How I made a PVR
If you know me, then you know that I have all kinds of “toys” around my house. I love technology. And I love using it. And mainly the “undocumented” features of things. I love doing things with my toys that really weren't meant to do. And if you need an example, I'm about to give you one.
I have a modded Xbox. It allows me to install homebrew software made for the Xbox and increase the functionality of my $300 purchase (I sat for 6 hours to get mine at midnight when it came out. And yes, I still keep in touch with Lois at Walmart). I have a Linksys WET11 plugged into it to get it on my wireless local network (my cable modem and office is upstairs, I would have to run cat5 downstairs and that could ger real messy, I rent. And I'm lazy). Well, last weekend the newest version of the Xbox Media Player (screenshots) was released. Its a great piece of software. It will play Mpeg, Divx, mp3, WMA, WMV, Ogg, and tons of other codecs/formats. It is used to view videos, pictures, and music. These files can be either on the Xbox hard drive, on a burned Dvd-r or Cd-rw, or stream them from a local server.
The last option is where the fun begins. Because some of these files are so large, they will eventually fill up your hard drive. And who wants to burn things out every time you want to watch or listen to something. I set mine up to talk to a specific streaming application made for the media player. You tell the server what to share, and then the media players sees the shared folders and then allows you to play the files in those folders across your local network.
Now this is where the fun begins. I have an eyeTV. Its a great little PVR for my computer. I use it all the time. I like to watch some news while I'm working and i really like that I can schedule recordings (I have a TIVO downstairs, don't get me wrong. I even put an 80 gig hard drive in it to get 114 hours. But no matter what I do, it gets overrun by my girlfriend's shows. She's the TIVO admin.) I have to be on my computer to watch what I have recorded for myself. I thought to myself today, why not share what this great device records for me. So I set my Mac to share the folder that the eyeTV records its video files to. My PC sees the shared folder and I then told the media server to serve out that folder. I then did the same thing with my mp3 folder on my Mac.
The end result is that everything I tell my eyeTV to record can now be played on my Xbox downstairs. Its a great little media center. In fact its almost as nice as one of those Media Center PC's that HP is selling now. The bonus in all of this is the maintenance. There is none. I don't have to make sure I have all my music in 2 different places. Once i set this up. Its done. Now, if I have friends over I can just turn it on, and set up a playlist visually and set it to play. No muss, No Fuss.
Obligatory Opinion: This is just one more case why mod chips should not be illegel. There are more ways to use one and NOT break copyright laws than there is TO break copyright laws. I should have the right to open up MY product that I purchased and do anything I want with it. When it comes to copied games, yes, that can be done too. But thats something that should be protected by the software companies, not the hardware company. Microsoft detects if you have a mod chip installed when you log onto thier online service, Xbox Live. If you have one it kicks you off and bans your hardware ID. They need to be checking for copied games, not modifications to the hardware. Using the Xbox Media Player is enough reason to mod your Xbox console without this. Doing this added a TON of functionality to my Xbox. And it is free and open source. Something Microsoft is scared of.
Update: I found a nice unix application that will allow me to stream from my G4, so it takes the Pc out of the equation, and more importantly, Windows. Ahh much nicer…..
Very cool! When I read the intro on macslash (guy uses eyetv, a mac, a pc, and an xbox to act like a tivo!) I thought great, some other goofball with bubblegum and bailing wire who will do anything to avoid buying a tivo. (search for ‘tivo’ or ‘pvr’ on slashdot to see what I mean.) but, you did two things differently–you already had all the gear anyway, and you used it to solve a very specific problem. excellent! good job.
I’ve done something vaguely similar–I capture movies (directv box -> s-video cable -> ATI TV-Wonder card -> saved as 352×240 MPEG) and store them on my file server, then I can watch them on another computer or laptop or (rarely) run them through a little book-PC connected to a TV. VCD quality is good enough on a laptop screen (800×600) but kinda bites on TV. luckily, my DirecTivo showed up today…
Comment by brian — December 17, 2002 @ 1:29 am
Where did you get the mod chip? How much did it cost? We’re going to be getting an Xbox this Xmas, so I’m curious..
Comment by Reid Ellis — December 17, 2002 @ 1:31 am
Check out www.xbox-scene.com. there is a lot of good resources there.
Comment by Jon — December 17, 2002 @ 10:45 am
Not owning an X-Box (I never will) I’m unsure of what the XBox LIVE feature/service is, but if it’s deemed essential to the running of the unit then it’s possible that in Europe the EU may take the view that they are be Illegally crippling the machine. Something worth checking into since for all it’s appalling faults and rampant stupidity, the EU does tend to pursue restrictive technologies pretty rampantly (as they have little else to do all day but protect us from our mornonic selves, apparently).
Having said all this, I can;t believe that M$ haven’t checked out these possibilities beforehand so it may be that they have already got away with it.
Anyway - Nice mod and nice to see people using technology to it’s maximum instead of just for the sake of using it.
M
Comment by Anonymous — December 19, 2002 @ 5:28 am
Wow you can do all this and you still don’t know when to use “are” rather than “is”.
Comment by Cat Jesus — December 19, 2002 @ 9:08 am
If the XBox+modchip part of this idea bothers you, consider the PS/2+QCast Tuner option BroadQ. It has the downside of not being open source, and the upside of not requiring either an XBox or a mod chip.
Comment by chad — December 19, 2002 @ 11:28 am
Preview link was broken, here’s the broadQ
href=”http://www.broadq.com/
Comment by chad — December 19, 2002 @ 11:29 am
I’m planning to do the Same thing here
I have a couple of question to Ask you
- what Ip address Setting you are havoing on the Xbox ? Dynamic - Static ?
-how can you FTP to the XBOX when the IP is Dynamic ?
-I assume you use relax or a similar Software to Stream your media, Im concerned with the IP Setting ?
- did you have to configure the wet11 itself for the WEP and the SSID?
thanks
Comment by Jojo — May 19, 2003 @ 1:28 am
Your are not the only one.
Comment by postal code — July 24, 2003 @ 8:54 am
Interesting. My previous post is missing.
Comment by whois — August 22, 2003 @ 9:23 am