I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts about XBMC (http://www.xbmc.org)?  XBMC, for those that don't know, started out as XBox Media Center, which was a hack for the original XBox (not the 360) which offered a full-featured media center interface, along with full support of VOB files (amongst many other file formats).  It also features really good skinning capability.  It's open-source and the project has continued along (with many people still using first-gen XBox's quite happily).  About a year ago, someone came out with an AppleTV skin for it, but there are also MCE 2005 and Vista Media Center styled skins available.  More recently, the main development focus of the main application source code has been on porting it over to OS X  and Linux.  But...very, very recently a few folks have started porting it over to Windows!

I'm guessing that the source code is C++, so if there are any talented developers reading this, head on over to the Windows development forum for XBMC here and see if you can help out:
http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=58

If you're not a developer and just want to keep tabs on the progress, you can check out the user forum here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=59

FWIW, I'm no expert on XBMC.  Over the course of this past weekend I happened across some videos/snapshots of the AppleTV UI running on an XBox and got the fever for shopping for an old XBox so that I could try my hand at hacking it.  One of the nice things about it is that it allows for a mix of inexpensive extenders (e.g., an old XBox) for certain rooms in your house along with more-capable/expensive extenders (e.g., a full-blown Windows PC) for the main viewing room where you might want to have a Blu-ray player, for example.

I'd be curious to hear from other folks here who have personal experience with both XBMC and Vista Media Center.  I'd like to hear your thoughts about the pros/cons of each.

I've been looking at similar - a "cheap" XBOX to run XBMC an use as an extender.

My understanding is that it wouldn't work as an extender with XBMC (i.e. wouldn;t get the MCE interface, and be able to watch live TV, use the guide, etc), but you could load up the MS Extender software if you could find a copy.

I also understood that it wouldn't work with Vista?

I'm far from an expert on this, so don't trust me as the final word on it, but...

- XBMC is an open-source application, not made by Microsoft, and it's not available for the XBox 360, just the old hacked XBox (which you can buy used at GameStop or EBGames for $60).

- I believe you are correct that you can't access guide data, schedule recordings, etc., but you should be able to point it at a directory on your primary computer that has Vista Media Center (or any DVR app) and is recording the shows there.  You won't be able to play HDTV shows, though (possibly 720p?).

- It shouldn't matter what OS you're running on your main computer.  It should support XP or Vista (and likely Linux and Mac OS as well).  The XBox running XBMC will be an "extender".  Actually, it's more than just an extender, because you can, if you so choose, store your videos and music directly on the XBox itself and not link it to any PC at all.

- There are several skins available for XBMC, including the standard one which is supposedly pretty decent, an AppleTV (1st gen) / Front Row 2nd gen lookalike, XP Media Center, and Vista Media Center skins, as well as other unique skins.

XBMC has recently been ported to Mac OS X.  It's still early in development, but supposedly pretty workable already.  If you've got some money to burn, this is a nice platform because of the Mac Mini which makes for a small, quiet HTPC.

XBMC for Windows is a harder sell, because most versions of Vista sold already come with Vista Media Center, which is very nice and has DVR functionality built in.  But, it's still appealing for a few reasons:
1) There are probably some feature advantages XBMC has over Vista Media Center, though I personally don't know what they might be.  Anyone?
2) It's skinnable.  The AppleTV skin, in particular, is appealing to me.
3) You can put it on a cheap old XBox and have an extender in more rooms of your house than you might otherwise be able to afford to have one in, all with a common UI.

I think we should be clear on what an "extender" is.  As I understand it, an Extender connects to a MediaCenter PC via a Remote Desktop Connection.

All boiled down, this means that you get THE media center interface from your PC running on the Extender, and you are remotely controlling the PC from the Externder,  This is why you can view the guide and watch Live TV on an extender.

I think that XBMC lets you open files over the network, but it's not an extender.

If XBMC can play TV recorded by MCE, without conversion, that might do the trick...

Ah, there's the problem.  You're thinking of the word "extender" as being synonymous with Microsoft's "official" use of the term "Extender", whereas I'm using it in the generic sense of any set-top box that allows for remotely accessing various media content.  The XBMC software is not an "official" Microsoft Extender.  That is why I posted this in the "MCE Alternatives" forum.

