Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Impressions: XBOX 360 & MCE 2005
It has been about a month since I set up Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and connected it to my XBOX 360, so I thought I would share my first impressions:
1. Video streaming to the XBOX 360 is awesome! I built a few HTPCs in the past few years and the XBOX 360-as-media-center-extender idea is brilliant. Unlike the HTPCs I built, this one worked without any tinkering with drivers or video card settings.
I have ripped about a dozen DVDs (the ones that I tend to watch a lot) to the Media Center box (look for a post about how to do this later this week). It is great to able to pull those up either in the bedroom on the Media Center box or in the Manroom on the 360.
BTW, I am using a wired network to connect my 360 to the media center, so I can't comment on the 360's ability to stream over Wifi. Check out HD Beat's first impressions of using wireless to stream HD.
2. Picture quality is pretty good. A lot of people are complaining that the video quality when watching DVDs on the 360 isn't the greatest (which is true); however, it is definitely good enough when you weigh in the convenience of being able to stream directly to the 360 (rather than loading DVDs).
3. Music playback stinks. The interface to find and playback music is pretty lame. Basically, you stroll through an alphabetical list of artists. If you have hundreds of artists, it can take quite a while to find something like Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
I would love to see them work out some of the UI stuff around music playback; however , I don't use the 360 for much music playback, so it's not that big of a deal for me.
4. My Harmony 880 remote, after downloading the proper IR codes, is able to control both my XBOX 360 and my Media Center. This has allowed me to add them to "activities" in the remote that I can launch with 1 button. Very cool.
Overall, I am very pleased with how well the 360 and MCE box play together. Next up, I plan to get an HDTV tuner card for the Media Center box and create an HD DVR. If I can pull off a multi-room HDTV DVR with this setup, I will be very happy. Stay tuned.
It has been about a month since I set up Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and connected it to my XBOX 360, so I thought I would share my first impressions:
1. Video streaming to the XBOX 360 is awesome! I built a few HTPCs in the past few years and the XBOX 360-as-media-center-extender idea is brilliant. Unlike the HTPCs I built, this one worked without any tinkering with drivers or video card settings.
I have ripped about a dozen DVDs (the ones that I tend to watch a lot) to the Media Center box (look for a post about how to do this later this week). It is great to able to pull those up either in the bedroom on the Media Center box or in the Manroom on the 360.
BTW, I am using a wired network to connect my 360 to the media center, so I can't comment on the 360's ability to stream over Wifi. Check out HD Beat's first impressions of using wireless to stream HD.
2. Picture quality is pretty good. A lot of people are complaining that the video quality when watching DVDs on the 360 isn't the greatest (which is true); however, it is definitely good enough when you weigh in the convenience of being able to stream directly to the 360 (rather than loading DVDs).
3. Music playback stinks. The interface to find and playback music is pretty lame. Basically, you stroll through an alphabetical list of artists. If you have hundreds of artists, it can take quite a while to find something like Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
I would love to see them work out some of the UI stuff around music playback; however , I don't use the 360 for much music playback, so it's not that big of a deal for me.
4. My Harmony 880 remote, after downloading the proper IR codes, is able to control both my XBOX 360 and my Media Center. This has allowed me to add them to "activities" in the remote that I can launch with 1 button. Very cool.
Overall, I am very pleased with how well the 360 and MCE box play together. Next up, I plan to get an HDTV tuner card for the Media Center box and create an HD DVR. If I can pull off a multi-room HDTV DVR with this setup, I will be very happy. Stay tuned.
¶ 8:50 AM 
Comments:
On the subject of scrolling all the way down through all your music to get to the yeah yeah yeah's - if you're using an MCE remote you can press 9 a few times to get to "Y" (like on a mobile) and it will jump straight to entries starting with that letter
posted by 
asia : 1:43 PM
asia : 1:43 PM How did you get the "Media Center" activity downloaded into the 880?
I can't seem to get that in there, did you add a device called "Media Center Sever"? Can you please please please tell me the steps you took to add this activity for "Media Center"??? I have the 360 added, but I'm not sure how to get the Media Center to come up with the press of a single button like "Play Digital Music" or whatever...help me!
I can't seem to get that in there, did you add a device called "Media Center Sever"? Can you please please please tell me the steps you took to add this activity for "Media Center"??? I have the 360 added, but I'm not sure how to get the Media Center to come up with the press of a single button like "Play Digital Music" or whatever...help me!
posted by Christopher : 9:50 AM
Christopher : 9:50 AM I think I just added the 360 as a device in the Harmony remote app (on the web site) and the media functions were included. I did it through the game consoles option, not a media center option.
I can navigate the MCE menus on the XBOX 360 using the Harmony. I think the device label just says "XBOX 360."
I can navigate the MCE menus on the XBOX 360 using the Harmony. I think the device label just says "XBOX 360."
posted by sMoRTy71 : 10:30 AM
sMoRTy71 : 10:30 AMblog comments powered by Disqus
About Shawn Morton
Married father of 4, social media strategist at Nationwide, consumer electronics enthusiast, hair metal aficionado.
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