XeniumMods v3.xx SneakPeak!

[trencherfield]

22 minutes ago, RMM said:

That was kind of my thought to treat it a something of a daughterboard where you add an ARM chip like the Pi has that can do hardware decoding and you let the ARM take care of videos.  I dont know if you would need the whole Pi setup but it is an interesting approach.

edit: let me also add if you can do the daughterboard/Pi approach, those chips also have the ability to do other functions like bluetooth.  Maybe then you could have some sort of native bluetooth controller support.

Yes, I have 3 Pi Zeros, and another wifi one as well. Whether the LAN could be fed in as well is another matter and kind of off-topic to this already off-topic suggestions really.
But yeah, I had thought of the Zero before the HDMI xbox mods arrived, but oh well, that's what came about as it stands unless someone with Pi knowledge can take the same digital pre-encoder feed and code the Pi appropriately for it.

[trencherfield]

6 minutes ago, big F said:

It would be possible after-all the same system has been used albeit the encoding/decoding is handled differently for the likes of the BBC B, as it obviously lacks a Denise chip as in the Amigas. IIRC there are other vintage systems using it as a basis for their HDMI conversions.   The only thing is possible lag, as there is a bit on the Amiga itteration, but the screen is no where nears as busy as your average OGXbox title will be.

Shouldn't really be any lag, the Xbox output is digital. Not analogue like the Amiga etc.

[antonic901]

I spoke with Dustin about that feature, because I think his modchip is using some sort of ARM CPUs. To get H.264/H.265 streams possible we will need some sort of Broadcom Crystal HD which is using PCIe for sending data. And fastest port on Xbox is LPC which is slower then ancient PCI slot. So it's not possible. In order to get external decoding you will need some port which have enough data lines to be able to pass all that data. So someone will need to find another way to "feed" power into Xbox's GPU/CPU. And Xbox just doesn't have any fast port, LPC is fastest which is basically useless because of it's speed.

But yeah, for me revolutionary modchip would be chip which will allow watching modern videos on Xbox. BTW, everything on XBMC is done through software optimisation. Xbox GPU doesn't have any sort of hardware accelerated video decoding so everything is done through software using CPU.

[GoTeamScotch]

Just want to chime in and say that if your goal is to play modern videos on old Xbox hardware, on-the-fly transcoding is a solid option. So long as your host PC is powerful enough, you can transcode 4K down to something the Xbox can handle without too much of a problem.

[RMM]

1 hour ago, GoTeamScotch said:

Just want to chime in and say that if your goal is to play modern videos on old Xbox hardware, on-the-fly transcoding is a solid option. So long as your host PC is powerful enough, you can transcode 4K down to something the Xbox can handle without too much of a problem.

I was thinking about being able to play videos without the need to transcode them.  The way I was looking at was you can play movies/videos off the hard drive and you can play videos through ethernet connections so that data needs to go across the motherboard in wires and traces before it gets to the CPU to software decode so instead of that data being sent to the CPU for software decoding why couldnt the data be diverted and sent to an ARM chip instead of the Xbox's CPU.  Even if the Xbox's GPU/CPU doesnt support hardware decoding, it still needs to access the data for software decoding.  The data just doesnt go from the hard drive to the video output.  It has to move through the Xbox in some way but again, I dont know enough about the Xbox's hardware so I could be way off in my reasoning. 

Sorry if I hijacked the thread.  I thought the discussion would go hand in hand with an HDMI mod discussion.  I appriciate all the work being done by everyone including all the hard work NeMesiS has done with the modchip and HDMI mod

Edited July 14, 2023 by RMM

[trencherfield]

The only stream I know is the one I fish from!     <====Old fart

[antonic901]

7 hours ago, GoTeamScotch said:

Just want to chime in and say that if your goal is to play modern videos on old Xbox hardware, on-the-fly transcoding is a solid option. So long as your host PC is powerful enough, you can transcode 4K down to something the Xbox can handle without too much of a problem.

Yeah, but if I'm not mistaken you can't send video file from Xbox HDD to Jellyfin server for transcoding? You probably need files stored on some NAS.

BTW, I never fully understood how different are H.263 and modern video codecs. I know that per file size, H.264/H.265 give better quality, but because of that high compression rate they are harder to decompress. But what about if we have some 4K video file od 100GB and we decode that using FFMpeg to H.263. We will certainly get bigger file (for example converting from 1GB H.264 to H.263 result in ~3-4GB file), but what about quality? Do we lose it?

[big F]

10 hours ago, trencherfield said:

Shouldn't really be any lag, the Xbox output is digital. Not analogue like the Amiga etc.

The solution on the Amiga takes the direct digital feed at source prior to it being processed by the Denise chip. Theres minor lag due to the conversion time. Some say they notice the lag but, in reality its barely a tenth second. I have not really noticed it on any of mine, and it make no difference over clocking the Pi or rigging it to use a newer one than the  preferably used zero or 3 that is “standard”

Theres similar with the unrelated solution for the Nintendo Wii, and thats converting component to HDMI.
 

Audio DAC suffers lag but due to most only using it for sources that don't accompany video or time sensitive situations nobody notices or cares 

[coldasijs]

On 7/12/2023 at 2:02 AM, NeMesiS said:

 

Sure... I'll PM you..

 

 

Seeing that I've put thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into my designs... No...

Unless of course you could reimburse me for my efforts?

 

What project are you even referring to?

I did the XeniumICE modchip design before there was an OpenXenium

The 3D printed designs are of my own.

 

As for the HDMI mod, it more resembles the MakeMhz XboxHD+ rather than Ryzee119's.

I previously mentioned that there will be similarities because we are all using the same datasheets as reference. Are datasheets covered by GPL v3.0?

However, I am working on it being compatible with Ryzee119's firmware for the HDMI mod so that the community can work together on an OpenSource firmware in the future.

 

I also mentioned in a previous post that I do NOT open source my hardware designs.

Personally, I don't have a problem with donating to Ryzee119 directly. I tried to hint this to him on he's GitHub but he either wasn't interested or didn't get the hint as I was trying to avoid talking about money in a public domain.

 

EDIT: I don't want to be in the position where I OpenSource my works just to have some guy that contributed nothing mass produce my designs and profit from it, where I can't even recoup the costs of creating the project in the first place. I may as well call it quits now...

Not debating your effort your putting in putting all this stuff out, just a little advice. You might be putting in a lot of money and effort, but it would be effortless if it turns out you're not complying to the GPL3 license if something is based on open source stuff. You can get yourself in pinch real fast if your compliance is not ok. You are intending to make money, that can trigger some folks to hold you accountable. I'm not an expert but I think this does not even have to be @Ryzee119 , so it can be just a person who tries to be an ass just for the fun of it.  Your response seems to be agitated, which I understand after putting in all this effort, but just stating you are not making stuff open source because you put in money and effort does not hold up in court .

For the rest keep up the good work and just make sure you are compliant, or just pretend you are compliant like Dustin . It will prevent you loosing a lot of sleep for the wrong reason just because you are trying to support the community!

[Ryzee119]

Hey Nem,

Just came across this thread and I was tagged  Good luck with your Xbox HDMI project. I had alot of fun working on my version.

Your goals are good and I hope it works out. I know the MakeMhz project initially planned to not even need bios patches but we both hit the same hurdles, which is why he had to release the bios patches for compatibility (and why mine 'failed').

The source for the Xbox HDMI support is actually opensource.

https://github.com/MakeMHz/xbox-hdmi-kernel-source

So I guess anyone can actually add support if they wanted. The newer version has removed the stm processor but should still be easy to add support. It's just hard for anyone to really contribute to current bioses due no sources, or working on the leaked source code. Yes MS don't care but for a registered business you really can't touch that stuff.

I hold no grudges in people keeping their projects closed source. As you say you put many hours and money into them so this is fully supported by me. MakeMHz has done the same thing and been flamed for it for some reason so beware

You are more than welcome to use my hardware design and treat it as public domain. It's mainly from datasheets and app notes anyway. The software is GPL so if you use it and modify it etc its easy to keep it opensource. I'm not sure how you will overcome the mess that is the xbox outputs from the GPU though.

Some TVs are very picky and if the encoder (adv7511 on my board) doesn't automatically detect the type of video signal you're out of luck. 480i never worked for me, 1080i was generally ok. You WILL need a FPGA or something to convert the video signals to something consistent or bios patches of some description like what MakeMHZ did for anything reliable enough to sell in my opinion.

All the best with the project. If you have any easy questions I'm happy to help but it's been a fair while since was down in the detail on this so may have forgotten

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ryzee119

[trencherfield]

9 hours ago, big F said:

The solution on the Amiga takes the direct digital feed at source prior to it being processed by the Denise chip. Theres minor lag due to the conversion time. Some say they notice the lag but, in reality its barely a tenth second. I have not really noticed it on any of mine, and it make no difference over clocking the Pi or rigging it to use a newer one than the  preferably used zero or 3 that is “standard”

Theres similar with the unrelated solution for the Nintendo Wii, and thats converting component to HDMI.
 

Audio DAC suffers lag but due to most only using it for sources that don't accompany video or time sensitive situations nobody notices or cares 

Guess the Pi series aren't a 100% solution then if that's the case in a digital domain and probably why the Xbox HDMI went with a hardware 7511 chip to negate this then. Makes sense if the signal is waiting on another OS and processor compared to a hardware video processor chip.
I notice lip-sync on films in ms which drives me up the wall so couldn't tolerate lag if it came about.

[RMM]

7 hours ago, Ryzee119 said:

... I hold no grudges in people keeping their projects closed source. As you say you put many hours and money into them so this is fully supported by me. MakeMHz has done the same thing and been flamed for it for some reason so beware ...

I dont think the issue people have with MakeMHz is as much keeping his project closed source as it is his changing the design of the HDMI mod to now force people to also buy his modchip.  I think that rubs many people the wrong way.  I understand keeping projects closed.  These guys do spend a lot of time and money to develop these mods.  I even understand not supporting other bios' like Cerbios although I do believe they could support things like CCI.  I hope NeMesiS keeps making good progress with his HDMI and modchip projects just as I hope MakeMHz keeps improving the software of his Stellar project.  I think it benefits everyone to have these project succeed.

[trencherfield]

20 minutes ago, RMM said:

I dont think the issue people have with MakeMHz is as much keeping his project closed source as it is his changing the design of the HDMI mod to now force people to also buy his modchip.  I think that rubs many people the wrong way.

Correct.

[ModzvilleUSA]

I'm so ready for this!

[big F]

17 hours ago, trencherfield said:

Guess the Pi series aren't a 100% solution then if that's the case in a digital domain and probably why the Xbox HDMI went with a hardware 7511 chip to negate this then. Makes sense if the signal is waiting on another OS and processor compared to a hardware video processor chip.
I notice lip-sync on films in ms which drives me up the wall so couldn't tolerate lag if it came about.

I think it can be done, certainly it would be easier to transcode a signal that is already digital and understood to another fully understood format. Although I used to work in the video broadcasting industry I was a put it together guy so didn’t get involved with programming. My experience in programming the Pi is not that level due to being able to just use others work on my Pi’s so never needed to learn.   I’m sure someone could work it out. Maybe making it a standalone device so you can just jack it into whichever Xbox you want to use at the time.

[NeMesiS]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:20 PM, coldasijs said:

Not debating your effort your putting in putting all this stuff out, just a little advice. You might be putting in a lot of money and effort, but it would be effortless if it turns out you're not complying to the GPL3 license if something is based on open source stuff.

 

Definitely would like to discuss this with you and Ryzee119.

Was expecting this to come up at some point.

I'm currently feeling under the weather so give me a couple of days to reply.

I don't think I have the brain capacity at the moment.

 

In the meantime, I'll do a quick post of what I was up to yesterday.

Doubt I will get much else done today...

[NeMesiS]

 

I made a better effort to install the v1.6 flex cable for the second time.

