[mythtv-users] Just got my XBOX running Mythfrontend! It works great!

[Peter Marriott]

Hi,

I have just managed to get my XBOX to run Mythfrontend!  So far I am really
impressed, it plays Live TV and Recorded shows just as well as my dedicated
backend.  Thanks to a lot of hard work by others, I now have the basis for
what is going to be a brilliant frontend.  Ed's Xbox Debian distribution and
Matt Zimmerman's packages made the install reasonably painless.   Ed's
Debian must come with accelerated video playback as the video is very
smooth, and doesn't peg the CPU.

The TV-Out quality of the Xbox looks great, except at the moment I have no
overscan, so it does have a black border.

If you have any question or comments please let me know, I'd be happy to
help.  I am going to try to come up with some step by step instructions,
with the hope of having this included in the standard documentation.

Note:  Getting 0.8 to work was quite painless.  Getting CVS to compile meant
I had to dig around for dev and source packages, so it took a bit of time.
It wasn't too bad though as Ed's Debian distro was my first exposure to
Debian and to Apt-Get, and I managed to get it running in one day.

What I am now going to work on:
1) Replacing WindowMaker, with another lightweight window manager, or if
someone has a good setup for WindowMaker, I'd be happy to us it.
2) Getting overscan to work... (possibly with nvtv)
3) Getting the DVD Remote to simulate key presses.
4) Getting Debian to automatically logon, I don't want to have to do that
every time I turn on the machine.

A few details of what I have:

Backend Hardware:
AMD XP 1800+
Tuner1 - Lifeview 3000
Tuner2 - CHP05X (bt878)
On board Sound.

Backend Software:
Gentoo
KDE
MythTV - CVS (as of 8 Mar 03) (also went back to 0.8 when first testing myth
on the XBOX)

Frontend Hardware:
XBOX v1.1  (PAL)  Australia
ozxchip modchip  (www.ozxchip.com)
Usb converter to enable plugging in a USB keyboard ($10AUD from
www.ozxchip.com)
A TV

Frontend Software:
EvoX Bios for the modchip, but any BIOS would do.
Ed's Debian 0.3.1 (xbox-linux.sourceforge.net)
WindowMaker (that's what ed's Debian uses by default)
MythTv CVS (as of 8 Mar 03)  (0.8 went on first, but that lasted about an
hour, as I now can't live without the great View Recordings screens that
went in just after 0.8 was released)

Note:  I only record at 400*288 (or something like that), so the playback
results could vary  if you record at higher resolutions.

In conclusion, in case you haven't noticed, I am extremely happy with this,
for $400AUS ($220US) + $50AUS (Modchip), I have a really nice MythTV
frontend/DVD player/Games Machine.

Cheers
Peter