Using The 360 As A Media Player

[allenfrisch]

In my effort to set up my XBox 360 as a Media Center Extender for my PCs I stumbled across a couple of things I think other 360 owners may find interesting.

In the first place, I have been unable to connect my system to either the Windows XP laptop or the Vista desktop connected to my wireless network. I've followed Microsoft's as well as several third-party instructions for setting up the connection but have been unsuccessful over and over again. The funny thing is that due technical issues we don't even have encryption protecting the network! Anyway, I'm stumped. So if anyone has any advice I'd be pleased to hear what you've got to say.

In any case, in the midst of my quest to be able to access my video and audio files from my 360 I read the detailed description of the new dashboard's media capabilities on Xbox Live. Tucked in among a bunch of other items was the fact that the update allows the 360 to play .avi files directly! When I read that I immediately placed an .avi file on a USB memory stick and shoved it into the 360. Sure enough the video played without a hitch! "Sweeeeet," I thought, "I can play most of my stuff without having to connect to my PC after all!"

Then it crossed my mind that if a memory stick could connect to the 360, a larger storage device might connect too. Well, I recently copied nearly all my DVDs and other A/V files from disc to a !TB External Hard Drive to conserve some space in my apartment as well as my wife's sanity. So I connected the External Drive to the 360 and, glory be, I was able to access all my media goodness from a single location through my 360!

I then pondered the happy idea that the 360 might just be able to read .avi, .wmv, .mpeg and other A/V files directly from data DVD or CD as well. Guess what, folks? IT DOES! And the system even does a pretty good job of adapting to the various aspect ratios and other limitations presented by the individual files among my collection.

I'll discuss how well the 360 succeeded in playing media files in my next post to break things up a bit. But the essential point of THIS post is to inform anyone who hasn't figured this out yet that the XBox 360 can and will access media files on your thumb drives, external drives, and other USB storage devices in addition to media files you have stored on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM!

[allenfrisch]

So how does the 360 actually stack up as a media player in comparison to the competition? Read on, and I'll tell you what I've experienced so far.

The good news is that the 360 is able to read a wide variety of Audio/Video files. In the past week of experimenting, I've been able to access many DivX, .avi, .mpeg, and .wmv files without any major problems (oh, and many .mp3, .wma, and other music files too). The interface for playback is fairly simplistic but elegently presented and quite intuitive. So far, so good!

The bad news is that like every other mutlemedia player out there, the 360 doesn't support every codec in existence. Perhaps I'll post a complete list of supported file-types and codecs at another time, but for now suffice to say that not every file you try to play is going to work. On the other hand, I've found that the 360 is no more crippled in this aspect than any other media player I've used. I have a Phillips DVD set-top DVD player which supports DivX and many other file-types and have experienced the same problems. More recently I bought a portable DVD player from Phillips which has the same capabilities and it is even MORE adept in its codec support, but still suffers from the same limitations, though to a lesser degree. Lastly, I've got the Creative Vision W which is specifically designed to play back nearly any type of file you can imagine and have to say that it's no better than the 360 in this area. The only medium I've found that exceeds the 360 and every other multimedia device on the market in file-type and codec support is the PC! And even the PC takes a lot of fiddling around with to successfully access every A/V file! [BTW, the free GOM Player is absolutely astonishing! Try it!]

The other problem I've noticed is that the 360 only presents subtitles for A/V files occassionally. As a ginormous anime fan who scorns dubbed material, I'm dissapointed in this fact. Not that subtitles aren't supported at all, it's just that support for them is spotty at best.

In conclusion, as a multimedia player I'll award the XBox 360 a score of B+ for the time-being. To summarize: file-type support is excellent, codec support is questionable, and subtitle support is lacking.

The best news is that Microsoft has done an outstanding job of releasing the two updates per year they've dedicated themselves to. So my complaints may be addressed in the near-future! AND they aren't wussy little weasle updates which only serve to LIMIT your system's capabilities like Sony's PSP and PS3 or to give you underwhelming stuff you won't use anyway like the Wii's most recent update (including the ability to buy virtual console games as gifts and send them to all your Wii-mates. Gee, thanks a whole lot for that, Nintendo...). The most recent 360 update may appear to be minor on the surface, but if you look into all the little improvements that were implemented, they add up to a major upgrade in the package as a whole. In my opinion, of course!! In any case, this bodes well for the future for us multimedia-addicted 360 owners!

[Shane R. Monroe]

All of this is completely pointless to someone that has an EXISTING media system on shared hard drives, as you cannot easily get to that data without a STREAMING third party go-between.

Why would someone with an existing media storage system care? Well, I don't have a 5.1 decoder in my "whitebox media PC", so the sound is better when played through the 360. It also upscales content which the PC won't do - so I end up watching "high def" stuff in low res PC resolution - which is fine for sh*tty Judge Judy type daily caps, but for "archived" high-def stuff, it blows.

The 360 could ALSO save someone the expense and trouble of a special PC remote control set up (my Firefly is nice, but if I could have saved $50, I would have done that )

Simple access to network shares would solve this problem.

[allenfrisch]

I'll grant you that the 360 isn't going to replace the existing set-up of knowledgable users like you, Shane. Nevertheless, for networking numbskulls like me, the 360 turns out to at least be a viable option! But I bet most XBox 360 users have no idea that some of these possibilities even exist!

[Layer]

I guess I was lucky and had no problem setting up my 3 PC's to share files with my 360. The easiest way is to not even bother with the Media Extender and just activate/allow media sharing through WMP 11 in XP/Vista (Media Center cannot seem to play Divx/Xvid properly for me - it crashes). You can add locations to the library in WMP 11. The 360 will list all the available PC's and you can select/change locations to look for content.

The 360 is now yet another way to move content around my home network - and I love it!

[allenfrisch]

I tried that method, but my 360 simply doesn't recognize anything else on the network. Sucks to be me, I guess!

[NE146]

Nevertheless, for networking numbskulls like me, the 360 turns out to at least be a viable option!

What then was the original Xbox to you? To me THAT is the all around cheapest & easiest everyday mans solution to playing streaming media of all types. The 360's only advantage is the upscaling and hi def capabilities. But aside from that it falls way short.

[allenfrisch]

What then was the original Xbox to you? To me THAT is the all around cheapest & easiest everyday mans solution to playing streaming media of all types. The 360's only advantage is the upscaling and hi def capabilities. But aside from that it falls way short.

I love the original XBox too! The ability to softmod the XBox was the single coolest development in video games that I can put my finger on since I've been an adult. The great thing about the 360 is that it does so many things well WITHOUT any modifications! But you can bet your butt that I'll be first in line to take advantage of any modifications for the 360 that are developed that don't require me to take apart and reassemble my precious system.

But don't get me wrong. I'm no Microsoft fanboy. I appreciate certain aspects about nearly every console. They all offer advantages and disadvantages that will appeal to someone, depending on their tastes and needs. Of the current generation of consoles, the 360 simply does the best job of appealing to my tastes and meeting my needs. Among handhelds, the DS shares that distinction. But I can still appreciate playing my Wii and PSP--I just play them for different reasons and for different types of games.