XBMC4XBOX

Ten years ago today, the XBOX console was first introduced to North America. Since then, it has seen the release of many great games, including many of the best selling video game series’ of all time, and one of the largest online communities for games which allows gaming online, downloading new games/content, and tv, movie, and music streaming. The XBOX is now one of the top selling consoles of all time.

Even more impressive however, are the efforts of people who receive no compensation for their work other than the thanks of like minded people. Shortly after the release of this console, a modding community was founded and has been growing steadily since then. XBOX users are now able not only to play XBOX games, but games from nearly every console up to the 5th generation through emulators. There are also full versions of Linux running very well on this console.

XBOX users also have access to arguably the best media center application on any platform. XBMC started because the XBOX needed a good media player, but it evolved into something so much larger. Streaming media files from the network with library organization, weather support, XBOX game trainers, a game/program launcher, and an entire build of python to run a plethora of scripts which can be created by anyone. XBMC has been unsurpassed by many other media applications, some of which you must pay for.

The best part about all of this? It is available completely free and open-source, made by other XBOX users in their free time.
I think it’s high time to congratulate everyone who has contributed to make this console come as far as it has.

Thank you Mwaterbu for allowing me to post this on the front page as I don’t believe I could have written it better.

Happy birthday Xbox Classic and thanks for all the good times.

Xman.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a bit of a write on the front page but here I am. As most of you know, we have hit over 2000 members and this is rising by the day which is always good to see. I’m always amazed at the versatility of “the old black box” as it hits it’s 10 years of reliable service. I only wish they made P.C.s with such reliability, something I don’t think Microsoft intended when they designed these machines.

There has been much development since the last stable release and Arnova and Exobuzz are continually improving on the way XBMC works for us all. It’s always good to check out how the latest builds perform on your machine with there smoother operation and extra features. Just make sure to read up on the forum on how to upgrade your build and it’s a relatively simple operation. It’s also good to try the different skins other than the default 3 that come with each new build. Simply grab the skin or skins you’d like to try and add it in your skins folder in the XBMC folder and select it in your XBMC appearance settings and your XBMC’s appearance will change to that of the new skin. I also like to change the sounds but that’s a more in depth procedure that is best left to the forum.

Anyway, I’d like to welcome all the new members that have joined the forum since I last welcomed new members and look forward to there input and comments on the forum.

Xman.

2000 forum users and 5000 RSS subscribers.

Long live XBMC for Xbox!

We are pleased to announce stable version 3.0.1 of the popular media center platform XBMC
for the 1st generation XBOX (now called XBMC4XBOX). A huge amount of work has been put into this, and it features numerous additions and improvements over the last release such as:

• librtmp Support (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/) to support many online video streaming services.

• Updates to dvdplayer’s ffmpeg libraries, including some tweaks for additional speed. Performance with h.264 for example is much improved from previous releases thanks to plenty of optimisations upstream.

• Many improvements and bug fixes to the video/music libraries and scrapers.

• Python updated to 2.4.6 as well as improved compatibility for addons intended for mainline XBMC.

• Support for encoding CD’s to the FLAC format.

• We now ship with a customised version of the Confluence skin optimised for the XBOX.

• Bug fixes and updates to many core components such as Samba and libCurl – such as compatibility with Windows 7 shares.

and plenty more!

Get your download (via bittorrent):
http://malus.exotica.org.uk/torrents/XBMC4XBOX-3.0.1-STABLE.RAR.torrent

Join the community at http://www.xbmc4xbox.org. Nightly builds can be downloaded from http://www.xbmcsvn.com, where the stable release should also soon be available.

Read more…

As some of you have noticed XBMCZone.com has been down for a couple of weeks now. I won’t spoil the surprise, all I will say though is that you will be hearing more from Shannon @ XBMCZone and iRoNBiLL @ Navi-X and their new project when the time is right…

XBMCZone did a great job filling the large hole left by XBMCScripts.com at the time, and I say that based on the ~60.000 downloads of the XBMC Zone Installer. But you shouldn’t fill left stranded as you now got the SVN Repo Installer with your XBMC4Xbox and a decent number of Google Code projects filled with plugins and scripts, maintained by dedicated people willing to share their work with the rest of the world for nothing else but your gratitude.

