XBOX as an Extender

BionicRasher

OK - sorry if this is the wrong place - move if needed

I am looking at getting an Xbox to use as an extender for Windows 7 Media Centre

Questions on Xbox and its set up

• Can I buy a second hand Xbox to accomplish this? I am a complete newbie on Xbox so not sure if I need a newer model or if something like this will do http://www.adverts.ie/xbox/xbox-360-...or-sale/806626
• New Xbox is about €155 is it worth getting that for peace of mind – as per above question
• Can I use a WMC remote control with the Xbox or do I need a dedicated remote for the Xbox?
• Is the Xbox noisy?
• Can I watch live TV on the Xbox? (as I will have Live TV on the main PC via DVB-S/T)
• What will Xbox Live subscription do for me – do I need it to watch Live TV?
• I have a Sky subscription – do I need Xbox Live subscription to use this on the extender?
• I saw somewhere that the Kinect can be used to ‘swipe’ through your movie/music collection – is this possible or is it in the works for the future? http://youtu.be/g_txF7iETX0
• Do I need to get an Xbox with large HDD storage (I see 4GB and 250Gb versions available) to use it as an extender

GAAman

tui0hcg wrote: »

OK - sorry if this is the wrong place - move if needed

I am looking at getting an Xbox to use as an extender for Windows 7 Media Centre

Questions on Xbox and its set up

• Can I buy a second hand Xbox to accomplish this? I am a complete newbie on Xbox so not sure if I need a newer model or if something like this will do http://www.adverts.ie/xbox/xbox-360-...or-sale/806626
• New Xbox is about €155 is it worth getting that for peace of mind – as per above question
• Can I use a WMC remote control with the Xbox or do I need a dedicated remote for the Xbox?
• Is the Xbox noisy?
• Can I watch live TV on the Xbox? (as I will have Live TV on the main PC via DVB-S/T)
• What will Xbox Live subscription do for me – do I need it to watch Live TV?
• I have a Sky subscription – do I need Xbox Live subscription to use this on the extender?
• I saw somewhere that the Kinect can be used to ‘swipe’ through your movie/music collection – is this possible or is it in the works for the future? http://youtu.be/g_txF7iETX0
• Do I need to get an Xbox with large HDD storage (I see 4GB and 250Gb versions available) to use it as an extender

Q1 Yes i think so

Q2 Yes

Q3 Prob need the xbox 360 remote, you can use the control pad you will get with the xbox anyway

Q4 The newer ones are not very noisy, and if you are using it as a media system the disc wont be spinning anyway

Q5 I am not sure about this, maybe one of the other lads could help there, i watch live sky through the sky player on mine and stream media from my laptop using tversity

Q6 Yes you will need a gold xbox live subscription (€50-€60 for a years membership depending on where you get it from) to use the sky player

Q7 I think you can but i do not have kinect so am unsure, again maybe someone else can help here

Q8 The storage will depend on you, if you play games then a bigger hdd is better. You can store games on the hdd and also download them from xbox live etc

Just as an add on i have heard that windows 7 and xbox are a total bítch to set up i run xp so i may be wrong.

Hope this helps

BionicRasher

great thanks

Looks like Xbox is also about to announce a lot of new content on the system soon - like BBC, CH4, Hulu etc
Should be interesting

I think the Windows 7 Media Centre and Xbox set up is painless enough if both are connected via Ethernet rather than wifi (if YouTube is to be believed!)

Fingleberries

tui0hcg wrote: »

Looks like Xbox is also about to announce a lot of new content on the system soon - like BBC, CH4, Hulu etc
Should be interesting

I think the Windows 7 Media Centre and Xbox set up is painless enough if both are connected via Ethernet rather than wifi (if YouTube is to be believed!)

Windows 7 Media Centre and XBox 360 setup is dead easy, and is a handy way to stream media. It is better with a decent PC and connection (wired connection is best, wireless N is good, and wireless B/G is acceptable for most things.

Unforutnately, most of the new media partners (BBC, Channel 4, 5, Hulu, etc.) will be region specific, so the new ones that we will likely get in Ireland are YouTube and DailyMotion.

mcgovern

Live TV streaming does work, pretty well too. I don't see any Kinect options though and I do have one plugged in.

No new content for Ireland in the update either

BionicRasher

mcgovern wrote: »

Live TV streaming does work, pretty well too.

So are you saying you have Live TV (via DVB-S/T etc) on your main PC and you can view this on the Xbox extender?

