Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Bringing TV to Xbox
grazzy writes "Microsoft is set to release its Windows Media Center Extender for Xbox mid-November. The device will allow you to view recorded and downloaded media content stored on your PC via your Xbox.""
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
too bad you'll need to have one of those overpriced Windows Media Center edition machines around your house first...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
have a TV tuner, and PVR software on my XBOX than just playback.
There are enough media players out there (such as the GoVideo 2730) able to play anything Universal Plug & Play provides, that making my XBOX another player is, frankly, dull.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Cool, now maybe some tivo functionality can be added to XBMC
MS is finally getting back at the hackers now by reverse engineering Xbox Media Center and provided it directly from MS. Who says MS never listens?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Maybe they are getting the idea from all the chipped xboxes out there and how nice it is to use the xbox as a media center?
Finally catching up to the mod-chip scene...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/article/557/5576 37/checking-out-the-pstwo-20041015062407316.jpg
Nuff said.
It seems to me as though everybody needs to back up for a second here, fix the concerns and problems with copyright, and then create the technology. This just seems like an answer looking for a problem. Today, I'm not sure if I can upload my DVD collection to my computer (I wouldn't even have the hard drive space on my computer), and why on earth would I want to do this when I already have a nice simple solution involving DVDs and a DVD player?
on my TV???
Sweet! What will they think of next!?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
'Illegally' Modded XBox with XBox Media Center: $200
XBox with MS XBox Media Adapter: $229
Media Center PC: $1000+
http://bit.blkbk.com/
This is a distro set to turn your xbox into a MythTV box. Pretty cool stuff.
Combine that with their online music offerings, and even a subscription service such as an enhanced XBOX live and DVD playback, and youve got the Windows Media Center in homes all across the world on an infrastructure that's already highly controlled.
While Nintendo and Sony have been banking hard on cell technology and other gamer focused add-ons, MS is covering the do it all, in every home aspect, and they will win if allowed to do so.
one of Sony's main driving forces for playstation adoption (1 and 2)... was the inclusion of a cd player or dvd player... an unecesary add-on as far as games go, but a strikingly powerfull one as far as extra features go.
If nintendo/sony dont come up with their own media center functions, they will find themselves eclipised by MS very quickly despite their better game focus.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
With XBox 2 around the corner, it seems to me that Microsoft is firing the first salvo in the upcoming Media Center wars. Sony and Microsoft both want to be the entertainment hub of the living room - video games, TV, music, movies... all in one.
I guess M$ has an advantage in that they control the desktop, but I think they're making a mistake by releasing XBox 2 so early. The hype simply isn't there the way it would be if they waited for Sony, and once the PS3 does come out, everyone will be comparing spec's. By releasing now, they're locking in at a lower specification level.
Surprisingly, Sony's answer, the smaller PS2 doesn't even have a hard drive. I guess this means they're not seriously pushing the PS2 as an entertainment appliance.
Nintendo, in contrast, is holding out until the PS3 release date for their next generation system, but pushing their DS handheld now in it's place. Since Nintendo has a reputation for good handhelds, they can gain some foothold here and convert people who want handheld to console compatability (which I suspect isn't that many people).
majority of early posts include such titles as:
- MS is getting back at the hackers
- Microsoft finally caught on!
WTF, why would you think MS is catching on?
I'll never say something like that until they start selling xboxes that don't need modchips.
The MOD community isn't just about creating unincluded features, they are about freedom, and this is something Microsoft will never catch on to.
Great, now I will be able to see the "blue screen of death" during Leno!
...a use for all those XBOXes running MythTV frontends ;-)
If you were to RTFA you'd notice that it was both:
Consumers can purchase Media Center Extender devices in two forms:
As a set-top box from leading manufacturers Hewlett-Packard and Linksys.
As a peripheral kit for the Xbox console from Microsoft.
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
This was just submitted by an idiot who couldn't link to the correct page.
There are "Media Extender" set top boxes, and it's also available as a software package for XBox. Not a "hardware add-on" though it does include a remote control in case you don't have the DVD package yet.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The IGN article at the end says you will need a Media Center PC as well. This just made this little device completely worthless! Looks like the $50 modchip is still the best option.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
You wanted to link to this: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/eva luation/devices/xboxextenderkit.mspx
That actually discusses the Media Extender for the XBox, rather then the settop box which is causing confusion.
