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XBox (Games) Hardware Hacking Games Hardware Build Entertainment

XBMC4XBOX 3.0.1 Stable Released 57

Posted by timothy from the say-it-quickly dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After more than a year of development we are pleased to announce stable version 3.0.1 [download via torrent] of the popular media center platform XBMC for the 1st generation XBOX — now called XBMC4XBOX. A huge amount of work has been put into this, and it features numerous additions and improvements over the last release. For those that want a cheap functional media center with some old hardware they might have lying around, this is a superb option."
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XBMC4XBOX 3.0.1 Stable Released More

XBMC4XBOX 3.0.1 Stable Released

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  • Wow (Score:3)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Thursday May 19, 2011 @06:12PM (#36186026) Journal

    I still use XBMC4XBOX every night. I will enjoy this immensely. Thanks!

    • No one's interested in your means of sexual gratification.

    • I've long since moved on to ION based nettops, but curiosity makes me want to plug the old Xbox back in and see what they have accomplished. The big deal breaker for me was spotty and sluggish h.264 decoding, which has become the de-facto standard for 720p TV and movie rips.

      • I thought the big advantage of using a softmodded[1] original Xbox console over an ION nettop in the first place was standard-definition video output. For this, can't you transcode 720p H.264 videos to 480p MPEG-4 part 2 (e.g. Xvid) video on your media server before playing them?

        [1] That's what we called it before we called it "jailbreaking".

        • As far as I know, and IANACS (I am not a computer scientist), but I don't think jailbreaking would be the correct term for what's done to an xbox. An executable must be signed to run on the xbox, but as soon as it is, it gets access to everything. It's an all or nothing ordeal.

          I'm a little less clear on how it works for the iPhone. However, I do know that any program you get from the App Store runs in a (chroot?) jail and does not have complete access to the underlying system hardware. So, even if you do ge

          • What you do to an Xbox is jailbreaking because you patch the BIOS to accept unsigned executables. Having used the BIOS reflash method on my 1.1 I am sure about this. It's not about chroot jails, you are overthinking this.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              What you do to an Xbox is jailbreaking because you patch the BIOS to accept unsigned executables. Having used the BIOS reflash method on my 1.1 I am sure about this. It's not about chroot jails, you are overthinking this.

              Depends on the Xbox. The latest versions of them used ROMs and can't be reflashed. They have to use a traditional jailbreak instead or an LPC boot (modchip).

              Still, "jailbreaking" is meaning less about chroot jails and now refers to "doing stuff they didn't let me do". Though the Android fol

        • Actually, the Xbox's scaler will go up to 1080i, and it is very good at it. Or you can use 720p. This is one of the best reasons to use the Xbox for a media player; the fantastic nVidia scaler. Of course, today it has problems reading commonly-available files and it may no longer be a very good choice.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ExoBuZz ( 223063 )

        it still won't really manage h264 720p video, but mpeg4/xvid at 720p is doable (It can manage 1280x720 @ 5000kbit mpeg4). BBC IPlayer streams at 832x468 @ 1500kbit now play which didn't before. Certainly if you want 1080p video playback it isn't going to do the job, but it makes a great secondary media player for the "spare" telly etc.

      • The simple truth is that the Xbox has a coppermine celery at 733 MHz and it's not capable of decoding high resolution H.26whatever. So if you want to watch that kind of media on the Xbox you will need to transcode it on the fly with PS3MediaServer on something capable of the job. The Xbox 360 can handle it but the supported media types are relatively few, of course.

        • Yeahhh that's the main reason I switched. And really, an ION these days is pretty cheap, compared to the spare PC and CPU horsepower required to transcode on the fly.

    • Yep, I've got two Xbox's myself running XBMC, great piece of software. Might try this out when I get a free weekend... sometime.

  • How long do you think it'll be before they stop supporting the XBox?

    Just kidding. I use xbmc on my HTPC (An Acer Revo 3700), and have the utmost respect to these guys.

    Hope they continue to expand the capabilities of the XBox and add new functionality to HTPCs.

    • XBMC (without 4XBOX in the name) has dropped support for xbox. This group is re-integrating xbox support. So XBMC itself has dropped support, and this project without xbox support is irrelevant, I'd say.

      • XBMC (without 4XBOX in the name) has dropped support for xbox. This group is re-integrating xbox support. So XBMC itself has dropped support, and this project without xbox support is irrelevant, I'd say.

        XBMC.org hasn't supported Xbox for like almost 2 years now. It was always just one person [Arnova] who was backporting all the changes from the main branch to XBMC for Xbox. Then we split off and became XBMC4Xbox and it's STILL Arnova doing the work, but now we have awesome talents of Exobuzz doing a lot of the grunt work along with a few others. We could always use more help though.

  • Cudos to the developers, I used XBMC for years and was continually impressed with their efforts. Great bit of software IMHO.

    I only recently switched to PCH's in the bedrooms due to the inability (hardware limitation) to play HD content and wireless support.

