Share OS X files to a modded XBox machine

Jun 15, '04 09:59:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

A modded Xbox makes a great media player. Xbox Media Center can be set up to play movies from Samba (Windows) shares in your network. To make your Mac files accessible from Xbox media center you can take the following steps:

  1. Enable "Windows Sharing" in the "Sharing" control panel.

  2. Create a new user for keeping your shared files (for convenience and security). Use the "Accounts" control panel to create a new user and password (for example "share/share").

  3. Login as the new user. Delete the existing "Movies", "Music" and "Pictures" directories from the new user's directory. Create new soft links to the movie, music and picture directories you want to share. This must be done with the ln -s command from the terminal (ordinary aliases won't work). Suppose you have the files you want to share in /Download/Movies, /Download/Mp3 and /Users/mrx/Pictures. Then you would fire up the terminal (while still logged in as Share) and write:
    ln -s /Download/Movies Movies
    ln -s /Download/Mp3 Music
    ln -s /Users/mrx/Pictures Pictures
    
  4. Make sure that the files you want to share have the right permissions. They must be readable by the user "share" since the Xbox will try to read them from that account. Open "Get Info" for the folders and make sure that "Others" have "Read only" access. Apply to all enclosed items.
Now everything is setup on the Mac side. To setup the Xbox, read the rest of the hint...

Start the Xbox and launch the Xbox Media Center.

  1. Once Xbox Media Center is launched, use your Mac to login to the configuration page of Xbox Media Center by entering http://{your-xbox-ip-address}/ in the Safari address bar.

  2. Select "Configure > bookmarks > Add new bookmark" from the configuration page. Select the category "Videos", give the bookmark a suitable name and enter the address:
    smb://share:share@{your-ip-address}/share/Movies
    
    Repeat (with different categories) for your music and picture bookmarks.
    smb://share:share@{your-ip-address}/share/Music
    smb://share:share@{your-ip-address}/share/Pictures
    
  3. Select "load / save > Save" from the configuration page.

  4. Reboot your xbox.

  5. Start Xbox Media Center again. Now you should be able to access your Mac shares.
Best of luck.

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