Xbox Media Centre

TCP/IP

Happy New Year everybody,

Well over xmas i decieded to take on a little project as i wanted to build a media centre for my new house i am moving into in March. The best option for the money i came accross was to chip an xbox and change the harddisk in it and the n install some media centre software.

Now i have an all singing all dancing media centre with 200gigs of hard disk space that plays all my divx/xvid/mp3/cds/dvd's/xbox games and displays my digital photos as well as giving real time weather reports

If anybody would like info on this project post away and i will try and answer you.

All this was built for under €300 and is fully remote controlled as well - sheer class

daveirl

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TCP/IP

There is a programme called dvd2xbox and it installs the dvd on the xbox but not in divx format not really sure about mp3 ripping i dont think so to be honest. I personally just ftp all the files to the xbox

Tivoli

gentoox media center does all the above, and it can rip dvd to divx or vob files

but sadly the xbox cant run games :mad:

TCP/IP

Mukki can you post some pics of the gentoox media centre and the pros and cons of it

thanks

Tivoli

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note: boards is difficult to read off the telly

EDIT removed pics for dialup users

TCP/IP

cheers mate great pictures i am downloading it at the moment is it hard to install and do you think it is better than xbmc and can i have both on the xbox at the same time

damien

TCP/IP wrote:

If anybody would like info on this project post away and i will try and answer you.

Can you detail what hardware was needed and what the prices were for the components and where you sourced them ?

Thanks

Tivoli

TCP/IP wrote:

cheers mate great pictures i am downloading it at the moment is it hard to install and do you think it is better than xbmc and can i have both on the xbox at the same time

hmmm

installing was okay but it flashes the modchip, so unless you have a switichable chip you will loose the abaility to play games or xbmc ect

its a linux os running mythtv, so its not really ment to be rebooted much, its a much better ftp server then the evox one, its also got a vnc server hence the good photos

the reason i have it is because the xbox overheats when playing games, and its got more features then xbmc

TCP/IP

Ummmm

Download is finished but i am not sure about installing it. The xbox is to loud to leave on all the time even in a cabinet i can hear it. By the way what is the best way of connecting the xbox to the net. Currently i am using a cross-over cable for ftp but this gives me no net access for the weather. I have a standard eircom dsl router using usb at the moment but it does have a cat5 connection on it and i also have a 100mb switch that i dont use. Any tips on the easiest way to get my xbox hooked up to the net would be great.

Thanks for you posts Mukki

Cabaal

daveirl wrote:

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No it can't ripp DVD's but it can ripp audio CD's to mp3 at various bitrates, hell it'll even name the tracks properly
Not the fastest thing in the world while performing the action,. but still handy

daveirl

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Tivoli

TCP/IP wrote:

Ummmm

Download is finished but i am not sure about installing it. The xbox is to loud to leave on all the time even in a cabinet i can hear it. By the way what is the best way of connecting the xbox to the net. Currently i am using a cross-over cable for ftp but this gives me no net access for the weather. I have a standard eircom dsl router using usb at the moment but it does have a cat5 connection on it and i also have a 100mb switch that i dont use. Any tips on the easiest way to get my xbox hooked up to the net would be great.

Thanks for you posts Mukki

sorry for the delay i had to sleep, i was working last night

well i only have a usb dls modem, i have internet connection sharing on the laptop, a crossover cable joining both, and the xbox is set to DHCP by default, maybe someone else can answed your roupter question for you

oh about the weather

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TCP/IP

cheers mate i have the very same setup so i will give it a shot tonight, just one question what is leasing the ip address to the xbox

Tivoli

TCP/IP wrote:

cheers mate i have the very same setup so i will give it a shot tonight, just one question what is leasing the ip address to the xbox

leasing?? not too sure what you mean

the laptop got winxp, i set my utv connection as shared to my network adapter, from then on i can plug in any pc/os and it will have internet access
(i assume you already know this because of your username)

Robbo

TCP/IP wrote:

Happy New Year everybody,

Well over xmas i decieded to take on a little project as i wanted to build a media centre for my new house i am moving into in March. The best option for the money i came accross was to chip an xbox and change the harddisk in it and the n install some media centre software.

Now i have an all singing all dancing media centre with 200gigs of hard disk space that plays all my divx/xvid/mp3/cds/dvd's/xbox games and displays my digital photos as well as giving real time weather reports

If anybody would like info on this project post away and i will try and answer you.

All this was built for under €300 and is fully remote controlled as well - sheer class

Out of interest, what are you using for a remote? The offical Xbox one?

I bought an Xbox recently and had it softmodded with a 60 gig HD I had lying around. XBMC is a lovely piece of software.

OfflerCrocGod

It would be nice is someone pointed out where they got their modchips I'm about to get a CC very soon and modding the XBox to use XBMC is one of my first purchases but I'm not too sure which mod-chip to get or where to get one.

Wavey

Offler,
I just bought an xecuter 2.6 from thechipshop.info.

Seem to be reasonable for prices. This chip will work an all vresions of xbox

Duffman

Just a question about using the xbox as a media centre..

Do you *need* the larger hard drive to store all your media on the xbox? Can the software play movies from network samba shares or an ftp server instead?

If so would 54mbps wireless g be fast enough to do this?

TCP/IP

as far as i am aware you can stream accross an smb share not 100% sure though but a larger hard disk is a massive benefit, i put a 200gig in mine and it really rocks imo

elmer

you can stream accross a samba share - a 54g wifi setup should be more than enough for divxs provided you get a decent signal and it doesn't get latent but you can increase the cache sizes for fileshare to try and avoid that

better off getting a bigger hd and ftp the file accross though

Nige

daveirl

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Mixie

I have a small problem with Samba streaming on a 100MBit cabled network - the audio will play no problem, but after a few seconds of video (max) video stops playing, irrespective of file type whereas streaming from windows is fine.

Haven't been able to fix this yet.

daveirl

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Duffman

elmer wrote:

you can stream accross a samba share - a 54g wifi setup should be more than enough for divxs provided you get a decent signal and it doesn't get latent but you can increase the cache sizes for fileshare to try and avoid that

better off getting a bigger hd and ftp the file accross though

Nige

Cool, might give it a try so.

A larger HD would be nice but I like the idea of being able to access my entire library from the TV.

Any idea what kind of minimum network speeds you need to play video over shares? The distance involved might mean I'd be stuck with 11mbps..

Mixie

daveirl wrote:

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Yep, bog standard cat5.