[mythtv-users] Questions about XBox front end
Jack Madison
jack at webhouse.cc
Wed May 16 13:26:46 UTC 2007
On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 12:25 +0100, Nick F wrote:
> On 5/16/07, Jake Vickers <jake at v2gnu.com> wrote:
> Does anyone out there have an XBox for a front end? I'm
> looking for
> something quieter than the ML8000 I have in my bedroom now
> (okay, so the
> wife is) and read that MythTV ran on XBoxes and that they were
> relatively quiet. Seems all the fanless Via boards really balk
> at
> watching TV. I haven't owned a game system since Playstation
> came out so
> I'm looking for someone to offer some tips. I've also read
> that MythTV
> doesn't run that nicely on the XBox, so I'd like to find out
> now if that
> is so before I brave Ebay to buy one.
> Can anyone out there offer some experiences up with the XBox?
>
> I bought an X-box to use as a myth frontend from ebay. I did a
> soft-mod (Splinter Cell) and installed Linux without too much pain. I
> subsequently gave the x-box away. For me it was waaay too noisy
> (sounded like a small jet engine in the corner - it's orders of
> magnitude louder than a playstation) and I found it dog slow running
> mythfrontend . Using XBMC was much better - it was much more
> responsive, and could play back myth - but then I lost the fabulous
> mythfrontend interface. I've replaced it with a P4 2.8 laptop that
> had a broken screen (it's connected to a LCD TV) and I find it much,
> much better as a frontend. So - yes the X-Box works, but I wouldn't
> recommend it. You apparently can open it up and change the fans but I
> didn't bother. YMMV.
>
>
I'll add my 2 cents. I also bought an xbox for this purpose, $100 at
gamestop. I ended up installing a mod chip instead of going the soft
mod route, but that shouldn't matter. After installing linux I also
found MythTV to be annoyingly slow, but even worse it was unstable. I
then went the xbmc route which was nice and quick and works just fine
for videos and music, but as mentioned you lose the MythTV front end and
much functionality. A couple weeks ago my modchip apparently died
(still boots fine as a normal xbox, but no way to get to xbmc or any
other mod-chip functions). Instead of spending $30 or so for another
chip I'm looking to buy something else and going with a real MythTV
setup.
Unless you already have an xbox and don't want to spend any money I'd
recommend against an xbox setup.
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