I hope this is a good place to post this, I suspect lots of you have experience with using an Xbox as a media extender.

I'm already set up running MCE 2005 and using 2 original X-Box's as media extenders in my house, and it works fine. I do, however, have to have the extender CD in the Xbox while using it as an extender. Is there a way to load the CD software onto the Xbox itself so I don't need to use the CD? I never connect to Xbox Live or anything like that, a mod would be fine if it got me what I want. I'm not trying to steal anything, just don't want to constantly take the disc in and out.

I've done some reading about XBMC, but I think that's newer stuff for Vista, not sure it it interfaces fully with MCE 2005, in terms of streaming my MCE recorded TV content (the main use for our extenders). Anyone know if XBMC can stream my TV shows that were recorded with MCE, instead of using the official Microsoft extender software?

Thanks for any help, tips or links,
david.

Modders were doing everything the 360 does now in respects to media streaming over networks etc with the original Xbox. I saw it in action 5 years ago or so, so I would say yes. Now how you do it is beyond me, but there's always the internets.

XBMC will do what you want - you actually can use the XBox as the frontend to your TV and use the MCE2005 sytem as a file server if you like - you will need to mod your Xbox in order to get this capability. It will work with XP(MCE) and now Vista systems.

Check the internet and you will get more info.