Just in case you have a 360 and your old Xbox is just sitting around... I highly recommend you research (on other forums not here!) into modding your box. It is very easy to do nowadays with no disassembly. A modded box is better than the 360 in some respects. Just some things that can be done:


If you have a router you can stream media from PC to XBox. Yes the 360 does this if you have Media Center but some of us don't and IMO the Xbox does a better job at handling it presently.

You can also stream HD Movies if you can find them. Furthering that, I'm not sure about whether you can buy an HD-DVD, rip it to your computer and streams to the Xbox via 720p is possible or not.

If you know how to find it, you can download a DVD iso image that has EVERY NES, SNES, SEGA, Atari and other games you ever played as a kid. Good for when friends are over. Play it right off the Xbox with Xbox controllers.

You can back up games onto your harddrive if you want.

If you put a larger hard drive in (Again, not hard to do, google search). You can save back ups of all DVD, Xbox games and TV shows or videos from your computer onto your Xbox.

With Xbox Media Center (an application) you can upconvert movies to 720p or 1080i. I'm sure this doesn't compare to the nice players available today, I'm just saying as a cheap alternative.

Just in case you have a 360 and your old Xbox is just sitting around... I highly recommend you research (on other forums not here!) into modding your box. It is very easy to do nowadays with no disassembly. A modded box is better than the 360 in some respects. Just some things that can be done:


If you have a router you can stream media from PC to XBox. Yes the 360 does this if you have Media Center but some of us don't and IMO the Xbox does a better job at handling it presently.

You can also stream HD Movies if you can find them. Furthering that, I'm not sure about whether you can buy an HD-DVD, rip it to your computer and streams to the Xbox via 720p is possible or not.

If you know how to find it, you can download a DVD iso image that has EVERY NES, SNES, SEGA, Atari and other games you ever played as a kid. Good for when friends are over. Play it right off the Xbox with Xbox controllers.

You can back up games onto your harddrive if you want.

If you put a larger hard drive in (Again, not hard to do, google search). You can save back ups of all DVD, Xbox games and TV shows or videos from your computer onto your Xbox.

With Xbox Media Center (an application) you can upconvert movies to 720p or 1080i. I'm sure this doesn't compare to the nice players available today, I'm just saying as a cheap alternative.


All great features, you forgot to mention more reliable than the Xbox 360 as well! ha...

I heard rave reviews about the upconverting capabilities of the Xbox-1 with XBMC....I regret getting rid of mine, but I may have to find me a used one and slap my extra HDD inside and go to work....I need a good upconverting player, my HTPC isnt impressing me much any more.

I just picked up the XBOX>USB adapter. I also have an old copy of Mechassault. If anyone wants to help me through this process let me know via PM. :)

The original xbox isn't capable of playing back HD video content with any level of reliability.

I was able to get a short 720p mpeg clip to play once, but even that was pretty choppy. The old girl just doesn't have the horsepower.

modded xbox is a thing of beauty

My modded xbox was a wonderful thing, but magically turned back into just a game console when I added an HTPC to my home theatre. Anything my modded xbox did, my htpc does better (aside from playing xbox games) ;)

Modded XBX's are useful for four things:

Music/Photo media center
Pirated XBX games
Pirated video files
Pirated ROMs.

It does each of those very well if you are into that sort of thing. I had my Halo XBX moded to see what wonderful things you could do with one, and until the 360 was released it was our music media center. Since we do not steal content though its pretty much a dust collector now.

I've had a modded Xbox for 3 years. It's the greatest.

Modded XBX's are useful for four things:

Music/Photo media center
Pirated XBX games
Pirated video files
Pirated ROMs.

It does each of those very well if you are into that sort of thing. I had my Halo XBX moded to see what wonderful things you could do with one, and until the 360 was released it was our music media center. Since we do not steal content though its pretty much a dust collector now.

I copied all of my games to the hard drive ans was able to launch them from XBMC. They start instantly instead of waiting for the DVD to be read/cached.

The original xbox isn't capable of playing back HD video content with any level of reliability.

