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Modded XBox The Ultimate Multimedia PC?
Anonymous writes "Can a modded Xbox running homebrew software really beat all existing
designed-for-the-living-room multimedia devices hands down?! Tom's Hardware
Guide seems to think so. They reviewed Xbox Media Center
(XBMC) and say the free open source software turn an Xbox into The Ultimate Multimedia Center, the ideal home
playback system for audio and video.
(Apparently there is a PC software version available too:
Media Portal)" The article also explains some of the more convoluted issues surrounding XBMC. But I definitely agree that this is a great system.
XMBC is the first media center type application that I have found that runs on $150 worth of hardware. That says a whole lot about it's success.
Not only does it already have standard PC hardware, letting Linux coders use their previous experience, but it's got some other special things that are also perfect.
It has HD TV-Out (Or RCA cables), and a DVD-ROM drive. A spacious 250GB HD can be installed to save everything under the sun, and after all that, you can still play games on it and not have to worry about viruses and worms, and most importantly, cheaters, playing online. It's cheaper than any hardware of that class should be. Cheap cheap cheap! That's why this is so popular.
Plus, you get the added bonus that you got to do something that Microsoft doesn't want, all while MS makes a loss on the XBox.
- Sherman
I think one of the great advantages of XBox Media Center is that it also doubles as an excellent shell/launcher (especially with its built-in FTP support) and replaces both applications like EvolutionX which was a dedicated launcher and the now defunct XBox Media Player. No other dedicated media device offers such integration between shell/player... on Windows they're two seperate applications which don't seem to integrate particularly well.
Might be a little offtopic, but since the XBOX is an x86, and at least some people have the expensive flash burners/readers it takes, why hasn't anyone taken the XBOX os and put it on a PC? Maybe run it inside emulated XBOX hardware? I wanna play XBOX games on my PC... :)
Anyone else getting an ad for Windows XP Media Center Edition in the middle of the article?
XBox Media Center's page (googe cache)
There's my karma whoring for the month.
A modded xbox + xbmc is perfect! I use it daily, so I know.
The only thing missing is a video-in card. Currently I have to use my desktop PC to record shows and then stream to the xbox. It works, but it would really be perfekt if one could use normal PCI-cards on the xbox.
Anyone know about this problem and if the xbox2 has the same limitations?
can something from microsoft really be The Ultimate?
It isn't until you install some free software on it. Think of it as spraying perfume on a pig.
Trolling is a art,
There's a place selling modified Xbox's for about $450 that does all of this stuff that I've been considering.
For the most part, a modified Xbox would be my "dream TV box". Sit it in the living room (it's about the same size as the DVD/VCR combo machine - thicker, but not as long), and I could have an archive of my legally purchased DVD's. As a guy with 2 kids who are always trying to ruin the DVD's with their grimy little fingers, this would be a great machine for my household.
"Here, kids - want to watch 'Blue's Clues on a Deserted Island and Joe Dies Horribly' again? OK - let me just use the remote on the Xbox." Boom - there goes my XVID ripped DVD movie on. Originals are kept safe, kids are happy.
I'm kind of dissapointed we haven't seen a company come up with a solution like this. A Cappachino sized device with the same capabilities, running Linux so I could FTP/SSH into it for upgrades/other mods would sell like hotcakes. (And as an avid fan of hotcakes, I know what I'm talking about.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Binaries - there's no "clean" way of getting them, AFAIC. You need VS.NET and ask M$ for the devel kit in order to compile them (at which time you're bound by their EULA, which disallows redistribution). Well, I definitely wouldn't mind a download link though :)
The Raven
My only regret is the xbox can't read DVD+R discs (only DvD+RW) so I end up using more expensive and less permanant media for no good reason whicn I want to archive a show.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Here is a better link to the article. The one in the original post bypassws the RR-mirror selection and goes directly to www6...
You should not reinvent the wheel on user interface.
Imagine if the wheel had been square when it was first invented. Everything would be terrible. Cars would shake themselves apart. Bicycles would kill their riders. But people would say "don't re-invent the wheel" and so you'd be stuck with it.
Name one closed source interface that isn't blatently stolen from xerox or a relic that looks like 1985?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
The CPU and GPU on the xbox share memory, and not in a cheap pc onboard video "8 megs of RAM used as VRAM" way, they can both access the same memory. It can thus do some really cool shit for a PC as "weak" as it is.
All those cool pixel shader effects and bumpmapping in Halo, for instance. The most expensive PCs from falcon northwest choke a little on that stuff, even at 640x480. Because the XBOX cpu can compute textures in RAM, and use them instantly without having to push them over an AGP bus.
The long and short of it is, you'd need an AGP/PCIX bus at least as fast as the Xboxes RAM bus to simulate this.
You could probably get close on current hardware, less taxing games may be emulated more easily.
It's not as simple as porting the "xbox OS", though I do forsee an Xbox emu before a PS2 or GCN emu.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This nets you the ability to play progressive scan DVDs,
The Xbox can do this easily. There is a one bit flag in the dvd player executable that turns it to progressive.
a remote that can power on and eject the drive on your media device
You can power off (or reset) the xbox via remote thru XBMC also. And eject implies that you'll have to get up and switch/insert discs anyways, so why do you need it on your remote?
the ability to play back MP3, OGG Vorbis, OGM, DivX (3.11, 4.x, 5.x), AC3 audio, JPEG, PNG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
so XBMC can play all that, and more. XVID, QT5, AAC, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Did you even RTFA?
The total cost for this is way less than your Xbox
Wrong. I bought a new xbox ($150), modded it with a homemade cheapmod ($7.50) and simply use the stock hard drive since I stream all my media from my fileserver anyways, thru Samba. I bought a cheap 3rd party remote, ($15) which brings my total to $172.50. Oh, and a simple switch to turn off the mod chip, and I play xbox live games till the cows come home.
I don't know why you'd go to the hassle of an Xbox that doesn't let you completely control every by IR remote, and also requires you mod it.
I dont know why you think this- I can do everything I need thru the xbox remote.
Get your facts straight next time.