This may be a stilly question to some but what’s the advantage of shelling out 400.00 bucks for Vista? I’m currently running XP pro and I’m able to share media with my 360 via Media Center 11. Will Vista allow me to actually do more than I’m able to do with XP pro?

I believe so, they are probably enable more functionality to the 360 and PC Vista.

Media Center right through your Xbox. My buddy uses XP MCE and his 360 as his DVR. I have a couple ReplayTVs so I don't really need this feature.

However, the Music browsing in Vista MC is pretty nice.

Remember, you can always upgrade from XP to Vista - It won't be nearly $400.

Or you can just buy a new copy of OEM XP Media Center 2005 right now for $109 from newegg. It comes with a coupon to get a free copy of Vista Home Premium when it is released.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116171

Or you can just buy a new copy of OEM XP Media Center 2005 right now for $109 from newegg. It comes with a coupon to get a free copy of Vista Home Premium when it is released.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116171

Be careful with the redemption ... you need to fill out the form a certain way to make sure the redemption is valid

Yeah, I saw that in the comments section. I have a guy I emailed a while back at newegg about this. I'll make sure to get the official instructions from him.

Media Center right through your Xbox. My buddy uses XP MCE and his 360 as his DVR. I have a couple ReplayTVs so I don't really need this feature.

However, the Music browsing in Vista MC is pretty nice.

Music browsing in Vista either with the 360 or within the built in Media Center sucks in my opinion. Thats my one big complaint (that and no way to play back .ts files with the 360 without converting them). For anyone that has a large music collection its a nightmare to try and find what you're looking for from the coverart view as they are all just jammed together with no artist/album info at all.

At least you can get it to work.

Music browsing in Vista either with the 360 or within the built in Media Center sucks in my opinion. Thats my one big complaint (that and no way to play back .ts files with the 360 without converting them). For anyone that has a large music collection its a nightmare to try and find what you're looking for from the coverart view as they are all just jammed together with no artist/album info at all.

Yup, totally agree. I've given up on the 360 for any media capabilities besides anything related to HD. Music is a nightmare on the 360 and just frustrates the users in my house, especially during a drunken party. I have a mod'd Xbox with xbmc that is light years ahead of the 360 for pics,mp3's, and vids without the need for MCE at all.

I wonder how the new Apple TV will do for media.

Yup, totally agree. I've given up on the 360 for any media capabilities besides anything related to HD. Music is a nightmare on the 360 and just frustrates the users in my house, especially during a drunken party. I have a mod'd Xbox with xbmc that is light years ahead of the 360 for pics,mp3's, and vids without the need for MCE at all.
I guess I don't have another option right now, and the 360 works for what I need it to do. I have never personally used XP MCE, just Vista RC1. Don't know if Vista varies greatly from XP in anything other than "looks."

But I only have like 50GB of music, I can recognize all the albums by the cover, music can be sorted by artist/genre for those not familiar with my collection, I have plenty of playlists created, etc.

It gives me 80% of the functionality that my xLobby setup I had on my HTPC.

Music browsing in Vista either with the 360 or within the built in Media Center sucks in my opinion. Thats my one big complaint (that and no way to play back .ts files with the 360 without converting them). For anyone that has a large music collection its a nightmare to try and find what you're looking for from the coverart view as they are all just jammed together with no artist/album info at all.

And I thought I was the only one. I have around 250GB and although some aren't tagged at all, it's such a nightmare to navigate that it wouldn't matter if it all was. I have a pretty elaborate folder organization so XBMC and browsing folders works perfectly for me. I've just seen people talking about MCE for so long that I couldn't seem to figure out why it was that it seemed totally useless to me and not to them.

Navigating through a lot of music with a 10 foot interface pretty much sucks, anyway. I have yet to see a device that really gets it right.

It is even worse with an infra-red remote because they aren't terribly good at lots of quick button presses (IR blasts take too long).

