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[scooby_dooby]

#1 when you play a dvd that is 4:3 aspect (say a dvd show i converted to dvd) it automatically stretches it to 16x9 with the xbox 360, you cannot make it look 4:3 ooops!
- Press X, then Zoom, you can select from 4 different aspect ratios, including 4:3

#2 when watching tv from regular 4:3 source i would like to change the visual and and sound effects settings specifically video background color to something like 60 or 70% black. it lets me do this but will not keep the settings. it reverts to black even though the setting says white!!!!!! oooops
haven't noticed this is it really a big deal?

#3 its very sluggish when going to the mce pc to get pictures or video., and it sometimes disconnects for no reason.
Are you on a 100baseT network? Works fine for me

#4 mp3 or cd audio playback is thru xbox 360 dashboard. which sucks
big deal

#5 dvd playback is thru xbox 360 dashboard is not very good either. see above what it does to your 4:3 wedding videos above when it stretches them to 16x9
see above why this is BS, cahnge your aspect ration then

#6 sound thru xbox 360 is subpar. there seems to be some gliches with 5.1 dolby i have fiddled with settings no change, the sound thru my rear surrounds seems like someone is mumbbling, dvd 5.1 and dts are fine, but mp3, audio cd, tv sounds funny when run thru a 5.1 amp....sounded great on my mce pc. ooops!
have noticed wierd problems with the sound, though I'm not sure if it's cause I don't have my rears hooekd up

#7 there is no remote control volume on the piddly xbox packaged remote. you can also use a standard mce pc remote on the 360, but the volume control wont work on that either.....ooooops but on the upgradable purchased remote, (it has number buttons, it shows volume) very strange.
you're complaining about the FREE remote control? Go buy the full version then!

#8 dvd upscaling to 720p should be there(like most new standalone players offer) ....but all dvd plays at 480p not very cutting edge. my mce will do this on my hdtv but not the xbox 360 as extender....ooops.
kinda lame, but at the same time, who fuckin cares

#9 divx/xvid....what more can i say, my mce can play avi's so why the hell cant xbox 360.....THIS IS A HUGE mistake. this is suppose to be an E X T E N D E R....right??!!!
because you are not a multi-billion dollar company that would get sued for using unauthorized codecs. I agree it sucks, big time, but there ARE logical reasons why it wasn't feasible for MCE to include the same codecs as XBMC does

#10 it could be quieter, my dedicated mce pc that was attached to my hdtv was silent. xbox 360 could be quieter.
seems pretty quiet to me

Now, here are some of my complaints about MCE Extender:

1 - WHen using the controller to fast forward, you can not stop!!! Talk about screw ups! The bumpers control the FF and Rewind, but once started you cannot play again without getting the remote and pressing the play button. Ya...someone fucked up!

2 - FF is limited to 3x, and although you can skip by 30s intervals, when you hold this down it goes all the way to the end of the movie. This means that if you want to resume 1hour into your movie, you either tap skip like 120 times, or FF for like 10minutes, terrible design.

3 - no divx/xvid support obviosuly sucks

Other than that this thing kicks all kinds of ass,

[gt2690b]

mine is super sluggish..

[sp3cialk]

QUOTE(gt2690b @ Nov 29 2005, 09:03 PM)

mine is super sluggish..

hmmm... how well is your network?? is anyone else's sluggish? I am about to build me a MCE box so I'll have my comments later... maybe this week... not sure if time is going to allow...

[lordashram]

QUOTE(sp3cialk @ Nov 30 2005, 10:34 AM)

hmmm... how well is your network?? is anyone else's sluggish? I am about to build me a MCE box so I'll have my comments later... maybe this week... not sure if time is going to allow...

i'm trying mine hopefully tonight, if i get time to tip the network cable i ran into the room that has my MCE pc. i know with the xbox extender software over wireless was VERY slow. haven't tried with my 360 yet.

[gt2690b]

i have 100BT hardwired network.. music and whatnot plays fine through just the media connect.. MCE just sux, though... its retarded slow

[IntestineMan]

Mine worked right from the start and I experience no sluggishness.

It is probably ironic that I just have a perfectly working MCE box with no issues (other than MS created ones) and do not actually use it for anything other than experimenting. I had Linksys Extender but I sold it because it would crash often.

I have an Xbox MCX and compared to it (and the old Linksys), the Xbox 360 is way nicer in the way it does animations like the real MCE 2005 PC.

While it may be very simple for a newbie to make an extender connect to MCE, find music/media etc. and use it - it is a real PITA to maintain and administer it afterwards. MS has this way of making you wonder just where the hell everything is. Let's take My Music for instance... Configure it the way you want on the MCE PC, add music etc. Then when you hook up your Extender you realize you have to add it all again because it really is a hidden user called MCX1, MCX2 etc.. This all takes a very long time adding music through the extender. Now after a while you may discover that MCE uses the same database as Windows Media Player and you then say "Hey, I can just fire up Windows Media Player and add music there!". Sure that works great, but not great for the extender because WMP makes a database per user, so if your username is Bob for example, that doesn't do anything for MCX1.

