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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."
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. ---
The price of the xbox is believed to drop to $150 after turkey day. Even better. db
They are the ones that used some of ffmpeg's and mplayer's code a couple of month ago and refused to open their source code(as required by gpl). They only opened it after two weeks of fighting. If you're curious, the details are on the mplayer homepage(just scroll down a bit).
So I wouldn't support them if I had an Xbox.
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I can't speak for sure about before, but I know that at least now XBMP is being written with CXBE, the first legal Xbox development kit.
But in the meantime, I'm guessing this is an output only device? I thought part of microsoft's schtick was the PVR aspects too.
While the Xbox media connector in back IS listed as Video in/out, I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe it could suck-in data.
Were I optimistic, I'd think they could make a slab with a bigger harddisk, AV inputs, and two ethernet ports, one to the Xbox, one to the rest of the world. (is 100mb/s fast enough to shove video+5.1 audio to the Xbox?)
Since I'm getting less and less optimistic all the time, I'm thinking Microsoft will just include al l the additional hardware and wrap it around the Xbox2. OR the windows media server stuff runs on a central fileserver and all of that audio/video stuff is displayed in the familyroom with the Xbox acting as a display unit only.If THAT'S the case, then it doesn't matter what formats the Xbox can display as I'm sure the central server would transcode it to something the xbox CAN use..it already natively supports Mpeg2 (No, I'm NOT looking forward to shuffling all the satellite receiver stuff to wherever the media center hardware would live.)
In the year or so I've had the Xbox, it's been a great DVD player/Game console...and for $200 I turned the Dishnetwork box into a PVR unit. I can't see a whole lot more that I'm gonna want to put in the family room, pre-HDTV. As an early adopter, I think I'll be missing out on whatever media hub plans Microsoft may have.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Ok, I've said it before, I'll say it again.. This deserves a little redundancy.
Why all the free publicity for xbox, when you can get a PS2, install linux, and use that as your media centre - no modding required? Even w/o linux, there's a ton of homebrewed PS2 stuff out there.
Which hurts MSFT more? Buying an xbox, or buying a PS2?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Uh, explain to me why this causes a huge fuss on /., but articles about Qcast for the PS2 (which is four months old and cool as shit) never see the light of day? Qcast just added Ogg support as well. Supports everything The xbox MP does, plus xvid. Has supported AC3 for a few months.
This isn't a grouse, just wondering why a Media Center for 30 million+ installed PS2s holds little interest, but an unavailable hack of xbox that does the same thing is big news.
Anyone?
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Folks, there's gotta be a point here where you stop villifying Mr. Gates and realize that Microsoft is a company, not one person.
I doubt Gates got up this morning, checked slashdot and decided that Windows Media Player ported to one of his products is a bad thing.
Microsoft will probably sell a few more XBOX machines because there are people out there that like to tinker, and then they'll scream foul when some new kick butt feature of the XBOX comes out that immediately disables their XBOX or doesn't allow it to work a la live.
I'm always surprised at the number of geeks or opensource types that purchase a Microsoft product just to hack it to make it do something in the linux world. You're supporting Microsoft still whether you like it or not.
Come on, buy a Gamecube. Make it run linux. Or buy the PS2 and their Linux kit and port something to it! Forget Microsoft's XBOX and let it fade away into obscurity like the 3GO, the NEC Turbographx, the NeoGeo and all the other failed (marketing wise) game systems.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Beyond this I get nervous having MS stuff around. I really believe that their licenses are written to maximize the chance that the customer will break them so when push comes to shove, MS will only not have any liability, but can also have a reason to counter sue. Living in this world I have a few licenses around, but have made it a point to minimize the number.
Also, I know that everyone is talking about how much money it is costing MS when people buy the player and not the games, but since MS cares only about unit sales of XBox, the argument is moot. Anyone who buys an XBox is contributing to MS success.
To me, things such as this are just taunting the bear.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Funny...I thought the X-Box was a CONSOLE GAME SYSTEM. If you want a PC, build one. If you want a cheap PC, build a shitty one. If you want a game system, then buy an X-Box.
And I think the days of MS losing money on this are numbered if not gone. Lots of great titles out there for it now. I'm super glad I went with the X-box over the PS2.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
". (is 100mb/s fast enough to shove video+5.1 audio to the Xbox?)"
Yes, it is. By a lot. DVD-1x drives are what movie players use, with video and 5.1 audio, and they are significantly slower than 100mb/s.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Except the XBox doesnt have a GeForce 4, it has a modified nForce chipset with an NV20 video, middle ground between a GF2 and a GF3. And I still beg to differ on that.
Cheapo case - $20
DVD drive - $30
10 GB HDD - $70
Integrated nForce Mobo - 80
AMD Duron 900 (cheapest thing I can get right now) - 35
64 MB PC100 - 21
Total - 250.
And MS can just buy the chips themselves and slap them all on the mobo, the RAM on the XBox definately isnt in the usual RAM stick configurations, and get it cheaper. I'd guess that an XBox board would cost around $30 to produce for MS, the chip probably costs them another 30 (Intel isnt cheap), and all the various chips (SDRAM, Modem, NTSC out) cost about $20 each. I dont think MS is really losing money anymore on that thing, they certainly were a few months ago, but the stuff in it is so trivial for nV and Intel to make that there's no way they're paying full price anymore.
Microsoft reverse engineered his media player and sold it on Cd/DVD whatever as media player software that could be loaded onto the hard drive. Once loaded, users could play whatever music they want all without modding their box. Thus dealing a blow to hacking the x-box, and modding the x-box. It would take all the fun out.
Kinda like the Linux based PS2
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The difference, of course, is that you can fit an Xbox in your front room alongside the TV and VCR.
Why do friggin' black desktop cases cost 2-3x what a beige one costs? Black CD and DVD drives cost more too.
Yeah I know, black spray paint. Easier said than done. A case isn't a patio chair.
I want to build a mini-ITX box in an old VCR case, but I keep hearing how bad the perfomance of the CPUs on the mini-ITX motherboards are.
I wish VIA or someone would bring out a mini-ITX motherboard with a TV tuner, DVD decoder and mpeg/Divx encoder/decoder on the board, for ~$150.