I have seen many people make off handed references to using a xbox as a frontend, but I have a few questions, becuase this seems too good to be true... (just a few questions, thank you for your time)

I understand that you need a good processor in the frontend, as it does most of the work (playback of video etc.) so is the xbox's 733 mhz enough?
What does the playback look like? Does it respond quickly to the remote?
How did you set it up? I know there is a Mythtv-XBOX distribution out there, but does it work well?
As far as I know, the backend and frontend need to be running the same verison of Mythtv? What version does the Mythtv-XBOX distribution install?
Has anyone tried the network boot option on the xbox, or would that be a waste?
I am going to guess no, but it worth a try, will Knoppmyth load on the xbox?
And last, for now, can you still play xbox games on it?

It seems like the perfect frontend, "relatively" quite, quick boot up, and dual usage if it can still play games. If not, $150 front end is hard to beat... I must be missing something...

Couple of answers for you!



its ok, sometimes its a little choppy, but all in all its good, i have 3 xbox frontends in my settup, a master backend and a slave backend (connected to my main tv)



The playback is very nice, the xbox has a great graphics chip on it, so tv out is amazing - sometimes it can be a little slow to respond to the remote, but all in all it is very good.



it works great, im in the process of writing a tutorial (with screen shots) and its almost done. but you can get the instructions here http://bit.blkbk.com/ in the mean time.



yes they do need to be running the same version



it installs the latest for the debs. currently 18.1



havent tried it, sorry pal.

I am going to guess no, but it worth a try,



No



yes, mythxbox installs on the e partition, (this is if you have a modchip installed)

I use XBMC on my xbox and the XBMCMythTV python script to connect to my MythTV backend. Everything works real well. I actualy perfer the XBMC Myth interface to the MythTV interface. (To be fair. When I setup my Myth Backend I set it up to use the XBMC scipt as my front end and have not used the regular myth front end much.) I just recently updated my KnoppMyth install from R5V12 to R5A16. The XBMCMythTV script keeps getting better with more options being added all the time.

thats awesome, i havent touched the python scripts for the longest time, what is the link to the latest release?

Search for XBMC on sourceforge. You will see the link to the XBMC Myth project. You will then need to get the information to check it out of CVS. I would post a link but I do not know what the rules about posting links are.

Enjoy....

cool, i actually found it the other night, just forgot to post a nevermind...

Thanks!

Thanks for the info. I've been pulling my hair out trying to get my Xbox frontend setup to work over component on my HDTV. This was much easier.

Later,
Gonz

To the guy who's got xbmcMythtv up and running, I have two questions:

1.) How did you set up Live TV? I've got Samba exporting /dev/video, but I don't think that does it, which makes sense, seeing as how I've never heard of exporting a *file* (or, for that matter, device). Do I have to export /dev as something, then open "\\mythtv\dev\video" or something? When I have it exported, how do I put that path in my xbmcmythtv settings?

2.) Is it possible to add a button to the front page of XMBC, or better yet, to my Evolution X dashboard that will run XBMCMythTV? I mean, does XBMC have the ability to run a python script as a launch argument? It would be nice if I could add something like this to the evox.ini file:




I guess if that's not an option yet, I'll have to hunt down the XBMC homepage and make a suggestion.

I've never used xbmc, but in general exporting is used in conjunction with nfs just like sharing is with samba, because in the config file you
export /directory/name

also in knoppmyth the live tv files themselves reside in /cache, but your frontend program would still have understand the mythtv language to talk to the backend. I don't thing standard xbmc does, but I believe the guy above was talking about a special version of xbmc that is made to talk to a mythtv backend.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I think I can field this one.

1. I had to share out the video folder with all the .nuv files for playing back the saved programming (obviously), but as Xsecrets said, you also have to share out /cache/cache. At least that's where my live tv file is created. I didn't find this documented anywhere, so I did a locate *.nuv while watching live TV and found it there. So basically, I have to entries in my smb.conf and entered them into XBMCMythTV.

2. I'm not sure how to add it to the Evox menu, but there is documentation about how to add it to the XBMC menu. This is from the README that comes with XBMCMythTV:



This will put it under programs from the main menu. It's not as nice as having a big friendly button like Videos or Music, but it gets the job done.

Hope this helps,
Gonz

K i finally got my tutorial up and going for adding full blown mythtv to your xbox, and editing evox to add the new menu item. If i missed something, please let me no!

enjoy

http://www.controlaltdeleted.com/xbox/content/view/53/27/

Thanks for posting the instructions.

I don't understand why I would want to have the media storage on an NFS share from the server. If the Xbox is used as a frontend for live tv, recorded playback, music & dvd playback, do I need to use an NFS share vs. local media storage?

Thanks

thought i would update the link..

http://www.controlaltdeleted.com/xbox/xbox_tutorials/myth_tv_related_information/how_to_install_mythtv_on_your_xbox.html

enjoy

And that I did (till 3am this morning :)
I do have a question or two though, and maybe the odd remark :)

I dl-ed the dist 1.1.0, burned it to DVD (using DVD Decrypter), launched it and... it failed with I/O errors. So I (not having read the manual :) dl-ed the 1.1.4 version from sourceforge, again burned it to DVD and that one worked.

Unfortunately, once I got to the installing mythtv-xbox part, the isntaller told me that it _needed_ 1.1.0 (as is mentioned inthe readme :) and exit-ed. That was at 3am this morning, so I'll give dl the 1.1.0 version and buring it another go tonight to see if I have more luck this time.

I first mucked around with accessing the booted debian using putty (changing ip-addresses etc), but finally decided to attach the keyboard to the box.
This works a lot easier and faster btw, so if you have a choice, use a keyboard on the xbox instead of using the remote (putty) option.

I assume the booted debian can not query the ip-settings of the xbox and therefor they have to be set by hand ?

Now come the comments on the (great, really ! :) install manual;

It says you have to execute the command;

'ifconfig eth0 inet 192.168.1.9 netmask 255.255.255.0'

but in the example below it the ip-address 192.168.1.107 is used.
The comment below mentions that the subnetmask is 192.168.1.107, my guess is that it should say that 192.168.1.* is your subnetmask (technically it's 192.168.0.0 I think) and the .1.107 should be changed accordingly.
I used the ip-address that my router usually hands out to the Xbox, and this worked fine.
BTW; IIRC the putty session is ended as soon as the ifconfig is succesfully executed ? Might be a worthwhile addition to the manual too.

When setting up the route table in debian it says to use;

'route add default gw 192.168.1.1'

I assume(d) that 192.168.1.1 is your network router, in any case it might again worth mentioning that the ip-address of a router should be used or otherwise a reference to a page where it is explained how to connect your xbox to your computer and to the internet (something which this manual assumes it is).

As mentioned above, this is as far as I got yesterday.
I did read the manual entirely though, and I have some questions;

1) What consequence does selecting NFS server for media storage have ?
Does this mean I have to do some extra tweaking at the backend (install NFS packages, configure NFS to openup certain mount points, create mount points) ?
I'm fairly new to actually tweaking/installing linux, so what maybe a no-brainer for some could very well be something I've never heard of :)

2) Can a DNS-name be used for the backend instead of a fixed ip-address ?

3) Do the network settings have to be entered ?
Is it not possible to have the application use the ip-address handed out by a DHCP server ?
If they don't have to be entered, is it ok to leave those fields blank ?

4) Why are files copied from the E: drive to the F: drive ?
They are not moved but only replicated on F:

5) Is it possible to remove the copied files from E: ?

6) Can _all_ files be moved to F: ?

I think that's about it.
If I can find the time I'll be back at the xbox trying again tonight :)

BTW, did I already mention that I think it's a great manual ? :)

Anne.

Anne,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, i have been working like a made man as of late. Thank you for your kind words on the walkthrough, and ive started to update some of the steps as you have mentioned. here are the answers to your questions:




Basically, no you dont select a NFS server, but if you do the results are better - i choose to do it on mine, simply because i had an NFS export on my backend exporting my /myth/video dir, i wanted my xbox to be able to use the videos in there, and view them.


i would assume yes, never actually tried it myself. try it and see what it does for you (sorry if this is the brush off answer, but its the truth!)

3

once again, for the simplicty of networking in my house, i always enter an ip on any given equipment (static ips) so i know what is what - in this situation, its up to you, kinda like the last answer, i dont know if you have to setup one.



They are copied for organizing thats all, you can edit your evox and launch the file by redirecting them to the e drive if you wish - since i have all my apps on the f drive in my xbox setup, i choose the f drive - and i remove those 4 files off of e (even tho they dont take much space)



yes, just leave the 2 big ones, the swap and the rootfs.



no, and yes - the linux.cfg file is setup to look for the files on the e drive, you could edit that file to have it boot from f, - however i have never done this YMMV.


I have also just noticed that there is now a new error in the script, as some of the nonstable US sites are not accepting connections, so im working it out and ill update the walkthrough tonight...