I was able to get a short 720p mpeg clip to play once, but even that was pretty choppy. The old girl just doesn't have the horsepower.

I disagree, I watched Sin City in 720p no problems.

I disagree, I watched Sin City in 720p no problems.

I too have had no problems with any 720p HD x264 encoded movies. However, the 1080p x264 versions do get a little choppy at times.

I assume these HD movies are streamed over your network, yes? What type of files are these movies?

I highly recommend you research (on other forums not here!) into modding your box. It is very easy to do nowadays with no disassembly. A modded box is better than the 360 in some respects.

When did this happen? You can't run XBMC without a mod chip, right?

I don't know if this is against forum rules, but can someone PM me a solderless mod chip recommendation?

When did this happen? You can't run XBMC without a mod chip, right?

I don't know if this is against forum rules, but can someone PM me a solderless mod chip recommendation?


I think he is talking about the ability to hack it with AR and running a program on your pc to the Xbox....It's fairly simple actually if that is what he is talking about.

I think he is talking about the ability to hack it with AR and running a program on your pc to the Xbox....It's fairly simple actually if that is what he is talking about.


Yes. Do google search for 'soft modding' your Xbox! Tons of info out there, if you need more help PM me.

Modding is great except for one thing: you can't risk going on live. That more than anything is the most important turn off for modding the old XBOX. Plus I can have HD with my 360 with no effort. Modding an XBOX takes too much effort.

I assume these HD movies are streamed over your network, yes? What type of files are these movies?


avi's

Modding is great except for one thing: you can't risk going on live. That more than anything is the most important turn off for modding the old XBOX. Plus I can have HD with my 360 with no effort. Modding an XBOX takes too much effort.


I actually played on live for quite a while with the softmodded box. But once I got my 360 I didn't care about live on the original box and replaced harddrive (hence no more live). It doesn't take too much effort IF you are techinically and computer savvy so it is all about personal use and taste.

anyone compared the moddd xbox running at 720p to an upscaling ddv player? I have had my xbox running xbmc for a good 4 years, streaming all the content from my 2.5 terebyte server, works amazingly well! I cant help but think that it must be getting dated these days and a new upscaling dvd player like an oppo would/should do a much better job now, but not changing till i see the proof :)

I actually played on live for quite a while with the softmodded box. But once I got my 360 I didn't care about live on the original box and replaced harddrive (hence no more live). It doesn't take too much effort IF you are techinically and computer savvy so it is all about personal use and taste.

Sounds like a big if. I'm an electrical engineer and fairly knowledgable about computers. But taking apart an XBOX and modding it is something that's too risky. So it really depends on how bad you want to do it.

I've seen and played 2 mods in my life. One had every conceivable arcade game ever made on it and the other had a chip where you could rent a game and burn the game onto the hard drive. Yeah pretty sick!

Sounds like a big if. I'm an electrical engineer and fairly knowledgable about computers. But taking apart an XBOX and modding it is something that's too risky. So it really depends on how bad you want to do it.
If you can change a hard drive in a computer you can change a hard drive in your Xbox. The poster said he had a softmodded Xbox, which requires nothing other than a memory card and a PC transfer kit (and the game Mechwarrior.)

the soft mod is awesome..... I have 2 modded xbox's to stream music and my entire DVD collection from my unRAID server.. works perfectly!

anyone compared the moddd xbox running at 720p to an upscaling ddv player? I have had my xbox running xbmc for a good 4 years, streaming all the content from my 2.5 terebyte server, works amazingly well! I cant help but think that it must be getting dated these days and a new upscaling dvd player like an oppo would/should do a much better job now, but not changing till i see the proof :)

The video quality from XBMC is not superb. One major weakness is that it fails to display BTBs (black than blacks). The quality of DVDs and MPEG4 video is quite good though; it uses ffmpeg for MPEG2 and the mplayer core for MPEG4 (and most other video formats).

I have a modded xbox. I think it's in the garage now.
Before the 360 it was good for what it did. However all the things mentioned by the OP can be done on the 360 without destroying your ability to get the box on Live later.

Yes, you need Media Center running on your PC. But with Media Center I get to record cable and OTA HD. Something that the XBMC will never be able to do.

One of the Devs for XBMC made a plug-in for Media Center that allows you to stream any type of video to the 360. There is a VLC plug-in also that does the same thing.

There is another plug-in (can't remember the name right now) that lets you stream .TS files (HD movies) to the 360. I've done it and they look wonderful.

And the best part... There are no hiccups, there is no modding, there's no altering of anything on the PC or the 360. All warranties stay in place and your not playing a cat / mouse game with MS (not that MS cares much about the first Xbox any more anyway).

So in short. Been there, did that, I've moved on to bigger and better.

If you can change a hard drive in a computer you can change a hard drive in your Xbox. The poster said he had a softmodded Xbox, which requires nothing other than a memory card and a PC transfer kit (and the game Mechwarrior.)


Another negative. Looks like I have to buy stuff. And from everything I understand, you still have to open the XBOX, which from when I've seen people do is nothing like opening a basic desktop simplicity wise.

agreed, a mod'd xbox is amazing. I use it everyday. Just the streaming of mp3's with visualizations alone is great for parties, stick it on my 110" screen, use milkdrop for my visualizations.....just cool.

Streaming ANY and I mean ANY video format from my pc through SMB is something the 360 can only dream of, and the interface using XBMC is more professional looking, intuitive, and rock solid then the crap that is the 360 and it's sorry excuse of a media extender.

It can do some HD, if you copy HD to the hard drive and run it, but even that can be rough. So yes, for HD forget it, not reliable. But for everything else, movies, mp3's, pics, karaoke, checking the weather, stream youtube vids, stream internet radio, view movie trailors, the list goes on...! it's simply THE BEST media center period.

My modded xbox finally died 2 days before my 360 did. It was awesome as a media center. As for it's DVD upconverting, I couldn't tell the difference in 480p and 1080i scaled. They both looked very nice.

It's possible to get one modded with a Celeron 1.4 and 128MB of RAM (Dream-X). Those boxes could probably run HD better.

how do u mod an xbox to play roms? and can xbox360 play the roms?

Until the 360 supports FLAC I'll be hanging on to my original.

modded xbox + XBMC is great. i use mine nearly everyday to watch videos from my computer.
It cant quite keep up with some higher res video (some are ok, some are choppy, and some wont play at all).
But overall, its pretty awesome.

Emulation however, is complete crap. if you think they are even close to being perfect you obviously havent played the original in a long time (or ever).
Even NES emulation has some sound/graphics glitches.

how do u mod an xbox to play roms? and can xbox360 play the roms?

Modded Xboxs can run unsigned code and homebrew. You would have to simply put the emulator on the modded box.

And no, the 360 cannot run emulators.

Emulation however, is complete crap. if you think they are even close to being perfect you obviously havent played the original in a long time (or ever).
Even NES emulation has some sound/graphics glitches.

I'm not sure which versions of each emulator you're running, but the latest releases for most popular systems are damn near perfect. MednafenX for NES and Zsnexbox for SNES blow away their predecessors (FCEUltra and I can't recall the crappy SNES emulator). If you have old versions of the emulators I can understand your statement, but otherwise I'm not sure what you're talking about. Once you get to more recent systems such as PSX and N64, the emulation isn't all that wonderful, but most of the popular games are definitely playable. Also, probably the greatest benefit of using emulation versus the original systems is the scaling and graphic filters; hook up an NES to your TV and let me know how it looks compared to MednafenX at 720p and the AdvanceMame2x filter. ;-)

PC emus blow away playing the "original" in terms of functionality. I play all of my orginal PS1 games on an Emu rather than on my PS2. Looks better, plays the same. On emus that emulate older systems, it's not even a question. Being able to play Tecmo Bowl online with 2006 Rosters and teams is incredibly awesome.

I didn't play emus that much on the xbox, so I don't know about the quality of thoses emulators.

Back on topic, Now that my Xbox is dead, I kinda miss it. Probably pick up a used one for sure.