All I wanted to say on behalf of everyone, thanks a lot Shannon and good bye XBMCZone.com!

Yes, one year on and hasn’t XBMC4Xbox come ahead in a big way. Some of the development in the way the machine plays movies, the skins, the apps and pluggins, actually every aspect of the system has had major gains in it’s performance, appearance and usability.  Makes me think the “Old Work Horse” has a few years left in her yet. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people that have made this forum the success it is and this means anybody that has every posted actually because without people posting, it doesn’t matter how good a site is if nobody posts. It is the talk that makes it interesting with different people’s views from all over the world.

In one year we have gone from zero to 1540 members and this increases by the day with around 4000 RSS feed viewers. I must say I’m not really shocked by the popularity of the “Modded Xbox” as more people are introduced for the first time to the system daily. I think the forum has a good balance of on and off topic discussion which adds to it’s appeal also a nice group of people that we have managed to attract. To all I say thank you for the pleasure of letting me get to know you a little.

Xman.

The Red Xbox Lottery for Jimmy’s cause is over and the winner is… # 1036 !

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18944#p18944

I would like to thank everybody that entered and in turn helped in Jimmy’s Cause. I know all cash raised has gone straight to Jimmy and I’m quite happy to have been able to help Jimmy in such a way as well as increase the popularity of our forum so while there was only one winner, I believe we all winners in the long run.

Again, thank you to all that participated to help Jimmy in his hour of need. Now that the “Jimmy” Red Xbox is gone what’s next?.  How about a Slim Clock Lottery. Tell me what you think.

Xman

This is the Modded Xbox up for grabs in a Lottery where all proceeds go to a member of the forum,  Jimmy, aka 420 Smiles who has had an extremely bad run of luck. The machine is a Cherry Red XLM Cased machine with a 500Gb Sata hard drive installed. It has a modchip installed and has a modified M8 bios with no flubber and boots to XBMC in 8 seconds. The machine comes with a Component Lead Set and is set to output 720p.

How this machine can be yours, is simply make a donation to the link below and each $5 donation will buy you another ticket in the draw which will be drawn on a date to be announced. I am hoping to add donors forum names to an ongoing list on the forum displaying there “Tag” and a “Lottery” number beside each $5 block so if you donate $20, your “Tag” would appear 4 times with 4 consecutive “Lottery” numbers. If you want to mix up your numbers, make donations at different times during the coarse of the “Lottery”. I’m still looking for a suitable PayPal account to host this “Lottery” and will add a link to this page when this is sorted, please be patiant. I will add to the page as more details come to hand.

Enter to Win! Click here

Xman.

Well Happy New Year to all I say and we can cross our fingers on the RAM Upgrading which is showing enormous promise to be able to enlarge the RAM on the box but we can defiantly pick up a super cheap machine and mod it. Let’s face it, what other machine at the moment can you grab for 40 odd dollars, take it home and turn it into something the whole family or individually, regardless of age can find something to do with it and will continue to be useful in 12 months time?  What a versatile piece of machinery. Now we take it a step further,  you’ve got more than one T.V. and your getting sick of changing rooms so you get another machine and do it again. Right, that’s 2 up and running or a backup if you like.  Now if you get another you can rip it apart and do a change or two and your not pressed for time because you have two running. Maybe the colour doesn’t match your T.V. or furniture as good as you’d like. Rip it apart and give it a paint job. It will look new again but in a colour of “your” choice. This is one form of case modding which to some comes easy and others not but let’s face it, you’ve invested not much money, your not loosing downtime on a machine, and you can take as long as you like. What about a USB port, LCD display, some lights, a clock, there are so may things you can do to these machines as you can see in the modding section.

This year I have a couple of Unique Projects like a complete stand along machine that can tune to your FM radio wirelessly anywhere in your house for all the people that enjoy using the box for their music. This is extremely versatile because you don’t need wires to your stereo or headphones, not to mention the other abilities of these devises.

The clock mod, I want to take a step further by using the alarm feature to turn the Xbox and T.V. or stereo on and using your “startup list” as your alarm.

I have two other “Uniques”, but the idea is now is the time to grab something and have a go if you’ve ever been tempted as I can only see availability being an issue and prices not going any lower.  So on that note, I say 2011, the year of the mod.

May we all have a Fine New Year and the best of health to all,

Xman