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XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox
- KeplerBoy 1y agoXBMC on the original Xbox was so unbelievably far ahead of it's time, it's crazy and that's not just nostalgia talking.
- pimlottc 1y agoXBMP is the main reason I got my Xbox, it was fantastic. And later I even played a few games on it!
- bonsai_spool 1y agoYes! So many streaming sources and high performance/responsiveness.
- cowboyscott 1y ago24 year old hardware that is not only useful but punches above most of the set-top boxes you'll find on Amazon. I also suspect that it could run Silksong or Balatro just fine. Sure, it's unfair to compare gray/black market use cases, but it does make stark the hardware upgrade treadmill we've all been forced on.
- rightbyte 1y agoI don't think Xbox had 1080p support? That would be somewhat annoying to be limited by.
- NegativeLatency 1y ago1080i though
- jsheard 1y agoIt could output analogue 720p and 1080i for sure, but the CPU had a hard time keeping up with HD video decoding. It was only a 733mhz Pentium 3 after all. Although to go on a tangent, it turned out that you could swap the soldered BGA processor for a socketed 1.4ghz Pentium meant for a desktop PC, using an incredibly cursed interposer setup to redirect the CPU pins to the right BGA pads, and it somehow actually worked.
- TapamN 11mo agoWow, you're not kidding saying that it's cursed. I thought it would adapt a socket to the BGA pads, but it looks like the pins of the replacement CPU just sit naked on the interposer. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=95704 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=95704
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jsheard 11mo agoI think Pentium 3 sockets were through-hole, so to use one they would have had to fit two different footprints on the bottom side of the interposer without any overlap. It might not have been physically possible.
- boilerupnc 1y agothis is my goto for xbox gen1 HDMI - Electronxout[0]. Here's a full list of video options[1] [0] https://electron-shepherd.com/products/electronxout https://electron-shepherd.com/products/electronxout [1] https://www.xbox-scene.info/forums/topic/657-list-of-all-og-xbox-video-solutions/ https://www.xbox-scene.info/forums/topic/657-list-of-all-og-...
- ssl-3 1y agoWhat problems are these widgets supposed to solve? With such a widget: The video is still at most 720p or 1080i (because scaling, like cake, is a lie), it still originates as an analog signal (that's all the OG Xbox can provide), and the machine is still broadly incapable of playing high-definition video (it's too slow).
- afavour 1y agoYou may need to remove your rose tinted glasses. No doubt it was incredible for its time but not even being able to play 1080p video puts it underneath most set top boxes you can get today.
- cowboyscott 1y agoSpec-wise, sure, but I suspect that if you ran a blind test between an Xbox running XBMC and an Amazon Fire Stick, most folks would prefer the XBMC experience (despite the 720p output).
- rightbyte 1y agoYe I used it with Samba network drives to watch movies on the TV. Like, I have yet to encounter such a good interface for a "smart TV" or whatever you could call it. It worked flawlessly.
- robofunk 1y agoIf my memory is not faulty it was even able to stream movies from multi volume rar files over SAMBA which felt like magic. IYKYK
- notyourwork 1y agoOh yea - and DCC transfers for content from IRC. mmmmm
- bombcar 1y agoBeing able to play VIDEO_TS files directly blew my mind; no need to argue about compression with our massive 250 GB drives ... ;)
- ElCapitanMarkla 1y agoYeah that part was amazing. It was 2006, I'd softmoded the Xbox with the Splinter Cell hack. I had 2MBs ADSL capped @ 10GB for international data but unlimited national. I was in a NZ only private tracker to take advantage of that and then the icing on the cake, streaming the multi volume rar files straight to the TV. It really was magic.
- Sanzig 1y agoI managed to get a fully working XBMC+Samba setup back when I was probably 13 or 14 in the mid-2000s. Echoing the sentiment that it really was far ahead of its time. I'd torrent a movie or show, it'd appear on the network share, and then I could watch it immediately in the living room in glorious 480p on a tube TV. This was before Netflix instant watch existed, truly felt like something from the future.
- rootsudo 1y ago
- madaxe_again 1y agoI fondly remember modding my first Xbox to install it, and it just being so much better than anything else available at the time that I immediately retired my… man, I can’t even remember the brand. They did a nice line in network attached media players in the early 2000s. I ended up assembling a few XBMC systems with rack mount NASes stuffed full of hard drives for use on yachts, with easy means to rip or copy new media - clients couldn’t believe what they were seeing compared to the previous world of bootleg DVDs, and one system I know of was in use still 15 years on.
- abrookewood 1y ago100% Even when I stopped playing Xbox games, we would take that pimped out machine everywhere. Long before there was Netflix, there was an Xbox running XBMC loaded with movies and TV shows of questionable origins. Good times!
