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Home > Archive > Xbox forum > September 2005 > What's it like as a "Media Centre"?
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What's it like as a "Media Centre"?
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| Alex Griffin 2005-08-31, 6:35 am |
| So has anyone had any hands on with the Xbox 360 with its "Media Centre" hat
on? Are we restricted just to the Codecs MS will bless us with, or is there
any chance of adding new codecs by potentially buying them through the live
marketplace? The main codec I am interested is the Xvid one. I really hope
they get this right, I would love to be able to buy the thing and have it
doing what I want it to do out of the box.
If they get this right, and if the convince the muppet content providers to
trust their DRM, it would even be better to be able to logon to the
marketplace, and be able to download a DRM'd episode of whatever has just
been shown on TV, pay a sensible price for the DRM content (maybe a $1 for
an episode with out adverts, less with) and most importantly be able to do
this anywhere in the world, but who am I kidding  But hey who knows,
someone at one of the big media content providers might cotton on to this
T'internet thing!
I have heard very little about the media centre capabilities of the 360, but
in my mind if they get it right, they really could have a revolutionary
product on their hands. OTOH if they stick to what I have seen with the
Windows Media Centre boxes, then it will be a bit of a wet fish (smelling
(abit)).
--
Alex Griffin
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| Björn Marthen 2005-09-01, 6:36 am |
| Alex Griffin schrieb:
quote:
> So has anyone had any hands on with the Xbox 360 with its "Media Centre" hat
> on? Are we restricted just to the Codecs MS will bless us with, or is there
> any chance of adding new codecs by potentially buying them through the live
> marketplace? The main codec I am interested is the Xvid one. I really hope
The playback of Videofiles works only with a Windows XP Media Center PC.
The original article (in german) from Boris Schneider-Johne (xbox
product manager of MS Germany)
"Video-Wiedergabe funktioniert nur über einen Windows Media Center PC.
Man kann nicht einfach irgendwelche WMVs oder AVIs abspielen, eben weil
wahrscheinlich die entsprechenden Codecs fehlen. Dazu ist die
“Codec-Dichte” auf dem PC mit dutzenden leicht differierender
DIVX/XVID/MP4 Versionen einfach zu groß.
Getestet wird Xbox 360 nur mit Windows Media Connect; ob andere
UPnP-Server funktionieren, kann ich nicht sagen."
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| Alex Griffin 2005-09-02, 8:33 pm |
| Bjorn said:
quote:
> The playback of Videofiles works only with a Windows XP Media Center PC.
sagen."
That's a big pity, this article confirms that too:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/0...0_media_center/
The only bright news is that Vista will be MCE enabled, IMHO, they need to
make current XP Pro and Home MCE enabled too. I don't want to have a
dedicated PC running the media centre edition, and frankly I am not sold on
the idea of going out and buying the current generation of MCE PCs. Maybe if
they make a MCE PC at the right price, and size. i.e. something that will
fit under my TV and that is silent.... We are a long way away from that
though. I would much rather just pay them $100 to buy the MCE extensions and
put them on my current PC, and yes I could go out and buy an OEM version of
MCE, but I don't want to be running a "broken" XP Pro, I want a fully
fledged XP Pro that does MCE stuff (hardware (my problem) permitting).
How about a guaranteed invitation to the Vista Beta once they add in the MCE
support when you buy your Xbox 360?
Ideally as far as I am concerned the Xbox itself would be the media centre
and not the blasted extender.....Currently I am running the XBMC on my Xbox
and it rocks, I fail to see the lack of imagincation on MS's side of the
fence, I must be missing something..... To my mind the digital media
revolution would happen once we had a one stop shop sitting under our TV
that could do all our digital media type things, the Xbox 360 could be that
box.
--
Alex Griffin
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| Kendrick Kerwin Chua 2005-09-02, 8:33 pm |
| In article <ubEO196rFHA.3352@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl>,
Alex Griffin <nntpuser@hotmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
quote:
>Ideally as far as I am concerned the Xbox itself would be the media centre
>and not the blasted extender.....Currently I am running the XBMC on my Xbox
>and it rocks, I fail to see the lack of imagincation on MS's side of the
>fence, I must be missing something..... To my mind the digital media
>revolution would happen once we had a one stop shop sitting under our TV
>that could do all our digital media type things, the Xbox 360 could be that
>box.
Isn't the issue about DRM protection? The Extender application depends on
the PC for the Microsoft Passport and other unique user identifiers, to
make sure that you've got an appropriate license (or whatever arbitrary
authorization) to play some media. The XBMC, as an unofficial and
unsanctioned third-party app, doesn't care about DRM and will pretty much
let you play any media you want regardless of whether or not you own it.
Given that laws around ownership and licensing of media are still being
written and interpreted broadly, it doesn't surprise me that there's a
huge gap between what the Media Extender can do, and what people actually
might want it for.
-KKC, who remembers the old rule about confirming suspicins... 'Follow the
women and the money.'
--
--S.S.B. is the code name for America's daring, highly | kendrick @io .com
trained special mission force. Its purpose: to |
defend human freedom against al-Qaeda, a ruthless | Please don't use
terrorist organization determined to rule the world! | eBay. Ask me why.
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| Alex Griffin 2005-09-02, 8:33 pm |
|
"Kendrick Kerwin Chua" <kendrick@fnord.io.com> wrote in message
news:Pbudnatkp5-oooXeRVn-iQ@io.com...
quote:
> In article <ubEO196rFHA.3352@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl>,
> Alex Griffin <nntpuser@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Isn't the issue about DRM protection? The Extender application depends on
> the PC for the Microsoft Passport and other unique user identifiers, to
> make sure that you've got an appropriate license (or whatever arbitrary
> authorization) to play some media. The XBMC, as an unofficial and
> unsanctioned third-party app, doesn't care about DRM and will pretty much
> let you play any media you want regardless of whether or not you own it.
> Given that laws around ownership and licensing of media are still being
> written and interpreted broadly, it doesn't surprise me that there's a
> huge gap between what the Media Extender can do, and what people actually
> might want it for.
Is there any decent DRM media out there right now? If there is, it has
eluded me. I am based in the UK, so it is possible, maybe in the US people
are downloading DRM'd TV shows etc., but I've not seen anything along those
lines. Music looks healthy, but Video looks very stale to me.
After posting the above I took a look at what the current MCE does, and it
is quite nice, I nearly even thought about trying it out, but I found one
thing which is a big flaw IMHO. Apparently it currently runs on an
"un-broken" copy of XP Pro as its base (that's a big improvement) and it
will also play anything it has a codec for, but the extenders will not
(that's a disaster). Surely the extenders should be based on the same
architecture and OS so that the parent can chuck the necessary codec back at
the extender!? (Admittedly the Xbox 360 is a different architecture
altogether). I could see the DRM protection being an issue on the PC based
MCE, but Microsoft have spent two and a half years on the Xbox, which means
the security on it should be pretty good.
I am probably not a typical console buyer, I bought mine on the basis of
what I saw it could do as a media centre under my TV using the XBMC. I was
hoping Microsoft would produce something to equal or exceed the XBMC, but
would not appear to be the case. If anything I would have thought the Xbox
360 would have been the ideal platform for a locked down DRM solution, it
too could be made to use the passport system or a tie in of it to the Xbox
Live system. Maybe the content providers are suspicious after the first one
was chipped.
I think I will probably get one just to see what it can do, but I have this
sinking feeling I will be disappointed with what I get straight out of the
box. I think my current Xbox with XBMC will be seeing quite a bit more use
until it hits that point where HDTV and a center with a HD based DVD drive
becomes a necessity.
--
Alex Griffin
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