# Xbox 360 as a media hub = Fail?



## Moonfly

OK, before anyone moans at me for moaning, there is a question mark up there, but anyway . . . . 

Ive had the new slim 360 since launch day, and I didnt review it as the hardware MS have shipped out over the years never really seemed to last. Anyway, Ive been evaluating mine for the last few months and Ive noticed a few things that are still rubbing me up the wrong way, so figured I would post up my thoughts, get some others, and generally try figure out the state of play for the 360 now.

Anyway, first up is reliability. Its been a big issue to date, and if I'm brutally honest, I'm not convinced the issues are gone for good. The console is quieter, but they seem to have made a cooler running console, then cooled it less to make it quietr, so it runs at about the same temp. I'm not about to start measuring things, but there isnt that much difference IMO between the new and old, the slim is cooler but not cold. This isn an issue per say, but on a couple of occasions Ive noticed dropping frame rates akin to when a CPU or GP core starts to get too hot on a PC. Ive had it crash a couple times too, so its still not perfect.

Non of that is my major gripe though. Ive spent the last couple days killing time by putting all my CD's onto my HDD. First of, why would I do that. Well, wireless streaming just isnt perfect ough. When it works its good, but it gets interrupted all the time, and Ive had intermittent issues with using the 360 as an extender that I just had enough of. WMC is so painfully slow I could actually feel myself getting older waiting for it to boot up and respond. Not good MS:rant:. On top of that it sometimes goes all static for not apparent reason, again not good.

Anyway, so I gave up on wireless streaming as its just not upto scratch IMO. I'm now in the process of ripping all my CD's, and boy does that take time. Slow to begin ripping is an understatement. Its cool that when I sign in to XBL, all my discs have their info filled in for me, but every now and again, the info is completely wrong and there is no option to tell you xbox this. That leaves you with 3 options, leave in the wrong info, sign out and have no info, or type it all in yourself. Typing it in isnt the end of the world a I have a chat pad, but even so its a pain, and a have some discs that I dont have the info for, so for those, I'm beat. I left the info wrong and just corrected the disc title.

So far, as a media device, unless your renting movies, its not that great IMO. On top of those painful issues, navigation is a bit of a pain as you basically have a single menu. Its easy enough, just takes time when you have a large library, but why on earth cant I type in the first letter or letters of the album I want on my chat pad, and the system jump to that album, my mobile phone can do that for crying out loud.

There are a couple other things that bug me too. The media player is obviously WMP, and it inserts a manditory 1 sec pause between tracks. I listen to a fair bit of trance and ambient mood music. Its all pretty much mixed, and the pause totally destroys the production of the music and they have really got to fix that. Also Ive noticed the occasional disc plays with static all over it, why on earth does that happen, Ive never ever had that anywhere else before.

To sum up, its usable with ok SQ, but its can be glitchy at times, the user interface is about a slick as a train crash, no thought or effort has gone into improving the in the last 4 or so years, and generally, if MS want this to be a complete entertainment media device, they need to get Kinect out the way and start taking some tips from apple when it comes to the media part.

Anyway, thats a bit of a rant on my gripes, so I'd like to know if anyone else is suffering as well. Hopefully I'm not the only moaner in the world  Feel free to add comments, and please, vote in the poll, the result interest me :T Oh, and I know its only a games console, but times are moving on and people are expecting more for their money, but in any case, if they put this stuff in there ad want us to use it, it needs to be dont right IMO, other wise we, or rather I , will keep getting frustrated with it.


----------



## Dale Rasco

So here's my take. I think all of the systems have their flaws incorporating several media services into a single device. I briefly used the Xbox as a media extender and I did the same with the PS3. In the end, I use Apple TV for pretty much all music, movies, youtube and TV shows that I want to stream, but I still have issues with their system as well. Particularly in the streaming over arena.

As far as the Xbox goes though, I agree 100%. It is unstable at best and Microsoft needs to go back after Kinect and get all the bugs out of it that have hindered the platform since it's inception. I can't speak to the new hardware as I have yet to step off into that, but as an interface for media streaming, I'll just say that I prefer Apple by far.


----------



## Moonfly

The new console is nice, and seems pretty OK, but it has still put that odd doubt in there on occasion. I probably wouldnt have looked into it that much if it wast for the chequered history.

You got it right with bugs though, its full of them and they just seem to have bolted WMP on there and forgot about it. Not great, but it makes it even worse if your main hobby is audio and AV.


----------



## Moonfly

Oh another fail, you cant fast forward and rewind tracks. Very annoying.


----------



## Ares

How long does it take to rip a CD onto the HDD of the 360Slim?


----------



## Moonfly

It seems to vary, some of the albums seem to take about 20 mins. They seems to take ages to begin ripping, but once it starts its not to bad. Not sure if its converting files or what, but its not very quick.


