I have used the x-box extender for playback of recorded TV (under MCE), video recorded with SAGE, a DVD that was ripped to the MCE machine's hard drive, family pictures, and music playback for CDs ripped in windows media format (but not MP3) and have experienced no problems with any of this.
My MCE 2005 PC is a 2.5GHz P4 with 512M of DDR2700 memory. The menu system can be a bit slugish if the machine is in the process of recording a show at the same time, but otherwise, I have not had any problems with it.
I will say that using the X-Box to serve as a media center extender has some drawbacks, however. In terms of ease of use, it is not as easy to integrate as a stand-alone extender, simply because the MCE extender disk must be running the the X-Box for it to serve this purpose. Which means that my wife will not use it unless someone else is around. Other than that, I have no complaints.
It was a simple, cost effective solution given that the X-Box was already attached to my system.
My MCE 2005 PC is a 2.5GHz P4 with 512M of DDR2700 memory. The menu system can be a bit slugish if the machine is in the process of recording a show at the same time, but otherwise, I have not had any problems with it.
I will say that using the X-Box to serve as a media center extender has some drawbacks, however. In terms of ease of use, it is not as easy to integrate as a stand-alone extender, simply because the MCE extender disk must be running the the X-Box for it to serve this purpose. Which means that my wife will not use it unless someone else is around. Other than that, I have no complaints.
It was a simple, cost effective solution given that the X-Box was already attached to my system.