To the best of my knowledge, you cannot remotely schedule television recordings using XBMC.  OTOH, unlike the official Microsoft Extender functionality offered for the XBox 360 or other official Microsoft Extender set-top boxes, you *can*:

a) Use it on an old, cheap XBox (as well as more capable platforms as Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and soon to be Windows) for free.
b) Play/stream VOB files (uncompressed ripped DVDs).
c) Skin the UI in various ways, including replicating the look and feel of the original AppleTV UI (which is, presently, the UI used by Front Row for Leopard).

I'm sure that there are other advantages that I'm missing.

I used 2 modded xbox's (1 modchip and 1 softmod) for over 3 years as streaming devices in my livingroom and bedroom. They're what got me into whole house distribution in the first place. I found them to be fairly reliable and a good inexpensive way to stream content to SD TV sets. At the time I started, ther weren't many commercial solutions that could hold a candle to what xbmc could do, and being a bame machine in the first place, the way the xbox connected and interfaced with a av setup was easy to do and looked good with the other av components.

Once I built a media center rig, I found haveing to convert it's recorded files to mpeg for xbox viewing a little bit of a hassle but not too bad. However after upgrading to HD tv's I found the xbox's lacking. Even with the addition of RGB cables the picture was somewhat soft. The needed Updates to XBMC to get it to interact properly with WHS and or Vista was a pain too. I'm now 100% PC for my distribution.

I do however use the software, media portal, for my "externder" pc's running on top of xp home. I find it to be an excellent replacement for xbmc and I vaguely remember reading that the guy that started media portal for pc is the same guy that started xbmc. I seem to remember reading that once he realised he couldn't get an xbox to input video he started working on the pc software.

I no longer record tv using a pc due to the shortcomings in tuner options for Hi Def and the massive improvements the industry has made in receivers supplied by Sat and cable companies. I do for free, with my Dish VIP622  what it costs alot of $$ to do on a pc, If you are on cable and can use a cable card, which I'm not.  I do however have a large catalog of stored movies and tv recordings, plus music and pix. If I still had all SD tv's I'd still be using modded xbox's and xbmc.

jkramer5, unlike you, I'm brand new to the XBox as "media center extender" idea.  I knew that such a thing existed, but I never owned an XBox and figured that it would most certainly be too outdated to be useful.  A few semi-recent (?) developments have caused it to appear on my radar, and may also make it an interesting option for a lot of others:

1) You mentioned hard modding some of your XBox's.  As you also know (and noted) they can also be softmodded easily now.

2) You can pick up a classic XBox for $60 from GameStop/EBGames.  And they have TONS of them.  While there, you'd also want/need a used IR sensor and remote (mostly for the sensor as you'd likely want to use your own universal remote) for $10.  The component cable connection pack (w/optical out) is harder to find, but after checking three GameStops I found a used one for $5.

3) XBMC 2.0 (released 9/2006) which added a lot of features, improved codec support, and a new skinning engine.  Along with that, several interesting skins became available, including an AppleTV clone which looks very impressive.

Last night I hooked up my newly purchased, and yet-to-be-modded, XBox and was impressed at how quiet it is.  Before buying it, I found some posts online that indicated that the 1.6 version of the XBox contained a heatsink in place of one of the fans.  It's far quieter than the XBox 360 I tried out, and definitely quiet enough for this type of application.  I'm hoping to have the time tonight to softmod it and install XBMC.

On your post about what an "extender" is, you're right - but perhaps we should avoid using the word "extender" to mean anything other than an Official Extender.  Maybe "Streamer" is a better name.  Anyway, we've cleared that up now...

I'd be very interested if it's possible to load the Extender ;) software onto an XBOX running XBMC.  I'm told that it is, but to keep it cheap, I'd want to do it myself...

One other question - would an XBMC be able to play the dvr.ms files without conversion?

I am looking at XBMC myself after picking up an original XBOX for £20 (Game are selling reconditioned XBOX's).  The XBMC mod seems to do the job very well and as I am not into HD yet makes perfect sense.

I am looking forward to modding my XBOX and if all goes wrong it has only cost me £20.  If all goes well then what a great cheap solution it is.

Cafe.Racer, I believe it can play mvr.ds files, but I don't have any to try.  I'm sure it wouldn't be able to play any high-def ones, though.

