XBMP briefly reviewed by Tom's hardware

[Gamester17]

tom's hardware guide (probably the most famous computer hardware site on the internet) has posted a very brief article about the most current standalone "multi-talented multi-media" appliances for the living room. it shortly compares the multimedia capabilities of northq nq5000, kiss dp-500, cd3o c300 and an xbox running xbox media player with the conclusion that "the scope of functions offered by a modified xbox has little or no competition". sadly they misquoted a price of $289 (€300) for a modded xbox which will give people a false impression, as today you can practically mod an xbox for free via software, alternatively there are always cheap modchips what will do the trick for under $20. in the end one is left imagining what the people at tom's hardware would have to say if they wrote a full review of xbmc instead of xboxmediaplayer, (as our successor of xbmp, xbox media center has already surpassed it's predecessor in more ways than one)

link to the full review: www.tomshardware.com

[Gamester17]

some correction for that article: multi-talented multi-media for the living room

no pun intended (really, it's a great article) but the piece has some wrong information about the xbox that i would like to correct. to me it reads like whoever wrote it was a beginner to xbox modding and these things are easy to get wrong then so it's understandable.

firstly, evolutionx (a.k.a. evox) is not a must, it's only recommended if you primary use the xbox for gaming, if you however use the xbox mostly for multimedia then you want xboxmediaplayer or xboxmediacenter installed as your dashboard (that means that the xbox boots directly into xboxmediaplayer/xboxmediacenter, which takes around 10 seconds).

the comment "playback of svcds with their own menus is not yet possible" is misleading as playback of svcd/vcd are supported, it's just not the menus that are supported.

the comment "sadly, switching to another soundtrack does not work directly but is only possible via a menu item" is not true, switching to another audio stream in a video can in xbmp/xbmc also be done from the osd (on screen display) during video playback. microsoft also has a osd with the same function during playback of dvd-video, (which btw can also be done from xbmp only it does not yet fully support menus on dvd movies, it's has only been partially implemented yet).

also note that the built-in 8gb harddrive provided by default with the xbox can easily be replaced (if you want) with a new harddrive (ata ide) in any size, (limited to max 2tb which your unlike to reach as so big hdd's are not yet available). of course most people are satisfied by playing media files from the network instead but the option it there.

the terms "xbox media player" and "xbox media center" are also mixed around in the article as it's important not to confuse the three (yes three) with each other, the writer of the article uses "xbox media player" in reference to both 'xbmp www.xboxmediaplayer.com' and microsoft default xbox dashboard with dvd and cdda playback capabilities, the article also references "xbox media center" when it should ready say "microsoft xbox media center extender kit", so not confused with 'xbmc / xboxmediacenter www.xboxmediacenter.com', the successor of 'xbmp / xbox media player'.

another (big!) note is that "xbox media player" will very soon be replaced by 'xbmc / xboxmediacenter www.xboxmediacenter.com' (from same developers) and it's really too bad that it was not tested instead of xbmp as xbmc is so much more impressive even though it's still under heavy development to get it ready for a v1.0 release. xbmc is aiming to be much more flexible and also much more user-friendly than xbmp ever was/is.

finally, the writer of the article quote $289 (€300) as the price of an xbox including modifications, that is way of, a brand new xbox can be bought from amazon.com for $179.99 (+ a dvd-remote for $23.99 which isn't needed but recommended, non-microsoft dvd-remote are also available for less than half that prize), and the modification can come to anything in a range from free (for a software hack mod) to $50 (for a top-of-the-line modchip), but the average mods cost around $20 for a solder-on mod and around $30 for a non-solder mod which anyone could install in less than 30 minutes. i say that brings the maximum total to $250 but know that microsoft is expected to drop the price of the actual xbox console from $179.99 to $129.99 (£99.99 in the uk) in the near future.

again, i really hope no one takes offence, i only wanted to help and do not mean above in a bad way at all. i'm i great fan and everyday visitor of tomshardware.com.

ps! personally i would really like to see a full review of xbmc on tomshardware.com someday, we can only hope and wait to see

[Butcher]

nice to see an article of tom's usual calibre there then (i.e. low :p)

[macsat]

as a small comment to gamester.

where i do agree in more or less all you say, and where i do think that xboxmediacenter is way superiour to any other media solution available today, there is one lille thing you must have overseen.

if you are indeed a daily reader of thg, you will know that they have always only reviewed things that are released - never betas.

the same was a fact back when they did some codec comparisons, where they always waited for divx to hit "release" before using it :-)

...just a few words to fill the forum.

macsat