This is one for case actually...

I've had my xbox chipped, had a hugggge 120gb drive put in it and was thinking about writing a pure MPC player for it. Now the first question is: does anyone else think it's worth doing? Secondly, what features would people want and thirdly, would that nice Mr Case mind me hacking up his winamp plugin to get it done?

Winamp on the pc is great but I refuse to have a computer in the living room. Trouble is, when friends are visiting and we're smoking... erm... cigarettes.. it would be nice to be in the living room, where the xbox is. If I got a nice simple UI going and routed it thru the decent amp rather than the crap one thats attached to my pc it would be fantastic. What does anyone else think?

I'd have to only release the source, to avoid any complicated sdk-related M$ issues, so y'all would have to get a compiled version some other way but...

Seany

mari-juwana is bad...mmmmmkay....

Sticky icky ooh wee!

lol! But seriously... is this a goer then?

I'd certainly be interested in this. I also have an xbox capable of running homebrew software I've added a bigger hard drive, and plan to use it as a general purpose media station. A standalone MPC player would be interesting, but I'm starting to think about something more general, like installing xbox-linux and just using mppdec...

IMO, the ideal solution would be for someone to create a nice frontend (full screen, etc, not requiring X) under linux which would interface with many audio decoders to support multiple formats. Perhaps such a program could use xmms plugins, or perhaps even xmms itself could be used and X could be bypassed (GTK+ with DirectFB perhaps... though I don't know if it's possible on the xbox yet).

The advantage to this is that it would be more all-purpose and could be used on other devices besides the xbox (ps2 runs linux for example...). It would be a great project for just small hi-fi pc's in general.

Another advantage to this approach is that there would be no legal issues with the Microsoft XDK stuff..

For people not wanting to run a full blown linux install, maybe a minimalistic media-player oriented (Xbox or otherwise) linux distribution could be created. There's certainly already a lot of good software out there that could be made use of this way.

I know what you mean about the linux bit, but i just want something simple to run off the evox menu - and not something that gives a 'pc like' appearance, with debug messages flying past and whatnot.

Also bear in mind that the linux distros on the xbox can't address the hardware properly, specifically the hardware acceleration (sound and gfx) - using the xbox system files I can use directsound which makes converting case' code so much easier.

So i'm gonna do it anyway - so does anyone have any suggestions? Making it mpc only makes things far easier. For a start as mpcs tend to be made with more care than mp3s, files are more likely to be properly tagged. This means I can have a simple scrolling album view (think along the lines of the mame-x rom selection screeen) which then drills down to a track listing.

thanks for the feedback!

seany

Sure you can make any modifications you want, all MPC decoding software is under LGPL. I personally don't own any consoles, but your idea sounds great. Good luck

Cheers Case! I will obviously credit you. The decoder has been relatively stable hasn't it? I only ask in case there are big mods to it coming up which would render my work redundant. Otherwise i'll get cracking.

Ta,

seany

Better credit Andree and Frank, they have done most of the code.


Winamp plugin's decoder hasn't changed since gap problems were removed, it should be bug free. It will be updated when SV8 comes, but you don't need to worry about that for quite some time.

Of course all of this could be hidden, and this was kind of assumed in what I was talking about. It's fairly trivial to hide Linux's initialization between a nice GUI. The software to do this is already out there in fact..

I'm also almost certain that it's possible to use the xbox-linux bootloader under evox as a menu item.



Video acceleration might still be a problem, I'm not quite certain. I'm almost certain that sound support is working under Linux though.



MPC only makes things easier, but I still think Linux would be the easiest choice. You already have pretty much all the software written, you just need a nice frontend and some configuration to make it all functional and pretty.

Also, with Linux, you could get other people to help develop it. With a native .xbe, unless you have the XDK (which you should only have if you're an XBOX developer, which 99.9% of the people interested in this wouldn't be), you're out of luck really.

And how are you going to distribute the binaries? Nobody will even be able to link to them off here... And nobody will be able to compile them without the XDK...

Anyway, do what you like, just my $.02

Cheers dibrom.

Your points are all completely valid. But I want to make a native xbe because... well... just because! I think it fits what I want to do for my own xbox and if someone else finds it useful then great. Also, having a .xbe in the region of ~100k rather than a (small but still larger) linux distro leaves more room for tunes.

I think the real problem is that m$ don't have any support for lone developers who can't pay the dollars. Why can't they do similar to what sony have done with ps2 linux?

Anyway, cheers for the use of the code - i've started coding already! It's gonna be a long night...

seany

Xbox sound processor and mpc = waaw! Its gonna be excellent!

