Put 5 xbox's to use

L

lone wolf

Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2003
Messages
705
Hey All,

I just recently aquired 5 xbox's from a pawn shop, all are working great, they are not the 360 models, but all came with 2 controllers and a DVD remote.
With that said, i want to use a couple of these to play back movies in mine and my childrens bedrooms, i have been searching the forums on the best way to do this, but finally have to ask, what is the best way to do this? I don't know much about the xbox, can it go wireless?

thanks in advance
 
dunno about the wireless portion...I would assume that would work since it complies with the wireless standards.

If you're looking for something as the frontend, I don't know of any other than XBMC which is made by the same people that make MediaPortal (at least i think that's the way it is...could be wrong though...). I think you can interact with XBMC from a MediaPortal PC ...but I'm not quite sure on the functionality of it.
 
After seeing the article in PopSci, I just modded my original xbox and installed Xbox media center (XBMC). To mod it, I had to buy a copy of the game MechAssault (the old version, not the platinum hits one). I also had to get an Action Replay, which is a device that interfaces an xbox memory card with the computer. Theres instructions here http://www.productwiki.com/microsof..._xbox_to_xbox_media_center_in_30_minutes.html I can stream xvid's, divx, and many other formats from my computer, and play them through the xbox. I just bring my laptop into the tv room and connect it to the xbox with a crossover cable (i got screwed up at that step, i didnt know that there was a diference between a regular cat5 cable, and a cat5 crosover cable) , but If you got the wireless adapter for the xbox, i'm sure you could stream over that too.
 
If you are going to mod it, I would buy a Duo x2. It has 2 flash banks so if one gets corrupted you can switch to another. I don't recommend softmods at all, especially since these are for your kids. Softmods are alot eaiser to skrew up than a modchip. The duo x2 is around $15 bucks for a chip, a softmod you need a memory card and certain older games.

Xbmc is the way to go for this, it has a great interface, you can stream movies off your pc with it but I have never done it so I wouldnt know how. You could get those wireless xbox adapters and those would work fine for this situation.
 
The 'wireless game adapters' are normally pretty pricey, a cheaper option would be a wireless bridge, which is basically the same thing without the marketing. You could also try finding a few older Linksys WRT54G routers at the pawn shop/thrift stores which would let you do the same thing.

 
I have been seeing how people use a media center extender, is this worth it? I have a copy of MCE 2005 i don't mind using if this is something that works well, I have SD tv's and don't want to spend the money on building a new htpc...
 
lone wolf said:
I have been seeing how people use a media center extender, is this worth it? I have a copy of MCE 2005 i don't mind using if this is something that works well, I have SD tv's and don't want to spend the money on building a new htpc...
Click to expand...
Not really, the MCE extender for Xbox was more of a work in progress or a tech demostrator, it worked but not very well.

If you need to use an extender and an Xbox then your only choice is the 360. I would suggest modding your Xboxes to run XBMC instead.
 
I use media extender for my xbox. 4 of us at work do since we have msdn and all have a mce2005 box setup. Works great for having it as a front end and my mce2005 box in the rack in the basement.

I have xbmc on it also to watch movies and stuff i didnt record on the mce2005 box.

You can even stream live tv through it to a tv that doesnt have a cable jack, which in my old house their arent many cable jacks.
 
the xbox does not have built in wireless. you can add it though. I really want to try this one out!

http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/223/62/

and yes, for standard definition, the xbox is a perfect little media hub, especially paired up with XBMC. you can set it to find SMB and FTP shares, and stream media that way, or there are firefox extentions to "send to XBMC", which is also freaking genius.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=505654&st=0

I'd personally recommend XBMC Pimped edition, which has built in goodies, instead of installing them seperately. You are then ready to go to stream music videos from Launch, or movie trailers, or check out shoutcast top 500 stations, or pretty much anything you want, as it is so configurable.

the downside is that the P3 733 + 64 megs of ram just isn't enough for Hidef. I hope they hack the 360 soon... XBMC 360 would pwn.
 
Don't forget about running a mythTV server and then use all the Xboxes as mythTV frontends. That's what I'm working on right now. MythTV is freaking awesome. FanF'ingTastic. But you will need to build up a spare box to act as the server. If you want you can follow my thread as I follow this process.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1083703
 
I gotta agree with the mod chip idea and XBMC. Best way would be ethernet network but the media player works great at streaming stuff. I had setup an xbox at my dads a few years ago to do this on his main tv and stream from his machine upstairs. Worked great.
 
I would say put chips in. The chip I use personally is the Xecuter 3. If these are not the 1.6 model xbox's then I will mod all of them for 40 each plus parts (chip and any hard drive yiou want to use outside of the 10 gig drive).

-Silent
 
Why do you need to mod chip it? He's not running hacked games. He just wants a video frontend.

XBMC is great if you just want to play videos and media.

MythTV is great if you want all of the XBMC features along with live TV and a Tivo-Like Experience that has been designed from the ground up to be a client-server architecture.
 
Asgorath said:
Why do you need to mod chip it? He's not running hacked games. He just wants a video frontend.
Click to expand...
Because he needs to remove the dashboard and load XMBC from the HDD rather then through a software bug.
 
Asgorath said:
Why do you need to mod chip it? He's not running hacked games. He just wants a video frontend.
Click to expand...
Because his children will most likely be using them, a soft mod is very easy to skrew up and not exactly the easiest to swap a hard drive with :p .
 
munkle said:
Because his children will most likely be using them, a soft mod is very easy to skrew up and not exactly the easiest to swap a hard drive with :p .
Click to expand...

Not difficult either if you can follow directions...if he has his xbox booting into XBMC to stream things off another computer it shouldn't "screw up" the soft mod, kids or not. At 35 bucks for the AR + 5 for the game a soft-mod would definitely be the most cost effective way of doing what he wants, though I can't really speak for how easy it is to load XBMC on a softmod (just did one the other day and it's just booting backups atm).
 
guess i could chime in..

a softmod is fine. with the new ones out it is a LOT harder then you guys think to screw it up and such.

cheaper.
a lot faster and mroe of a diy type thing if u have a mem card and game.

Also where ever you install the softmod. ftp to the box. look up where it installed either avalaunch or evo-x dash and simply delete or rename the evox.xbe or ava.xbe or default.xbe what ever xbe is in the directory. drop all the xbmc files into that dir and rename the xbmc.xbe to which ever the one u removed/editied before. and restart the console it should direct boot you right in xbmc.

you can limit the consoles to not play games also. stick them somewhere and forget about them lol.

www.xbox-scene.com < tutorials. should teach you everything u need to know.
 
To the OP,

if you want to really turn those XBOX's into real media center's I would suggest doing a exploit hack. This will allow for you to load video players, emulators and so much more on to the XBOX itself. It is not a hard task at all, it will take about 30 mins for a novice if following the tutoiral correctly. This will allow you to FTP into your xbox and pretty much do anything you can think of. Check out this site www.xbox-scene.com, then tutorials at the top, then soft mods. This is were I learned everything about the internal workings of the xbox. GL if you need help just PM me.

edit: lol guess everyone suggested what i said already GL

paradoxblue said:
a softmod is fine. with the new ones out it is a LOT harder then you guys think to screw it up and such.
Click to expand...

I doubt he got anything higher than a v1.5 at a pawn shop
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top