For high-def, it sounds like people have had success playing 720p XVID files.

stepfaul, for me, so far so good.  I performed my first softmod and installed both XBMC and the xTV (AppleTV) skin.  Over wired ethernet, I've test-streamed portions of several DVDs.  My preliminary opinion is that PQ seems excellent.  If additional testing goes well, I see myself buying 1-2 more of these and using them in other rooms of the house.  Noise is a bit higher than I initially thought (my initial impression of it being nearly silent was probably colored by my experience with a very loud XBox 360), but I think it's probably comparable to my HP Slimline in sound level and definitely usable as a set-top-box.  One other nice thing about the XBox (as compared to a full-blown computer) is that it boots up in just a few seconds, so I expect to just turn it off/on as needed.  Oh yeah, one more advantage...if you do like to play games, there are tons of used XBox games out there.  I picked up several from GameStop yesterday; some for as little as $2 (a used Halo 2 commanded a hefty $20).

One last thing worth noting...it looks like XBMC for Windows is coming along nicely.  As a developer (not C++), I know that an impressive amount of development can often be done quickly, with the last 10% (bug fixes, harder-to-accomplish tasks, etc.) taking a lot longer, and it looks like they're in that first phase where in a short period of time they've ported it and gotten it working, but there are probably still a lot of bugs.

For me, I already bought/installed a Blu-ray drive into my HP Slimline, and I'd hate for that to go to waste.  If XBMC for Windows is workable, I could see myself using it with the AppleTV skin (for consistency and because I like the way that UI works) in my living room.  I'd swap over to PowerDVD when playing a Blu-ray disc.  If I invest in an HDHomeRun, I'd also need to swap over to Vista Media Center to schedule recordings (or perhaps just do that via a web-based interface).  I'd need to hunt down some software that will do some post-recording-transcoding to convert that HDTV programming to an XBox-friendly 720p XVID format.  I'm not sure if such an automated transcoding solution exists, but I think I've read about others doing something similar.

stepfaul:

I am looking at XBMC myself after picking up an original XBOX for £20 (Game are selling reconditioned XBOX's).  The XBMC mod seems to do the job very well and as I am not into HD yet makes perfect sense.

I am looking forward to modding my XBOX and if all goes wrong it has only cost me £20.  If all goes well then what a great cheap solution it is.

I've seen them going cheap on eBay - but £20 is silly!  If you can walk into Game and pick one up for that, it's almost throw away money!

 

I think  might be having a play.

I got mine about 8 weeks ago, I phoned around different local Game stores and all quoted me different prices £30, £25 blah, blah.

My advice would be to phone around local stores and see what is about, if memory serves me I paid £25 for an xbox crystal and one controller.

On the Game website the cheapest I can find is £35 which is here http://www.game.co.uk/Xbox/Hardware/Console/~r320931/Xbox-Console-Contains-One-Controller/default.aspx?added=334009 but do phone around first.

Did I mention the 1 year guarantee as well I suppose this is useless as the thing is to be modded.

 

I have been using a hard-modded Xbox for about 3 years, and I find it to be aweseome for what you get. The only shortcoming is that it cannot stream live TV or guide data, but it does evertyhing else quite well.

It does play DVR.MS, in both SD and HD formats (although HD is a little choppy on my 10/100 network).

Overall, the featuers are perfect for my bedroom (where I will not do any recording of TV) becasue you can add the recorded TV share from your VMC PC and watch the recordings through the Xbox.

Other than buiying a true Extender, I don't think there any a better bang for your buck streaming device that also allows you to play tons of old school games! (I installed the SNES emulator and have hundreds of old schoool games I cna play at any time)

There are also tons and tons of skins and 3rd party applications (Caller ID, music streamining, Apple TV, etc.) that all work quite well.

And yes, it was created by the same individual who started Media Portal. Media Portal is a superb application, but unfrotunately lacks some of the polish of VMC so I have yet to use it on my main family room TV.

Steinwsay

I can't wait for XBMC for Windows to mature. I've been using it on the Xbox1 for years now. It's hands down my favorite media center for playing back all my saved music, movies and tv shows. It can play every format imaginable and has an awesome library feature to catalog all your media. You can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8amNvWnGrew

The creator of XBMC Erwin Beckers also knowns as Frodo created a "media Center" for windows known as MediaPortal because of the limitations in the original XBox. in the begingin Mediaportal was a port to windows but now it is completly rewriten.

you can check it out here
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaPortal