Windows Media Center Edition 2005

[sj33]

Given the 360 seems to work best for media when connected to a PC running this, I was considering getting this installed.

2 questions though -

1) I do sometimes use my PC for games - would I experience performance loss by using Media Center Edition instead of normal XP Pro?

2) I hear MCE 2002 is slightly better than 2005 in some ways, anyone know what the differences are?

[Valken]

I have it, it works fine for games... the only difference WITHOUT Media Center running is that there are a few services in the bg for record on demand TV. Other than that it's pretty much WinXP Pro but you can't add it to a domain without a little "convincing"...

I play a lot of WoW, Day of Defeat: Source and Rome: Total War on mine and I notice no drop since switching from XP Pro to MCE 2005.

I have no idea about the differences between MCE 2002 and MCE 2005 I'm afraid but it's still very, very good IMO.

[marcus]

Ive not looked into MCE but I heard that it was only available on MCE-specifically built PCs, I assume that it doesnt depend on any specific hardware set as such then?

[hankwangford]

Be wary that 360 is unlikely to support anything but WMV and MPG out of the box though, so if you're an anime nut or fancy spending time converting DivX to WMV then be prepared for a rather cut down media box.

Marcus: you can only get MCE on OEM. It does have extra hardware specifications (TV card required) but I believe you can get by without it.

[marcus]

Thanks Hank

[Valken]

Yeah, I just installed it on a homebuilt PC... for the TV features you NEED a certain chipset for a TV card etc but IMO an SD TV card outputting onto a HDTV = madness anyways so I didn't get one.

[Hodge]

Be wary that 360 is unlikely to support anything but WMV and MPG out of the box though, so if you're an anime nut or fancy spending time converting DivX to WMV then be prepared for a rather cut down media box.

Thats fine for me as I would only use It for playing back High Def material. And seeing that alot of the HD material I have Is either WMV or MPG, thats great. Plus I got on the BBC IMP trial and you can DL various documentaries and stuff of them in High DEF which is encoded in WMV so will work great on the 360. I do hope they update It with support for divx later on though.

[Rossco]

It's quite gutting there is no support for AVI files right now as thats what I use my Xbox for ALOT now to play downloaded TV programs. Annoyed that I'll need to keep it set up and cant get rid of it yet.

[sj33]

It's not been confirmed by MS I don't think, but I agree it's likely the case.

It's not such an issue for me, as I have my PC connected to my TV via DVI anyway, but I find it ironic that the media support for the 360 was partially suprred by the amount of people modding their XBoxes for XBMC, and people are now having to rely on XBMC because the 360's support is so sub-par...

I was under the impression that the 360 Media Center Extender support basically meant it could use any format that your PC can use?

[Rossco]

Yeah you would have expected MS to go all out and do 1up on XBMC to show people they dont need to pimp their Xbox 360's to get all this cool stuff.


I just realised I can connect my LCD TV to my PC when I get the TV soon anyway so not to worry really!

[EvilBoris]

Well I never, look at this, I've never seen this before

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/xboxmediacenterextender.htm

and looking around, it seems like all the media center extenders can't do divx as the codecs are part of the extender

[sj33]

Well I never, look at this, I've never seen this before

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x...erextender.htm

and looking around, it seems like all the media center extenders can't do divx as the codecs are part of the extender

Hmm, so people are going to be modding their 360's for XBMC360 after all, nice one MS.

AVI is still the most popular and most used container format around, no matter how much MS pimps WMV around.
I hope MS see sense and add decoders for other formats in their updates.

[Valken]

They're kinda shooting themselves in the foot really, it'd be easy enough for WinXP MCE to load codecs into an extender "on demand".

Ah well, all of my stuff is so close together that I can just connect my PC to the HDTV too.

[EvilBoris]

There is even enough bandwidth in a wireless network to transmit uncompressed sound and video to the extender, then no decoding would need to be done

[EvilBoris]

Here is a snippet from an interview with peter moore regarding media streaming etc.

* Larger or External USB Drives?
The compatibility with a Windows Media Center system means, theoretically, you can have 200GB+ of space for your new 360. However, there are currently no plans to have an XBOX 360 hard drive that's bigger than 20GB. It may be implemented several years from now, if such an upgrade is warranted, but for now the team believes that 20GB is more than ample. Files can be transferred and deleted and added just like on a regular PC.

* Connectivity with Windows XP and Vista
While you can, in fact, stream content from a PC running XP to the 360 via your home network, Microsoft believes the real focal point should be Media Center Edition and that pure entertainment is key. USB expandability is also integral, while Vista, which will have a strong entertainment component, is also highly compatible with the 360.