Xbox 360, the Media Side

Michael Gartenberg | November 22, 2005, 07:45 AM

One of the most impressive things about the first generation of Xbox was the ability to use the console as a low cost media center extender for windows media center PCs. It was a cumbersome process though, requiring a special boot disk for the console and while the overall experience worked, it was far from seamless. In this new generation, there's a new story around media and it revolves around several areas. The ability to rip music directly to the Xbox 360 if you have the hard drive option, the ability to plug a portable media player (including the iPod without support for songs from the iTunes music store), the ability to stream music (and view pictures) using Windows Media Connect and finally, if you have a Media Center PC, the ability to use the console as a Windows Media Extender. If you're using any of the first three options, you can also use the music you select to replace the music in any Xbox title.

So how well does it all work? Ripping to the hard disk is painless, but unless you haven't got a PC and plan to use the limited 20gb of storage as a repository for your music, it's not the best option for most folks. Plugging in a external player works well. My iPod was able play content with any issues, other than the fact that there's no support for protected content. A WMA compliant device worked equally as well. The real fun came when I tried to use my PC as the source. First, you need to have your PC and your Xbox on the same network. You then need to download the Windows Connect software from Microsoft and enable it. After it finds your music (and pictures) they just appear in the Xbox media blade and you can listen to them (accompanied by some cool visualizations by the legendary Jeff Minter) or use them as in game songs. It works and it works well. Using the media remote makes this process effortless and it shows how well a connected console can work as a spoke when connected to a media centric hub like the PC. The next step was the Media Center Extender. First, you need to make sure you're running MCE 2005. Older versions aren't supported. Next, you need to make sure you've installed the newest update," Rollup Two", as it's known and make sure there are no glitches. In my case there was a nasty issue that had developed on the machine (the dreaded, "profile won't unload error") that necessitated a full re-install of Windows. Your mileage may vary. You also need a fast home network. Now MSFT recommends you use wired Ethernet, even thought the majority of home networks aren't wired but wireless. If you're using 80211.b, give up now, it's not worth the effort. Even 80211g isn't going to work very well for lots of technical issues (your mileage may vary) but if you have an 80211a router hooked up to your MCE and the wireless adapter, for Xbox, you're good to go. As soon as you turn on the Xbox, you'll get notice on your MCE. Just follow the directions and download the new version of the extender software and you'll be good to go. How does it work? Rather well. Video is clean clear, the overall experience feels much more like the native MCE experience and I had no problem using online features like MTV.com and Newsgator over the Extender. HiDef content streamed (for the first time ever on a an extender) and it's a real value add for Xbox owners with MCE machines. There's no doubt that 360 is the extender strategy at MSFT for the time being.

Having said that, I'm going to point out that it's not as big a deal as other are making this out. While the PC is the natural repository for certain types of content, especially music and pictures, it's not default store for video (that honor still goes to the set top box). Especially since there isn't much of a marketing strategy between Xbox and MCE, it's not likely many consumers will ever use this feature (or even trip over it). Even if they know about it, the issues related to getting this thing to work over a network at home are huge. Most consumers simply will either lack the technology or skills to make this thing connect properly. At the moment, it's a good pointer for the future direction of where this stuff will go, it's light years ahead of what anyone else if offering but it's hampered by a lack of marketing to consumers and plagued by technology that's still more aimed at the enthusiasts and not the masses.