Xbox 360 drops the need for Windows Media Center?

[Shayne]

Details regarding the dashboard update for tomorrow are starting to surface...

Xbox 360 to Add More than 85 Enhancements with the Fall System Update and Raise the Bar for High Definition Interactive Gameplay and Entertainment

The fall update ushers in the 6th generation of Xbox Live, the world's largest online gaming & entertainment network with four million members and growing everyday

Beginning the morning of Tuesday October 31, owners of the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft will be able to download a free system update that will provide more than 85 new features and enhancements, including support for native 1080p games and movies, faster Xbox Live Arcade game list display times and even more choices when it comes to video playback options.

This free update will be distributed via the Xbox Live? online gaming and entertainment network to all members (Xbox Live Silver and Xbox Live Gold) with no disc or hard drive required. Gamers without an Xbox Live account can easily sign up for free by connecting their console to a broadband Internet connection. Once online, downloading the update is fast and simple, and provides instant access to features such as:

Expanded HD Display and Video Playback Options
? With 1080p resolution, gamers now have the ability to enjoy both game and video content in the best HD resolution currently available.
? Expanded video playback options increase the ways gamers can enjoy video content on Xbox 360. It is now possible to stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11 or Windows Media Connect.
? Gamers can now play video files from data CDs and DVDs, as well as from storage devices like USB 2.0 flash drives and Xbox 360 Memory Units.
? Xbox 360 will support 50hz HDTV display modes, providing viewers greater choice in how they watch DVD and HD DVD content.

Xbox Live Arcade Enhancements
? Keeping up to date on Xbox Live Arcade games is now even more convenient with the ability to automatically download newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games. This eliminates the need to manually search for new downloads on Xbox Live Marketplace each time a new game trial is released.
? Fast enumeration of games: you'll see the games in your Xbox Live Arcade collection appear almost instantly. Get in and play right away.
? With so many games to choose from, Xbox Live Arcade added new sorting options such as "Recently Played" and "By Category." These enhancements make managing Xbox Live Arcade collections faster and easier than ever.
? A new expanded Friends Leaderboard within Xbox Live Arcade allows gamers to compare themselves directly against their friends and view leaderboard details of their top 10 friends.
? A new expanded Achievements View within Xbox Live Arcade lets gamers view their full Achievement details for their Xbox Live Arcade games including descriptions, icons, allotted Gamerscore and more, right from the Xbox Live Arcade dashboard interface.
? The "Play Now" launch feature has been streamlined. Selecting "Play Now" after downloading a game in Xbox Live Marketplace now bypasses Xbox Live Arcade and takes you directly to the game.
? Xbox Live Arcade now offers a "Tell a Friend" feature. Select this option from the game info screen to send any friend on your friends list a message telling them about the Xbox Live Arcade game.

XNA Support
? Amateur game designers will be able to test and play the games they create using XNA Game Studio Express on their Xbox 360 systems when it launches later this year (separate download and subscription required).

These features and enhancements are just some of the improvements gamers can expect as part of the fall update. For a complete list of updates, visit http://www.xbox.com/live.

Microsoft is committed to providing Xbox 360 customers with the best online experience possible and delivering added value to Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Those subscribers will enjoy exclusive early access to special Xbox Live Marketplace content, such as game demos, free game add-ons, free community videos, and free gamer pics and themes for up to one week in advance of their general release. Paid downloadable content remains available at the same time for both Xbox Live Silver and Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

Through these regular updates, the way gamers are connected to their friends and entertainment is constantly evolving and improving. With more than 4-million Xbox Live members to date, Xbox 360 has proven itself as the premiere gaming platform of choice.

...nice to see them starting to open up the console a little bit.  Give us Divx/Xvid!!!

[Lazybones]

Hmm Nice,

If it could play Divx/Xvid from a share, I think I would be sold.

[Lazybones]

XNA Support
? Amateur game designers will be able to test and play the games they create using XNA Game Studio Express on their Xbox 360 systems when it launches later this year (separate download and subscription required).

Hmm this is even more interesting, as currently the XNA stuff is supposed to only work on XP. Seems like they are moving along quickly to bring it to 360.

This could be the ultimate app for the 360 in terms of having cool content on the platform.

[Shayne]

Ya, it was announced not to long ago.  The ability to make arcade games and share with friends seems like a killer feature, legal home brew without hacking the system.

I'd be fine with the current wmv limitation if i could find an okay piece of software that will let me quickly (and queue) avi files I wish to re-encode.

[Lazybones]

I'd be fine with the current wmv limitation if i could find an okay piece of software that will let me quickly (and queue) avi files I wish to re-encode.

