RE: Chipped Xbox

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Is this the best or are other mods worth considering - really I want
it as >a media centre on the network with a big HDD containing all the
audio.  I >will never use it for gaming and I can live with popping the
odd DVD in!

This sounds familiar...

Here's a word of caution - people are often enthusiastic about these
things, then when you come to implement it, you hit exactly the same
issues that you subsequently find everyone has to deal with, but don't
get mentioned in  the glowing reviews ;)

The learning curve on setting up the Xbox as a media player is pretty
steep - things rarely work straight off, and quite often simply don't
work at all (for example, the recent postings about ISO images)

I'd imagine getting an actual modchip rather than using one of the
TSOP/Softmods will remove a bunch of the pain, but don't think you are
going to have a plug and play solution - you won't. As time goes by, I
am becoming less hateful towards my xbox - it's actually starting to
become vaguely useful, but for about three months it was "one more
bug"
away from the skip!

For a start, it's nigh on impossible to find the download information
for XBMC, Bioses etc - you have to muck about on IRC to get the download
link, and even then, it's not actually up to date. Documentation is so
thin on the ground, it makes most other Open Source projects seem like a
well oiled machine!

Rather than being simply negative (which isn't helpful) I'll point out
some (hopefully) useful pointers -

1) Use FlashFXP as your FTP client - the ftp servers built into things
like EvoX seem to be particularly flaky when dealing with
"normal" FTP -
Flash FXP allows you to at least get files onto and off of the xBox with
reasonable reliability - it does still randomly lock up for no apparent
reason, but hey...

2) Use EvoX as your desktop - it seems to be the defacto standard, and
therefore easier to get support with. It's also pretty stable.

3) Use XBMC as a media player - the recent builds are much better than
any of the buggy BS we have been using over the last six months.

4) Have fun playing with the system - ultimately Xbox as a media centre
is An activity in itself, not just a means to an end - if you enjoy
hacking about with it, the setup won't be such an issue.

Ian.

PS> as always, my opinions only - others seem to have had a smoother
ride, but the volume of "help me" posts going unanswered on
forums
suggest that I'm not unique either!