Michael posts about the Lifehacker Does Xbox Media Center article:
“I’m a huge proponent of Xbox Media Center. That is, an old Xbox, chipped and with XBMC installed on it, to make it the ultimate SD media center ever in the world of the history of everything..”
I’ve had an Xbox for something like 4 years now. And for the last year and a half or so it’s been chipped1 and running the Xbox Media Center software. I still use it for the odd gaming session, but primarily it sits beside the wide-screen TV for all our media viewing needs.
Oh, I’ve tried to kick the habit and build a media centre using a small-form-factor (and quiet) HP Compaq, but it’s just not as easy to use as the XBox. It plays just about anything you throw at it, short of HD. And if I ever actually go HD, it’s going to be when the disc based platform actually starts to settle down. The Blue-Ray and HD DVD format war still rages on in mixed-result-earnest and there is no saviour in the wings for us just yet.
It’s pretty safe to say I’m about done with the format war - call a winner, so we can all move on to something other than standard definition DVD without spending large on a dead format2.
Given the Xbox 360 has more chastity than twenty-two nuns on a prayer bender — and has absolutely no real flexibility out side of Microsoft’s constructed reality — the little slightly-beat-up and aging black-and-green box will continue whirring happily and quietly in the background, serving media on demand.
When someone can pass me a device that does everything the original xbox can do, for less money than the GDP of China, I’ll take note. Till then, we’re the best of buddies and the world can burn in it’s high-definition highlander war for all this consumer cares.
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of hardware, media, software, xbox.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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