How to softmod your Xbox and install XBMC for free

vibe666

Redisle wrote: »

strangely microsofts own "Advanced AV" kit only comes with composite+s-video and optical and no component even though the console can use it..
So how do other people have it hooked up??

i got one of THESE which afaik is the 'official' MS one and I can confirm it has both component and optical outputs (both the one I have and the one in this auction).

at the time when i bought mine, there were only one or two unofficial component cables for the original xbox and some of them were less than reliable, which is why i went for the official one and some separate component leads but someone at work got one of the regular ones off ebay recently and he says it works perfectly, so i'd probably just got for one of those ones you posted a link to with optical out.

sornypanafonic

well i went and purchased the s-video cables for the xbox and the color distortion disappeared.

is anyone running this on component wires? at this point its just out of curiosity, im happy with the current setup.

thank you all so much for helping me with this.

@ Nick_oliveri - i doubted it but you were right.

the inauguration is on the 20th at noon , the pressure is on for him to deliver a great speech or jobs, mostly jobs. festivities start at 12 which will put it around 5/6 in the evening for you, not exactly sure in which timezone galway falls.

Nick_oliveri

Havent got component myself and im only after making the LCD telly jump. Need to get a cable sorted for the wii first. Looks like ****e on the telly.

You didn't delete your files after sorny? Ftp is a pain with 10meg.

Glad its sorted sorny. And Redisle you finally got her done, good man, it kind of sucks that it was the spinter cell exploit after all you tried. Install that bigger hard drive and enjoy.

sornypanafonic

I kept the files, originally i just put on a few for testing various codecs. I have all these tv shows and movies in klv or something, avi, mp4, xvid, etc. wanted to make sure they all run. so far so good.

The color distortion seems to have been purely a byproduct of the component wire. All i did was go buy the svideo one for $3 and try it out, boom, beautiful. soo glad.

you said you have a problem with the wii? i dont know exactly what the problem is but i have it hooked up to a plasma with regular av cables that it came with. besides being a good time drunk, i dont think those graphics are going to get any better no matter what the cable is. the xbox here is going to be hooked up to a 11 year old tv, so the component was more or less an option for future use.

Edit - I will admit, this does not look as clear as my dvd player that also plays divx files, thats hooked up via component on lcd at my parents house. Its nothing to complain, im sure its the svideo wire, i doubt the dvd player is a better than xbmc running on xbox. then again, the tv is ****.

Nick_oliveri

Supposedly Xbmc handles upscaling very well on component, but if you are in the humour for watching HD content you are going to be let down. Medium Quality MP4s fail in XBMC because of the high processing thats needed to decode the codec. I tried a 720x*** Mp4 and it failed with massive frame loss.

If you have a lot of HD content you should wait for the Ps3 to come down in price again soon and invest in a bigger 2.5inch sata (wont void warranty) for it and play the content from the XMB, currently PS3 Linux is restricted both in CPU and GPU power and wont play HD properly but playing it from the normal menu(XMB) is easy and it works.

Component cables for the wii are essential for me at the moment, i have my Wii soft modded (very very very easy) and it just looks horrible on standard AV cables, some games like Mario Galaxy will look lovely on component. I'll get back to you in relation to that.

sornypanafonic

Hmm I think ill reinstall xbmc latest built with the visualizations (downgraded to last stable built and had them taken off in case it cause bugs.)

I actually have a PS3, i got it brand new for $250, i didnt ask any questions, but im happy with it. I do think eventually ill upgrade the hd, for now im happy with a good divx file, takes up less space and gets the job done. i only watch a few select mostly cancelled cartoons and arrested development.

btw, if youve never seen it, i highly, very highly recommend you give arrested development a shot. start from the begining, its a long interconnected story. it also requires repeated views for hidden jokes.

edit - haha, i noticed youre a jobseeker. im on the wagon as well.

Nick_oliveri

Aye i have to collect money today, might get a game or two to play for those long days .

I love Jobe and "George Micheal". Great show, may go through it again.

Iv'e ordered a western digital external 2.5 inch 160gb HD for the PS3, i might swap them for each other and have the 40Gb in the external case. I heard its very easy to do.

vibe666

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Supposedly Xbmc handles upscaling very well on component

supposedly nothing, it DEFINITELY handles it very well, it's actually visibly better than my PS3 can do (with SD content, divx's dvd's etc.) via HDMI over my component cables.

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

If you have a lot of HD content you should wait for the Ps3 to come down in price again soon and invest in a bigger 2.5inch sata (wont void warranty) for it and play the content from the XMB, currently PS3 Linux is restricted both in CPU and GPU power and wont play HD properly but playing it from the normal menu(XMB) is easy and it works.

if you were going to spend a decent amount of money on it other than just an el cheapo €20 xbox, you'd just get yourself a HTPC and stick XBMC for Linux or Windows on it.

