Hey, so here we are. About to embark on the first of several new "themed" posts which will hopefully be very cool and very long-running.
This one is the video games-themed post as hopefully was suggested by the title. I'm not sure on the name as of yet, so it is very much open to change. I saw the phrase "1UP yours" used for a gaming blog, damn that's a pretty pr0 name.
Anyways, enough of the jibber jabber, down to business, and as mentioned before I'm going to sing the praises of the latest dashboard update for the 360 and my belief that it's taken a large positive step towards the "entertainment machine" and the mandatory addition to any living room setup. I think a lot of the initial themed posts will be catchup type affairs, and then it's onto the new, fresh and downright exciting stuff, yippee!
EDIT:After writing this out in full, and then reading it back, the post has turned into an informal guide on setting up video playback with the new codecs. I've gone through it again, and added some particular facts which are not immediately obvious when starting this venture. Enjoy!
Right, so onto the dash update. This obviously requires a Windows PC/laptop and Windows Media Player (I know, that part's a bit shite, sorry!). The new version of winamp (not sure on the exact no.), the one that comes with the Bento skin also offered the Winamp Remote application that allows media sharing throuigh browsers and devices such as the 360. My initial thoughts were "great! I don't have to use that bloated assbrick Media Player! Where do I sign?!" Setup was pretty easy, just selected which folders I wanted to share and I was away. A quick run downstairs, and pretty much immediately the 360 recognised there was a connection to a PC with media sharing going on. I tried out an episode, and whilst the sound was coming through ok, the video unfortunately was screwed. It was green a lot of the time and skewed to the right.
Now, specific codec support has come in the update (good guide here) so it suggested to me that the video was encoded with something else. I tried reencoding with some divx tools and checked GSpot (which is a rather cool codec analyser app: it tells you what codecs have been used on a particular video ), and that all seemed ok, but again no luck.
I finally bit the bullet and gave Windows Media Player a try. Now, fortunately Media Player 11 has all the required media sharing built-in, and there's no need to convert videos into wmv and use extra apps like I've done in the past. The 360 is auto-detected and again it's a simple case of selecting the folders to be shared and then scanning them into the library. You do not have to have Media Player running for the sharing to work, but a fairly memory-hogging service will be added to the services list, but if you have a reasonably good PC it shouldn't cause a bother.
With that setup, I can select a video from one of the shared folders and have it playing through the 360 onto my awesome HDTV . This ultimately leads to a much more comfortable viewing experience, and much better if friends are round, we're not all clambering around a laptop screen. Also, my existing video collection that has been burnt to DVD will also play provided they have been encoded in one of the supported codecs. Unfortunately for data discs, they appear under the description "Mixed Media Disc" in the play Disc button on the main blades but can only be properl accessed by going into Videos on the Media Blade, a minor inconvenience I know, but other than that very good.
Another downside with the Winamp Remote app along with the lack of viable playback, was all the time required for the 360 to buffer. I can't tell you how frustrating it was watching the buffering bar for a number of minutes, only to have the video incorrectly decoded in all it's green glory - huzzah! With Media Player, there is no buffering at all, there is normally a slight pause before the video starts, but once it starts it will remain uninterrupted for the duration - pretty damn awesome.
Now, my current setup is a number of videos shared on my external hard drive. It's not made obvious but videos need to be placed onto a FAT32 partition. I guess that's to get round the security implications of using NTFS. That is fine to a point, but it does put an upper limit to the size of the partition I can create on my external hard drive. EDIT: I have both partitions on my hard drive and video from both works equally fine provided it's been encoded with the right codecs (see below), which is a good thing cos my FAT32 partition was starting to get a little full, so boyah to that...
I have yet to purchase a proper media remote for the 360, but there's probably not much point. Videos can be manipulated pretty easily with a standard controller. We have the left and right triggers to rewind and fast forward respectively, and the bumpers allow the video to be chapter skip, even if there are no chapters set up, pretty cool. There's the info bar letting you know the time played/remaining and you can also change the screen size, so if you're faced with a video with a low native resolution, you can always stretch it to letterbox/fullscreen, although if the quality is quite poor then it does look rather blocky when viewed on a large TV, I can testify to that.
Thanks to the shiny TV, HD content looks amazing. The Diggnation podcast which I now subscribe to is distributed in HD quicktime (no doubt Kevin Rose's influence there, he is a self-confessed mac fanboy), and that looks awesome.
A point to note, my good friend Will has brought to my attention that video streaming is not capable over a wireless connection. I have not tested this myself and am not in the frame of mind to purchase technology only to find out it doesn't work, kinda defeats the point. That is a downer, I was looking to moving my network to wireless, purchasing the 360 network bridge and beign able to relax in the comfort that the possibility of tripping on a cable to my doom would not happen. I'm sure it's a technical issue with how wireless networks work, and the bandwidth that is available. It's a small price to pay, so I'm happy to make do for now.
So, if you were to find me signed in to Xbox Live, there's a very good chance that if my status reads that I'm watching a video, it'll no doubt be a vid streaming from my PC upstairs. I'm finding myself spending maybe 50/50 playing games and watching streaming videos. All I can say is well done Microsoft for putting in the codec support in the dash update, I'm sure the echoes of praise can be heard far and wide over the Internet, and I'm adding my voice to the mix. A master stroke!