BionicRasher

mcgovern wrote: »

No new content for Ireland in the update either

Is there a way to use a VPN to get US or UK content?

mcgovern

tui0hcg wrote: »

So are you saying you have Live TV (via DVB-S/T etc) on your main PC and you can view this on the Xbox extender?

Yep, the misses is watching TV on the xbox at the moment. Main PC is W7, has both a DVB-S2 (picking up freesat) and a DVB-T (picking up Saorview) tuner, so can confirm both work. Bit slow to get going, but once its up and running its grand.

tui0hcg wrote: »

Is there a way to use a VPN to get US or UK content?

You'd probably need to set your Xbox account as from being either US/UK also, and live streaming using a VPN is probably not going to be very watchable.

BionicRasher

mcgovern wrote: »

Yep, the misses is watching TV on the xbox at the moment. Main PC is W7, has both a DVB-S2 (picking up freesat) and a DVB-T (picking up Saorview) tuner, so can confirm both work. Bit slow to get going, but once its up and running its grand.

This looks like the clincher for me - would be great to get that set up. Will my main PC need to have much grunt? I have an Nettop (Asus EB1501P) - great little bit of kit and plays HD stuff no worries although I do worry if there are loads of things going on it my get sluggish - or is it all down to streaming speeds over your network?

mcgovern

tui0hcg wrote: »

This looks like the clincher for me - would be great to get that set up. Will my main PC need to have much grunt? I have an Nettop (Asus EB1501P) - great little bit of kit and plays HD stuff no worries although I do worry if there are loads of things going on it my get sluggish - or is it all down to streaming speeds over your network?

I'd say it would handle it, mine is a 4-5 year old Dell and the extender seems to be using up about 6-7% CPU.

coL

I run Media Centre on my xbox from a Vista Permium laptop (cant remember exact specs but 3/4 years old and not short of power) over a wireless network and the one thing that really gets me is how slow the menu interface is. Also when I am playing files the seek/fast forward function is impossible to use.

Might be just my set up but I would advise trying it out before you buy if you can as I wasn't able to stand it and just gave up on the whole thing.

BionicRasher

coL wrote: »

I run Media Centre on my xbox from a Vista Permium laptop (cant remember exact specs but 3/4 years old and not short of power) over a wireless network and the one thing that really gets me is how slow the menu interface is. Also when I am playing files the seek/fast forward function is impossible to use.

Might be just my set up but I would advise trying it out before you buy if you can as I wasn't able to stand it and just gave up on the whole thing.

yes hopefully my wired network will handle this a bit better - I wish I could try it out but any shop I go in to with some questions just look at me dumb and really dont have a clue never mind have a working demo set up

BionicRasher

mcgovern wrote: »

Yep, the misses is watching TV on the xbox at the moment. Main PC is W7, has both a DVB-S2 (picking up freesat) and a DVB-T (picking up Saorview) tuner, so can confirm both work. Bit slow to get going, but once its up and running its grand.

Just another question - can you watch different stuff on Xbox as to what is on the TV (i.e. I am watching RTE2 HD on my TV through WMC and can my wife watch BBC on the Xbox in the other room? Or if I am on RTE2 can she watch RTE1 - if you get my drift)

subway

ok, ill join in here then.

you dont need any live subscription, the skyplayer is discontinued anyway.
you can watch different things on the extender even when the main pc is in use, tuners is the only limit.

i have full sky hd and saorview through the media centre and its shared to an extender upstairs. live tv is fine for pausing rewinding etc.

i have a cat6 network and 1gig switch.
just going to see if the media centre remote will control the xbox for you

subway

cant find my media centre remote :pac:
its been so long since i used it, i have a harmony 555 for the last few years.
fwiw, the functions that i have setup on it all work fine.

i would recommend the xbox remote as its easier to find and cheaper than the windows media centre one

GAAman

subway wrote: »

ok, ill join in here then.

you dont need any live subscription, the skyplayer is discontinued anyway.

Sorry, but no it is not. You might be confusing the fact that it was rebranded as "Sky Go" i think.

subway

I am confused, but not about the rebrand. It's been pulled from 7mc, so i thought it was gone from xbox too so thanks for correcting that. No need to apologise. :pac:

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Using-Sky-Go/Sky-dropping-sky-Player-on-Windows-Media-Centre/td-p/87497

xsiborg

tui0hcg wrote: »

Just another question - can you watch different stuff on Xbox as to what is on the TV (i.e. I am watching RTE2 HD on my TV through WMC and can my wife watch BBC on the Xbox in the other room? Or if I am on RTE2 can she watch RTE1 - if you get my drift)

i use my xbox as an extender connected to my three year old netbook (running Windows 7 Ultimate), an advent 4211c connected up to my router via cat5 cable, and the xbox also connected via cat5, gets full green bars in the network tuner test, whereas connecting via wireless gives me the wildly fluctuating salmon bars and slow menu navigation.

