Farewell XBOX
XBMC (XBMP really) started as a program for modified XBOX consoles. In the following years, XBMC has grown into a multi-platform, multi-architecture media center that runs on most standard hardware. The hardware and legal limitations of the XBOX were always a concern and the Team has instead focused on running on the hardware that most people already have.
The last official release for the XBOX by the XBMC team was Atlantis, over 18 months ago. Since then, one brave soul (Arnova) has been merging code from the main codebase into the XBOX branch in our repository. Because there were many users out there that took advantage of these updates, we had no problem with this.
But times have changed. The XBOX has hard limits for what it can handle. Some users are satisfied with these limits, and we encourage them to use XBMC there if they are happy. But it is a popular misconception that official XBOX development is still taking place by the team, so we have decided to set it free. We have enough on our plates already, and worrying about a deprecated platform just increases our workload. A few days ago the XBOX branch was finally removed from our subversion repository.
But loyal XBMC for XBOX users fear not! In addition to his role as an XBMC developer, Arnova plans to continue development on the XBOX — just not here. You can find the new project’s home at sourceforge. We’re leaving it in his hands to decide how to handle the project’s administration. How he manages the forum, bug tracker, scm, developers, etc. is up to him. In other words, don’t complain to us ;-)
In order to help users to find relevant help and discussion, we will be making the XBOX section of our forum read-only on Monday, June 07. It may be moved in the future, but for now it will stay for reference. This also means the end of XBOX support in the wiki and IRC. Arnova has requested a snapshot of the wiki that he may host if he wishes as we begin to prune XBOX-specfic information from ours.
We wish Arnova and the project the best of luck as we bid a fond farewell to a big part of our past.
Thank you XBMC team for giving us something so wonderful.
I currently use my XBOX w/XBMC because I cannot find a graphics-card for my 32″ CRT w/5.1 w.o. vga/dvi with as good of a picture as my RGB XBOX. The only alternatives are S-video and composite, which is lightyears behind RGB.
There has been a lot of scene released movies lately with 720p xvid that can be played back on the XBOX. Some releases chop at full resolution (no black bars), but then I’ll just take the 480p xvid release. The quality, especially on 720p movies, is magnificent.
So for people who want to play back HD on the XBOX, some recommended search phrases from me are “brrip xvid”, “bdrip xvid” “480p xvid”, “720p xvid”, “xvidhd” in your local torrent search engine. That should yield you some decent results.
Nice. This is also a good ting for us xbox users.
Now we can consentrate on fixing bugs and make it faster on xbox, and xbmc can devlope the multiplatform to work for xbox920…
Hopefully we will also get a addons-service, in combination with on of the other updaters we got.
Aye, XBMC was teh whole reason as to why i got involved in the scene. I am saddened to see it leave its original roots, but i am pleased to know that Arnova will be taking over. I applaud and appreciate him still working on it alone for the past couple of years, and give epic thanks for picking up the project. You guys started the fire of my first mod and gave me the inspiration to turn my Plain Black Xbox, into a Blue LED God. Thank you for everything.
@ the whiners,
Don’t complain. Team XBMC and Arnova DO NOT owe you anything; you do not pay for this free project and i seriously doubt you donate cash to it or contribute code. STFU.
Xbox is still going strong. Say day and it shall be missed.
Thanks to Team XBMC for 7 years of running the best media software ever to grace any living room, ever. I still use XBMC on my old 1.3 Xbox just about every day.
oh my god!! u put a scare in me. i thought it said farewell xbmc.
anyway great work guys. nice to see someone trying to keep it alive. even microsoft should thank you for increasing the sale of their hardware. the xbox will always be remembered as the ultimate media box that u also could play some games on.
xbmc must be one of the greatest software out there. i but it on every pc that is connected to a big screen and all my laptops so i always have something to fill dead time with.
I originally started out with XBMC on XBOX and it was awesome, now I have an ASRock 330 instead and it is ALOT better. I still have 2 XBOXs for my parent’s two TVs and when I have to use them I definitely see the hardware limitation on the XBOX.
Guess it was only time til it was discontinued.
This is a very sad day. IMHO the xbox is the most important format even if it can’t handle full HD.
I’ve got an HDTV but still operate 5 original xboxes running XBMC and their function to our household is indespensible.
All of our tv shows in whichever language we wish – we watch a lot of spanish.
I have one in my bedroom ,one in my brothers, one in the dining room, and two in my termtime flat. We spend on average 3/4 hours a day using it and it has all-but completely replaced normal tv.
This project will be a painful loss!
@TheBoxMan
It’s not a sad day at all. It’s a very good day, now both platforms can finally be optimized for each without the cruft from the other. Be it all the now uneeded code in Xbox branch can be removed freeing up MUCH needed resources and for non-Xbox it means no longer having to worry about it breaking some old code.
I hasn’t died. It just moved :)
http://www.xbmc4xbox.org hit the forums, participate, help us keep it alive for many years to come
Yeah, it’s actually been more active in the last couple of weeks than it’s been in the last couple of years :-), so try on the new home if you still use the old Xbox.
Never thought my xbox would outlive xbmc (in the sense of continuing content), farewell xbmc.
I cant believe this. I was reading a post last night the 7th and was going to respond and fell asleep. Wake up the next day the 8th to find out the forum is closed. Amazing timing. I never got to do that final post. The xbox is still alive and well for me. For those who still use it I feel it has a lot of life still left. I have been getting ipod 720p h264 avc rips and they are amazing and play well on the xbox with a few video setting changes. Some play a lil slow but its not that bad. I am so GREATFUL to ARNOVA for continuing support of the orginal XBMC created hardware. I want to keep using it till its dead at least. I just replaced the power supply in mine and its still going. Plus I have 3 others anyway. Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!! Also if we ever unlocked the use of the GPU in the xbox to decode video all of our problems with the hardware limits would be GONE. My friend has a settop box with a 300mhz cpu and can play back 1080p video fine. The xbox could to if this code was ever released and someone was to put that in an update of XBMC.
@captain_obvious
I am using a RGB scart connection to my 32″ CRT, but this from a linux based htpc with a Geforce 9400GT based card. Indeed vastly superior picture compared to Composite or S-Video, especially on my TV which has really really fussy composite and S-video input.
To achieve this, I have built a cable connecting to the vga-port of the graphics according to this: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/RGB_Scart#Nvidia_Cable
Observe that the TV cannot view normal VGA-signal, so no BIOS or other stuff will work with this cable, but the X-server can be configured with a custom modeline. I use the following:
ModeLine “PAL1024″ 19.199999 1024 1041 1131 1228 576 582 587 625 interlace -hsync -vsync
just wanted to say thanks for XBMC for xbox, i haven’t actually updated mine in ages . but i still use it every single day, im using it now.
there are alot of reasons why i still stick with xbox version than use pc. but one that i love the most is using the xbox controller on xbmc.
i just love using the xbox controller for xbmc. eg, analogue stick seeking. everything just feels so streamlined using an xbox controller over a normal remote control or mouse and keyboard. gotta love the sleep function.