What can XBox 360 be used for?

supersunbird

supersunbird

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So, what can a xbox 360 be used for?

My one female friend is moving into my apartment and she wants the xbox just for something like Viva Pinjata or something.

I have a file server with 2 x 320GB drives with various multimedia files. Got a 384 ADSL line as well, and I mostly just play Counter Strike Source on my pc. Also getting a 54cm SDTV end of this month, or MAYBE a 72cm.

I assume we are gonna get the Premium one.
 
you don't need the hdtv.. tho it is nice...

If you have Vista or Media Centre you can stream all your music and movies and such to the xbox....

/me is enjoying the xbox on his widescreen LCD.. is very nice.
 
So given my max budget of R4000 for a TV, if I dont get the graphics card, what LCD 720p HDTV is there for me to buy? :rolleyes:

Shes buying the 360 herself, i was just going to get a normal tv so I can watch some SABC and ETV and DVD's, no mnet or DSTV in the near future. I just want to know what other features, except games, it has that I could use.
 
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supersunbird said:
So given my max budget of R4000 for a TV, if I dont get the graphics card, what LCD 720p HDTV is there for me to buy? :rolleyes:

Shes buying the 360 herself, i was just going to get a normal tv so I can watch some SABC and ETV and DVD's, no mnet or DSTV in the near future. .
Click to expand...

For +- R6000.00 you can get a nice Mecer LCD screen. My connection terribly slow at the moment but try doing a search on xbox-360.co.za for Mecer lcd
 
ToxicBunny said:
you don't need the hdtv.. tho it is nice...

If you have Vista or Media Centre you can stream all your music and movies and such to the xbox....

/me is enjoying the xbox on his widescreen LCD.. is very nice.
Click to expand...

So, if I get Vista Home Premium, i could use my file server to send its dvds and prison break and lost avi's to the xbox and thus the tv?
 
When is MS coming out with 16:10 support for the X360? They released the VGA cable to make it playable on monitors and they don't support 16:10 res?

ssb I dunno prices on HDTVs but you're gonna have to save up a bit more than that for a decent LCD I think..
 
There are numerous ways of getting it to stream to ur 360...

I spent R3500 on a 22" WS LCD... and i've actually found it to be big enough to watch DVD's and tv on as well.. so its quite nice...
 
Well, ive upped my budget for the TV to R1800 for a Toshiba with 3year warranty, it has component input (for the video, the RGB coloured connectors)...
 
I think I read somewhere that the component cable would over a better picture, even on SDTV, is that correct?

(man, this wine went straight to my head)
 
Yes, that's correct, it'll give you 480p which is crisper than a composite cable.

To answer your actual question . . .;)

You don't need vista to set up media sharing between a 360 and a PC, you can use a number of apps, the two most important being Media player 11 and TVersity.

The issue is that currently the 360 will only stream WMV movies. (Audio it can do quite a few formats)

If you have a reasonably powerful (by that I mean powerful ;) ) PC you can use Tversity, which will transcode any media you have into WMV in realtime. If your PC is not that powerful you'll need to use something like eRightsoft Super to transcode all your movie files into WMV first, and then you can access them by sharing them via Media Player 11.
 
What do you mean by "powerful", exactly? I tried realtime transcoding with TVersity and basically just hung my 360, lol.

Admittedly my machine's not a high end dual core rig. Dammit, it was pretty powerful last year.....
 
Away from the streaming, can the Xbox360 read and play mp3's directly off CD/DVD's? Videos I am not too concerned about. Anyway we're getting an XBox as a replacement DVD Player (with the bonus of it being a console :)) and would also like to get rid of my old [mini] Sony Viao which lives permanently in the TV stand. This dinosaur acts purely as a 'jukebox' of sorts for when we have people over. I hate swapping CD's with alcohol around... I'm a bit OCD about my music collection staying in mint condition.
 
evilspinach : I'm not sure about that, tho i don't see why not... but if you dump all your music onto a removable HDD, then it can play them off the hdd...
 
That will more than likely suit me more. Thank ye muchly for the answer TB!
 
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