Xbox 360 To Play Starring Role in New Windows Update

[fitbabits]

Thanks to ZDNet News (http://news.zdnet.com) for this story (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5894933.html?tag=nl.e589).

Microsoft on Friday is set to deliver new software that will more closely link its forthcoming Xbox 360 gaming console into the company's plans for delivering digital entertainment.

The company said that as part of an update to its Media Center Edition of Windows, it will add the capability to stream digital media--music, videos, photos television and movies--from Media Center PCs to any television or device via Xbox 360.

While arguably not a huge revelation, it's nice to see that things are rolling along smoothly.

[Royal Fool]

Mmmm, smell that? That's the smell of a hot, brewing cup of DRM.

[baz]

It sucks that they are restricting this to the Media Center Edition... I really hope they bring something similar out for plain old XP.

[bapenguin]

It sucks that they are restricting this to the Media Center Edition... I really hope they bring something similar out for plain old XP.

You can still stream music and photos with regular ol' XP. The restriction is on videos and HD videos.

[Xaerin]

You can still stream music and photos with regular ol' XP. The restriction is on videos and HD videos.

i.e. the main media type you would want to stream to a big screen tv and that is too large to fit on your [non-existant] hard drive.

[HumpYourWay]

>>While arguably not a huge revelation, it's nice to see that things
>>are rolling along smoothly.

smoothly? BULLSHIT!

Those evil avatar guys always have to write their worthless comments under their newsposts....

Thats the reason why the XBox 360 cant play WMV HD - because microsoft doesnt want to undermine their windows media edition business. Also no divx is playable directly from the x360 harddrive. Sigh

Well good thing the germans stole 10 development x360s which landed in the hand of mod-makers ;) That will allow the X360 to become the media center a lot of us are used from the classic xbox console.

[bapenguin]

Thats the reason why the XBox 360 cant play WMV HD - because microsoft doesnt want to undermine their windows media edition business. Also no divx is playable directly from the x360 harddrive. Sigh


Yeah but you can still stream DivX, or anything that MediaCenter plays.



Those evil avatar guys always have to write their worthless comments under their newsposts....


fitbabits is as much as an "evil avatar guy" as you ya know.

[Heretic Machine]

fitbabits is as much as an "evil avatar guy" as you ya know.

Look at his name. He doesn't know a whole lot.

As for this stuff, Media Center's features should of been in XP, so I'm automatically discounting this whole thing as anything but a novelty.

[Metal Jesus]

I think Microsoft has got their shit together for this new round of console wars. They are not to be underestimated when they want something badly.

[baz]

You can still stream music and photos with regular ol' XP. The restriction is on videos and HD videos.

Yeah, but streaming videos is what I would want to do, so its a bit of a bummer. Especially as legal downloadable video content is becoming available. Not too bothered though, my 360 is for games, just erks me to be missing out on something that I might want to use.

I have full faith in some smart mofos making streaming video work with xp (and no doubt linux too), so I'll just have to bide my time till they figure it out... or stop playing games for a bit and do it myself :)

[trip1eX]

Yeahs no video sucks. WMC is $150 and what amounts to basically a patch over WinXP.

MS will force you to buy WMC or Vista when it comes out.

What I wonder is where's my Macintosh support? MS says they are very pro-consumer, you know, like the 360 works with the Ipod and PSP. IT doesn't work with any other O/S of course tho. :P

[bapenguin]

I really wish the interface would come with their new version of Windows but according to someone I talked to he said Vista will have a media center edition as well. The whole MEdia Center hting should just be an application. It's a shame really because it has so much potential, but Microsoft is getting greedy with it and just wants more $$.

[NoName]

Microsoft is getting greedy with it and just wants more $$.
Hehe, sorry Bapenguin, I though I just heard you say space was big...

[fitbabits]

Look at his name. He doesn't know a whole lot.

Eh? :confused:

[askheaves]

I have a feeling this will work in much the same way as the Media Center Extender does for XBox. The decoding is done on the piece of hardware connected to the TV... since network bandwidth will prohibit streaming straight up 30fps stretched bitmaps. What this means is that, if there is no method of loading new codecs onto the XBox360, it's stuck with only the ones it ships with. This was the case with the Media Center Extender... I know this because I bought one. Bad move, but kickass remote. I could pretty much only watch 1 in 10 of my movie files.

But that's all been taken care of now that I've got my box hacked. XBMC is truly a wonderful piece of software which kicks the butt of anything MS has done in this department so far.

My XBox360 will be a gaming machine, my XBox will be my media center.

[Phades]

Eh? :confused:
I think he was talking about the name of "HumpYourWayToTheTop" which is obviously the name of a very intelligent person..... or a 12 year old.

[NoName]

I think he was talking about the name of "HumpYourWayToTheTop" which is obviously the name of a very intelligent person..... or a 12 year old.
I sort of which EA would limit the number of characters in a user name after names like his. It really messes up the name to comment table ratios.

[Heretic Machine]

I sort of which EA would limit the number of characters in a user name after names like his. It really messes up the name to comment table ratios.


Ya... so do huge ass images in posts <.<

But ya, I was talking about the guy with the huge name that I'm not going to repeat.

[fitbabits]

I think he was talking about the name of "HumpYourWayToTheTop" which is obviously the name of a very intelligent person..... or a 12 year old.
Thank you! My delicate ego remains intact for another day... :eek:

[mister_slim]

I think Microsoft has got their shit together for this new round of console wars. They are not to be underestimated when they want something badly.
Yeah, but I don't think they expected Apple and Sony (extrapolating) to come in so hard though. Looks like things will get interesting soon.

[Cyrano]

It really sucks that Microsoft wants us to buy Media Center PC's rather than let us stream video from XP. I wonder if somebody can come up with a hack.

[armaniazn1]

Yeah but you can still stream DivX, or anything that MediaCenter plays.





How exactly do you stream DivX "or anything that MediaCenter plays" to the Xbox 360?

I thought the Xbox 360 cannot play DivX or Avi? :confused: