It's 2004 and I still haven't a DVD player. Since the XBox is now priced 150 euro, I thought I could buy one, add a modchip, install some software and make it a media player (with the bonus that I could play emulators and some game on the TV).

Some questions for people in the knows.

- Are the latest hardware revisions moddable? Should I look for an older revision?
- What modchip should I buy? I'd like to be region-free, both game- and dvd-wise. I can mod it myself, as far as basic soldering is involved.
- Is it possible to have *smooth* DVD playback on the XBox?
- If so, is there some kind of remote to control playback?
- What about *smooth* DivX / XviD playback? What about compatibility? Will all the movies play? Just some?
- Which are the available media decoders for the XBox?
- Where can I get emulators? Was MAMEX abandoned?
- Where can I get all the needed software? For free of course.

Before pulling out money I want to be sure that stuff will work.

ates

> It's 2004 and I still haven't a DVD player. Since the XBox is now priced 150
> euro, I thought I could buy one, add a modchip, install some software and make
> it a media player (with the bonus that I could play emulators and some game on
> the TV).

I also wanted a dvd player for my tv and decided to buy an xbox, good decision. I only had my pc with tv-out to play those, I wanted something that didn't involved my pc.


> - Are the latest hardware revisions moddable? Should I look for an older
> revision?

Yes they are moddable. Although, you can't use a solderless solution with the latest rev - 1.6. The earlier ones are pretty easy with the solderless solution.

> - What modchip should I buy? I'd like to be region-free, both game- and
> dvd-wise. I can mod it myself, as far as basic soldering is involved.

Ah the big question. It really depends, almost all, if not all, the latest chips have all these options. I'd really recommend you to get a 4th generation chip. I personnaly have a Xenium Ice, I can put 4 different bios in it, can upload them easily via the new web interface in the latest xenium os, it has nice leds (woohoo), and there's kits that comes with a usb plug for your xbox. Oh and I love the instant boot feature, I press power and voilą, no loading the xenium os. And of course, it's compatible with xbox live . It has a nice cheap price too.


> - Is it possible to have *smooth* DVD playback on the XBox?

Yes, there's a few players out there with smooth playback that use hardware decoding. The dvd player that microsoft is trying to sell you doesn't even support progressive scan, however, the ones the scene made do support progressive scan, sometimes with a few changes to an ini file.


> - If so, is there some kind of remote to control playback?

The microsoft player is simply a remote you buy, just like a tv remote control. You have to rely on your xbox controller for home made players, although I think I've seen a new one that supports the ms remote control, but I'm not sure.


> - What about *smooth* DivX / XviD playback? What about compatibility? Will all
> the movies play? Just some?

That's the thing I prefer about the xbox, it's as smooth as on your pc. Compatibility? divx, xvid, 3ivx, name it! They all play without a problem. You can even access the files on your pc and play them via your network, gotta love file sharing in windows.


> - Which are the available media decoders for the XBox?

xbox media center, the only one I'd recommend, hell I don't know if anyone tried to do better than this one, it's perfect, except for dvd movies, it seems to play them via software decoding, you'll get glitches from time to time. So use it for everything else than dvd movies. It even supports shoutcast radio stations, and you can save the stream on your xbox hd (way cool). You can also check xbox and movie trailers via the xbox media center!


> - Where can I get emulators? Was MAMEX abandoned?

The last time I checked mameox, mame .84 b3 just got released a few days before, and I saw mameox .84 b3, so eh, I don't think it's abandoned. As for where to get them, that's another thing, see next question.

> - Where can I get all the needed software? For free of course.

See, there's a great deal of home made software that were made using the xbox xdk, making those illegal, so you won't see any serious websites having these. However, you know the other places to find these, I won't list them here of course, they're pretty easy to find, when you know where the community hangs.

So there you have it, hope it helps.


Moon the world

> And of course, it's compatible with xbox live . It has a nice cheap
> price too.

But you have to pay for Live! Booo! Plus the game servers might not be around forever... who knows.

> The microsoft player is simply a remote you buy, just like a tv remote control.
> You have to rely on your xbox controller for home made players, although I think
> I've seen a new one that supports the ms remote control, but I'm not sure.

Doesn't XBMC work with the remote? And XBMP? Also DVD-X?

> You can even access the files on your pc and play them via your network, gotta
> love file sharing in windows.

Hells yes (you can also add a SMB share, same thing). This rules, streaming from your PC to any TV in the house and shit. Wonder if in the future it'll support NFS. I'm interested in getting VideoLAN to encode my TV and send it over to the X-Box, maybe in the future there will be TIVO features like pausing live streams, such as can be broadcast with VideoLAN, etc.

> xbox media center, the only one I'd recommend, hell I don't know if anyone tried
> to do better than this one, it's perfect, except for dvd movies, it seems to
> play them via software decoding, you'll get glitches from time to time.

But it lets you specify an external player at least.

> But you have to pay for Live! Booo! Plus the game servers might not be around
> forever... who knows.

And I think you have to use original game discs eh? Anyway, I wouldn't pay for that service so yeah I use kai, with outrun 2 mostly.


> Doesn't XBMC work with the remote? And XBMP? Also DVD-X?
I'm not sure, but I don't have the remote and don't want it, the xbox controller is more than enough for me. Btw xbmc=xbmp, xbmc is the updated version of xbmp.


> Hells yes (you can also add a SMB share, same thing). This rules, streaming
> from your PC to any TV in the house and shit. Wonder if

I tried smb once and couldn't get it to work, well ok I tried for 5 mins and had no idea what smb was, anyway, sharing works fine.

> > xbox media center, the only one I'd recommend, hell I don't know if anyone
> tried
> > to do better than this one, it's perfect, except for dvd movies, it seems to
> > play them via software decoding, you'll get glitches from time to time.
>
> But it lets you specify an external player at least.

Well I use Avalaunch as dashboard, and set it so that when I pop in a dvd movie, it automatically start dvd region x.

hey do you happen to know what's a "dongle"? I saw those dongle free dvd players and some which dongle was supported, and I don't have any idea what that thing is.


Moon the world

> > But you have to pay for Live! Booo! Plus the game servers might not be
> around
> > forever... who knows.
>
> And I think you have to use original game discs eh? Anyway, I wouldn't pay for
> that service so yeah I use kai, with outrun 2 mostly.

Well I definitely don't have to worry about that! ;) Just don't wanna pay for Live, fuck that shit. Seriously, I have no problem with buying games. I just hate subscriptions.

> > Doesn't XBMC work with the remote? And XBMP? Also DVD-X?
> I'm not sure, but I don't have the remote and don't want it, the xbox controller
> is more than enough for me. Btw xbmc=xbmp, xbmc is the updated version of xbmp.

Oh okay, I just know someone who does, and they use it for that shit. I was confused. I don't have one either so I couldn't verify right now.

> > Hells yes (you can also add a SMB share, same thing). This rules, streaming
> > from your PC to any TV in the house and shit. Wonder if
>
> I tried smb once and couldn't get it to work, well ok I tried for 5 mins and had
> no idea what smb was, anyway, sharing works fine.

Oh ok :) Well I don't blame you, it's annoying unless you've got some graphical tool where you can just plunk in a folder name. NFS is more supported in that situation, that's why I wonder if XBMC will support that soon, that would rock.

> Well I use Avalaunch as dashboard, and set it so that when I pop in a dvd movie,
> it automatically start dvd region x.

I like DVD region X except for the controls... :) I wonder if the Gueux player is any good, haven't tried it yet, since they said it was a beta and some shit might not work.

> hey do you happen to know what's a "dongle"? I saw those dongle free dvd players
> and some which dongle was supported, and I don't have any idea what that thing
> is.

A dongle is a piece of hardware that the software won't run without, in the X-Box's case the dongle is the IR module that you stick in the controller port. Some software on PC in the old days used to require you to plug in something into the printer port for copy protection, the software wouldn't run without it. Unless it was cracked :)



Some software still uses it today, but mostly for big business so people don't casually copy the software and take it home. For example some pharmaceudical software that lets you diagnose an illness by specifying the symptoms, that kind of thing has a lot of data in it that a lot of expensive medical teams had to research, so they don't want to make it easy for just anyone to take that kinda thing and pirate it. It's usually used for doctors and pharmacists.

> Well I definitely don't have to worry about that! ;) Just don't wanna pay for
> Live, fuck that shit. Seriously, I have no problem with buying games. I just
> hate subscriptions.

Is it true that ps2 owners don't have to pay to play online?