  • I was starting to wonder if I should consider getting rid of my xbox 1, you just kept it on the shelf a bit longer

    thanks!

  • Kudos to the developers. If I hadn't gotten an interest in HD, I'd still have my three Xboxes running XBMC. Alas, they were too slow for H.264 and so three young shoppers at the Salvation Army will get lucky. My I just use my Hackintosh through a matrix switch to the whole house running Plex. The upside is, only one install to maintain. Well, that and HD.

    • I'll probably be retiring the XMBC Xbox this weekend after using it almost every day since 2004. I'm finally upgrading the 63cm CRT to a 101cm LED LCD FHD display, so composite will probably look poor. I have a PC that will become a HTPC so now I'll actually be able to watch HD content.

  • Still going strong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheRealQuestor ( 1750940 ) on Thursday May 19, 2011 @08:06PM (#36187028)
    As somebody who has been offering nightly XBMC builds for Xbox and all other platforms for the last few years I can say that interest is still there for an ANCIENT platform. http://www.xbmcsvn.com/ [xbmcsvn.com] still gets thousands of downloads a day and many of them are Xbox. I just added a new section to the site to include the new "Stable" builds that should be coming more often then before. We can always use help over at http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum [xbmc4xbox.org] so if you are so inclined head on over. kick off your shoes and stay a while. We are the forum without the attitude :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by srh2o ( 442608 )
      And your work is much appreciated!
      • kinda crazy really. Started doing it on my pc for just xbox and a few years later I have 6 machines doing pretty much just XBMC builds 24/7 lol. I had to go buy a bigger window unit AC last week because it's already REALLY hot down here [deep south. texas] AND 10,000 BTU wasn't doing it [it's only about 144 SQ Feet too :(] [sarcasm >for some reason 12 really hard run computers can heat a space like that up in a matter of minutes /endsarcasm] so I had to up it to 12,000 BTU and it's BARELY doing it :(. I'
  • Nice to see that people kept working on this. I still use my Xbox for standard def media, and music, all the time. It makes for a great little network connected media device.

  • Unless they have High Def support somehow, I will probably just serve files over to my PS3. But...

    I have already modded my old xbox and it will be interesting to see WTF they have done to it. The modding of it was lightyears ahead of time as far as a kick ass media center. I put a chip in mine and that was a learning experience. I first started with the piece of shit solder-less adapter for the chip, and it was a train wreck of a product. I ended up soldering it in, and that was my first soldering job. Watc

    • You don't even need a chip anymore as of at least 4 (5?) years ago. Now you just play a song on the dashboard to unlock the hard drive, then plug the drive into a computer running a custom Linux bootcd, and it installs everything for you. All you need to do is open the console itself.

      Did it this way after I decommissioned my OXbox when I got a 360 just to play around with it.

      • Yah, the hot swap is easy as pie.. Playing a song to unlock the drive, good thinking.. I unplugged the DVD Rom and booted it which crashes it in a red-ring, unlocked state.. The process is so easy.... chips are for suckers ;)

        • Until something goes wrong...
          Then you still need a chip (unless you flashed the on-bard TSOP, assuming you didn't have one of these [networkboy.net] in your system.

  • I just recently modded my mate's old, unused xbox by hotswapping. Took quite a while to find a combination of computers, DVD players and cable combinations that allowed me to successfully hotswap, but eventually managed it.

    Installed xbmc4xbox on it (as the default dashboard) and it plays 480p h.264 very nicely over s-video. I'll be installing the stable release when I can steal the xbox for a day or so.

    Now, it doesn't look as good as 720p, but until they get a TV that does 720p it will do the job just fine

  • Great news. I'm still using xbox on my old tv.
  • I still have the xbox in the garage hooked up to an old Radiation King. I was happy with it as it was, but its always nice to breath a breath of fresh air into old hardwar. Kudos to the team... I am glad someone is more motivated with their spare time than me... time for another donation I suppose.

  • Old hardware lying around??
    My XBOX is bigger than my cat. It's good at propping up chairs that are missing a leg. I use the controllers as doorstops.
    If I switch it back to being a media center, that means I have to go buy a new crate to hold my old media. :p

    (But I love that these utils are still going strong. Good on ya.)

  • ...while the family uses the old black beauty every freaking day for XBMC. Yah, it doesn't handle 720p movies so good... but it has never given me crap about any file format. Ever. Can't wait to try this update. I haven't updated it in years! And it's STILL the best media platform I've ever seen! Glad to see there's still folks as happy with the ancients as I am.
  • is that since the xbox split, XBMC mainline has changed to a new "Addon" system, meaning all current plugins wouldn't work on the Xbox - that is, if it weren't for this X4X v3 work. the range of plugins available now have made even LAN shares of "aquired" content pretty much obselete.. check out: iPlayer (if in the UK) Icefilms Navi-X and others: http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1877 [xbmc4xbox.org] prepare to be blown away if you've not used XBMC for a few years.. and the Xbox is still good enoug

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