xbox as sage client?

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by roofus

I play HD content on my xbox all the time, using a native xbox language program that is based off of Mplayer. Linux would work even better as it's much more powerful and agile.

So you can playback 720p and 1080i MPEG2 content streams with full frame and resolution, while keeping the audio intact? I am impressed!

[aperry]

I too have done this with no problems.

I figured it would work given that XBox has titles that are 1080i and almost all the titles they release offer Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.

IMHO, the XBox is the best (reasonably priced too) device for a media center extender. Without even cracking open the box, you can get going with a software-only exploit, load on XBMC, configure it to look at your Sage directories, and have fun! It'll play almost anything you throw at it.

Your cost for this is the XBox, a rental or purchase of Splinter Cell (couple of other titles work), an Action Replay kit, and the XBox remote control kit. Find a website to take you through the steps, and you'll be up and running in no time.

With a little more work, and I think this is where the thread was headed originally, perhaps someone can figure out a way to better integrate XBMC with Sage (or even get the Sage Linux client to work on the XBox system).

[Alfiegerner]

There is a quickish development path to integrating Sagetv with xbmc - through python scripts. As an example, there is a mytheatre script that allows access to my theatre's live tv, this includes channel changing and some epg info. A much more fully fledged example is the mythtv script - this acts pretty much as a complete mythtv front-end.

I have written a few of these myself and can appreciate how quick the development of them can be - thanks to the functions exposed by the xbmc python interface.

However, there are limitations to the xbmc python scripting - for instance you can't use the preview windows that are seen in the native app. The best solution would definitely involve writing sage into the actual app. I don't know how feasible this is from the POV of the sage API. Unfortunately (for me) my programming skills aren't really up to it yet - php and python is pretty much as far as I go so far. Xbmc is written in C++ using a Microsoft XDK. If anyone is interested I can give some pointers in how to setup a dev environment.

Like someone else said here though - xbmc really does kick ass. To my mind, it is the best media player out there on ANY platform for whatever money can buy (yep I really love that much ).

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by roofus

I play HD content on my xbox all the time, using a native xbox language program that is based off of Mplayer. Linux would work even better as it's much more powerful and agile.

I cant contest to mpeg-2 but I can contest that it can play 720p xvid and divx. The trick is to up the buffer and make sure you do no post processing at all.

[roofus]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

So you can playback 720p and 1080i MPEG2 content streams with full frame and resolution, while keeping the audio intact? I am impressed!

It really comes down to the fact that yes the xbox is a PC, but without all the crap running in the background that eats is resources. You'd really be suprised what it can pull off.

[roofus]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

There is a quickish development path to integrating Sagetv with xbmc - through python scripts. As an example, there is a mytheatre script that allows access to my theatre's live tv, this includes channel changing and some epg info. A much more fully fledged example is the mythtv script - this acts pretty much as a complete mythtv front-end.

Someone else suggested this, and I got the ball rolling with full enthusiasm, but I realized as I was working on it, that it wouldn't give me the client functionality I want. I want more than just controlling the PC with an API, I want another client interface.

And I think that most people here would be disappointed by a python script after using the SageTV Client.

[Alfiegerner]

Originally Posted by roofus

And I think that most people here would be disappointed by a python script after using the SageTV Client.

Yup I agree. Whilst the mythtv and my theatre scripts work they are quite dissapointing to use. I wonder how it hard it would be to write a native sage client module for xmbc?

[kricker]

Coolwave's script http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ht=xbox+script is looking very good.

[roofus]

For those who are interested, SageTV is currently installing on my XBOX. Hopefully I can get back on the board tonight and tell you if patching the kernel worked. It should.

This is a native install too, it will not coexist with the xbox software, it's straight linux on the hard drive. I will work on an xbox gamer friendly install script once I get the native install working.

NO I will not release the SageTV software modified for xbox for download (it's not mine to distribute), I will however post a tutorial on how to modify it yourself after you buy it .

This should be the first of many posts and possibly the start of a new thread.

[Jesse]

Hello Roofus,

Please let us know how it works out.

Thanks,

Jesse

[roofus]

currently working out some errors my install method caused... patched kernel seems to work...

I'll update tommorrow.

[roofus]

New thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...d=1#post148962