> Oh ok :) Well I don't blame you, it's annoying unless you've got some graphical
> tool where you can just plunk in a folder name. NFS is more supported in that
> situation, that's why I wonder if XBMC will support that soon, that would rock.

Eh, guess I don't know what nfs is, sounds like need for speed to me! XBMC supporting windows file sharing system is enough for anyone, I just don't know why some people want smb so badly.


> I like DVD region X except for the controls... :) I

The controls, yeah, it gets some time to get used to it. I like dvd region X, except that I would have like an option to resize the display. The display is always oversized a little with my xbox, so I love that option in XBMC, if only it could play dvds better. In games most of the times I don't care though, some have that option, some you just don't care. Eh I got an example of this, in Street Fighter anniversary on xbox, in the classic sf2 game, I can cleary see that the sides are way off my screen, I see only half of my character icon for example. When I play ssf2x on the dreamcast however, it's a perfect fit! Too bad there's no option in the xbox dashboard or whatever where it would be, all we have is your type of tv, letterboxed, normal, etc.


> A dongle is a piece of hardware that the software won't run without, in the
> X-Box's case the dongle is the IR module that you stick in the controller port.

Ah yes, I've seen a few of those dongles, we called them hardware keys. A friend of mine got an hold on a collection of car related cds, you have the full specs of almost every car that's made, really an amazing collection, but it's worth a lot of money! They have that hardware key, well, dongle with to render copying pretty useless. He tried to crack the code without success, eh, the good old days of cracking a bbs door is long gone ;)

So anyway, I've seen a new player on xbox-scene that is said to support the dongle, so I guess it does support the remote control.

Now I guess I'll have to check for a dvd player that has the option to resize the video, not just zoom it.


Moon the world

> Is it true that ps2 owners don't have to pay to play online?

Yeah it's true, the only thing they have to pay for is a subscription to FFXI if they want to play that. I guess if you are going to go ahead and pay for a game anyway, then you're better off with Live because MS are the only one who charge you, not the other companies. (Don't know if that may change if they start bringing out MMORPGs for XBox)

> Eh, guess I don't know what nfs is, sounds like need for speed to me! XBMC
> supporting windows file sharing system is enough for anyone, I just don't know
> why some people want smb so badly.

NFS = Network File System, it's just another way to share files on a network. SMB is the same thing as Windows file sharing, it's just the open source version of it. It does work, I use it since XBMC doesn't support NFS. I'd rather just use NFS because that's what all my other computers are using, so it's easier to manage for me.

> The controls, yeah, it gets some time to get used to it. I like dvd region X,
> except that I would have like an option to resize the display. The display is
> always oversized a little with my xbox

Oh yeah, I noticed that too... The most it has is the "presentation mode" setting which just lets you change letterbox/normal...

> Eh I got an example of this, in
> Street Fighter anniversary on xbox, in the classic sf2 game, I can cleary see
> that the sides are way off my screen, I see only half of my character icon for
> example. When I play ssf2x on the dreamcast however, it's a perfect fit! Too bad
> there's no option in the xbox dashboard or whatever where it would be, all we
> have is your type of tv, letterboxed, normal, etc.

Yeah it's weird... plus it gets worse because different XBoxes have different video chips (Focus/Connexant/etc) so I guess they can't make it perfect for everyone...

> A friend
> of mine got an hold on a collection of car related cds, you have the full specs
> of almost every car that's made, really an amazing collection, but it's worth a
> lot of money! They have that hardware key, well, dongle with to render copying
> pretty useless. He tried to crack the code without success, eh, the good old
> days of cracking a bbs door is long gone ;)

Damn, that does sound like a sweet program! Oh well... It also depends on how popular the software with hardware key is, some software that requires a dongle is cracked (just look on astalavista) like graphics programs, but others, we're not so lucky... :(

> So anyway, I've seen a new player on xbox-scene that is said to support the
> dongle, so I guess it does support the remote control.

Yeah it's that Gueux one I think. I just tried it, unfortunately it doesn't have the option to resize :/ But it's a good idea to have that option, it should be suggested to the team making it...

> Now I guess I'll have to check for a dvd player that has the option to resize
> the video, not just zoom it.

I'm tempted to buy the remote and mod it with a power button, but nobody sells them cheap. It's always $35 or more. Fuck that. Oh well, soon the X-Box 2 will come out and it'll be cheaper...

Even your discussion gave me some good info (but some parts got me confused, I must study more).