[scooby_dooby]

MASSIVE PR WARNING!

They answer the top 10 Q's about X360, most notable to me was x360 will stream video & audio only from XP, and WMC does not have full support for all Codecs although it "may" depend on the Codecs installed on the MCPC.

So that's pretty lame, looks like XBOX1 with Media Centre still is the way to go.....I wonder...can I set up MCE to stream from my main PC, with access to all my DL'd movies, then use x360 to stream from MCE? All through my PS3 swicth?? Muahaha!

here are the 10 Q's:
http://geekspeakradio.com/?p=42

interview starts at about 10minutes in

[BlueTsunami]

There will probably be some crazy person that can get full fuctionality out of 360 and Windows Media Center.....I would have liked some full integration....maybe Longhorn?

[gurgi]

I always kinda thought the streaming stuff was a worthless feature anyway. If I got a video file on a PC across the room, and I want to watch it...umm, I'll just watch it. =P

Maybe music would be nice though, if you have a nice theater system you could listen to your mp3's easier.

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by gurgi

I always kinda thought the streaming stuff was a worthless feature anyway. If I got a video file on a PC across the room, and I want to watch it...umm, I'll just watch it. =P

Porno on the Big Screen

Maybe music would be nice though, if you have a nice theater system you could listen to your mp3's easier.

yeah, that would be great, especially with the graphics synthesizer thing.

[SanGreal]

eh, I don't really care about the streaming video. I'm much more interested in being able to stream music for custom soundtracks without having to copy it to the xbox, which you can do without WMC.

That being said, I'm taking what these guys have to say with a grain of salt as they didn't exactly seem to know much about non-live issues.

I wish they came up with a list that didn't consist mostly of questions already answered :?

[scooby_dooby]

they're both needed, i have everything from seasons of simpsons, sopranos, trailer park boys, to my own recorded PVR material, daily show, chappelle show etc, plus music video's, and any other funny clips you might want to watch from your couch.

i think it's pretty weak, how hard is it to make a totally kick ass media centre that plays everything under the sun and streams from the PC.....oh wait...they already have XBMC and it's like 2 years old... can't wait till someone mods this thing, then we'll be cookin!

lame, totally lame....wonder what Sony will do....

[PG2G]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

lame, totally lame....wonder what Sony will do....

Hopefully ship (or have available) with Linux.

[MechanizedDeath]

I never understood the whole MC nonsense to begin with. When I was working in VT, our sys admin had a PC in the backroom hooked up to the school's cable feed, and it was running just Windows Movie Maker2, encoding to WMV and then streaming that over the network (at low, but very watchable bitrates) to anyone who cared. All you did was enter the IP addy into media player, and BAM!, CNN or any channel you wanted on your desktop. We did this starting with the Iraq War, and it was great. I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing for any console. Why would you need to have specific versions of an OS? Plain-jane XP does everything you need and more. :? PEACE.

[PG2G]

Meh, who am I kidding. I should just build a HTPC.

[MechanizedDeath]

Originally Posted by PG2G

Meh, who am I kidding. I should just build a HTPC.

Really, you could. The CNN feed we had was good enough to read the scrolling tickers at the bottom of the screen clearly, and yet it was efficient enough that we had a few dozen people using the feed with no bandwith hiccups at all, and most of those were over wireless from the same access point at our end of one of the buildings. Hell, I was watching CNN out in my car during my lunch break one afternoon. I don't know why you'd need anything special at all to do this since standard XP comes with everything you could ever need to do this, save for a capture card. And all we used was an ATI All-In-Wonder. Probably a 9600/9700 IIRC. PEACE.

[Inane_Dork]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

They answer the top 10 Q's about X360, most notable to me was x360 will stream video & audio only from XP, and WMC does not have full support for all Codecs although it "may" depend on the Codecs installed on the MCPC.

Wait... that doesn't make any sense. They've been advertising that it's a MCE, but it won't talk to an MCPC? How do they plan on getting live and recorded TV to the 360 as they talked about?

I don't mean to be offensive, but are you sure you heard that correctly?