Removing the heatsinks and heatsink bracket made it a lot easier.

Again, the pads need a little adjustment but it's not that far off as is.

I got the flex cable installed as square to the motherboard as I could.

When connecting the cable to the PCB it was still misaligned.

Comparing to the v1.0/5 cable the v1.6 cable needs to extent 1.5mm towards

the back edge of the motherboard. Length is also needs to be increased.

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by NeMesiS

[NeMesiS]

 

Also test fitted the v1.0-5 flex cable yesterday.

The bottom section of the cable is a pad off where it should be.

Due to the bend after installing that section of cable,

it threw the middle section out of square. It's not a huge concern,

but I will make adjustments to the design for a better fitment.

Cable connected to the PCB nicely, no concerns there.

[big F]

Looking slick

[Rachmaninoff]

This project is insanely exciting!

[Donnie-Burger]

2 hours ago, Rachmaninoff said:

This project is insanely exciting!

Yes it is

I'm all in

[COO-589]

I've dealt with Nem a few times over the last few years through eBay and a few e-mails (G'day, mate!) - Absolute legend and well more than happy to support. I have hardcore OCPD as well, mate, so I totally understand and empathise with that, and is probably also another factor of why I appreciate your work! I've actually got a couple of e-mails to reply to from you (been stuck in the new Dad bubble for the last few months) and haven't done anything with the new stuff I recently got from you yet. Also about to go on course with work so will probably still be pretty quiet for the next couple of months, then will get all caught up (if not before anyway). Definitely happy to help with Aussie-based testing, etc. in future as well of course...

[Johno2518]

On 7/14/2023 at 5:37 AM, RMM said:

No I was talking about decoding video streams.  You can either use hardware decoding or do it through software.  The original Xbox just doesnt have the power to decode modern codecs.  What you are left with is an Xbox that is basically limited to h.263 at 720p and even then it is iffy so you can do much with current video streaming

I was thinking if you could somehow take a video on the Xbox and send that video stream to an ARM chip on the HDMI mod or perhaps a modchip you could allow that ARM chip to do the video decoding in hardware and output that to the HDMI connection.  This would then convievably allow the Xbox to output 1080p/4k H.265 video.  Again I dont know how the Xbox hardware works to know if this would even be a possibility

Right I see, not sure there is a point in doing this as it would be quite alot of work both in hardware and custom kernel to enable this kind of functionality. Right now the only option is re-encode videos to ensure they use hardware decoding or use a modern device for hardware decoding of modern codecs.

[RMM]

10 hours ago, Johno2518 said:

Right I see, not sure there is a point in doing this as it would be quite alot of work both in hardware and custom kernel to enable this kind of functionality. Right now the only option is re-encode videos to ensure they use hardware decoding or use a modern device for hardware decoding of modern codecs.

It would no doubt take some work to make it happen if it is even possible.  I had seen a somewhat similar approach on other systems and wondered if something might be possible on the Xbox.  Being able to hardware decode and output modern codecs is only part of the potential added abilities the Xbox could have as these ARM chips support a vast array of functions.   One of the first things that comes to mind is bluetooth controller support.

[Bowlsnapper]

On 7/14/2023 at 10:50 AM, RMM said:

I dont think the issue people have with MakeMHz is as much keeping his project closed source as it is his changing the design of the HDMI mod to now force people to also buy his modchip.  I think that rubs many people the wrong way.  I understand keeping projects closed.  These guys do spend a lot of time and money to develop these mods.  I even understand not supporting other bios' like Cerbios although I do believe they could support things like CCI.  I hope NeMesiS keeps making good progress with his HDMI and modchip projects just as I hope MakeMHz keeps improving the software of his Stellar project.  I think it benefits everyone to have these project succeed.

I understand him keeping it closed source if if the purpose of him engineering mods for the Xbox is solely to make money and not to support the already existing modding community.

As long as we're eradicating the DVD ROM drive with this kit, can we utilize the ide bus for data transfer? The lpc seems like it wouldn't even be an option...