I caught this last night and thought I'd let you guys know since there was an interest in it awhile back. All this week the computer variety show, The Screensavers, on TechTV is running segments on modding the X-Box.

Normally I wouldn't post something like this but the homebrew stuff they said you can do is pretty darn cool like playing movies, run linux or use it as an ftp server . And since this is on national cable television on a station that is partly owned by microsoft I assume they've already sorted out the legal issues. Since every once and awhile someone seems to post about this, this is probably the best legal place to find info on legitimate mods. The show is weeknights at 7:00 PM EST.

Wow.. the station is partly owned by MS and they allowed it? That's pretty cool.

They did mention not being able to go LIVE after a mod?

Well, it is actually owned by Paul Allen, not Microsoft.

I saw the first part of the show last night and they had a lawyer on discussing what you can and can't do. The actual part about the modding was later, and ditn' catch it, so no clue what they did in fact show you how to do.

I didnt' pay to much attention since I don't have an xbox, but they did say the things they are going to cover are things they are allowed to do.. legally.

This was originally suppose to air sometime ago, but they realized last second they better check into what they can show..

whoops, your right about Paul Allen, I forgot about that.

Yesterday they just showed which mod chip they used, how to install it, what you are supposed to do, why certain ones are legal and others arent etc. Today they said they'd show off what you can do now the the system is modded.

They did talk about the getting banned from LIVE but then they showed how the particular mod chip they used has a switch that lets you turn the mod chip off from the outside so it won't be detected when you go on LIVE, I didn't even know that existed. So i believe it is still possible to go on LIVE. I don't have the skills to do any kind of mod though.

i have done the switch. it works well. the switch fits on the left side of my xbox. i had to take off a bar on the grill in order for it to fit. down for off and up for on. xecuter2 pro

Any chance of TechTV re-running the series? I missed all five parts.

How have you missed all 5 parts? It's to my knowledge that 1 part is being shown each day. Monday-Friday.

Monday - part 1
Tuesday - part 2
Wednesday - part 3
Thursday - part 4
Friday - part 5

Yeah, there's still 3 parts left. I always have the latest episode of the Screensavers on my TiVo but don't always watch it. I'm glad I caught this.

I wasn't really interested in the mod chip thing until recently. That media center would be really nice. I already have my Xbox on my wireless network so it would be cool to be able to view pictures from my computer on the Xbox. Dump digital camera pics to the PC, view 'em from the living room. Neat.

sorry I should have been more clear on that but it looks like someone already cleared that up . The show is done live every night and they rarely do reruns, but they did put the first segment up in streaming video format on the website. You can view it here:

Part 1

look at Video Highlight on the box on the right side.

They were suposed to do this last week or the week before but it got delayed.
I assume for legal resons.

The one modchip you do not need to solder anything.

Matrix

I have my Xbox in the works, and being modded with the Xecutioner chip. Its going to be part of my Mame project for my Capcom Impress Cabinet. I finally found someone to make a Console to Jamma Converter. Now that this is all finally coming together I'll finally have on my cabinet:

DC - 2D Gaming goodness! Soul Calibur! NES Games!!
PS and PS2 - Tekken, Street Fighter series, Namco Collections!
Xbox - Capcom VS SNK LIVE!! MAME, SNES, GENESIS, CPS2!

It's going to be a great setup!

I sure wish I knew about the "switch" because I already bought 2 Xbox's.....one for the chip, and one for LIVE.

I missed part 2 yesterday, which they were going to demo the EvoX OS. Did anyone catch this?

Also, is anyone out there videotaping these segments and would like to video-capture them and make an MPEG file for all of us?

Jeremy

I happened to see part 2 last night. I didn't pay that much attention to that segment, since I don't have an xbox, but all they basically showed and discussed was the exov os. They simply booted up from the cdr they burned, and showed the various things that it contained.. such as how you could run utilities, back up your games etc.

They mentioned that you could simply ftp into the xbox, and then copy over the os to the harddrive itself, so you don' have to boot off a cdr. They however, didn't show how to do this.

Another thing to note, is that they said if you burn the os to a dvd, the xbox always recognizes the disk, but if it's in cdr format, it may take 40-50 trys to get it recognize it.

Tonight's segment will be installing a 120 gig harddrive in it.

Hope that helps. I would record it, however I don't own a vcr or a tivo.

Well, I bought an XBox on Sunday, a 120 gig HD today, and have my Matrix chip on the way. I didn't catch any of the shows, but there is plenty of help online. Plus I have a buddy here at work that has MAME loaded as well as the 120/matrix setup so, as soon as the chip comes I'm off!

How's your project going? Also, can anyone e-mail me about some legitimate sites to order mod chips from?

Also, where is the best place to order a refurbished Xbox from?

To get a matrix chip, easybuy2000.com is the place to go.

Um... I would seriously recommend checking out their forums before buying. They have a ton of unhappy customers.

I bought my matrix chip from Mods4Less last sunday, and got the chip 4 days later.

Just to let you know, alot of the newer Mame roms will not run on the most current version of MameX. The Xbox doesnt not have enough memory for these.

A friend and I bought chips from there, no problems whatsoever. They'd had a problem with customs holding a big batch of chips awhile back so I can see why people are pissed. Especially kids/young adults who buy something and want it the minute they paid for it.

Well, I think the main problem was, people would ask about their shipment, and the support guy would tell them "It will ship early next week".

Then next week came, and no shipment. They'd ask about their shipment again, and get the same response, "It should ship early next week". If you go back and read the history of those forums, you will see that they were giving everyone the same "it should ship next week" answer for about 3 months.

They were clearly out of stock for a long time, but their website still said "in stock, ships in 48 hours". It wasn't until recently that they updated their website with actual shipping info (which suprisingly says "should ship in a week").

Anyway, if you are going to get a matrix, make sure you have a ver 1.0 or 1.1 xbox. The matrix is not compatible with the ver 1.2 (without considerable amounts of soldering). Actually, some people have reported that there is even some soldering required to get the matrix to work with 1.1 xboxes.

is there a solderless chip that has a switchoff option?

You can set the matrix to be always on, or switchably off. It's a little confusing, though. It doesn't have an actual switch... By default the matrix bios will be on, and you insert a game. The game will start to load (with the matrix bios). You then hit Eject, and that will boot over to the real MS bios. Then you put the game back in and play as normal. You can only run the real MS bios if you have the original hard drive, or if you "locked" the hard drive that you replace it with. Apparently, some hard drives are not "lockable".

I forgot about this thread. I put an Xecutor2 Pro in my Xbox a week or so ago (along with a 120 gig drive). The media player is very cool. I can browse my pictures, music and videos on my PC across my wireless network.