XBMC Atlantis (the build of XBMC that was released towards the end of last year) brings the xbox, windows and linux builds of XBMC back together after the dev's originally branched off to develop each platform so now you'll get the same build on whatever platform you care to put it on, with the added advantage of native HD decoding and output, assuming its a decent enough PC but it doesn't take much, even a netbook would do the job adequately (well, 720p anyway, but you can hardly argue with that out of a netbook) and you wouldn't be the first person to install it on a netbook to do just that.

even if you did go the PS3 route, the XMB just can't compete with the format compatibility or feature set of XBMC anyway and never will.

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Component cables for the wii are essential for me at the moment, i have my Wii soft modded (very very very easy) and it just looks horrible on standard AV cables, some games like Mario Galaxy will look lovely on component. I'll get back to you in relation to that.

i have been meaning to get my wii modded before xmas, but never got roun to it, but i'll be getting it done soon. i was looking at some 3 way console cables on ebay that do the ps2, wii and xbox, but they all seem to onl do thexbox360, not the classic one which is a real bummer as I', stuck with composite on the wii at the moment due to xbmc taking up the component sockets on the telly.

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Iv'e ordered a western digital external 2.5 inch 160gb HD for the PS3, i might swap them for each other and have the 40Gb in the external case. I heard its very easy to do.

yes it is, just be careful with the little screw as it seems to be made of very soft metal (or possibly cheese) and if your screwdriver doesn't fit perfectly it's very easy to take off the little phillips bit and be left with a 'permanently' installed hdd.

EDIT: sorry, this post looks like a total 'nick bashing' one, but it's really not, just trying to answer questions and you asked all the good ones.

Nick_oliveri

vibe666 wrote: »

supposedly nothing, it DEFINITELY handles it very well, it's actually visibly better than my PS3 can do (with SD content, divx's dvd's etc.) via HDMI over my component cables.

Thats actually surprising, i may invest in one now. Damn money.

if you were going to spend a decent amount of money on it other than just an el cheapo €20 xbox, you'd just get yourself a HTPC and stick XBMC for Linux or Windows on it.

I dont actually know why I bothered getting the 2.5inch external, ive this big ass 37" telly im using as my PC monitor(1080p) and its quite adequate, i should probably stick atlantis on it for the sneer and because of what you mentioned about the upscaling.

i have been meaning to get my wii modded before xmas, but never got roun to it, but i'll be getting it done soon. i was looking at some 3 way console cables on ebay that do the ps2, wii and xbox, but they all seem to onl do thexbox360, not the classic one which is a real bummer as I', stuck with composite on the wii at the moment due to xbmc taking up the component sockets on the telly.

Swapping them is a pain in the ring but its worth it really, i wonder could you get a multi component adapter box thingy, that would save you the hassle.
Modding the Wii with the Zelda gamesave is amazingly easy, you should pick up a copy somewhere with a sale, although the game itself is deadly.

yes it is, just be careful with the little screw as it seems to be made of very soft metal (or possibly cheese) and if your screwdriver doesn't fit perfectly it's very easy to take off the little phillips bit and be left with a 'permanently' installed hdd.

I might just leave it and use it as a handy 160gb external, although having Linux on the PS3 with emulators sounds nice. I hate shoddy manufacturing, for a screw to be like "cheese" is just bullcrap.

EDIT: sorry, this post looks like a total 'nick bashing' one, but it's really not, just trying to answer questions and you asked all the good ones.

Didn't come across like that at all, dont be worrying about that. :pac:

vibe666

vibe666 wrote: »

I hate shoddy manufacturing, for a screw to be like "cheese" is just bullcrap.

i may have exaggerated slightly, it's just a very small screw so if the screwdriver doesn't fit perfectly it's easy to take the middle out of it if you're not very careful.

sornypanafonic

ahh! its only making it worse that i have to make due with svideo now.

i dont think my component wire is fried... i guess the only way to find out is buy a used one and see if the purple comes up.

hmm, 160gb? dont you think thats a bit small for hd content? i almost dont see it being worth much unless its 500gb (kinda steep at $110 on newegg) then again it depends on the person, im more of a hoarder, never delete anything.

witnessmenow

i presume that 500gb on newegg is a IDE?(seems pretty dear otherwise) you can get a sata drive to work in xbox with the aid of an adapter.

WARNING though:

I've installed quite a few 500gb sata drives (7 to be exact) and 1 320gb sata drive into xboxs. All 8 of them are succesfully in xboxs currently. I had an issue with one of them though, it would not work in particular xbox ( i was getting an error 9). The same drive and the same adapter works perfectly in a diffrent xbox.