Now it is simple to workaround this, but I cannot see how a new user would like this or understand. What I figured out is the database for My Music is stored in:

C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\MS\Media Player\CurrentDatabase_219

And to make more frustrating, that folder/file is Hidden so one has to enable view hidden files in explorer.

So what you could do is manage music under regular Windows user (Bob for example) and then after you are done, copy that database file to the MCX1 user eg. C:\Documents and Settings\MCX1\Local Settings\Application Data\MS\Media Player\

I tried this and works great on both Xbox and Xbox 360 (I have 2 users, MCX1 and MCX2). I only tried about 500 songs as a quick test because they are on a Linux server and won't work through Extender - I have to copy them over instead to work with MCE.

Now there are still some other issues... like what if someone deletes a song on the extender? It appears to permanently delete the actual file on the PC!!! This is no good so maybe there is a setting I missed and if not, may be possible to set read-only permission on the actual files for users MCX1 etc. I also should mention that MS uses a non-standard ID3V2 Tag for the Album Name and if it does not exist MCE will not pick it up (WMP also uses this). I had to go through all my albums and create this tag.

I still prefer XBMC on my Xbox. After doing all the above, I realize that I have no reason to change unless for some reason MS wins and everyone starts encoding stuff in WMV9 instead of XviD or DivX etc. then I will maybe look at it again seriously. I also have Satellite HD-PVR so I see no benefit with MCE as far as watching TV.

[gt2690b]

yeah my PC MCE works fine too.. i have an OTA antenna hooked up and i record shows in hi-def and the only reason i wanted to use the XBOX 360 instead of my old xbox xbmc is because the old one cant play the high def stuff...  I did get the 360 to play a hi def wmv file and it works great (once it finally starts playing).. it does seem like a user/security issue it is having with how slow it is going.. its tickin me off too

[babanoosh]

QUOTE(scooby_dooby @ Nov 25 2005, 05:27 PM)

#8 dvd upscaling to 720p should be there(like most new standalone players offer) ....but all dvd plays at 480p not very cutting edge. my mce will do this on my hdtv but not the xbox 360 as extender....ooops.
kinda lame, but at the same time, who fuckin cares

I do. That is lame for such a "physically capable machine".

QUOTE(scooby_dooby @ Nov 25 2005, 05:27 PM)

#9 divx/xvid....what more can i say, my mce can play avi's so why the hell cant xbox 360.....THIS IS A HUGE mistake. this is suppose to be an E X T E N D E R....right??!!!
because you are not a multi-billion dollar company that would get sued for using unauthorized codecs. I agree it sucks, big time, but there ARE logical reasons why it wasn't feasible for MCE to include the same codecs as xbmc does

It's not that that "a multi billion dollar" company would get sued. It's that it would go against their business model. Xvid is open-source so no qualms there. I hope you're not suggesting MS would be sued for misuse of the codec?

QUOTE(scooby_dooby @ Nov 25 2005, 05:27 PM)

Other than that this thing kicks all kinds of ass,

I definitely like the HD part. It'll be nicer down the road if they make playback more streamlined instead of asking people to jump through hoops (rip to pc drive, stream via MCE) in order to do so.
Other then the HD playback, it sucks ass. What else is there that xbmc doesn't do 5x better? And with out the hassle mind you...

[IntestineMan]

Ok, I added over 20,000 songs (nearly 1700 albums) into MCE and copied the database over to MCX1 and MCX2 extender users (My Xbox 360 and old Xbox respectively).

Everything works on the Extender but it is very slow to navigate through all the albums, even using the Page Up/Down. I found no real performance difference between the Xbox 360 and Xbox with MCX although the 360 was better looking.

I have decided to stick with XBMC.

Note that XBMC even bags down when you have lots of music and attempt to use its database features (due to lack of memory). I end up not using the database, disabling Album Thumbnails on remote shares and use the list view. It works pretty fast and I still get the album art while the song is playing.

[Rassilon]

QUOTE(IntestineMan @ Nov 30 2005, 07:46 PM)

So what you could do is manage music under regular Windows user (Bob for example) and then after you are done, copy that database file to the MCX1 user eg. C:\Documents and Settings\MCX1\Local Settings\Application Data\MS\Media Player\

I tried this and works great on both Xbox and Xbox 360 (I have 2 users, MCX1 and MCX2). I only tried about 500 songs as a quick test because they are on a Linux server and won't work through Extender - I have to copy them over instead to work with MCE.

Did you have to do anything else to do this or was that it?  I tried copying the CurrentDatabase_219.wmdb file for my local MCE user to the MCX1 user, but my 360 just tells me that I don't have anything in the database (and i can then see a file created called CorruptDatabase_219.wmdb.

[gt2690b]

hah.. i figured out what was wrong with mine.. i had just networked my house and one of the cat5 cables i made had a wire swapped... i cant beleive it was even working at all before.. now it works sweet!

[DrHunter]

QUOTE

#4 mp3 or cd audio playback is thru xbox 360 dashboard. which sucks

Forgive me if I have misread something here but if you have music files elsewhere on your pc you can just go to music (on your x360) then hit Info on the remote and it brings up a menu to add more music... this allows you to browse your pc, and even network drives, for music folders!
The same is true for videos!