Good luck!

Regardless of approach, I'd definitely like to see MPC playback on the xbox

I would be happy to host them at RareWares.

And I have the XDK, btw...

Regards;

Roberto.

I think this will be an easier task on Dreamcast (I'm a DC fan; what can I say?), since the programming tools are freely available.

I hope MPC playback will happen on older consoles. The decoder is so fast maybe even a SEGA CD can play MPCs . If there are more ways to play MPCs, it'll certainly become more popular than it is now.

GREAT!, I also would rather just a easy_to_use player that some xbox/linux/mpc mumbojumbo

I don't have a XBox but I know there is a XBox Media Player that supports Divx, Xvid and mp3. Couldn't be MPC support added to it?

Doesn’t support XVID & is still missing/needs tweaks the most basic features so highly unlikely they’ll go for MPC but it has gone open source.

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/ib31...=8;t=4348;st=15 is a post about MPC Support in Xbox Media Player.

I think that a MPC Plug-in for Xboxmedia play would be the way to go.

Since XBMP is able to be networked to a PC for playing media files remotely allready.

I currently use XBMP on my xbox to play all my .mp3s from their shared directories.

Adding MPC support would be extremly smooth.


(im not sure if coding a stand alone program to play Musepack files, or a "plugin" for XBMP would be easier. Since i have NO skills on wrighting code.)

-ty1er

I created an MPC player for Sega Dreamcast by putting together various available components, about a year or two ago. Over here they have sources for a Linux kernel module to support the Dreamcast sound hardware. My project was quite small, about 20MB on CD, leaving the rest of the space for files. Future plans included support for reading files over a TCP/IP network using NFS. The plan was to use the hardware for a car player but I never finished it due to lack of time.

The plan was to port the decoder to KallistiOS but was never realized. There is a home site and a SourceForge project with the latest developments over here. In case anyone doesn't know, KOS is a embedded OS and programming interface available for the SEGA Dreamcast and Nintendo GBA.

For the Xbox, using Linux may be your best option, especially since there are hacks for booting Linux without any hardware modifications by exploiting bugs that exist in signed game code.

Great Thing

M$ sponsored Hardware "misused" for "Softwarecummunistic" Player. Thats an great idea. With those u can invite your friends and tell them

"Feel welcome all, to my Open Source Home Theater Juke Game Box"

Why not using the dyne:bolic Linux-Distribution http://dynebolic.org

This Distribution runs on XBOX http://dynebolic.org/manual-in-development...c-a1060.en.html

Most software is collected there and to include an "mpc-softwareplayer" is simple to integrate. :-D LoL

The story is that Msoft loses money on the box in hopes of making it up on software sales.

Although there have been price reductions since the introduction, the hardware is frozen at the performance of a several year old PC. At this point such a machine would have a market value somewhat less than the cost of this box wtih all the protections to be circumvented.

That is dandy and all (I dig the Dreamcast), but having a native application support MPC has a lot of advantages (compared to running linux on the Xbox), just as XBMP has a lot of advantages over a MPC-only player.

A native application is tighter with native Xbox games for instance, meaning you could use MPC for your homebrew native game audio. XBMP (for instance, but really any native homebrew dashboard) also lets you open other native games, that you would not be able to open from linux...

an XMBP plugin is most definatly the way to go. A standalone app would be overkill and unecessary, the xbox contains a very thin hardware abstraction layer, you would be reinventing the wheel over and over again for basic stuff like basic file IO, reading ISO9960 discs, if you go standalone. XBMP already gives you stable, tested file and network low level IO foundations. XBMP in its current form is fast and stable in my experience. It also by far the most supported on the xbox scene, and hence is the only XBOX media player worth supporting, especially since it supports a vast number of formats already, suggesting its plugin architecture is fairly simple and friendly.

Having said that, you could use a very cut down linux distro for playback as mentioned, but that seems like overkill for an audio player.

I allow myself to quote from the Xbox Media Player forum thread on MPC support:


17:52] <Case> there are easy to use decoder sources in in_mpc, cool_mpc or in foobar's MPC decoder
[17:52] <beasteye> cool_mpc=coolplayer?
[17:53] <Case> Cool Edit
[17:53] <beasteye> k
[17:53] <Case> Winamp's decoder is most up-to-date but sources are more confusing because of extra crap
[17:54] <Case> foobar's sources are cleanest as it's API is superior to everything else
[17:54] <Case> and sources are licensed under LGPL so they are freely usable

The Xbox Media Player forum thread on MPC Support is here

hehe, crosslinking in effect. we're still no closer to support for mpc in xbmp afaik.

duplicate effort!

I too own a 1337 modded X-Box... Any news on the progression of said MPC support on the X-Box?

not in XBMP anyway, if there was Im sure PiKe would either post it or tell me to post it since he's part of the XBMP/XBMC team.

sorry to kinda be a dick but you guys are breaking forum rules. one person claimed they had XDK and the only way to have that is if you are a big developer, and I know you aren't (i did my research ) Plus having these chipped xboxes are illegal to IIRC.

Not in Australia

Nor in Brazil.

Besides, I have a XDK. So what? Everybody here knows I'm a warez addict. As long as I don't tell people how to get it nor offer them my copy, everything is fine.

The XDKs are floating around the net, it's not really hard to get if you want.
I have no idea where you live, but here it's certainly not illegal to use a chipped Xbox.

I'm not entirely sure of the legality here in the UK, but i've always been led to belive that its ok to mod the X-Box, but its not ok to copy the games. Besides, what i do with my own X-Box is my own damm choice. I will run homebrew apps if i please

Ok, so no support in xbmp, shame... so what about the original idea of a stand alone mpc playing app? any development on that?

You could always run Linux on the Xbox...

a) Modchips are not illegal. Anywhere.
b) Installing a modchip in your Xbox is not illegal. Anywhere.
c) Certain "hacked" BIOSes used to flash your modchip may or may not be illegal depending on your location and the BIOS in question. This is the only "grey market" aspect of a modchip. Other BIOSes, such as Cromwell, are perfectly legal.
d) It has been possible for about 6 months or so to exploit holes in Microsoft's dash and certain games such as MechAssault and 007 to cause a buffer overflow that allows running of unsigned code such as XboxMediaPlayer without a modchip.

Latest update on this:

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/ib31...=0;&#entry29246

A kind soul has integrated support for musepack into xbmp, but it's not in CVS. Chances are it will be added to XBMC soon, but don't hold your breath (or you may faint) heh

woohoo!

FAO: rjamorim

You said in an earlier post that you would compile and host binarys for an mpc player/plugin... would you be able to do so with the newly developed source code from the CVS HERE?

Well I've lost count how many trimes this thread's been dug up from the grave.

I have the XDK but never tried compiling anything. I also don't have a XBox to test whatever I compile. I'll see what I can do.

There is probably no point. Fresh CVS builds of XBMP float around IRC daily, any build hosting would likely be out of date pretty quickly as both XBMP and XBMC are 'works in progress'.

I'm not sure this has been mentioned before, but here goes:

Thread on XBMC forums

The absolute quickest way for MPC support would be if someone added it to MPlayer and I don't mean using a XMMS plugin. Then we'd get it for sure in the maintained Xbox Player which is XboxMediaCenter and not XboxMediaPlayer

i'm not xbox savvy...

at all (so i don't know how much this helps)

but another method is this:
Ed's Debian ( http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/debian.html )
plus this:
RareWares ( http://rarewares.org/debian.html )


later

@seanyseansean

I'd be willing to stick to xbmp as long as i need to if it had support for mpc.


@rjamorim

I can test anything you compile if that helps. Also if you dont want to host it for obvious reasons, you can PM me and we'll arrange some way of transfer, maybe email

Swell.

I think this is because of the XBMP architecture though it does seem a bit drastic.

I'm kind of curious about this too. It seems to me whatever effort may go into hacking XBMP, could perhaps be spent more effectively, as follows...

why not smash 2 or more flies at the same time??

If mplayer supported Musepack, not only would XBMC probably have support in very little time, but XBMP could possibly also, although many XBMP users seem to be using XBMC, if one looks at the forums/IRC channels alone.

In addition to this, all other software projects that use mplayer, would be able to incorporate Musepack support. It is also much more straightforward to support an update of mplayer than updates of a specific codec, as a seperate patch.

In fact I'll go as far as saying, it's not going to happen, as the main XBMC codec support strategy seems to be (for good reason) through mplayer (search for codec on their forum). See the link (Pike also posted this earlier) http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/foru...=ST;f=4;t=1921;

P.s. I'm dying for Musepack support in mplayer/XBMC. I've a couple of albums laying around right now, but so far I'm holding up, though it's rough

Hehe. Where i come from, we have a similar phrase...

"Why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone?"

On a serious note though, it really doesn't bother me how MPC support is brought to the XBOX, as long as it does! all i want to do is play my MPC's on my XBOX and it doesn't matter to me what method is used!