Xbox as Stand-Alone PVR

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WilliamChgo
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Xbox as Stand-Alone PVR

Post by WilliamChgo »

When I wondered about this a while back, I bounced the idea off the nice folks at SmartXX-- what's the feasibility of an all-in-one-box PVR solution using Freevo and a USB TV-in card?

It was suggested that because the Xbox USB is a 1.1 (and not a 2.0) type, that this setup would be too slow.

You can see the discussion here:
http://www.smartxx.com/forum/thread.php ... d=611&sid=

I think this will be way cool, but what say you about this performance concern?
ShALLaX
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Post by ShALLaX »

I think its a feasible idea. I will at least try it.
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uchuff
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Post by uchuff »

There are working usb 1 solutions, the main issue as i understand it with xbmc was having to write their own low level usb drivers for such a device, i would imagine a linux derivative would make the task more approachable.
ShALLaX
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Post by ShALLaX »

Exactly ;)
The original Xbox adaptation of Gentoo
mandoman
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Post by mandoman »

Any PVR solution for MCE will need some sort
of external MPEG encoder , as the xbox
is too wimpy to handle software mpeg encoding/decoding simultaneously.

Using MCE to view streams from an external myth box
is a sure bet though.

mandoman
nobspangle
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Post by nobspangle »

mandoman wrote:Any PVR solution for MCE will need some sort
of external MPEG encoder
All USB 1.1 TV tuners work this way anyway, as there is not enough bandwidth to send uncompressed video down the cable. It has to be compressed first (generally far too much) The USB 2.0 tuners also compress te video first, but not to such a high degree. USB 2.0 is obviously out of the question on Xbox
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Romulas
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Xbox as Stand-Alone PVR

Post by Romulas »

Since this is my first post I would first just like to thank ShALLaX for his hard work and expertise with GentooX.

I’m currently using a Hauppage WinTV-PVR USB2 with the excellent user space driver found at http://pvrusb2.dax.nu/ and the basically functional GLOTV by Björn Danielsson.

The performance I get with a natively installed GentooX is not going to beat a TiVo but it is functional and you can record alot more TV then you can with a VHS.

Once GentooX is up to version 2.6.x I’ll be trying the http://justiceforall.free.fr/pvrusb2.html drivers and MythTV
ShALLaX
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Post by ShALLaX »

Thanks for the info, ive been looking for a linux-compatible TV card. I'll have to look into getting one of these for Friendtech MCE.
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gizmomelb
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usb DVB-T tuners

Post by gizmomelb »

Hi Shallax,

Great work, I'm very impressed by it!

There are a number of PAL USB 1.0 DVB-T digital TV tuners available in the UK which are supported by Linux (specifically by the Linux DVB drivers):

Twinhan VisionPlus VisionDTV USB-Ter DVB-T Device (VP7041)
KWorld V-Stream XPERT DTV - DVB-T USB
HAMA DVB-T USB device

more info and drivers here:
http://www.linuxtv.org/mailinglists/lin ... 00027.html

hope this is some use/interest?

Gizmomelb
willski
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Another USB 1.1 DVB-T box....

Post by willski »

Hi,

I would also like to use my xbox as a combined frontend and backend. i use a Avermedia AverTV DVB-t USB2.0 box. It is usb 2.0 capable but will deliver the mpeg 2 stream fine through my laptop's usb 1.1 port. Along with an xbox controller -> usb converter it should work fine with it's (2.6.x) kernel driver. Avermedia even supply the linux driver!

Here is the linux info from their website (http://www.averm.co.uk/avermedia/aver/p ... asp?show=2)

"AVerTV DVB-T USB 2.0" is now supported by the Open Source DiBUSB
Linux driver. Instructions for setting up the DiBUSB Linux drivers
could be found at

http://www.wi-bw.tfh-wildau.de/~pboettc ... -usb-howto

Other web pages for your reference:
1. dvb-kernel & dvb-apps - http://linuxtv.org/
2. http://www.wi-bw.tfh-wildau.de/~pboettc ... te=dvb-usb
3. xine - http://xinehq.de/
4. mpeg2dec - http://libmpeg2.sourceforge.net/
5. dvbsnoop - http://dvbsnoop.sourceforge.net/

I would imagine for things to run smoothly memory usage would be at a premium, maybe alternative mysql/qt widget set/libc for embedded systems might help here.

Willski
Romulas
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Still working after all these years

Post by Romulas »

Hello and Welcome

Sounds like you could get this to work pretty well, but just remember you would need to go native for 2.6.x

Let me know if you get MythTV going and then I may we try an upgrade

GLOTV record on 2.4.x still works just fine for me. but its a pain to program so I just let it do its thing and leave it alone, like it still records BBC2 every Sunday night even when there is no Top Gear on.

I still never use it for playback and if MS ever upgrade the Xbox 360 codec files maybe I can use that to view the files......maybe I need to spend some cash and get the PS3 ;-)
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