stdbtool

A tool that generates ST.DB files and their corresponding file structures for the Xbox dashboard's music menu

Usage

stdbtool <options> <input>

Setting	Effect
-a	Use all folders in the current directory as input (ignoring fffe0000)
-c	Cleanup directories (delete fffe0000)
-s	Output ST.DB only, don't generate a filesystem
-o <names>	Specify soundtrack names for every input folder

Details

• Using -a will ignore folders specified as input
• Using -c will only cleanup directories, nothing else
• Output names specified with -o are mapped one-to-one with input folders, for example stdbtool A B C -o X Y; In this case, the soundtrack generated from folder A will be named X, B will be named Y. And because only two output names were specified, the soundtrack generated from C will be named C.

Output

The tool generates a filesystem in the following structure:

fffe0000/
└── music/
    ├── 0000/
    │   ├── 00000000.wma
    │   ├── 00000001.wma
    |        . . .
    |   └── nnnnnnnn.wma
    └── ST.DB

fffe0000 is the root directory, followed by music. This folder contains the ST.DB file, and folders with 4-digit zero padded names. Each one of these folders is a soundtrack.

Inside the soundtrack folders, you will find your music files. Please do not rename any of these files/folders as their names are deliberate, and needed for the Xbox to find them.

Transferring to a real Xbox or emulator

Now that you have your file structure ready, you will need to transfer it to an Xbox.

I've only tested this tool in an emulator, but the process should be the same in a real Xbox.

xemu

Follow this guide to setup an FTP server on the emulated Xbox, then, copy the generated fffe0000 folder to /E/TDATA/.

Cxbx-R

Cxbx-R has its filesystem exposed to the OS, no need to setup an FTP server, just copy the generated fffe0000 folder to /EmuDisk/Partition1

Real Xbox

The process should be the same as in xemu, setup an FTP server on your Xbox, connect to it, and copy the generated fffe0000 folder to /E/TDATA/.

Building

Thankfully, this is simple enough using a C++17-compatible compiler.

git clone https://github.com/Lycoder/stdbtool
cd stdbtool
c++ main.cpp -o main -std=c++17 -Istdb

I'm trying to comment the code as much as possible because I haven't been able to find a lot of documentation on this format, I'm aiming to make this code good enough to serve as a reference or documentation.