I book marked this a while ago, haven't tried it but it should do what you want.
http://www.erightsoft.net/Superdc.html

[Shayne]

Alright, I'm downloading it now.  I hope that the transcode 360 project makes a standalone eventually as it can encode faster then real time allowing you to stream before the title is finished being re-encoded.

I don't mind the extra step in having to re-encode as long as its fastish.

[TheDruid]

Ah yes, nothing like free features, Microsoft once again raises the bar for Sony... well Sony has yet to walk up to the bar.

All of this timed to take away some of Sony's release thunder no doubt (oh, and those other guys, with the fancy controller). Will it be enough i wonder?

Talking to some of my friends back in my home town, its like stepping back 5 years, they have no concept of true next gen gamming. They are still stuck on numbers, they compare the two systems in a spread sheet, see Sony has higher numbers and figure its superior, that and a baseless hatred of M$?

There’s total disregard for online gamming and the "Live" experience. Ease of game development. Publisher loyalty. Media integration with home theaters and PC.

To them its all about the numbers, in which they misguidedly think they will somehow translate into more content with better graphics... Little do they realized, M$ has changed the home console experience and industry direction. M$ in essents has strong-armed the console into an industry where they have tons of experience and resources, where as Sony i think will find it very difficult to compete in. It's less of a electronic standalone gadget now, and more of a development platform that integrates into the home entertainment experience.

[Shayne]

Well, Sony is rumored to play all sorts of formats right out of the box, if anything i think Microsoft is rushing to match.  If you want some great perspective on this PS3 vs. Xbox360 vs. Wii, I highly recommend checking out the 1Up Yours podcast (this week they tackle "exclusives"), very informative and fun podcast, i am like a kid at Christmas every Saturday morning excited to listen to the weeks podcast.

So I have tried out this Super C application and it isnt too bad.  Really rough around the edges and totally designed from a programmers perspective.  It does encode faster than the video plays and its possible to queue.  So you could hypothetically have 4 episodes of Heroes you wish to watch, start the encoding process, go to your 360 and start playing the first episode and by the time you are done that episode the next will have already been started.

I'm going to try it against a couple higher quality video downloads (HD) and see how well that works in comparison to these little 400MB videos i have been testing with.

[Shayne]

PS3 supported Codecs

VIDEO
? MPEG-1
? MPEG-2 (PS,TS)
? H.264/MEPG-4 AVC
? MPEG-4 SP

MUSIC
? ATRAC (.oma .msa .aa3)
? AAC (.3gp .mp4)
? MP3 (.mp3)
? WAV (.wav)

IMAGES
? JPEG
? GIF
? PNG
? TIFF
? BMP

Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/742/742009p1.html

It would appear that Ogg and Divx/xvid are also missing.

[Mr. Analog]

What no UMD support?

[Shayne]

No UMD drive, but you can link a PSP to your PS3 and watch UMDs

[Cova]

PS3 supported Codecs

VIDEO
? MPEG-1
? MPEG-2 (PS,TS)
? H.264/MEPG-4 AVC
? MPEG-4 SP

MUSIC
? ATRAC (.oma .msa .aa3)
? AAC (.3gp .mp4)
? MP3 (.mp3)
? WAV (.wav)

IMAGES
? JPEG
? GIF
? PNG
? TIFF
? BMP

Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/742/742009p1.html

It would appear that Ogg and Divx/xvid are also missing.

Well - since the PS3 supposedly will support running linux out of the box - just compile mplayer on there and you can play virtually everything.

As to that list though - xvid and divx are both implementations of MPEG-4 SP - so it is quite possible that the PS3 will play them.

I also find it odd that VC-1 isn't listed there, as it is one of the 3 mandatory codecs that all HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players must support (VC-1, h264 / MPEG-4 AVC, and MPEG2).  The dash update is adding VC-1 to the 360 (Microsoft's implementation of it is called WMV9 Advanced Profile, and is listed in the details of the dash update).  So I've started doing some testing, re-encoding my HD captures from MPEG2 transport streams into WMV9-AP wmv files - I should be able to stream them to the 360 with no media center box once the dash update hits.

[Shayne]

What are you using to re-encode?

[Cova]

Playing with Windows Media Encoder right now.  There aren't many apps out there capable of encoding with this codec, as it isn't available for the vfw api that most apps use.

[Shayne]

Engadget (one of my favorite websites) goes through the upgrade and shows us some goods including 1080p playback!

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/31/xbox-360-fall-update-in-a-few-pictures/