Xbox Media Center - XBMC

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:05 am

I did it.

Well, I didn't go with the full XBMC install just yet. Still only have UnleashX as my dashboard. I figure I'm not going to be using the full media capabilities since the Xbox won't be networked when I take it back to the living room. I'll wait until it's networked before installing XBMC.

But the softmod couldn't have gone easier. The hardest part of all was finding a USB drive that would work on both the Xbox and the AR software.

I do have a couple of problems. I can't figure out how to save the skin I choose. I change the skin, press the Start button which is supposed to save it, but when I reboot, I'm back to the default skin. And the DVD Launcher doesn't work. Otherwise, I'm a happy camper!

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:40 am

Here's how I made the Xbox to USB adapter.

The Xbox controllers use standard USB signals. It's just the physical form that is unique to the Xbox. (Actually, the Xbox controller is really a USB hub with three devices attached to it - the two memory card slots and the controller itself.) So all I needed was a physical adapter to connect a standard USB drive to the Xbox.

I did some research on the web to see what other people have done. Some were really ugly with big crimpers or cable splices wound with electrical tape. Others were neat and elegant. I aimed for the latter category.

I had an extra inline release cable that I started with.

I cut it off right against the signal enhancer and stripped the cables back. I needed the male Xbox controller connector for this project.

I also have a few USB extension cables (male to female) laying around. Since I didn't want to splice the cable, I popped open the plastic around the female connector. I used a sharp pocket knife and pressed into the seam at a point close to the cable and pryed a little until the plastic started to crack at the seam. It came apart nicely so I knew it would go back together nicely. I marked on the female USB connector which colored wires went to which pins.

I test fit the plastic housing for the USB connector with the Xbox controller cable. The Xbox cable was a bit thicker than the USB cable, so I had to drill out the cable sheath a bit so it would fit. I just held the two plastic pieces together with a pair of pliers and used my cordless drill to drill into the sheath to round it out and make it bigger. I also checked to make sure I had enough (but not too much) cable stripped.

Then, I simply soldered the wires from the Xbox cable onto the pins on the USB connector. I didn't take pictures because it ended up being the ugliest soldering job I've ever seen. I tested it on the Xbox and found a USB drive that worked. Finally, I put the USB connector in one half of the plastic casing, filled it up with hot glue (this keeps the wires in place and eliminates stress on the solder points) and quickly put on the other half while the glue was still hot sealing it together. I let it cool, peeled off the excess glue, and that was it.

Now I can use a standard USB drive as a memory card for the Xbox. The purpose here was the get the softmod from the PC to the Xbox. After the USB drive is formatted by the Xbox, the Action Replay software (which you can find for free on the 'net) is needed so the USB drive can be accessed from the PC. Not every USB drive is compatible with the Xbox - of 4 I tried, 2 worked on the Xbox and only one of those also worked in the Action Replay software.

This was quite easy, a lot cheaper than buying the Action Replay, and much more satisfying to build. And in the future, I can use the male end of the USB cable and the inline release end of the Xbox cable to make an adapter to use an Xbox controller on a PC.

schi0249 · Post by **schi0249** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:48 am

That has to be the cleanest looking job I've ever seen. When I was looking to do this, all the hacks looked like garbage. I ended up grabbing my Action Replay for clearance at Toys R Us. I think I dropped $15 on the thing.

thePike · Post by **thePike** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:34 pm

I ordered my Action Replay, DVD remote, and Splinter Cell disk today. I'm thinking about maybe trying to use the wireless network adapter instead of running a cable upstairs. Anybody know if that would work on a modded x-box?

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:48 pm

I've heard of performance problems when using the wireless adapter. Especially with streaming video. Using a wireless bridge with 802.11g capability (assuming your wireless router or access point supports g) seems just fine and eliminates the need to run cable. Plenty of bandwidth there. 54 Mbps as opposed to 11 Mbps with 802.11b. I plan on picking one up in the next week or two then will go with a full XBMC install.

For those who use XBMC now, does the picture viewer / slideshow feature support displaying comments embedded in the image file? I've looked but cant find an answer online.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:00 pm

Heath wrote:I've heard of performance problems when using the wireless adapter. Especially with streaming video. Using a wireless bridge with 802.11g capability (assuming your wireless router or access point supports g) seems just fine and eliminates the need to run cable. Plenty of bandwidth there. 54 Mbps as opposed to 11 Mbps with 802.11b. I plan on picking one up in the next week or two then will go with a full XBMC install.

For those who use XBMC now, does the picture viewer / slideshow feature support displaying comments embedded in the image file? I've looked but cant find an answer online.

If you press the "info" button when viewing a picture, it brings up the file information... including "comments", but I'm not sure if that's what you mean. I don't know if you can get them to show automatically or not.

I use XBMC a lot, but mostly for music and video... not pictures.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:23 pm

I'm asking on behalf of my dad. He takes a lot of pictures, burns them to disc and shows them on his DVD player. He uses Picasa to manage them and edit the comments, and he wants the comments to be displayed with the picture.

I had set him up with j-album before which does almost exactly what he wants, but only in a web browser, not on his DVD player.