I've installed 4 TB sata drives into xboxs 3 of which get the error 9 i was talking about (there is a way around this by powering on the drive before the xbox) and just when i had lost hope in getting them to work any other way than the above a friend of mines works perfectly!

So what im saying is 1tb seems to be pushing the boundries of the xbox a bit but a 500gb should work.

sornypanafonic

witnessmenow wrote: »

i presume that 500gb on newegg is a IDE?(seems pretty dear otherwise) you can get a sata drive to work in xbox with the aid of an adapter.

WARNING though:

I've installed quite a few 500gb sata drives (7 to be exact) and 1 320gb sata drive into xboxs. All 8 of them are succesfully in xboxs currently. I had an issue with one of them though, it would not work in particular xbox ( i was getting an error 9). The same drive and the same adapter works perfectly in a diffrent xbox.

I've installed 4 TB sata drives into xboxs 3 of which get the error 9 i was talking about (there is a way around this by powering on the drive before the xbox) and just when i had lost hope in getting them to work any other way than the above a friend of mines works perfectly!

So what im saying is 1tb seems to be pushing the boundries of the xbox a bit but a 500gb should work.

the 500gb i quoted at $110 was 2.5in sata for the PS3. i put a 500gb IDE hd in my xbox, if i had known about this adapter i would have taken that route and saved some money. live and learn. i think im going to do a second xbox in the near future when i have the funds. what adapter do you use?

witnessmenow

this is the one in nearly all of the above

im pretty sure this is one too but i'd stick with the other one

sornypanafonic

witnessmenow wrote: »

this is the one in nearly all of the above

im pretty sure this is one too but i'd stick with the other one

Sweet. Thanks.

As a sidenote, has anyone else experienced file corruption or complete disappearance of files? I just noticed that if i FTP lets say 15gb, some of that wont show up, which is no biggie, i just redo it, but worse yet, it might corrupt or cause files that were on the xbox to disappear without recovering the space. so far i think its eaten a good 40gb of files from what im noticing. ahh. this only seems to happen in folders (i need them for seasons - less clutter) and more specifically folders within folders. i cut down on the names so the path doesnt become a billion characters long, but still. im using flashfxp.


EDIT - actually i found some stuff on this. i think its because my f partition is something along the lines of 490gb. must make it smaller. i was under the impression that it wouldnt matter with unleashx. meh.

EDIT2- used the magic of xboxpartitioner - format 32k

msmitchell

[noob warning]

Ok. So I got more than everything I need to do this. I read umpteen amounts of tuts and I am ready. But the one snag I have is unlocking the xbox HDD and getting it recognized by my pc.

I had to use an older pc cause the one I currently have my HDD runs on sata (4ports) and I have one primary ide channel , which is my cd/dvd drive. i wouldn't know if that would work or not (i'm using xplorer360) so that is why I am using a very old pc with some speed issues. It does not read the dirve at all and I restarted it with the xbox still hooked up to it and on the boot screen it says secondary ide hdd locked enter password 5 left. I take that to mean that it reads it but I did not do the hotswap right to unlock xbox.

I think I might not be getting the timing right. I've tried copying music from a cd and playing it for five minutes then swapping. I tried waiting for the ms logo to appear. I even tried disconnecting the xbox cd/dvd drive to get error 12, and nada. Please anyone help.
Losing mind.

I'm not computer illiterate so I have some general knowlegde to get me through this but it is frustrating that I can't even get the damn thing unlocked.

Can anyone also let me know if I could use my pc that has a hdd that is on a sata channel with one ide port. Meaning that I should just go buy a sata cd dvd drive and then use hdm to do the mod. Disconneting my sata drive and booting the linux cd.

Or could I just use the one ide channel thats on my board and use xplorer360?

I'm not sure if that older pc is kosher. I have a keyboard that is usb and I can't use it when I boot the linux cd.

msmitchell

[update]

Tried on my pc with the one ide and sata hdd and device manage found it as soon as windows was log in. Now xplorer360 is giving me problems. Not responding. I run on vista pro and ran x360 as admin.

Trying again, just left everything connected and rebooted pc. Will update if it all works out.

msmitchell

msmitchell wrote: »

[update]

Tried on my pc with the one ide and sata hdd and device manage found it as soon as windows was log in. Now xplorer360 is giving me problems. Not responding. I run on vista pro and ran x360 as admin.

Trying again, just left everything connected and rebooted pc. Will update if it all works out.

got it to work. backing up partition 3 as I type.

so for those with a pc that has sata hdd and one ide channel. Hotswapping can work for you. I used the error 12 method of unlocking the xbox HDD.

