Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

xbox-scene.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 95 posts

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#61

Post by accrual »

anonymousab wrote: post #47

I remember installing XBMC with a 360-style "blades" interface and being blown away by how much smoother and nicer it was then the blades interface on the Xbox 360 at the time. Obviously the OS wasn't doing as much as an Xbox 360 was, but as an end user, it made me perpetually annoyed at what we "could have had" on the 360. And then Microsoft changed the 360 UI to their windows 8 uwp Tile-style UI with even more ads…

Apparently the "blades UI" 360s are quite sought after. I wonder if any progress has been made on restoring the stock firmware. I never had one myself unfortunately, mine came preloaded with a later OS.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#62

Post by rightbyte »

phantasmish wrote: post #24
rightbyte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ye I used it with Samba network drives to watch movies on the TV. Like, I have yet to encounter such a good interface for a "smart TV" or whatever you could call it. It worked flawlessly.

I’ve never been able to get another family member to successfully use XMBC/Kodi. Most folks have low tolerance for “this thing has wasted a whole-ass minute of my time trying to do something basic”. I tried this several times, for months at a time. Nobody but me ever used it. Even I sometimes used to manage to get lost in some editing-mode or end up with my movie still playing in the background but the whole XMBC UI…

You need to reach for their inner cheap skates.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#63

Post by AnotherGoodName »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #2

XBMC on the original Xbox was so unbelievably far ahead of it's time, it's crazy and that's not just nostalgia talking.

I still get comments along the lines of ‘remember when you had Netflix before Netflix? Man that was awesome, you could have made billions right?’ from former housemates and friends. I had XBMC in the living room connecting to my server which auto downloaded all the latest tv and movies. So to them i had something much better then Netflix well before Netflix got into online streaming.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#64

Post by asdff »

notyourwork wrote: post #27
rootsudo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy this was about 20 years ago...

And now streaming services are becoming “cable networks”. Capitalism at its finest.

"Cut the cord and stop paying $80/mo" Funny how that was just representative of the money left on the table that was to be snatched up anyhow before long.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#65

Post by asdff »

accrual wrote: post #61
anonymousab wrote: post #47

I remember installing XBMC with a 360-style "blades" interface and being blown away by how much smoother and nicer it was then the blades interface on the Xbox 360 at the time. Obviously the OS wasn't doing as much as an Xbox 360 was, but as an end user, it made me perpetually annoyed at what we "could have had" on the 360. And then Microsoft changed the 360 UI to their windows 8 uwp Tile-style UI with even more ads…

Apparently the "blades UI" 360s are quite sought after. I wonder if any progress has been made on restoring the stock firmware. I never had one myself unfortunately, mine came preloaded with a later OS.

Those ancient 360s are probably doomed to hardware failure however. They didn't seem to fix the issues with the 360 being essentially disposable until very late in the release cycle.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#66

Post by cowboyscott »

afavour wrote: post #29
cowboyscott wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24 year old hardware that is not only useful but punches above most of the set-top boxes you'll find on Amazon. I also suspect that it could run Silksong or Balatro just fine. Sure, it's unfair to compare gray/black market use cases, but it does make stark the hardware upgrade treadmill we've all been forced on.

You may need to remove your rose tinted glasses. No doubt it was incredible for its time but not even being able to play 1080p video puts it underneath most set top boxes you can get today.

Spec-wise, sure, but I suspect that if you ran a blind test between an Xbox running XBMC and an Amazon Fire Stick, most folks would prefer the XBMC experience (despite the 720p output).

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#67

Post by wildzzz »

jajuuka wrote: post #34

That's some impressive dedication to continue homebrew on the OG Xbox in 2025. Much respect for that alone. Very cool to see such an old console get a first class modern media player experience.

There are still new hardware upgrades and add-ons being developed for the original Xbox. I myself contributed heavily to a new HDMI upgrade.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#68

Post by lproven »

rightbyte wrote: post #12
KeplerBoy wrote: post #2

XBMC on the original Xbox was so unbelievably far ahead of it's time, it's crazy and that's not just nostalgia talking.

Ye I used it with Samba network drives to watch movies on the TV. Like, I have yet to encounter such a good interface for a "smart TV" or whatever you could call it. It worked flawlessly.

> I used it with Samba network drives to watch movies on the TV.

Me too. It was a life-changing tool: take some cast-off free hardware and a bit of free software, using an exploit to an old game that cost me £2 and a tool to put it on a memory card that cost me £5 (both second-hand off eBay), I had a media player that could stream to my (free) TV.

I spent many hundreds of hours watching it, and about 30 mins of playing games on the thing ever.

I still have it but it's in a basement in another country. Now I want to see if it still works, and if I can upgrade it.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#69

Post by urbandw311er »

Wow, there’s a trip down memory lane. I remember writing a whole addon called “Tivox Control Station” that let you watch your TiVo recordings on your XBox. Such happy times to be part of that modding community when everything was open and hackable.

Re: XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox

#70

Post by opello »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #2

XBMC on the original Xbox was so unbelievably far ahead of it's time, it's crazy and that's not just nostalgia talking.

It was also a really nice MythTV frontend at some point which was easier to set up than additional home theater PCs that connected to the central PVR.
Post reply on HN