Since I have my wireless mesh network setup in the house, I have OUTSTANDING wireless access throughout the entire house. Now with good latency and no packet loss it’s time to start making the best of the network in the house.
The first thing I did this weekend was enable my Xbox360 to connect to my Windows Media Desktop running Windows Media Center Edition 2005 Rollup Patch 2. If you’re not familiar with windows media center it allows you to stream media files (videos, pictures, music), watch TV (if you have a TV tuner card), act as a PVR and more.
The Xbox 360 has Media Center Extender capabilities built in so that I’m able to connect to my Media Center Desktop over the network and access all the Media Center features remotely through my Xbox and display it on the TV. The goal with Media Center Edition has always been to rip all my DVD’s to files and then stream them over the network to the TV and Amazon Unbox Videos takes me a little closer to that.
First getting the media center to tie into the Xbox 360
Getting the Xbox and Media PC to see each other should be pretty simple, unfortunately it wasn’t as straight forward as it should have been. It turns out that if you’re running XP you need to download some software (Vista users don’t need to do this).
Here’s a few sites to help you with this:
- A good walkthrough on what you’re going to be doing.
- Download Software for your version of Media Center.
- Media Center Extender FAQs (it does a great job detailing what you’ll need to do).
- The Xbox360 PC Setup instructions For Vista.
You’ll want to use the download software link above to make sure you download the correct version of the Media Center Extender Software on your Media Center desktop. If you have Vista you don’t need to install anything at all and can follow the Vista Setup Instructions. Now, you may get a warning that your network won’t support standard or high definition video stream. You’ll want to play with the network and settings and even if you don’t get a strong signal give it a try, you might find it works fine.
Setting up Amazon Unbox for the Xbox360
This is a slam dunk, it just works! Download an Amazon Unbox video to your PC using their viewer tool. There’s a number of free downloads available right now and some special $0.99 rentals on the weekend. If you need more information on this Amazon has some instructions.
Watching a Movie over the Xbox 360.
This just works. Now if your Xbox doesn’t have the option to show movies you probably didn’t enable videos because of a poor network signal, you’ll want to adjust that. On the Xbox go to Media Center, then select My Movies and select the Amazon Unbox folder to pick one of your movies.
How’s the Movie Experience?
It’s great! I honestly couldn’t tell the difference on a video streamed across the Xbox and standard definition TV and I have a 50″ plasma so it should have showed some pixelation. Now the movie I watched was We Are Marshall which is a pretty good movie and it was only $0.99!
I noticed Amazon Unbox has a blog and on their blog they have a post talking about the different video details:
Below are some technical details about our most common video and audio parameters.
DVD-quality PC File
- Video Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate VBR
- Video Codec: Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile
- Video Bitrate: 2500 kbps avg, 6000 kbps peak
- Video Frame Size: 640×480 (4×3 content), 720×408 (16×9 content)
- Video Frame Rate: 23.98, 29.97 (same as source)
- Video Keyframe Interval: 4 seconds
- Audio Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate VBR
- Audio Codec: Windows Media Audio 9.1 Professional
- Audio Bitrate: 192 kbps avg, 1000 kbps peak
- Audio Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz (same as source)
TiVo “Best Quality” File
- Video Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate VBR
- Video Codec: MPEG-2
- Video Bitrate: 2800 kbps avg, 6600 kbps peak
- Video Frame Size: 640×480 – all 16×9 content is letterboxed
- Video Frame Rate: 23.98, 29.97 (same as source)
- Video Keyframe Interval: 4 seconds
- Audio Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate VBR
- Audio Codec: MPEG-2 Layer 3
- Audio Bitrate: 192 kbps avg, 1000 kbps peak
- Audio Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz (same as source)
Portable Video File
- Video Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate CBR
- Video Codec: Windows Media Video 9
- Video Bitrate: 600 kbps
- Video Frame Size: 320×240 (4×3 content), 320×180 (16×9 content)
- Video Frame Rate: 23.98, 29.97 (same as source)
- Video Keyframe Interval: 6 seconds
- Audio Encoding Type: 2-pass bitrate CBR
- Audio Codec: Windows Media Audio 9
- Audio Bitrate: 96 kbps
- Audio Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz (same as source)
Another great reason to test out Amazon Unbox right now is that they have free video rentals on the new TV series that are launching this season (I’m downloading the Bionic Woman at the moment but without atleast cameo of Lee Majors it just won’t be the same).
It does have a few drawbacks.
Now, it’s not all roses and peaches. I did run into a problem with the unbox video. I’m downloading at 6Mbps on my cable modem and started watching the movie on the Xbox when it was at 10%, after about 20 minutes I ran out of movie and it ended. I waited about another 30 minutes and I ran out of movie again! UGH. So I’d say if you’re going to watch a movie give yourself atleast a 60% complete download before you start watching the movie. I was looking for HD quality video downloads but couldn’t find any hopefully some will be available soon. Another cool thing about Amazon Unbox is that they have partnered with Microsoft to create a site createspace.com. Createspace.com is for indie film makers to get their movie out in HD DVD format and available on Amazon Unbox, this should be pretty exciting for independant film makers and I can’t wait to see what new and exciting films come out of this project.
So that’s Amazon Unbox and the Xbox 360
So that’s all there is to that. You can configure the xbox to talk to your media center PC using the links provided for instructions and software as needed, you can signup for amazon unbox and rent some pretty cool movies, dirt cheap and have them delivered to your PC (and xbox) immediately and then stream them over to your xbox 360.
I’m excited about the prospects of what Media Center and the Xbox 360 as a media platform have and am excited about the upcoming projects I’ll be planning around this. My next project is going to be ripping one of my own DVDs and playing it across to the xbox. If I get some time this week, I’ll also post some pics of the movie playback on the xbox 360 so you can see how well it looks.
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