OK, I've went and bought a Western Digital WDTV HD Media Player-better than 360?

DongaTon · 22-09-2009, 8:11 AM

Hi guys,

If ONLY the 360 had a decent media player, esp music - with album artwork and easier to search for a track/album, I would have stuck with it. I love using the xbox for other things, like movies, etc.

BUT - I got a 1TB external HDD a few weeks ago, and last night ordered the WDTV from Amazon. It really does look like a great bit of kit. But, it really does a lot that my xbox360 already does, but a bit more user friendly.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digi...3607106&sr=8-1

It was only 70 quid, but I've got some spare cash

WHEN will the 360 get an update to make it more user friendly? It actually has a cool feature in being able to build a playlist, but one false move and you delete it all by accident, it's a nightmare! Also, scrolling through all your tunes is awful.

The 360, or the PS3 for that matter, has an opportunity to strike a decisive blow in the console battle if they concentrated on making their machine more of a true "media hub" which they are proclaiming to be. I think it's crazy, surely there are other people in my position too?

Am I right in saying that the 360 will reproduce the same sort of 1080p HD video that the WDTV will produce, or is that going to be better as it is a dedicated player? The reviews seem phenomenal!

Cheers guys,

ps. The WDTV uses optical out for digital sound. My Pioneer home cinema amp only has one optical input - is there such a thing as an optical splitter? Cheers.

Greg

DongaTon · 22-09-2009, 12:49 PM

hmm.
I've just cancelled this for the time being - I didn't realise that the 4GB FAt32 limit would apply to the ext hdd too, I thought this was peculiar to the Xbox360.

So that's one of the reasons gone for getting the WDTV - I thought I wouldn't have to split mkv/large HD files in half, like you do with the 360...but I would still need to.

I could format the ext hdd to NTFS I suppose - but I know the minute I do that, MS will patch the Xbox the next day so it does album art and everything

Grrr, what to do....has anyone else got the WDTV and compare it to the 360? Cheers.

*ScouserAndy* · 29-11-2009, 1:38 PM

im interested in this also. Didnt realise that your still limited to fat32 format though. So no file bigger than 4gb, most of my hd movies are over that!

DongaTon · 30-11-2009, 8:36 AM

Only if your external hdd Is fat 32 formatted mate! It's not the player, it's the storage....

If you get the wdtv live and connect it to a NTFS formatted drive, there's no file size limit.... Perfect.

goatman · 06-12-2009, 12:32 PM

Hi DongaTon,
Just curious about your dissatisfaction with Xbox 360 music playback. Are you using Windows Media Center to stream from a PC, or are you using the built in player? I just ask because the Media Center interface would seem to give you the stuff you're looking for (album art, search, etc).
Of course, if you don't have your Xbox 360 networked to a Windows Media Center PC, all my comments are irrelevant, in which case please forgive me for butting in!

DongaTon · 08-12-2009, 12:30 AM

Hi goaTman-that's exactly my quandry. I dont have a windows media centre pc, but I'm considering changing my os to windows 7 to get the new media center and extend through the xbox-I want a similar experience to apple tv, but don't want it laggy and 'second rate' . Appletv is NICE!

I can get windows 7 for about 80 quid-I just don't want to go through the hassle of changing my op system and then it doesn't run well on extender?

Has anyone used both? Cheers.

goatman · 08-12-2009, 3:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DongaTon

Hi goaTman-that's exactly my quandry. I dont have a windows media centre pc, but I'm considering changing my os to windows 7 to get the new media center and extend through the xbox-I want a similar experience to apple tv, but don't want it laggy and 'second rate' . Appletv is NICE!

I can get windows 7 for about 80 quid-I just don't want to go through the hassle of changing my op system and then it doesn't run well on extender?

Has anyone used both? Cheers.

DongaTom,

Our home setup is as follows:
Windows 7 PC in the study acting as Windows Media Center hub. This has a BlackGold Freeview / Freesat card and a 1.5Tb hard drive for storing recorded TV, music, photos.
This is ethernet networked to three Xbox 360's around the house which act as media center extenders (when they're not playing games!). It works glitch free, even when the three extenders are streaming simultaneously. It also streams Freesat BBC HD to the Xboxes with no problems.

I'm very pleased with this, although I suggest that if you want to go down this route you should have at least a quadcore PC, and go for wired ethernet. In my experience, wireless is way too glitchy.
I've been running this setup for a couple of years. Initially with Vista and homeplug network but it was glitchy. Now I'm running Windows 7 on an i5 processor with wired ethernet and it's very smooth. Perfect solution for our family house.

From my personal experience, I have no hesitation recommending the Windows 7 Media Center / Xbox 360 partnership as long as your PC hardware is up to snuff and you use wired ethernet.

Hope this helps.

**Guns_LotsOfGuns** · 08-12-2009, 4:56 PM

Ive got the WDTV (1st ed and not live), and i love it, i used to use my 360 streaming stuff (not hd just xvids etc) and it was good but needed it to be able to do my HD files which is where it fell down, didnt want to convert or mess around formatting my PC so picked up the WDTV and it suits me well.

If youbve got any specific questions ill do my best.