Xbox360 4GB as Media Extender

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Xbox360 4GB as Media Extender

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#94303 7-Dec-2011 21:58

After peoples thoughts on using a 4GB XBox360 as a pure media extender.

At $299 including HDMI and wireless N it seems like a good replacement for our troublesome AV sender. Source OS is Vista Media Center.

Things that come to mind are;
- Is the wireless N good enough to stream SD content? (media center is wired so traffic only sent over the air once)
- How quiet are the 4GB units?
- Anything else I should know about media extenders?

Thanks in advance :)

billgates

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#555241 7-Dec-2011 22:03

Good call on using them as media extender. I watch freeview HD on mine using a USB TV tuner stick on my windows 7 machine and wmc on xbox 360.

All I can say is good luck getting windows media center on xbox 360 to work over wi-fi. the menu on wmc lags and stutters like anything over wifi. the 4gb units are fine and do not make loud noises.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Regs

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Snowflake

#555270 8-Dec-2011 01:46

i have a couple of xbox's in use as media extenders. they're great. you do need a decent CPU on your HTPC though if you're sending freeview h.264 recorded or live tv. My old AMD 3000+ didnt quite cut it. i 'upgraded' to an old pentium E6600 dualcore i had lying around and that seems to be sufficient for running one xbox with freeview h.264.

there are a few quirks with the extenders - like not being able to access your dvd collection that you ripped to the HDD - but with the right apps, you can get that working

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gcorgnet

1078 posts

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#555295 8-Dec-2011 08:13

Hi,

I also use an Xbox 4GB (wired) as an extender to my Win7 HTPC.
Not sure about compatibility with Vista, though, you might want to check that.

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#555429 8-Dec-2011 12:58

I have had problems with trying to use my xbox 360 as a media extender over Wi-Fi.

I think the CPU on my laptop just isn't up to it, there is a process which runs in Windows Media Player (can't remember the name) which uses a pile of CPU resources. Laptop kept over heating and I eventually gave up.

If I am going to plug my laptop into my xbox I might as well plug it into the TV and cut out the middle man.

Or more likely I need to learn more about how to make it all work.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

Nety

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#555443 8-Dec-2011 13:16

Do you have a good quality wireless N router as not all N routers are the same with some having performance not much better then G. Personally as others have suggested I think you will struggle over wireless. If at all possible use a cable.
I use Windows 7 MC with a Xbox 360 S and I can say it works great. Just like being at the media center itself. I am not sure how good it would be to Windows Vista though. There were a huge number of significant improvements that were made with Windows 7 media center which would have me not even consider using Vista now.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

Regs

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Snowflake

#555648 8-Dec-2011 20:38

crackrdbycracku: I have had problems with trying to use my xbox 360 as a media extender over Wi-Fi.

I think the CPU on my laptop just isn't up to it, there is a process which runs in Windows Media Player (can't remember the name) which uses a pile of CPU resources. Laptop kept over heating and I eventually gave up.

If I am going to plug my laptop into my xbox I might as well plug it into the TV and cut out the middle man.

Or more likely I need to learn more about how to make it all work.

if you're playing freeview tv then you need a bit of CPU grunt as it always transcodes on the fly.

for regular xvid and h.264 mkv files though you shouldnt need much CPU if your machine has a modern video card with GPU accereration (depending on the codec you use - i use the divx codecs which offload to gpu)

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Snowflake
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hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#555750 9-Dec-2011 07:55

Thanks everyone. I have an ugly way to runs cable. But I'll try wifi and let you know how it works out.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

k14

629 posts

Ultimate Geek

#555761 9-Dec-2011 08:34

If you have issues try using serviio, a DLNA server. I have been using it for about 6 months now and it is really good. Downloads all the covers for dvds and tv shows, tells you the last tv show you watched in that series etc. Also automatically catalogs all tv shows into the right series and looks up the show title etc. Really handy.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#555799 9-Dec-2011 09:35

k14: If you have issues try using serviio, a DLNA server. I have been using it for about 6 months now and it is really good. Downloads all the covers for dvds and tv shows, tells you the last tv show you watched in that series etc. Also automatically catalogs all tv shows into the right series and looks up the show title etc. Really handy.

I considered running XBMC on an old PC, but the main job of this TV is to let my wife watch TV that has been recorded on the media centre in our bedroom.

I guess that would be option B. I could share the media directory of the media centre, but suspect the WAF score might not be acceptable.

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

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#555811 9-Dec-2011 10:03

Regs:
crackrdbycracku: I have had problems with trying to use my xbox 360 as a media extender over Wi-Fi.

I think the CPU on my laptop just isn't up to it, there is a process which runs in Windows Media Player (can't remember the name) which uses a pile of CPU resources. Laptop kept over heating and I eventually gave up.

If I am going to plug my laptop into my xbox I might as well plug it into the TV and cut out the middle man.

Or more likely I need to learn more about how to make it all work.

if you're playing freeview tv then you need a bit of CPU grunt as it always transcodes on the fly.

for regular xvid and h.264 mkv files though you shouldnt need much CPU if your machine has a modern video card with GPU accereration (depending on the codec you use - i use the divx codecs which offload to gpu)

Thanks, I'll look into that and have another crack over the weekend.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

paulspain

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#555829 9-Dec-2011 10:25

I use Xboxes with Windows Media Centre. Whilst Wi-Fi will often work just fine, at other time you will may get odd issues. I definitley suggest giving it a go to check the results in your environment.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast

Regs

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Snowflake

#556103 9-Dec-2011 21:16

crackrdbycracku:
Regs:
crackrdbycracku: I have had problems with trying to use my xbox 360 as a media extender over Wi-Fi.

I think the CPU on my laptop just isn't up to it, there is a process which runs in Windows Media Player (can't remember the name) which uses a pile of CPU resources. Laptop kept over heating and I eventually gave up.

If I am going to plug my laptop into my xbox I might as well plug it into the TV and cut out the middle man.

Or more likely I need to learn more about how to make it all work.

if you're playing freeview tv then you need a bit of CPU grunt as it always transcodes on the fly.

for regular xvid and h.264 mkv files though you shouldnt need much CPU if your machine has a modern video card with GPU accereration (depending on the codec you use - i use the divx codecs which offload to gpu)

Thanks, I'll look into that and have another crack over the weekend.

remember, if you install a bunch of codecs, or codec pack, you might have a hard time figuring out just what is decoding what. i pretty much have out of the box windows 7 with the divx codec on top. that handles pretty much everything i throw at it, including the panasonic hd video camera. the only other 'codec' i have is actually the ac3 filter as the divx one doesnt seem to handle it.

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Snowflake
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about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#558332 15-Dec-2011 14:48

So all set up now and very impressed at how easy the process was.

Only one minor hiccup which was my own doing. I had previously turned on Internet Connection Sharing on the media center so my TV could do a firmware update. Looks like this affected UPNP, but as soon as it was disabled I was off.

Extender comes up with a nice tuning wizard that showed I had enough bw for standard TV but not enough for HD.

Had an old IR receiver from a dead MC Remote that means the same remote works for both systems. Nothing new the other half needs to learn so all is good :)