I'm thinking about buying an xbox 360 and one of the things I want to use it for is as a media center. I'm reading about the possibilities and going through the other threads, but a lot of information in those isn't relevent to my interests. I have xp home on one computer and vista pro on the other.

Right now the computer with xp home is connected to my HDTV and i use that to play movies and stream content from the internet, but I would like a sleeker UI and have a limited budget so I thought about the 360.

I really want a ps3 but someone said it can't play many file types.

7/6/2008 7:56:59 AM

What file types do you want to play?

7/6/2008 8:09:49 AM

I know the ps3 can do it, but I think it doesn't work with a few codecs.

7/6/2008 8:11:54 AM

.avi, .wmv, some stuff that will only play with vlc player

can the 360 play content that is on the network but not the 360 itself?

7/6/2008 9:45:50 AM

the ps3 handles a crapton more codecs natively. but then if you transcode w/ the server it doesnt matter much i guess.

360 has d/lable movies. i don't know how it works or how the quality is, but ps3 doesnt have that yet. supposed to be coming this summer.

7/6/2008 10:51:39 AM

^^ yes, it can be used as a Media Extender if you have MCE/Vista, or if you don't you can use something like Winamp Remote (ORB) to play junk without DRM over the network.

7/6/2008 11:08:43 AM

You can play shared content from a networked computer on your 360. If you're pulling it from a computer with Media Center, it'll look all pretty and Media Center-y. If you're getting it from a non-MC system via the regular XBox menus, it's not all fancy interfacey, but it gets the job done and it's certainly prettier than VLC.

However, if you have stuff with uncommon codecs, you'd be way better off using VLC. The 360's ability to play a variety of videos has VASTLY improved over what it used to be able to play, but it can't play everything.

7/6/2008 11:57:15 AM

how about with the ps3? i would prefer the ps3 because of gran tourismo and i want a blueray player but can it play the files i already have?

how hard is it to move files to the 360 or ps3? as easy as moving it to something on the network?

7/6/2008 12:42:44 PM

should be fine playing what you already have. i prefer 360 bc i play (or used to play) halo a lot.. so that'd be my personal preference.

but either should be capable of what you're wanting

7/6/2008 12:47:53 PM

I connect my PS3 to Windows Media Server and move/play files over the network. You can also play .mkv files after a short conversion if that matters. The PS3 interface is very basic. It's like Windows Explorer more than a media package.

7/6/2008 2:04:46 PM

I use http://tversity.com/ on my 360 and it works great. But I have a friend that uses the same software on the PS3 and it also works fine. From what I understand, Tversity takes the files and converts them on the fly into formats the 360 can play. There have been a couple of times where it wouldn't play something but that was like trying to stream something from youtube onto the 360. So far, I don't think I've had a movie on my computer that it wouldn't play but I use AVI or DivX.

7/6/2008 3:38:01 PM

what kind of quality? ive used similar things and they have always been heavily compressed.

7/6/2008 3:42:14 PM

Quote :

"how hard is it to move files to the 360 or ps3? as easy as moving it to something on the network?"

you dont really move the files to the 360. It pulls them directly from your PC and streams them through the network.

^^ is tveristy your recommendation for making the 360 compatible with all formats? I havn't changed anything on my 360 yet, but recently started using it to play music and videos from my PC. It wont play about half of my videos, so i was looking into something to let it play other codecs

7/6/2008 4:30:25 PM

but do you need media center to do that?

7/6/2008 5:15:30 PM

If you're asking if Tversity compresses stuff, I don't have an HD TV but I don't notice any difference in the video quality at all between my TV and my LCD monitor.

7/6/2008 6:12:52 PM

^^No, just windows media connect.

If you DO have Media Center (which comes in Vista Home Premium and up), it just allows you do more with organization and sorting.

7/6/2008 6:23:14 PM

i thought transcode 360 was > tversity

http://runtime360.com/

7/6/2008 8:47:43 PM

you shouldnt need tversity or transcode anymore.

unless you want to watch MKV or listen to OGG or AAC files, the media updates now support h264, divx xvid, and most audio formats

7/7/2008 1:18:49 AM

xvid through media center doesn't work for me without transcoding.

7/7/2008 1:29:24 AM

^^^I've never used Transcode 360 but I found this quote from the author of it

Quote :

"I thoroughly recommend you check out TVersity as it is in my opinion a much better solution than Transcode 360 for several reasons. For starters T360 requires a Media Center PC, but perhaps more importantly, from an implementation perspective T360 has a lot of dependencies that make installation more complex than I’d like. The beauty of TVersity as a solution is that its (a) UPNP standards based (b) supports both Windows XP and Windows 2000 (c) designed to work with many more devices than just the Xbox 360. "

7/7/2008 7:33:22 AM

you can also transcode for the purpose of down bitrating to improve slow network performance.

TVersity can be set to transcode to a certain bitrate if the media is too high a bitrate or too high a resolution.

7/7/2008 9:14:35 AM

Quote :

"xvid through media center doesn't work for me without transcoding."

Have you gotten the latest media updates? All you have to do is play the file while connected to Live! and it should prompt you to download the media codec update.

Works great here on all the divx and xvid I've tried to throw at it

7/7/2008 1:37:07 PM

^I'll check it out. IIRC the files play fine through the dashboard, but media center shits the bed.

7/7/2008 1:47:41 PM

well i'm leaning towards the ps3, anyone want to tell me why i shouldn't?

7/7/2008 3:23:57 PM

I can watch all my DVR'd stuff (recorded on my PC through Media Center) on my HDTV using my 360 as a media extender...also can play a bunch of DLed AVIs and WMVs streamed off my PC...~700MB DivX files look just fine

7/7/2008 3:56:08 PM

yeah, right now i play stuff off my computer but was interested in a sleeker interface (and the gaming system)

7/7/2008 4:32:04 PM

if you just want a media player / home entertainment device, the PS3 is a better option.

If you want a networked appliance with good media playback and everything else (on-demand movies, tv, and video games) the 360 is a better option.

7/7/2008 5:14:51 PM

http://lifehacker.com/398035/do-more-than-just-game-on-your-xbox-360

7/8/2008 1:08:24 PM