The Box....

Have just won an auction on Ebay for a used XBox.

I'm a little peeved as I've had bids on several faulty items over the past few days, hoping to score a cheap deal, but time after time I've been outbid with seconds to spare. This time I sniped the buggars right back, and landed the box for £23.59 including delivery. The box looks a little grubby, but that'll be cleaned up later. I'm frankly not fussed if it even turns on as I'll be trashing it anyway.

For anyone wondering, my local CEX sells unboxed used consoles for £25, so I guess I'm up on the deal. I'll probably take in the controller and get a few quid off the price anyway. A shame that I couldn't wait a while and get a cheaper case, but I want to get started ASAP.

Total Cost

This Post will be updated with total running cost of the build. If anyone can assist with tools or parts, please let me know.

ITEM	SOURCE	COST
Motherboard	ebuyer	139.99
XBox Console	eBay	23.59
VGA-RCA Componant Cable	eBay	2.90
XBox Vinyl Skin	eBay	8.03

TOTAL: £174.52

Motherboard Purchased

Having compared various Intel Atom Boards, I've settled on the Zotac ION-A series.

The board is a little more expensive than I was wanting to spend, but it comes bundled with an external 90w PSU - This brings the cost back into budget, as well as frees up space inside the XBox chassis. In Addition, the external PSU block should be pretty silent and reduce internal heat.

The board has an integrated Intel Atom N330 processor (1M Cache, Dual Core 1.6 Ghz 533 FSB). As well as HDMI and Digital Audio output. It's my no means a power house, but should be more than enough for any HD video playback.

Welcome to Project HTXB!

This blog chronicles my project to build the ultimate Home Theatre XBox.

About 5 years ago, I got my hands on my first HTPC. I sadly don't remember the spec of the machine, other than the fact it was running the original Windows XP Media Centre edition.
At the time, it was the most amazing media experience since Moses came down from the mountain with two tablet pcs running Commandments v1.0.
Of course, compared to the plethora or purpose-built media streaming devices, and the ready availability of Media center computers, it would be somewhat long in the tooth by now.

A few years later, I discovered XBMC. After several attempts, I succesfully soft-modded my XBox to run Linux, and use this amazing piece of software to stream my movies, TV Shows and Music from my server (and it's 2TB Media store).

Now, XBMC doesn't do anything groundbreaking when it comes to streaming or playing media, it looks a little different to Windows Media Centre, and might not be as recognisable as Apple TV. The reason I love XBMC so much, is the Media Library. Once appropriate information has been scraped from IMDB and TheTVDB, XBMC presents the user with the most amazing library functionality I've ever seen, right at the mercy of your remote control. You can, for example, view plot synopsis for a movie, and view cast information. Click on an actor, however, and you can see every other movie and tv episode you have starring that actor.

Anyway, recently I have been accessing more and more HD content, and while XBMC will play practically ANY format thrown at it, the hardware beings to choke at anything above 480p.

The XBox 360 is a long way from being opened up enough to run a Linux OS, and I'll be damned if I'm going to surrender the library and karaoke functionality of my beloved media player, so I'm upgrading to XBMC Live. It's pretty much identical software, but is installed as a bootable OS on a standard PC.

This blog has come to life following my decision to build said PC right into the shell of an original XBox, maintaining the sleek design in my living room, while allowing a nostalgic feel to the library and interface.