P-2-Z's Guide to Modding your XBOX for advanced A/V

PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL DEFINITELY VOID YOUR WARRANTY

Greetz to: Sonic17

This tutorial will show you how to modify your XBOX so that you get S-VIDEO (erroneously called S-VHS) and digital audio (SPDIF or OPTICAL) out. This make your xbox look and sound much nicer!!! I have tested this on a xbox and it works great :)

WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT THIS

here is underside of xbox motherboard, with the AV connector sticking out on the left. 
 +-------A/V Connector
 |
 |              +---------PINS
\|/            \|/
 '              '
==| 	2		1  
==|		14		13	
==|	4		3
==|		16		15
==|	6		5
==|		18		17
==|	8		7
==|		20		19
==|	10		9
==|		22		21
==|	12		11
==|		24		23

DIGITAL AUDIO INSTRUCTIONS

The digital audio SPDIF is the easiest connection to setup, so we will perform this one first.

NOTE WELL:-


Note that the basic design WILL work - it's just not compliant with the standard. One can make a simple modification so that it will work. Just a 100nF capacitor and 330R resistor in series with the DATA pin (Pin 3) and then a 100R resistor in parallel between the new output (From the end of the 330R resistor) back to GND is all that is required.

  1. Take apart XBOX, voiding your warranty and remove motherboard from chassis.
  2. Tin your wires, I recommend 1 metre of wire, cut in half, and a 5cm piece of wire.
  3. Mark one wire as your spdif ground, bit of texta is cool.
  4. Solder spdif ground wire to pin 5
  5. Solder spdif data (other) wire to pin 3
  6. Using spare piece of wire 5cm long, solder pin 18 to your favourite ground point. Any part of the case, or a screw socket).
  7. Solder your spdif ground wire (pin5) to the outside leg of your spdif connector.
  8. Solder your spdif data wire (pin3) to the inside(data) leg of your spdif connector
  9. Wrap the wires around the bottom of mother board. and reassemble XBOX

So the wire going to your RCA socket should look like this, with SPDIF DATA (pin3 going to center leg, and SPDIF gnd (pin5) going to outside leg. 

---p-i-n-5----===+----------+
                 |         / \
---p-i-n-3----===+        |   |
                 |         \ /
                 +----------+
You now have a working SPDIF digital sound output connection, You just need to enable it in the software now. Start the MS Dash and choose audio settings, you must now choose Dolby surround, and then enable Dolby 5.1 and DTS. Your SPDIF will now output these surround modes, check that your surround processor is getting the right signal, and enjoy surround sound :)

I chose to mount my SPDIF connector at the back / top / center of my xbox, where there was no need for drilling as I could simply run the wire out the small gap where the fan is.

S-VIDEO INSTRUCTIONS

This will setup an S-VIDEO connection on your xbox. YOU WILL STILL NEED YOUR AV PLUG PACK CONNECTED
  1. Disassemble your xbox and remove the motherboard (again voiding your warranty).
  2. Tin your wires ( I recommend having 4 pieces, each 50cm long).
  3. Mark your wires as such, (Y, Y-GND, C, C-GND). You need to be able to tell all these wires apart easily when attaching to your S-VIDEO socket.
  4. Solder wire Y to pin 11.
  5. Solder wire Y-GND to pin 12.
  6. Solder wite C to pin 22.
  7. Solder wire C-GND to pin 21.
  8. Wrap wires around side of motherboard and reattach mobo to XBOX chasis.
  9. Push all 4 wires (Y, Y-GND, C, C-GND) out through either the hole you drilled, or the rear fan.
  10. Solder all 4 wires (Y, Y-GND, C, C-GND) to your S-VIDEO socket(TABLE 2) and mount it on your xbox.

NOTE FROM J.C.Marshall
one CAN get this working WITHOUT the AV cable plugged in - you must jumper pin 17 to pin 5 and then jumper pins 17 and 6. This will then allow the XBox to boot without the AV Cable plugged in - much nicer than having the AV cable plugged in but not connected to anything

  1. Short pin 17 to pin 6 NOTE, I have not tested this, but has been verified by a random outsider ;)
  2. short pin 17 to pin 5 NOTE, I have not tested this, but has been verified by a random outsider ;)

S-VIDEO Please note excellent wiring diagram =-D 

       /---+     +---\
      /    +-----+    \
     /                 \
    /    O 3     4 O    \
    |                   |
    |  O 1         2 O  |
    |                   |
    +----+         +----+
          \________/
S-VIDEO SOCKET
PIN WIRE PIN WIRE
1 Y-GND (Luminance) 3 Y (Luminance)
2 C-GND (Chrominance 4 C (Chrominance)

You now have a Advanced AV XBOX without forking out $50AUD.

90c RCA socket
2.40 S-Video Socket
2.00 3 metres of wire
priceless enjoyment of making up your own XBOX Advanced AV kit?