thinking of getting an xbox. What would i need to get 5.1 sound (mainly for DVD movies)? I have a 5.1 speaker set i use on my PC but these require 3 3.5mm sockets as per most soundcards.... Can i plug these straight into the extra AV connector thing thats available or do i need a decoder of some sort? Thanks for the help.
You need a decoder which has an optical input. The xbox doesn't include an optical out as standard. So you will need to buy the Advanced AV Pack (£20). If you're handy with a soldiering iron, I'll give you a guide on how to get optical out for only £1.50. It's not hard but you will defiantly void your warranty. But isn't that what BiT's all about?
he Nutech share the knowledge i'll hack my box apart warrentys out anyway as i gutted it and put it all back in, in preperation of the mod chip when i get the money
I'll put the guide up in the morning. It gives you 5.1 optical out and a standard composite out. You wont have to use the supplied cable (or socket) at all, just a fibre optic cable and a RCA cable. If you want S-Video or Component then you'll have to shell out some cash. M_D_K, what chip you getting? Best thing I ever did to my Xbox was install a chip. Since then I've put in a 120GB HDD but that's nearly full. On there I've got GentooX, Media Player, region-free DVD player etc.
hi nutech, just a wee question on playing divx on the xbox with xbmp. i havent tried it off the hdd yet. but when i put in a dvd-r with a few divxs on, it always has to cache them first (which is annoying, but i can cope with it). But ive noticed recently that there seems to be an issue with lipsync thag gets worse as a film goes on. have u noticed this? or do u think its because its cached?
You can try a couple of thing: It's odd that your local files are getting cached, this is usually reserved for SMB/Relax shares. Open your config.xml and look for the "DVDROM (ISO9660)" share. Remove the "<cachesize>x</cachesize>" tags. If this doesn't work, go into Settings --> General Settings --> Enable/Disable "Cache ISO9660 files" and disable it. I haven't used a DVD-R before, so I cannot guarantee this will work. But I have put DivX's on a CD-R and with the above settings it's worked flawlessly (got lucky with a Samsung DVD-ROM ). The majority of the time I watch DivX's either off the hdd or through a SMB share (mostly the latter). Hope that helps.
im getting really into my modded xbox now btw getting rid of the cache in the config file seems to have worked for most divxs. just set up a complete xns share so i can access anything on my comp and play it on my xbox. i was gonna build myself a shuttle for an HTPC but now im thinking whats the point when my xbox now does everything i want and more. im even replaying doom cos u can get an xbox version of it offa mirc on #xbins. now i just need a decent sized hdd in there and im all set.
Glad that helped. Exactly, most people don't understand how much you can do with an Xbox and just class it as 'that failing microsoft console'. I was also going to build a HTPC but once I chipped my Xbox, i decided against it. If you're looking to buy a HD, here's a few pointers: The larger the better. You'll be surprised by how fast you'll run out of space, my 120gigga is down to 20gb and i haven't got many *cough* on it. But remember, the xbox uses 32bit LBA so the maximum you can access on any HD is 136GB. The general ideal seems to be 120gb. it's the best capacity/price ratio. As slow as possible. There is no point in buying any HD above 5400rpm. nothing the xbox does needs anything faster. plus it runs at ATA33. 7200rpm has been rumoured to run too hot anyway. The tricky part is finding a 120GB 5400rpm HD. If you look on any Xbox forum, the undoubtedly favoured HD is the Samsung 120GB 5400rpm HD (I've forgot the model number). This is mostly due to the reliability and cost (it's like $90 in the US). I managed to get my hands on one from Aria a few months ago. It looks like they've now discontinued it (it's pretty useless for a standard PC). Good luck finding one...
cheers for the help nutech. i dont really need that much hdd space. since ive got a dvd burner and can put most stuff onto disc. Im currently at uni tho, and whn i go home i loose the 160gigs of stuff i can access over the network. so essentially i just want to be able to put 20gigs of mp3s and maybe some other stuff onto it. think i might go for an 80 gig drive as they seem to be hovering around the 65 squid mark. so im looking for an 80 gig 5400 rpm ata 133 drive? Should i go for one with a 2mb or an 8 mb cache btw? and also is there a list of drives somewhere that support locking with the xbox should i want to go "live" in the future? also what do u think the demand would be for an xbox modding subforum on bit-tech?
Western Digital Caviar 80Gb 5400rpm EIDE Hard Drive - OEM Our Price £48.38 £56.85 inc VAT seems like a nice drive to me. any comments?
The Xbox runs at ATA33 (NOT ATA133), so anything faster is pointless but it's pretty hard find a ATA33 HD Western Digital seem to have the biggest problem with locking. You can see a list of lockable/non-lockable HD's here. If you cannot lock your HD, you cant boot the Xbox with the mod-chip off (so no XboxLive). The Xbox cannot make use of a large buffer so don't worry too much over 2MB or 8MB. I doubt there will be a Xbox modding sub-forum, the only people interested seem to be you, me and M_D_K .
is this the drive uve got nutech? http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-info3-info.asp?&m=y&quicklinx=2GZ2 on the subject of a subforum i think it would get more than 3 people posting on it. Especially once people realise what an xbox can do. eg linux, media player etc.
Yup, nice find . The drive is perfect for the Xbox, it runs cool, fairly quiet (not much louder than the stock drive) and locks easily.
