So what does that mean? I'm not really familiar with the 360 interface. Will it be able to play DivX files off the HD? Streaming? Both?

I've got

HP Pavilion dv9535nr Notebook PC
*17" WXGA+ Hi-Def BrightView WideScreen (1440x900)
-hooked up to an Samsung SyncMaster 906BW 19" wide LCD via HDMItoDVI
*Intel Core2 Duo 5250e (1.5ghz x2 cores, 2mb unified L2)
*nVidia GeForce 8600m GS w/256mb GDDR3 (16SPs, OC'd to 650/1300/900)
*Intel Pro/Wireless 4965AGN wi-fi
*2GB PC2-5300 (2x 1GB DDR2 533mhz So-DIMMs)
*240GB SATA (2x 120GB 5400rpm HDDs)
-also has an external 250GB PATA converted into a USB HDD via enclosure
*Windows Vista Home Premium (32bit)
-used for Media Center

Xbox 360 Premium (20GB, 2007 series)
*Media Center Extender

tied together with a Belkin N Wireless router, wired to 360 wireless to notebook. the performance of the set-up is top notch: try streaming off of a USB HDD: it's tough! But it's strong enough to stream 2 videos at the same time, one played locally on Media Player, the other on 360's Media Center Extender. Both were HD, 1280x720 WMV-HD 5.1 audio.

Basically, my media is read off the USB HDD. Then it's transmitted through Intel wi-fi, at N speed. Router picks it up and sends to 360 via 100mbps ethernet. 360 picks it up and plays flawlessly. While this is going on, media is being read locally and draws off of the bandwidth of the USB HDD, still sustaining solid performance for excellent framerate. I can open many players at the same time (itunes, Media Player, DivX, Quicktime) and all will be drawing off of the USB HDD. And it STILL produces solid results.

Before 360, MC was THE product to take control over your living room. MS switched gears and placed it's focus on the 360. Now Media Center PCs have no identity and seems to be on the back burner. The most recent improvement to MC was the Internet TV (beta). I still don't see anything spectacular about it though.

The 360 with a non-Media Center PC can do ALMOST everything except PAUSE & REC LIVE TV...and playback Internet radio...and surf the internet...sync contents to your media player...etc. I hardly use it anymore except for watching sports. Although it does have a better UI for watching movies & videos, IMO. Listening to music is better via 360.

to the guy who posted ps3 got owned again hahaha,he know who he is,i wonder if he still laughing now,oh wait thats me lol.

Xbots, gloating always over nothing.

You can still play DiVX/XViD via the 360 dashboard off your media shares by going to the media blade and then opening video and selecting PC. All you need to do is have Windows Media Player 11 or the Zune software installed on your PC and configured for media sharing.

The only people getting screwed here are the ones that prefer to use Windows Media Center. This is done by going to the media blade and selecing Windows Media Server. You need to have an Media Center Edition OS or Vista Ultimate. This connection is using the Windows Media Extender. I think the most hardcore videophiles use this method and yes MS is screwing them nicely.. Although you can still get to all your media via WMP11 or Zune shares it's just not convienent at all.

The only thing I can see as a reason for this is MS is trying to push its new Home Server software and in typical MS fashion don't give a crap about exisiting customers and want everyone to upgrade to their lastest product. Vista Ultimate isn't even 2 years old and they are already screwing them with moves like this, so there is no way I will invest yet again in Home Media Server.

It seems like the MCE team and the 360 team are on 2 different pages but hopefully an update will come out soon that will support this. They have been putting out several updates over the last few months for Vista Ultimate MCE so I don't think they've totally abandoned it. But the fact that they still haven't added H.264 to the media center extender yet doesn't leave me with a lot of convidence.

Still the people that wanted this the most are getting a proper shafting. The fucntionality is still there just not the way MCE users envisioned it.

For a company that prides itself on software developement why they seem to be so freakin dense is beyond me.

I don't know anyone that streams content onto their game consoles, even the 360 owners. We just put content straight onto the hard drives.

lol... wow.. big deal you still can use the very same PC to stream video using Media Player 11 anyways... Media Center is freaken windows... just with a few extra GUI... this will only be bad if for example... Sonny addition of DivX will support Media Center... lol.. are they? the reality is that Media Center is now old news... specially with vista now including Media Center functionality right into Vista Ultimate... This is just someone making a big deal out of something that's not...

One of my xboxes is only used as an Media Extender... Which is a very nice solution if you have a PC with Media Center on which i have on my Vista Premium edition with two tv-tuners, with xvid/divx support this would be the perfect solution... Damn Microsoft!

I'm confused. Can someone please just answer this clearly.

1. You can Only stream .avis, not play off a HD.

2. Couldn't you already do that?

there is already at least on application that has let us media center owners do this for ages. it is called transcode 360 and works just fine.

cheers.

That sucks because that was the only way I planned on using Divx. So i could watch my movies off of my media center on the 360. Oh well, I have a 250 gig usb hard drive on my PS3 so when they support Divx I'll just watch the movies off of that. Divx support on the PS3 should be here within a couple of weeks.

oh my this is getting confusing. so what you all are saying is that some formats cannot be played directly from my 360's hd and i still need a pc in order to use them right????or is it all divx format videos?

and what about the ps3? will i still need something like TVersity to play divx even after the supposed update that will run those type of files?

anybody who has media center should already know about transcode 360 or some other app that allows you to play divx files.

Can I still play them?

so what. just don't use media center. use the 360 doucheboard

Again LOOK at this link http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxt...
AT # ten it says. What the codecs are supported and how and where to play them...

It has a USB section and yes you can play avi or mpeg-4 from usb storages. If you stream you need WMP11 and the dashboard player. But you need codecs on your computer to be installed in WMP11. And NO Media Center currently doesnt support those for now. It's its own application sepperate application then the xbox dashboard player. So pretty much is this. Use the dashboard player for all wmv, h.64, avi, mpeg4 with WMP11. And for Mpeg-2 use MCE. But yes Hopefully MS can put more codecs on MCE next year.

Using the stream is uslesses. Once the DIVX and XVID is implemented there won't be a needs to stream at all. I can watch drawn together and The Boondocks all day now lol1