"Microsoft is gearing up to compete directly with the TIVO DVR market with a product that will have a huge market penetration"
That is, for those who purchase/own an Xbox, a Windows Media Center edition machine, and this new gadget on top of it all.
Or I can just get a TiVO? Cripes! Who wants three MS boxes chained together (cross your fingers) just to get TiVO functionality?
Smells like another money-losing venture for MS.
Spend 200 on an Xbox and a mod chip and stream ur files over ethernet or, with a 802.11(a/b/g) access point, over wifi.
Spend another 50-60 right now on a 80GB hdd and you can store them right on your Xbox.
No sig for you!!
buy a Media Center Extender For Xbox and get:a luation/devices/xboxextenderkit.mspx
2 AA batteries
Networking poster
from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/ev
As far as I can tell from the articles that I've read, you need to have XP media center edition. So , this doesn't really solve my problem -- which is namely wanting to have my music/pictures/whatever stored on the computer in my den (running xp pro), but be able to access it from the Xbox in my living room.
I can see the incentive for someone who already has a media center PC. Just not the holy grail i was looking for.
If you've modded your box already and hooked it up to your PC, then you can already do this. My sister-in-law was competing at the Hawaii Ironman this past weekend, and IMNorth America has a streaming video feed set-up at the finish line, that most folks would watch on their PC. We watched it on our tv, and saw her finish her race (and recorded it for her).
I just want the PVR functionality (and more streaming stations with higher quality video). Then I can cancel my cable. Mwahahaha!
"Content's a bitch."
This is a great example of what companies do when a product nears the end of its life-cycle. Get as much money out of your current client base as you can before moving on to the "next big thing."
This is a stroke of marketing genius. In retrospect, obvious as hell. Sony and Nintendo can't be far behind -- they'd need a partner, though.
we'll see how it fares on the *major* protected media content: live TV. After all, wouldn't want a hack to block advertisements on TV like we do in Firefox.
I have a feeling the tests we've seen so far will seem quaint in retrospect.
"Remember back in the day when you could chip a game console and only get a threatening letter?" said one inmate to the other.
Uh.... this is an additional piece of hardware. You also need a Media Center PC.
a luation/devices/xboxextenderkit.mspx :
Yes, you do need a Media Center PC. I'll give you that. However this XBox Extenders is wholly software:
From http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/ev
Media Center Extender for Xbox is a packaged software product from Microsoft that runs as an Xbox game. With a wired or wireless connection to the Media Center PC, the Xbox console now allows you to enjoy the digital entertainment media from the PC when and how you want.
Basically, they took the Xbox Media Center functionality, rewrote or fixed it up to work only with Media Center 2005's protocols, and are selling it with a remote. Making a standard non-hacked XBox into a Remote Media Playback device to work with the Media Center PC.
They're hitting this on all fronts. Note that they have stopped requiring Win XP/MCE to be bundled with PC's, and are selling it separately now. You can buy a Retail copy of MCE 2005. Then you can use this XBox software and/or individual set top boxes to wire the whole house up to use one MCE PC as the server for all the storage and such. It holds everything: Music, movies, pictures, and then it's all available throughout the home on one interface, with various types of boxes. Kid has an xbox in his room, you have a set top box in yours, main room has the PC running MCE, everything is wireless G, everybody can watch different things.
It's a good setup if they can make it work. People have been wanting this sort of thing out of Tivo and such for years, and Microsoft looks to have mostly beat them all to the punch.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"This addition is basically what XBMC already does"BETTER "and has done for"EVER...
See, you have to add some bias on your comment... we're on Slashdot, mate, have no shame 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
A sub-conscious thought bubbled to the top of the stack while I was reading this article:
So what?
And Not even for the same reasons that are being brought up here.
Right now, I've got a DishPVR that sorts through the TWENTYFIVE THOUSAND hours of programming a week (150x24x7)...of which, I'll see maybe 15 hours that I want to see, the part of the year that the programming isn't a rerun.
Otherwise, I get my entertainment off the net, reading books, RSS feeds, The _occasional_ DVD purchase (LOTR), etc.
But the point is: There's SUCH a HUGE firehose of information vying for my time that a portable PVR, or Xbox remote video viewer, or streamed T.V. to my Cellphone just doesn't light my lucky like they want it to.
I predict this is going to be another 'Tablet PC' marketing push. It's a lot of bells and whistles and will amount to a bunch fo companies losing a lot of money.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Soon I'll be able to take a piss into my Xbox while warming up my Poptart with the integrated toaster. Everyone is talking about extending the market... what ever happened to making a game machine for, hmm, exclusively gaming?
As I suggested before, if MS came out with a media player for Xbox that will function as it does on a PC (allow me to play DiVX/XViDS/Mp3s/etc.) I would run out and buy a copy instantly.
Instead, Microsoft puts out a Media Player that requires you to have a PC! That's absurd. If you already have a Media Centric-PC why would you want your Xbox to play your movies when your PC can do it just fine without the extra electricity.
Microsoft has dropped the ball on this one, so people like me who want to view movies from Xbox or over a network share will end up modding the Xbox and then opening ourselves to the new arsenal of games on Torrents and such. Thanks MS!
If everyone would stop the microsoft bash train and look for a second they would see that if you would update to SP2 and Media Center 10 you can download a update called Media Center Connect, which lets Windows Media Player 10 connect wirelessly to any UPnP device. Why is this cool? Because thats what they are doing to the XBOX. Making it a UPnP Device. Which means I can access my 250 gig hard drive that is full of TV shows legally captured with my ATI card and play them back at random without more wires. Its actually a cool little product. Media Center 10 will play every format you can throw at it but OGG, which no one uses, and AAC, which is the apple standard, but thats like 2% of the total digital media market. Get with the program people. Microsoft isn't that bad. I run Windows XP for weeks at a time, only to turn it off to upgrade a piece of hardware or something like that.
What bugged me was the code overhead. Still, I got to play Need for Speed just fine on it, which was quite a delight to me. And this is essentially what this pair that M$ is offering really is.
Having used Linux for a little over a year, and being a one-time (okay, STILL)OS/2 junkie it's been on my mind for a while: Why hasn't anyone developed a distro streamlined for the types of things M$ is doing. I would LOVE if I could choose to boot my SuSE in either 'work' or 'game' mode.
I mention OS/2 because that's one of the things IBM forgot, and it seems a lot of FOSS programmers are ignorant of too: computers are operated by PEOPLE. Sometimes people just want to plug in and go, others, like me, once we got it going we want to tinker and learn how it works. That is to say, I want to play right off the bat, but I also want to learn about how it all works when I get tired of playing.
While I appreciate many of the games I can get for Linux, imagine the power a unified 'game spec' OS could provide. No wasted daemon running and an API that ANY game programmer can aquire without costly license overhead! This would lower the bar for new game developers, and create a market wherein nobody would have to sign an exclusive development deal (SNES, X-Box, and PS-2 have platform specific titles).
I'm no programmer, but I'm sure this is possible. Pre-linking libraries, and/or a simplified gentoo-type build process coupled with a 'portage' or 'apt-get' type of utility could extend the life of the hardware.
And the icing on the cake? A solid REASON why America's (or any other country's) youth would want to buy a "build your own game console and save a bundle" book/kit to learn about computers and IP laws!
Kinda like the late seventies and early eighties all over again. :)
Seriously. It is.
This is why Microsoft was so eager to get X-Boxes into every home they could, regardless of the loss. Games? Pfah. They had the Media Center coming, and the X-Box was the way to get it into houses without having to sell PC's.
Microsoft's strategy for survival is clear and it is all-encompassing. Screw the OS; they want a piece of the DRM-sweet pie for every song, every film clip, every TV program, every movie played in the world on a digital box. Even if Linux eventually supplants Windows in some fashion, they will own the DRM of media files. They've been moving behind the scenes for years now, arm-twisting the music/movie/cable people into adopting MS DRM. It's in Longhorn, sure, but they aren't just settling for that. Longhorn is just a piece that fits into all the other pieces to come.
I guess you didn't know that Ticketmaster is another Bill Gates monopoly?
Yes, that's right. Bill "antitrust" Gates is getting more of your concert ticket money than the band you went to see!
Tommy
Open Source for Open Minds
We've seen this coming for over 4 years. Microsoft has been quietly collecting digital rights to a large chunk of the worlds' fine art. Wanna display a jpg of the Mona Lisa on your web site? Someday the M$oft lawyers will come calling...
Regards,
BubbaJon