He has also asked me about how to play music from his computer on his stereo system in the living room. So I got to thinking that a used XBox and some network cable would give him exactly what he wants. But I just wasn't sure about the picture comments.I'll have to ask him if pressing a button to see the comment is a big deal or not.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:03 am

Heath wrote:I'm asking on behalf of my dad. He takes a lot of pictures, burns them to disc and shows them on his DVD player. He uses Picasa to manage them and edit the comments, and he wants the comments to be displayed with the picture.

I had set him up with j-album before which does almost exactly what he wants, but only in a web browser, not on his DVD player.

He has also asked me about how to play music from his computer on his stereo system in the living room. So I got to thinking that a used XBox and some network cable would give him exactly what he wants. But I just wasn't sure about the picture comments.I'll have to ask him if pressing a button to see the comment is a big deal or not.

You may be able to set it up to show the comments, automatically, as the picture displays... I just haven't tried as it didn't interest me. I took a look but didn't see any obvious configuration option but that doesn't mean you can't do it. I'll go to the XBMC forums at http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/index.php and ask. I'll let you know what the experts say.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:17 am

tssgery wrote:
Heath wrote:I'm asking on behalf of my dad. He takes a lot of pictures, burns them to disc and shows them on his DVD player. He uses Picasa to manage them and edit the comments, and he wants the comments to be displayed with the picture.

I had set him up with j-album before which does almost exactly what he wants, but only in a web browser, not on his DVD player.

He has also asked me about how to play music from his computer on his stereo system in the living room. So I got to thinking that a used XBox and some network cable would give him exactly what he wants. But I just wasn't sure about the picture comments.I'll have to ask him if pressing a button to see the comment is a big deal or not.
You may be able to set it up to show the comments, automatically, as the picture displays... I just haven't tried as it didn't interest me. I took a look but didn't see any obvious configuration option but that doesn't mean you can't do it. I'll go to the XBMC forums at http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/index.php and ask. I'll let you know what the experts say.

Spiff, from the XBMC forums, says "no". You'll need to press the "info" button on the remote, or you can add the code to display them automatically.

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/sh ... hp?t=31087

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:42 am

Thanks, man. If I have to modify a skin to do it, that's no big deal. I should be able to handle that pretty easilly. As long as it can be done.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:50 am

Heath wrote:Thanks, man. If I have to modify a skin to do it, that's no big deal. I should be able to handle that pretty easilly. As long as it can be done.

I don't know if you'd just need to mod a skin (less likely, IMHO) or do more to enable support (more likely, IMHO).

TKWill · Post by **TKWill** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:20 pm

So got it all down and start fidgeting around with things. I tried to make the XBMC my default dash xmbc shortcut creator and ran into huge problems. Now my Xbox only boots to a black screen.

I can't FTP in to fix the file I screwed up and am at a loss as far as what to do. I looked around on the interwebs and they saw that in order to fix this you have to use a "Slayer" Disk. I am in the process of doing this and we will see what happens.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show ... p=20668419

I will let you know how it works out.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 9:17 pm

tssgery wrote:
Heath wrote:Thanks, man. If I have to modify a skin to do it, that's no big deal. I should be able to handle that pretty easilly. As long as it can be done.
I don't know if you'd just need to mod a skin (less likely, IMHO) or do more to enable support (more likely, IMHO).

Ah, gotcha. After reading the two threads linked to from the thread you linked to, I think I understand a bit better. I think I had actually found those threads (or ones similar) before on the google and skimmed them but didn't pay much attention because of how old they were.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 9:19 pm

ThrillKillWill wrote:So got it all down and start fidgeting around with things. I tried to make the XBMC my default dash xmbc shortcut creator and ran into huge problems. Now my Xbox only boots to a black screen. I can't FTP in to fix the file I screwed up and am at a loss as far as what to do. I looked around on the interwebs and they saw that in order to fix this you have to use a "Slayer" Disk. I am in the process of doing this and we will see what happens.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show ... p=20668419

I will let you know how it works out.

Dude, that sucks. I was worried about bricking my XBox but I'm glad everything went ok. Hopefully you can recover yours. Keep us updated.

TKWill · Post by **TKWill** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:21 am

Heath wrote:
ThrillKillWill wrote:So got it all down and start fidgeting around with things. I tried to make the XBMC my default dash xmbc shortcut creator and ran into huge problems. Now my Xbox only boots to a black screen. I can't FTP in to fix the file I screwed up and am at a loss as far as what to do. I looked around on the interwebs and they saw that in order to fix this you have to use a "Slayer" Disk. I am in the process of doing this and we will see what happens.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show ... p=20668419

I will let you know how it works out.
Dude, that sucks. I was worried about bricking my XBox but I'm glad everything went ok. Hopefully you can recover yours. Keep us updated.

At this point I am going to have to restore my hdd to factory settings. A little more than I want to do, but I have little choice unless I want to run out and buy another XBox. It is gonna take some time but I guess that is what the weekends are for, right?

I will keep you guys up to date on how this works out. I have a second hdd laying around here and I can always stick my eeprom in that and fire it up.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:08 pm

How far did you successfully get? As I understand it, the initial softmod went well, and you had the UnleashX (or EvoX) dashboard running, but it was the actual install of XBMC that crashed. Is that correct?