Unpluged xbox cd dvd drive and power supply for that drive. Try swapping as soon as you see the lights on the xbox go red. Make it quick, have everything ready before hand.

Turns out when I first tried it the version of xplorer360 I had was not kosher. Got an updated version (beta 6) and boom, success.

Esir

Thanks for the great tutorial but how do i copy an audio file to an original xbox?
The original xbox doesnt come with a filebrowser does it?
Thanks!

bazwaldo

The xbox does it from the audio cd you have in the xbox drive.

Theres an option to copy within the music menus.

Redisle

Im back again, quick question for those using component cables..

I got an LCD recently so I bought a combined component and optical audio output box from ebay, I set the xbox to NTSC and plugged it in, and I have it running fine at 720p on the XBMC menu, however when I go into a movie it comes up on my lcd that it is now running at 480i .. How do I make it stay at 720p when playing back a movie? Otherwise it isn't really upscaling at all..

On another note using the digital audio output and then pro logic decoding on my surround sys makes for some pretty nice sound watching divx files

Edit: I figured it out! Turns out it was in the settings page of the movie player.

Nick_oliveri

http://www.avforums.com/forums/windows-media-center-edition-mce/290061-xbmc-how-good-upscaling.html

http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?p=184973

Obvious google, mixed opinions on the subject, on my tv the scart looks like shíte. Im on a 37inch LG 1080p. I would assume that the component connection would output SD video something like what my PC does with VLC on the same screen. If i were to install XBMC for windows it would probably look somewhat better. 480i is probably the best you can hope for with the limited xbox CPU.

docentore

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

480i is probably the best you can hope for with the limited xbox CPU.

I've got my xbox running on 720 all the time and its fine. 1080 makes the cpu sweat, it looses frames, but 720 is fine

Nick_oliveri

Upscaling yeas, I meant actual HD video. Mkv's dont really work that well either.

Edit: Didnt realize ye could upscale to 720 or 1080.

kaisersose77

hooked an xbox with xbmc to one of these

http://www.elonexdirect.com/product-6451.wtl

cool bedroom media player, just had to get a cheap rf cable

dunnes in athlone were sellling them for 75euro each (a rebranded normende one), can hook up analogue cable tv to it aswell as play xvids and dvds.

xbmc looks fine on it, thought it would be a lot worse since its only a 7 inch screen but the defualt skin looks fine. Well worth getting if you local dunnes have them.

Esir

Thanks for the support ppl! I succeeded to hotswap the disk and install XBMC. problem now is that I can't find a way in the dash to define the SSID of the wireless router to connect to. Sucks, because the old http://tinyurl.com/d2e23m MN-740 xbox wireless device doesn't know where to connect to and i lost the setup cdrom. Ideas are welcome

Nick_oliveri

Set it up with the original ms-dash if you have the xbe on your xbox.

You should probably leave the unleashx dash connection to DCHP.

Edit: Your security on the router needs to be WEP. And the SSID needs to be broadcast.

bazwaldo

Got it working :):)

Things that tripped me up.
1) CD drive must be set to cable select
2) HD must be set set to master
3) Powered the xbox hd from the pc before hotswapping.
4) Had to have xbox hd connected to pc before booting pc, then quickly swapped ide cables when at the selection option 1 screen.
5) When the pc had booted, before selecting option 1, swap HD to xbox and turn on xbox
6) Both the audio pause and taking out connection from xbox dvd drive worked on two separate xboxes.
7) when xbox booted (either paused or error message) then drive is unlocked
8) swap ide cables again on xbox hd so hd is now connected to PC
9) If you get to this stage before 1 is selected or the script has not started to run then it should work. If not, then the drive will be locked again

This is what happened when me and a mate tried this with his and my xboxes. Took 2 hours to do both. But probably 1hr 30 to do first as we figured out all the above.

degsie

Esir wrote: »

Thanks for the support ppl! I succeeded to hotswap the disk and install XBMC. problem now is that I can't find a way in the dash to define the SSID of the wireless router to connect to. Sucks, because the old http://tinyurl.com/d2e23m MN-740 xbox wireless device doesn't know where to connect to and i lost the setup cdrom. Ideas are welcome

You do not set up the SSID or any other wireless settings on the xbox. Your wireless bridge needs to be set up from a laptop or PC initially and then hooked upto the xbox.

Scratch that, I just noticed that this adapter is designed for direct xbox install via the supplied cd. Sorry.

Have a look here, might help.

Hangover

Supercell's guide is just what i've been looking for but the links for ndure and xboxhdm dont work ?