EDIT: Here is the article I was recalling: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase..._inside_02.asp

[scooby_dooby]

to clarify

regulare windows XP will stream images and audio only, no video. so that's official now.

windows media center will stream video as well as audio using the media centre extender,

however the 360 does not contain codecs such as divX and xvid etc, so the encoding formats supported by media centre extender "may" depend on the codecs installed on the WMC-PC.

he also noted that there were some vids on his mcpc that wouldn't playback on the current 360 build.

[Inane_Dork]

So... what's the part of this that's so reprehensible then? I would like to have any and every codec and play video from XP as well, but that's not what MCEs are designed to do. And why is the X1 better than this?

[scooby_dooby]

cause xbox1 with XBMC(Xbox Media Centre homebrew) can play every single file i have on my pc, period. component video, 5.1 dolby digital on my big screen. it supports all codecs and connect to any XP or win2000 machine using simple file shares. Easy right?

even x360 with a WMC-PC won't be able to that that, it'll only play 'some' and with just regular xp it won't play videos at all.

if sony comes out with a "real" media player built-in, which can't be too hard of a few coders built XBMC, that's a huge advantage in my mind. X360 is supposed to be the center of your living room but it can't playback videos? Who's great idea was this??

I guess what's bugging me, is the XBMC guys showed how easy it is to make a kick ass media player on xbox 1, as if MS can't do the same. I think it's retarded.

[BlueTsunami]

Thats right. I was expecting Xbox360 to act as a Media Extender...or the like..for itself...but I also think it sucks that you need a media extender (which are expensive at this time) to be able to stream video to it. But as you said scooby...there will probably be some homebrew app that allow you the same things as Xbox with the 360. Unless they impliment some mean anti tamper mechanism with the 360....them hmmmmm

[PG2G]

I think the X360 itself is a MCE, so you wouldn't need to buy anything extra. I guess the major thing is it says you need a Media Center PC. I think most of us expected it to only play formats like WMV, as unfortunate as it may be.

[SanGreal]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

however the 360 does not contain codecs such as divX and xvid etc, so the encoding formats supported by media centre extender "may" depend on the codecs installed on the WMC-PC.

If that is true, which I doubt, I think that is a good thing. I'm really not expecting much beyond WMV though. Again, he didn't seem to know what he was talking about.

he also noted that there were some vids on his mcpc that wouldn't playback on the current 360 build.

For what its worth, he said they wouldn't play back on his MCE, not a 360.

Originally Posted by BlueTsunami

Thats right. I was expecting Xbox360 to act as a Media Extender...or the like..for itself...but I also think it sucks that you need a media extender (which are expensive at this time) to be able to stream video to it. But as you said scooby...there will probably be some homebrew app that allow you the same things as Xbox with the 360. Unless they impliment some mean anti tamper mechanism with the 360....them hmmmmm

The Xbox360 is a Media Center Extender, you don't need to buy one for these features. What you need is Windows Media Center Edition.


I'm a big fan of XBMC but if Microsoft were to include its functionality it'd have to pay a lot of licensing fees for the codecs


edit: whoops, I had this post open for 20 minutes before completing it and it seems I'm just repeating someone now

[Inane_Dork]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

cause xbox1 with XBMC(Xbox Media Centre homebrew) can play every single file i have on my pc, period. component video, 5.1 dolby digital on my big screen. it supports all codecs and connect to any XP or win2000 machine using simple file shares. Easy right?

If you have no HD material, yeah.

even x360 with a WMC-PC won't be able to that that, it'll only play 'some' and with just regular xp it won't play videos at all.

If you want the ultimate in customization and flexibility, get a PC. Not every product is for you.

if sony comes out with a "real" media player built-in, which can't be too hard of a few coders built XBMC, that's a huge advantage in my mind. X360 is supposed to be the center of your living room but it can't playback videos? Who's great idea was this??

Media Center is MS's "thing." They're promoting it by finally providing an Extender that's worth a darn. If that doesn't fit your needs, fine. If you already do what it does and more before the 360 comes out, you weren't in the target audience anyway.

I guess what's bugging me, is the XBMC guys showed how easy it is to make a kick ass media player on xbox 1, as if MS can't do the same. I think it's retarded.

