Media Center Extenders: xbox

[Mike]

I've been looking at xbox type extenders for my MCE machine. It seems I need the console and the media center addon, and possibly a dvd add on.

It seems I can get a new one for around $140, $30 for the mc addon and another $30 for the dvd one. That puts it around $200.

Once it got close to $200 I was wondering if it made sense to get the 360 instead (although they seem to be hard to find) but it wasn't clear what the true cost for that was either.

Has anyone gone through this or compared xbox 360 vs xbox as an extender (clearly the games will be awesome, but what other differences are there?)

 

[Mike]

I remembered a recent somewhat similar link.

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showto...12&hl=xbox&st=0

It seems that you are not limited on the older xbox, and the one question out there is does my movies work with the xbox (classic not 360) or as an alternative does it work with my videos when VOB files in the directories. Anyone have an idea on this?

It seems that the 360 route will add a lot of cost and other than some of the newer very cool games, not change much for the mce experience. I am looking for something for my wife to use upstairs and am not concerned about the game aspect currently. This being the case if it can support my videos/my movies the xbox seems to be the way to go.

It also appears that even if that doesn't work, it can be modded to not be a mce extender but use all the media off a shared drive if I understand it correctly.

 

[ver0776]

90% of the people I tell about Xbox features still go "Wow, it can do that?" when I show it to them, even though I told them like three times =) So for people that have not seen a modded XBox, would you like for me to shoot a video of the setup and show a real-time video of navigating the collections and some of the other cool capabilities?

That way you get to see the speed and responsiviness of it, etc...

I sold my camcorder in anticipation of an HD one, so I will have to shoot it with one of my security cameras, but it should be ok. I will test it tonight.

Vaughn

BTW anyone has a hosting recommendation to put up a video like this? maybe like 50mb or so. I have webservers, but no bandwidth for this....

 

[AccessX10]

It seems that you are not limited on the older xbox, and the one question out there is does my movies work with the xbox (classic not 360) or as an alternative does it work with my videos when VOB files in the directories. Anyone have an idea on this?

No, the XBOX Extender doesn't work with My Movies or My Videos with VOB's.

If you can do without the PVR features look at XBMC for the XBOX, it will play back virtually any media (local or network).

 

[Mike]

90% of the people I tell about Xbox features still go "Wow, it can do that?" when I show it to them, even though I told them like three times =) So for people that have not seen a modded XBox, would you like for me to shoot a video of the setup and show a real-time video of navigating the collections and some of the other cool capabilities?

That way you get to see the speed and responsiviness of it, etc...

I sold my camcorder in anticipation of an HD one, so I will have to shoot it with one of my security cameras, but it should be ok. I will test it tonight.

Vaughn

BTW anyone has a hosting recommendation to put up a video like this? maybe like 50mb or so. I have webservers, but no bandwidth for this....

Vaughn, you've sold me. I'm going to give it a try. If you can, please recommend where you got your mod chip from.

 

[Mike]

It seems that you are not limited on the older xbox, and the one question out there is does my movies work with the xbox (classic not 360) or as an alternative does it work with my videos when VOB files in the directories. Anyone have an idea on this?

No, the XBOX Extender doesn't work with My Movies or My Videos with VOB's.

If you can do without the PVR features look at XBMC for the XBOX, it will play back virtually any media (local or network).

You mention doing without the PVR features (I can see my wife cringing already) would you be able to play programs recorded on a real MCE machine and shared over the network?

It seems like it supports a lot of formats but I haven't traced out what MCE is using and matched that to the xbmc.

 

[electron]

MCE recordings are mpeg2 recordings in a 'special' wrapper, so I don't think the Xbox will be able to play it. Now, there is a tool out there (it was mentioned here recently) which can convert these recordings to a better format, and strip the commercials at the same time, so I guess you could schedule the tool to run every night, so everything can be viewed on the xbox the next day.

 

[royalj7]

Vaughn, you've sold me. I'm going to give it a try. If you can, please recommend where you got your mod chip from.

Mike,

I've had lots of luck using Divineo, @

http://www.divineo.com/cgi-bin/div-us/index.html

They ship quickly for all products in stock, have decent prices, and one of the largest selections of xbox chips. Also, one of the biggest aggravations (one of the only ones actually) with the xbox is you can't turn it off and on remotely without some modification. If that is important to you, I'd pick up the X3IR with the mod chip.

--Jamie

 

[Mike]

Hmm. I may have to look more at the automatic conversion. My concern is WAF, especially since I was planning on using this for the bedroom, which she uses the tv in there a lot.

Just worried about a lot of different interfaces. Right now I've got 2 tivo's and a MCE machine. She loves the PVR functionality.

I'll have to give this a little more thought, but if the automatic conversion works and makes the shows available to this box it should cover it (and the interfaces are similar enough to not worry about that, and it avoids go to this box for this, and this box for that).

 

[eufreka]

I need some clarificaton.

It seems someone is saying that you can't use the xBox v1 for PVR functions?

That doesn't sound quite right.

What the xBox cannot do as a MCE Extender is play NON-PVR content. For example, if you download a video from the Internet, or rip your own camcorder video (or DVDs) to disk, etc.

The xBox works perfectly as a front-end MCE Extender to a MCE PC for PVR purposes. In addition, it can play DVDs locally, so that it offers the features of the original DVD kit for xBox.

It can playback anything recorded by the MCE PC, and it can "instruct" the MCE PC to record/playback/Pause/FF/delete any PVR content on the MCE PC.

So in essence, this thread is "backwards."

(In fact, you can use up to 5 xBox MCE Extenders connected to a single MCE PC backend (but you are limited to the number of tuners the MCE PC supports).

Currently, I have 3 Tivos, a Dual-Tuner MCE PC, and an xBox with MCE Extender. I am just waiting for the price of xBox v1's to fall, and I may pick up 1-2 more.

My TOTAL cost to "convert" my xBox to an MCE Extender was, I believe, $58, to buy the Microsoft kit, that consists of an IR eye for the xBox, an MCE Remote for the xBox, and a keyed CD that plays in the xBox. (It basically makes the DVD kit useless.)

In my family room, I have the Tivo on Video1, a VCR on Video2 and the xBox/MCExtender on DVD of my A/V receiver. It currently has a fairly LOW WAF because it requires her to use 4 remotes: 1 for each source, and 1 to switch sources.

I started with the Tivos, added the MCE stuff, and now think the best future path is, in fact, to build a "Hydra" 10-tuner backend PC like SnapStream did, and use front-end boxes at each viewing control endpoint. I hope to do that within the next 12 months.

I am using the Huappauge dual-tuner card in my current MCE PC and it works great! (And guess what: that MCE PC is a $350 after rebate eMachines box base.)

 

[Mike]

We were talking more of the modded version, which can play non-pvr content but cannot play PVR content without converting the programs.

I was trying to get the best of both worlds.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to use a standard xbox extender for PVR and distribute the output of the MCE machine over component. Could also 'share' the xbox's but I'm not sure how the IR plays together (Tivo lets you set ID's to each box to avoid this issue).

However, the auto convert of recorded content may make it so a modded xbox is the way to go.

The tuner comment you made, can you watch live tv with an extender? It seems that it can use one per extender which I wasn't clear on how that worked. The reviews for the normal xbox one refer to delays when doing any actions and a lengthy boot into mce timeframe. (which does not sound to be an issue for xbmc)