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoI still get comments along the lines of ‘remember when you had Netflix before Netflix? Man that was awesome, you could have made billions right?’ from former housemates and friends. I had XBMC in the living room connecting to my server which auto downloaded all the latest tv and movies. So to them i had something much better then Netflix well before Netflix got into online streaming.
- opello 11mo agoIt was also a really nice MythTV frontend at some point which was easier to set up than additional home theater PCs that connected to the central PVR.
- qingcharles 11mo agoI was contracting for Microsoft/MSN building "official" TV media player interfaces (Windows Media Player Extenders I think the hardware was called) at the time. There was definite inspiration in both directions: the XboxMediaPlayer/XBMC folks were looking at what we were putting out and we were looking for clever things they were doing to steal. All our Xboxen were modded. Obviously they won the battle in the end, though :)
- tclancy 11mo agoI felt the same about ReplayTV and integration with the PS2. The future is always unevenly distributed.
- filmgirlcw 1y agoXMP was the first time I ever picked up a soldering iron -- so I could "hack" my OG Xbox 1.0. I will always, always love and respect it. I love that they are still committed to the OG device. I want to pull mine out and see if the spinning hard drive still works after all these years, might even try to update it!
- xeromal 1y agoI remember that there were 2 games that you could use to modify your xbox but I only remember 1 game. Mechassault.
- echelon_musk 1y agoMechassault, 007 Agent Under Fire and Splinter Cell. More recently there are other game exploits, such as THPS4. However, since ENDGAME you don't even need a game to softmod.
- KyleJune 11mo agoI think I used splinter cell. The exploit was also only in a specific version of the game. I remember having to look at a version number on the cd when buying to confirm I was getting the right one.
- kotaKat 1y agoPrecarious hard drive IDE cable-swap-while-running gang here. Sitting there wondering if I was going to kill something with both the family PC splayed open on the dining room table and the Xbox splayed open on the dining room table, with a Linux live CD in hand… I still can’t believe Bert would have ever cheated on Ernie[1]. [1] http://archiv.sega-dc.de/phoenix.maxconsole.net/docs/berternie.inc.htm http://archiv.sega-dc.de/phoenix.maxconsole.net/docs/bertern...
- monocasa 1y agoIn the context of how that hack works, I'd argue that Bert and Ernie are working together to tag team the Xbox dashboard. Rather than cheating, seems broadly consensual to me, at least as far as Bert & Ernie are concerned.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoShould have named it XBMC 360 because it has come full circle and it would continue their barbaric culture of naming it 'X' but building it for the complementary set of X. (i.e. it works on everything but XBOX 360)
- par 1y agoXBMC really takes me back. I used to love using this, and then when it switched to Kodi I got a bit confused but kept using it. Finally I moved over to Plex because I recall having some issues with Kodi i can't remember these days. But while I love Plex, i don't love the proprietary feeling of it, and would still prefer something truly open.
- GaryBluto 1y agoAs much of an achievement as this is, I think much of the charm is sadly lost in later versions of XBMC.
- echelon_musk 1y agoWould be lovely if there is a backported version of the Project Mayhem 3 HD skin. I remember using a backported version for Kodi on my Linux box many years ago, however I doubt it is still maintained!
- GaryBluto 1y agoI have the source code to an old version of XBMC sitting round somewhere, including the Project Mayhem skin in non-XBOX-specific file formats if you're interested.
- echelon_musk 1y agoA quick search shows me that there is an actively maintained version here https://github.com/jamal2362/skin.pm3-hd.cpm https://github.com/jamal2362/skin.pm3-hd.cpm
- unbehagen 1y agoI loved XBMC and still use Kodi to this day. Back then, I even proposed and POCed what's now a part of their Add-On system, essentially a fuse-like virtual file system forwarded to Python. Before that, each Add-On had to bring its own UI. This was basically my first OSS contribution and the community was really supportive and welcoming.
- AshleyGrant 1y agoI used that to build my XM Radio Online plugin!
- jajuuka 1y agoThat's some impressive dedication to continue homebrew on the OG Xbox in 2025. Much respect for that alone. Very cool to see such an old console get a first class modern media player experience.
- wildzzz 1y agoThere are still new hardware upgrades and add-ons being developed for the original Xbox. I myself contributed heavily to a new HDMI upgrade.
- Shelby-Thomas 1y ago[dead]
- anonymousab 1y agoI remember installing XBMC with a 360-style "blades" interface and being blown away by how much smoother and nicer it was then the blades interface on the Xbox 360 at the time. Obviously the OS wasn't doing as much as an Xbox 360 was, but as an end user, it made me perpetually annoyed at what we "could have had" on the 360. And then Microsoft changed the 360 UI to their windows 8 uwp Tile-style UI with even more ads and I realized that I underestimated how bad things could get.
- accrual 1y agoApparently the "blades UI" 360s are quite sought after. I wonder if any progress has been made on restoring the stock firmware. I never had one myself unfortunately, mine came preloaded with a later OS.