You might as well complain that MS didn't allow you to run SETI@Home on the Xbox or any of the myriad of things PCs do that consoles do not. You want more control, fine. A console will not provide it. A PC will, but you have more responsibility with a PC too. The crowd that doesn't want to hassle with all that is the crowd MS is appealing to.

It's not like DVR was non-existant before TiVo, but TiVo sure as heck made it simpler and more popular, even if it did make bigtime limitations to what you could do.

Remember, this is a "free" thing you get when you buy a 360. A perk. The thing in the bottom of the cereal box.
For a perk, it seems pretty valuable.

[Mefisutoferesu]

Questions that came to mind as I listened to the interview. If anyone wants to take a stab at answering please do/


1) Policability of Live! -- They were talking about how you'll manually be able to change the gamertag level... what's to keep some wanker from switching their "pro" to "newb" then going in and just bullying around everyone... or worse switching from "adult" to "kid" and then just having a swear fest?

2)Keeping my tag -- Gamertags are coordinated off and online... what happens if someone already has my tag? Am I forced to change? Do gold members have senority? Say a silver member goes online before me and has my tag... I'm gold though, so can I over ride it?

3) Keeping score -- Say I'm a silver member and I'm GOD in Forza, will my earth shattering records be hurded in with the gold members as well? A sorta, indirect competition?

4) Multiple users -- Will gamertags have a sort of login? That way you can lock out others from touching your saves and such? Having mutliple profiles on a single console. Actually, kinda necesary for the gamertag accomplisments, no?

5) Dead battery is dead online -- What happens in the unlikely case that my battery dies, while I'm online? Is it pot luck night for everyone else playing against me, or a universal pause wait for me to rectify the situtation?

6) The dig -- Must there always be a dig towards the competition? Especially in this case when it's completely wrong? This one's retorical.


EDIT:: Sorry, about the grammar and spelling typed as I listened.

[scooby_dooby]

"If you want the ultimate in customization and flexibility, get a PC. Not every product is for you. "

Hmm? I simply want my console to playback all the media on my PC. Very simple. Not the "ultimate in customization and flexibility". I think it's dumb to "nueter" the functionality, and not allow videos. WHY?

it's a clear case of politics and one division interfering with another. You might call it a perk, but it's called a major selling point if Sony includes video playback (and why wouldn't they)? I can see the futureshop salesmen right now "Well the 360 won't play video's so you should buy the PS3"

They could easily offer this feature, however they won't because it would cannabalize the MC sales. Sales in another division that has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. And that argument is extremely weak, not everyone wants a PVR, what does taht really have to do with native video streaming on 360? Really?

It's a dumb move period. They are going to get hammered by PS3 for the next 5 years because PS3 plays videos and x360 doesn't, way to give up one of the best selling points for no good reason.

It's there "thing"? Its called too many cooks in the kitchen, personally I don't care since my xbox does the trick, and eventually the 360 will be modded, so i can wait. I just think it's a major stupid decision on their part.

Hold back functionality for absolutely no other reason than to boost sales in a complately unrelated division. Great idea, really helps move our console forward as the entertainment hub...

i mean you can stream JPG's to youre TV! JPG's! wow! Oh you want to stream videos? sorry we could have included that for less than .001cent/console, but instead please buy the less functional $500 WM-PC that sux an extra $5-10/month in power, thx MS.

[pegisys]

I doubt the ps3 will be able to stream video forom a pc atleast they haven't said anything about it, and the same can be said about the blue-ray drive sony is just trying to boost sell for the movie department, but as long as it plays games I don't care

[scooby_dooby]

so those 1000MB ethernet ports are for mp3's and jpgs?

[mckmas8808]

And that Blu-ray drive that can sell a 100 million will not play movies? Riiight.

[SanGreal]

scooby_dooby, just to make sure.. You realize that they are talking about being able to stream video FROM a Windows Media Center PC to the xbox360 , right? I get the impression from reading your posts that you think they took video streaming out of the 360 and you're supposed to use a MCPE in its place for that feature. The two are meant to compliment each other.

[PARANOiA]

The biggest pain in the butt on this is that the X360 will have less media centre functions than the current Xbox with "Xbox Media Centre". That's stupid!

I know I'm not going to upgrade unless I get "more". Otherwise I'll need to keep my Xbox in the cabinet as well, which quite frankly sucks.