Do You Use Your Xbox360 As A Media Center Extender? Options

[XanTium]

feel free to vote/discuss

[CloakedHunter]

Yes, and it's freaking awesome. Transcode 360 is magical.

[mitch2025]

yea i use it. its awsome. i use VLC360 instead of Transcode360 though

[ElGato]

Both 360 and HTPC connected to same 32" LCD so no need.

This post has been edited by ElGato: Sep 30 2006, 10:38 PM

[loose.unit8]

Is it as good / easy to use etc as Xbox Media Center on a modded xbox1?

[dre74]

nope XBMC takes those duties.

[avatar1976]

nope XBMC takes those duties.

Well I thought that too until I found out with MCE2005 and a media extender you can make your home PC in your computer room, your digital TV set top box in effect.

[The Reepr]

I have to say, microsoft didn't mess up on the media functions of the 360, but it gets the shit kicked out of it by XBMC. Free source all in one media player that does everythng you wish it could do and more. It's an all in one. People use it as thier DASHBOARD. Now, let's see if 360's media center will have full customization, ability to edit features (I'm not saying to the extent of XBMC, but certain things should be changeble.) So cheers to all who agree with supporting X360 MC, but still choose XBMC because it certainly IS JUST BETTER. No opinion needed. [/rant]

[RaFaMp]

I'd use it, if i knew how to...

[avatar1976]

Can you stream live tv out of media portal yet using xbmc, as soon as you can do that I'm going back to XBMC as my main system, aside from that major flaw xbmc is t3h r0X0Rs

[Altima NEO]

I dont have a media center pc. On top of that my PC is a loud, hot beast. It would be annoying to have it on while running the 360 (which is also loud and hot).
XBMC does everything I could ever want to do. I just use SAMBA file sharing on my mac mini, and its all good.

[epsilon72]

My 360 will be used as a "media center extender" when the real Xbox Media Center can run on it. Until then, I have no need to as my 360 and PC are hooked up to the same display.

[BasicAir]

I got my 360 at launch, didn't get XP MCE until a month ago. I must say that it's very, very good.

XBMC is great in that it plays basically -anything- but I must say that I think it's been overhyped. It's a great media player, but I still preferred (yes I sold my Xbox1) to use Avalaunch as my dash and I made my own custom INI/XML file for Ava so that the top link was "Games", second was "XBMC", etc.

I rarely used XBMC and I rarely use MCE on my 360 but it's very, very nice.

Sure MCE doesn't support a lot of video formats for playback, but with Transcode 360 it does! So I've watched some 720P/1080i movies using Transcode 360 on my PC and MCE on my 360 and it works like a charm! Excellent HD movie playback along with DD5.1 or whatever the file may be coded with for audio.

However, I do have complaints....

The biggest complaint I have is if I go to "Best of Web" in MCE on my 360, so I can catch all kinds of games/videos/trailers from the net (like Comedy Central's "The Stash" which is GREAT) but that feature laggs like hell.

Also, a lot of features in MCE won't work if you are using the limited edition "mini" media remotes like that one I got with my 360 since I got it at launch. So this means I have to use a controller to do certain things!

All in all MCE is great and I'm glad as hell I transitioned from XP Pro SP2 to XP MCE 2005 Edition. It's just a shame I don't use it more often....

Oh yeah, as far as Transcode 360 goes, sure it will let me playback HD movies from my PC in formats like .ts, etc., BUT you can't FF or Rewind. I heard with the better media remotes you can use a 30-second skip button but, of course, I have the mini limited edition media remote so I don't have that button. Even if I did, a 30-second skip still isn't as good as a real FF/Rew. That's not a big deal though, so I can live with that.

I'm gonna research this VLC 360 the dude above mentioned and maybe that will stream HD .ts (and other format) files but actually allow me to FF/Rew, which again Transcode 360 doesn't do!

Anyone without XP MCE is really missing out. I recommend everyone go out and buy/download/whatever XP MCE for their PC to use the Extender on the 360 to the fullest potential like myself and other friends.

[Yorper]

Needs option for those that dont even own a 360.

[NerdENerd]

I have an XP machine hooked up to my LCD TV so no need. I tried XP Media Center but I thought it was crap. The software that came with my digital TV capture card is heaps better.
http://www.digitalnow.com.au/dntvlive/index.html