----------



## Dale Rasco

Isn't it midnight there? Maybe get some sleep? :bigsmile:


----------



## Moonfly

lol, no, its just past 10pm.


----------



## Ares

dsr7997 said:


> Isn't it midnight there? Maybe get some sleep? :bigsmile:


Sleep? Midnight is a gamer's prime time especially if said gamer is married with kids it's one of the only times you don't hear Honey can you do this, that, or the other and Dad this or that. AHH midnight it's one of my favorite times of day.


----------



## Dale Rasco

I can see that not only am I wrong, I'm also out numbered. I could have sworn there was an 8 hour difference. Oh well...


----------



## Moonfly

daylight savings are in effect, which will account for one of your lost hours.


----------



## Dale Rasco

Now if I can only remember which coat pocket I left the other one in....


----------



## TypeA

Interesting read, I must admit Ive never really used my console as a music server. I have used it extensively as a netflix streaming portal, and lots of xbox marketplace video streaming, otherwise its just been my primary gaming rig. I cant say that Im surprised by your evaluation and its numerous short commings, I thinks its perfectly reasonable and _expected_ to be displeased with a console as a music server. I also think it goes to show that there is just no substitute for the real thing, a dedicated music server. If my music media meant that much to me I would NOT use media center or a game console for the task. I feel so strongly about that idea that I replaced my PS3 with a stand alone blu ray player and will never go back to a console for such a critical function as blu ray playback. I just dont think its practical (despite the marketing hype) to expect a gaming console to do _anything_ other than to be a gaming console, and something as simple as the PS3's lack of IR support is a perfect example of this ideal. In the end a gaming console is a computer that is crammed into a case that rivals most micro atx computer cases, which means theyll run hot OR loud, or both. The xbox isnt even really good at being a gaming console (not with its failure rate), so Id certainly never expect it to be more than what it is...just a gaming machine.


----------



## Moonfly

You make some good points. I think the PS3 was designed with media in mind more though, although no IR after all that expense is a bit of a downer. I take your point in not expect to much from games consoles, but they put the features in, so why not make them the best they can be. At the moment I have no dedicated kit for playing music, so I am stuck with the consoles. I like the advantage of storing your music on a single accessible device for playing it all, but you probably right in that a dedicated music server is the best way forward.

Thing that gets me, is I can buy a £300 laptop that does all this as smooth as, with much more flexibility in the processing department, a built in screen, a battery, speakers, more storage space and a multitude of software options to get the most from the kit we have. The xbox runs on a similar framework to windows, so why can they at least do what they do, but do it well. They are simply to busy trying to come up with more efficient ways of getting us to pay for stuff.

The new consoles are touted as total entertainment media hubs, so I think they should at least try live upto that, by eliminating the simplest of things that would at least give the impression they are trying. I would then on that score alone, be impressed. The main flaws are really just silly little things that shouldnt be an issue.


----------



## steiny93

imo;
the xbox doesn't really become a media device (for local content) unless you are leveraging it as a media center extender connected to a media center pc with the MyMovies application installed

For online content the xbox is rock solid for zune/netflix/hulu/etc.

but for local content (owned music / movies / pictures) the xbox only solution is pretty weak. But via the media center solution (xbox as an extender) that version of the solution is very strong. Exspecially when you have the MyMovies application for playing ripped content. The plus is that with today's pc's you can easily run mc without requiring you to have a dedicated mce box.


----------



## hyghwayman

I have some exp. on this matter. Seven (7) Xboxes in eight (8) years w/ only 2 working at the moment. ( I've only paid full price for the 1st and last :whew My 360s is connected via cat6 to my modem/router. Now with that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the Xbox as a media hub.

Made as a gaming rig 1st and media hub 2nd. 
Back in the early days, using the original Xbox to play games and store/play music was the only thing it did and did it well. Fast forward to the 360, media sharing via connected PC's and streaming came along. 

Media sharing (video) w/ a PC running WMC failed for me, think the PC was the problem (under powered or not enough). Never tried getting music from PC back then, just ripped CD's to the HD.
Streaming Netflix worked ok but IP speeds were low and PQ suffered with stops and restarts.

Now, present day with 360s, a more powerful PC and faster IP speeds (30 Mbps down and 5 Mpbs up).
Where are we now, music sharing works very well w/ 3 different PC's connected via wired or wireless. Video on the other hand is still not an option for me as I find it too slow and PQ is nowhere as good as just watching it on the PC. Streaming services have exploded but I will stick to Netflix as my main point of reference. PQ with SD videos is still poor, HD videos look much better but are still limited by technology of the hardware used (video card). 

Hopefully when MS releases the next Xbox they will get it, I currently use my 360s for gaming and leave all the rest to other devices with better hardware. 






steiny93 said:


> imo;For online content the xbox is rock solid for zune/netflix/hulu/etc.


Rock solid yes, best PQ not even close.
Using anything with Advanced Qdeo Video Processing helps in the PQ department.


----------