It makes me wonder about Microsoft when they allow streaming but only if you scroll through every title available to pick what you want to play. The music list picks up speed, jumping at least 10 at a time after a while, but I never noticed anything but 'next title' for video.

Maybe they want to SELL software that does it they way we'd like, so giving that functionality away isn't what they consider a wise move, but I'd prefer they get to that SOON or fix the software they already have.

Most needed: utility to drop a DVD into my PC and store it for streaming (the DVD's chapters included this time) to the 360. Lock it down with DRM any way they want as long as it WORKS and I'm not billed for playing something I own. I'm going to get my first 1TB drive as soon as they hit $300 (the one for backing that one up will be later), and since no other DVD jukebox has ever seemed like a good deal I'll make one. Moving the DVDs as unchaptered WMV isn't a thrill unless they make the 'chapter' size a lot bigger.

The 3GP copy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on my phone is waiting for better playback software too. Never seem to want to sit and watch it all they way through when I would LIKE to jump forward a bunch...

I guess I don't have another option right now, and the 360 works for what I need it to do. I have never personally used XP MCE, just Vista RC1. Don't know if Vista varies greatly from XP in anything other than "looks."

But I only have like 50GB of music, I can recognize all the albums by the cover, music can be sorted by artist/genre for those not familiar with my collection, I have plenty of playlists created, etc.

It gives me 80% of the functionality that my xLobby setup I had on my HTPC.


I guess what I was trying to say is that while in many ways the media center within Vista is an improvement over XP MCE the one area where they seemed to have actually regressed is the music area. While music browsing in MCE wasn't perfect it was definitely better than it is currently in Vista. I've got about 900 albums in lossless .wma format right now with about another 500 that need to be ripped. Yes the music can be sorted in other ways but it is not very intuitive to people that have no experience with it.

Additionally in my particular case, my music collection is VERY eclectic as its more for the people who visit me then for my own enjoyment. I've got music from the '50s till present and probably every genre as well. So sorting becomes a problem because there will always be something that didn't get a particular field filled like say genre or whatever.

What I'd really like to see in Vista is an album art view that looks more like the views in Media Player 11. Where you can sort graphically by a number of criteria and have the album name/artist below the coverart. I'd also like to see changes to the genre tag, so that I can identify music a bit better. For example being able to identify an album as '80's and rock would allow me to sort for either term and get back a lot of results or search for both and really narrow down what I'm searching for. Being able to narrow your search quickly becomes important as your music collection grows. With 12000+ songs currently in my library you'd think it would be easy to find something to listen to and unfortunately it has become exactly the opposite. Someone decides they want to listen to classic rock from the '70s, say for example. Unless they know all the songs or artists already it becomes a lesson in frustration trying to get exactly what you want.

I haven't given up tho. I still think the 360 is a great front end! :)

What I'd really like to see in Vista is an album art view that looks more like the views in Media Player 11. Where you can sort graphically by a number of criteria and have the album name/artist below the coverart. I'd also like to see changes to the genre tag, so that I can identify music a bit better. For example being able to identify an album as '80's and rock would allow me to sort for either term and get back a lot of results or search for both and really narrow down what I'm searching for. Being able to narrow your search quickly becomes important as your music collection grows. With 12000+ songs currently in my library you'd think it would be easy to find something to listen to and unfortunately it has become exactly the opposite. Someone decides they want to listen to classic rock from the '70s, say for example. Unless they know all the songs or artists already it becomes a lesson in frustration trying to get exactly what you want.
Yeah, "smart playlists" and progressive/regressive filters are something that is definately missing.

I tried using my Vista RC2 with my 360 and the signal strength showed weak, but the funny thing is that I'm hard wired. Could it be my Vista? I have my XP machine connected via the Zune software for XP, but when I try to watch videos it wont play them. What format am i supposed to use.

i must be the only one that actually likes the new music interface.... overall its excellent but i hate that any of it is still text based.... it should all be album art imo. (IE genres should do the digital stack thing like wmp11 does)