- asdff 1y agoThose ancient 360s are probably doomed to hardware failure however. They didn't seem to fix the issues with the 360 being essentially disposable until very late in the release cycle.
- caseyf7 1y agoI fondly remember opening up my Xbox to solder a mini board to the Xbox board. Later, they figured out how to add it without the additional board.
- kristofferR 1y agoI didn't get consoles as a kid, but after moving out I bought my first console - a PS3 I jailbroke. Showtime/Movian was my TV media player for years, actually worked pretty great until I got a Shield. Cool to see it is still being developed, like XBMC.
- deaddodo 1y agoGotta love this: > Despite the constraints of the Xbox’s single-threaded 733MHz CPU, XBMC 4.0 includes improvements to task scheduling that allow multiple activities to run concurrently. As if the Pentium 3 wasn’t regularly used to run fully multi-tasking operating systems for years. My old 400mhz P2 was able to play videos, catalog my music collection, download files, and let me edit code simultaneously just fine.
- accrual 1y agoYeah, the Pentium 2 and 3 CPUs were very capable. Even today I feel they can do a lot of work with the right tools and some shims to access modern stuff (SSH, RDP). Maybe XBMC's kernel wasn't designed for multitasking and they're now adding better support. I could understand wanting to throw the whole CPU at whatever the user was doing, especially in early days.
- laweijfmvo 11mo agoit’s getting harder and harder to find an easy to install 32-bit linux distro, though
- urbandw311er 1y agoWow, there’s a trip down memory lane. I remember writing a whole addon called “Tivox Control Station” that let you watch your TiVo recordings on your XBox. Such happy times to be part of that modding community when everything was open and hackable.
- themafia 11mo agoLacking any expensive or specialty equipment the procedure was intense. Fully boot up an XBox. Very carefully remove the IDE cable from the internal Hard Drive. Start booting a PC. Press the "Pause" key on the keyboard right before BIOS starts it's POST. Very carefully connect the IDE cable from the PC to the XBox Hard Drive. Press any key to resume boot. Now you can boot the XBMC installer and copy it over to the XBox Hard Drive. Shut everything down. Appropriately connect the Hard Drive. Power back up. You now have a modded XBox.
- rasz 11mo agoI also went hardcore hotswap route when uploading my first xbox launcher, followed by eeprom dump and decoding password from that. There are other hardcore methods available: - sniffing IDE bus with Logic Analyzer https://hackaday.com/2011/04/28/ide-bus-sniffing-and-hard-drive-password-recovery/ https://hackaday.com/2011/04/28/ide-bus-sniffing-and-hard-dr... - reading password directly from locked drive HPA (service area) using MHDD https://hackaday.com/2011/02/18/hard-drive-password-recovery/ https://hackaday.com/2011/02/18/hard-drive-password-recovery... yes its stored in plaintext Nowadays the second method is conveniently build into FATXplorer as a one click action https://fatxplorer.eaton-works.com/2024/05/31/fatxplorer-3-0-beta-31-password-recovery-for-og-xbox-western-digital-drives/ https://fatxplorer.eaton-works.com/2024/05/31/fatxplorer-3-0...
- thot_experiment 11mo agoLet me just hit up the bot on irc so i can get the one time ftp login to xbins and grab this.
- nirav72 11mo agoI remember paying $250+ to some company out in CA and shipping my Xbox to them. Recommended by some friends. A week later it came back modded and a new HD installed. Along with a 10 page guide on how to use xbmc. Including mounting a remote windows share using smb. Or transfer the media files to the Xbox via FTP. This was around 2004. At the time, there wasn’t any easy way to play downloaded or ripped content on a TV from over the network. So a modded Xbox was a game changer.
- emilbratt 11mo agoI remember modding my Xbox and putting XBMC on it. One of my fondest memories is actually playing games directly off the hard-drive. One of the great "side-effects" of that was basically cutting loading times almost in half. I especially remember the loading animation in the game Crash Bandicoot - Wrath of Cortex. Crash Bandicoot himself would keep falling during the loading screen. (note: PS2 version had another looking version). The game loading screen for Xbox was designed so that the camera movement nicely panned throughout it during the time the loading took, but due to the loading time being shorter the "animation" was cut short. ..just a fun little thing that stuck with me. :) EDIT: Oh! I found videos on youtube demonstrating the "difference". Here is the original experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1327&v=jLf9EZWLins https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1327&v=jLf9EZWLins Here is the experience when cut short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1157&v=Vk8AuLhnu58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1157&v=Vk8AuLhnu58
- matthewpick 11mo agoFantastic timing on this post. I was just chatting with coworkers this week about my childhood modded Xbox and showed them screenshots of the Avalaunch home screen. https://avalaunch.net/ https://avalaunch.net/