i have a huappauge WinTV 900H usb dual tv tuner hooked up to my netbook which receives saorview on digital, and i have the sky box hooked up to the analog (s-video) connection. this way, my wife can watch her soaps on rte saorview, while im in the office watching "house" on the hallmark channel via the rf2 out connection on the sky box.

i CAN if i wanted to, watch the sky box on the xbox, but the picture quality is píss poor (because it's analog) and i cant use the xbox remote to change channels on the sky box, even though they are all listed in the WMC EPG. it's a hardware compatibility issue between the eye for the remote dongle and the sky box, there is workaround hardware called a dusky controller, but i couldnt be arsed, as the menu lag when navigating the sky guide on the sky box with the sky remote, is already embarrassingly slow enough.

summary- saorview is the business, even rte2HD picture quality is stunning (sweaty heads on them! ), speed works flawlessly, can even series record a program to the netbook hard drive if i want, from the xbox wmc, but the sky box in wmc, yes you can fork out more for a special box that'll even give you the HD channels in the WMC EPG, but for me, i dont use it enough to make such an investment worth my while.

subway

xsiborg wrote: »

yes you can fork out more for a special box that'll even give you the HD channels in the WMC EPG, but for me, i dont use it enough to make such an investment worth my while.

the solution i use works through DVB-S2 tuners so HD, full control, no lag etc.
can also record as many channels as you have tuners

BionicRasher

Thanks for all the helpful posts - splashed out and got a new 4GB version for €179 (€20 cheaper in PC World than anywhere else and believe me I checked everywhere - Smyths Toys, Gamestop, Game, Argos, Harvey N etc etc - all €199)
Here are current thoughts (only have it 24hrs)

Gaming - didn't buy any games so have only tried online bubbleblast or something like that and looks good - I will get a second hand game for a tenner and try it out but I think I will only use it for games about 5% of the time

Windows Media Centre Extender - Great bit of kit. slow to index stuff - took about 6 hrs but now I can do anything I can on my main PC/Server. This is what I wanted. Picture is great and main PC works away with one thing running like a movie and the Xbox plays something else no bother.

Sky - looks like you need a Xbox Live Gold account but it comes with 1 month free account to start and TBH its class - its like a Sky Multi Room account. most channels are there (main ones anyway) and picture is great (over 802.11 N wireless) will get it set up wired later but at the moment its fine. This is an added bonus and I really wonder why they killed the Sky Player in WMC that was great too and TBH Sky GO is a piece of junk

DVD player - great also - has everything my 5 year old main DVD player has (and that cost €199 back in the day)

The way I look at it is that its like a top class DVD player that can do way more and has all these extras so why would I go and buy a DVD player for any other TV in the future? This thing has it all and more and for €180 its about the same price as a good top end DVD player anyway.

About to get some DVB-S and DVB-T cards set up so will post back once I have that done.

I hear that there is soon to be a dashboard update and look forward to that as at the moment the dashboard is a little cluttered and can be hard to navigate

I have a WMC remote that came with my main PC and it works on the Xbox so I expect I will pick up another cheap one and use that instead of the wireless controller (as that's a little bulky in the hand) so that's another bonus

My one and only complaint is the noise
The Xbox itself is almost silent but the power block/converter is a real pain. Is this normal? Should it be running all the time? It sounds like its about to take off and seems to have little fans inside it and when I place it on a wooden floor it vibrates and I can see myself getting P'd off with it pretty quick
Am I being picky? are they all this noisy?

Other than that one complaint its a great bit of kit and looks like its well worth the price.

subway

Fair play.it's a nice setup when you have it right.

You can usually pick up xbox remotes in Harvey Normans fo 15eu. I've gotten 2 there over the past year.

Edit//
Just checked my power brick and it makes a small bit of noise but nothing major. Can hear the console over it anyway, and that's very quiet

BionicRasher

subway wrote: »

Fair play.it's a nice setup when you have it right.

You can usually pick up xbox remotes in Harvey Normans fo 15eu. I've gotten 2 there over the past year.

Edit//
Just checked my power brick and it makes a small bit of noise but nothing major. Can hear the console over it anyway, and that's very quiet

Ya my console is almost silent but power block sounds like 2 little fans inside are blasting away - pretty noisy when you turn the TV down
Will continue to monitor