Now I'm going to say this first.
What I am about to bring up here is not entirely about MC360 and it probably belongs in a different forum, but I just don't want to bother the dev boards about this topic I am about to discuss with you all.

Now, with this forthcoming of MC360 for XBMC 2.0, there is a lot of anticipation of course. The skin has gained significant popularity amongst the community, but how long will this trend of excitment and innovation last? With the coming of the HD (High Definition) generation, the Xbox at the moment simply does not have the power (CPU) to decode HD video streams without significant frame drops. Now, unless the dev team and the community of XBMC lay down a proper blueprint of how the GPU can be used to take the stress off the CPU for HD streams, our Xbox's with XBMC MC360 edition will not last long.

So any thoughts on this issue?
(note: more information on using the Xbox's GPU for HD decoding may be found at the XBMC forums)

The Issue you seem to be addressing is more an issue of hardware, how much stress the xbox (1) can take. I think I speak for a great many of the users when I say this, HD, or no HD, my xbox and XBMC are an invaluable tool in my media collection, So if it means that I have to go buy a High End DVD Player/Streamer for the HD so be it, but my XBMC cannot be replaced, I utilize it on a daily basis even if just for my music. So when you speak of HD streams, not really something that we as xbox owners should worry about, can you really make a pinto do a 7 second quater mile? No. so we should enjoy what we have and make the best of it.

Thats My two cents.
Chris.

The question should be what type of Skin legacy does 2.0 hold for us? should we be expected to lose our skins everytime a new significant build comes out? but that question is not for this particular forum.

I can agree with you on that and I am greatful that XBMC does so much more than just play back videos, but it would be a significant set back if the Xbox didn't have HD playback capabilities in the future.

Let's put it this way, video playback is a critical component of the Xbox, losing that to HD would be dissapointing. Sure we could re-encode the High Def videos before loading them on our Xbox, but that consumes quite a bit of time and defies the point behind having HD.

So when HD finally becomes standardized. I will go from using my Xbox everyday to maybe once a week

This doesn't really have much to do with MC360, this is more of an XBMC general topic. Whether XBMC can play HD video or not is not relevant to MC360.

You must note however that XBMC and the XBox execute 544p HR.HDTV.AC3.5.1.XviD files at a full 24 fps, and that it looks better than native 1080i streams in some cases.

But that's not a standard resolution things would have to be upscaled. 720p is a standard; no upscaling

No need to worry cuz theres gonna be xbmc360 by the time HD becomes truly standardized and its gonna be way better than xbmc

Out of all honesty I doubt we will ever be able to hack and run homebrew on a console again starting in 2006 (right now!). Blame the increasing need to connect consoles to the internet (damn those updates).

This is also another reason why I brough this topic up.

I wouldn't use the 360 for homebrew till the 640's out. MS could easily release a patch which renders modded consoles useless, and I'd rather not have to explain to them why I have a mod-chip installed in my now broken and probably unwarrentied console.

that assumes that the next generation of modifications will involve a modchip at all. i dont think that the moddification of consols is on the way out, but i do think the process is going to have to be gone about in a different way.

You also forget that the 360 and presumably PS3 have "trusted computing" encryption chips in them that stop any unsigned code from being able to run.

While the X-Box also needed to be "signed" code there was nothing stopping it from running on the hardware but the OS itself, the idea of trusted computing is the hardware itself will not work unless the code is signed correctly so a buffer overrun (how softmods works) is near impossible. I would never say impossible because im not a programmer and I know theres always a solution, but if its humanly possible within the 360s lifespan is another question entirely.

Anyway back on topic, I agree it would be certainly be "nice" if XBMC could playback 720p content properly but if there is anything in the GPU that CAN improve the playback I have no idea. Still, even the 360 can ONLY do 720p content (according to what has been said so far the HD-DVD drive is 720p only NOT 1080i/1080p - which is odd as I see no reason that it couldnt handle 1080i) so if XBMC could handle 720p then once again the Xbox would be kicking the 360s ass some more for video playback. Then again im still holding on to the hope that MS release a dashboard update for the 360 that will play back 720p content from DVD or USB, to be fair at the moment my Xbox isnt even plugged in only my 360 as I use my XP machine to playback HD movies.