TM)).

Re:Guess what.

[GigsVT]

I see what you are saying, and I almost wrote a post to the same effect as yours, but I decided to check the GPL first:

"You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it."

So, one could argue that there is implicit acceptance of the GPL under the bold text above.

Whether you call it a GPL violation or copyright infringement is really meaningless IMO, I believe it is both.

Re:modded xboxes

[Nickus]

Build a box based on VIA EPIA. It costs basically the same but you don't have to deal with any stinkin modchips. Take a look at http://www.mini-itx.com for more ideas.

Re:Bill Cares?

[runderwo]

The disc does not spin the opposite way. It is read the opposite way. (Outside-in as opposed to inside-out).