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:13 pm

And for those of you who want to make your own cable like I did to use a standard USB thumb drive as an Xbox memory card, just know that the Action Replay software can be a little flakey with its recognition of the card. If the USB drive(s) you have don't show up in ActionReplay, try several different versions of the software on several different computers. For me, version 1.3 on my laptop could see one of my USB drives. No other version could see the drive and even that version on my desktop PC couldn't see it.

TKWill · Post by **TKWill** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:16 pm

I had everything running fine. I wanted to make XBMC my default dash and decided to use some tool named XBE shortcut maker. What this did was to replace my default.xbe(UnleashX) to a shortcut that would instead point to XBMC, essentially it overwrote that default.xbe with a new one. It went bad. I woke up today and decided to swap my optical drive from the newer Xbox into my old Xbox that has a bad optical drive error and just leave the fragged Xbox dead for now. So I now have everything reinstalled on my original Xbox that I bought when they first came out. I kind of like it that way.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:04 pm

Want to get rid of the dead one? It's just a screwed up HD and a bad optical drive, right? I'd kind of like another one to mess around with and experiment with without screwing up my main Xbox.

TKWill · Post by **TKWill** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:33 pm

Same here. I am going to reset the old drive when I get the time and then I can have it ready if anything ever goes wrong again.

Is there a way to shortcut into my server computer and set that as the default folder for videos and music? It is kind of annoying to go through the options in video by clicking "my videos>workgroup>mshome>will>movies"

Another problem that has been popping up is the apple movie trailer script doesn't seem to be loading, it is hanging at the end of the cache.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:47 pm

ThrillKillWill wrote:Is there a way to shortcut into my server computer and set that as the default folder for videos and music? It is kind of annoying to go through the options in video by clicking "my videos>workgroup>mshome>will>movies"

Yup.

Just create/edit your UserData/sources.xml file as follows, changing "smb://192.168.1.115/media/Videos" to ""smb://will/movies" (I can send you my sources.xml if you want to see the whole thing).

<video>
<default>Videos</default>
<bookmark>
<name>Videos</name>
<path>smb://192.168.1.115/media/Videos</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>XBOX Videos</name>
<path>E:\Videos</path>
<path>E:\Movies</path>
<path>E:\TV Shows</path>
<path>F:\Videos</path>
<path>F:\Movies</path>
<path>F:\TV Shows</path>
<path>G:\Videos</path>
<path>G:\Movies</path>
<path>G:\TV Shows</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>DVD-ROM Drive</name>
<path>D:\</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>Playlists</name>
<path>$VIDEOPLAYLISTS</path>
</bookmark>











<bookmark>
<name>WORKGROUP (SMB) Network</name>
<path>smb://</path>
</bookmark>
</video>

TKWill · Post by **TKWill** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:04 pm

tssgery wrote:
ThrillKillWill wrote:Is there a way to shortcut into my server computer and set that as the default folder for videos and music? It is kind of annoying to go through the options in video by clicking "my videos>workgroup>mshome>will>movies"
Yup.

Just create/edit your UserData/sources.xml file as follows, changing "smb://192.168.1.115/media/Videos" to ""smb://will/movies" (I can send you my sources.xml if you want to see the whole thing).


<video>
<default>Videos</default>
<bookmark>
<name>Videos</name>
<path>smb://192.168.1.115/media/Videos</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>XBOX Videos</name>
<path>E:\Videos</path>
<path>E:\Movies</path>
<path>E:\TV Shows</path>
<path>F:\Videos</path>
<path>F:\Movies</path>
<path>F:\TV Shows</path>
<path>G:\Videos</path>
<path>G:\Movies</path>
<path>G:\TV Shows</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>DVD-ROM Drive</name>
<path>D:\</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>Playlists</name>
<path>$VIDEOPLAYLISTS</path>
</bookmark>











<bookmark>
<name>WORKGROUP (SMB) Network</name>
<path>smb://</path>
</bookmark>
</video>

I was about to post that I finally figured it out. I got the info here and it can all be done via the XBMC interface. Thanks for yout time TSS.

http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/?title=Smb

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:59 pm

So do y'all have any homebrew games? There's a specific one that I keep seeing in lists, but can't actually find the download for.

tssgery · Post by **tssgery** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:00 am

no homebrew games for me, I only use my xbox for multimedia stuff.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:18 pm

ThrillKillWill wrote:I had everything running fine. I wanted to make XBMC my default dash and decided to use some tool named XBE shortcut maker. What this did was to replace my default.xbe(UnleashX) to a shortcut that would instead point to XBMC, essentially it overwrote that default.xbe with a new one. It went bad. I woke up today and decided to swap my optical drive from the newer Xbox into my old Xbox that has a bad optical drive error and just leave the fragged Xbox dead for now. So I now have everything reinstalled on my original Xbox that I bought when they first came out. I kind of like it that way.

Have you tried "Frosty The Snowman's XBox Rescue Disc"? It will boot from the DVD and includes an FTP server so you can access and modify the files on the HD.