[leonardg]

Hi All,


We've been having fairly good luck using my XBox as a Netflix streaming device. As a result, I'm planning to build an HTPC one of these days.


As a preliminary experiment, I hooked my Macbook up to the same TV (42" Sharp LCD) via DVI -> HDMI converter and used the "watch instantly" streaming through a web browser. The quality was dramatically lower compared to the XBox; it was all blotchy and compressed looking. That same low quality was apparent on the Macbook itself, without connecting to the TV.


I then hooked the XBox back up and everything looked fine (approximately SD, I would wager).


Both the XBox and Macbook were connected wirelessly and were the same distance away from my wireless router (~ 3 feet).


Has anyone else experienced this? Any tips? Thanks!

 

[scoppola]

I'm finding the same thing with my XBox vs Vista Media Center playback. XBox looks much better. Haven't found anything indicating that there is a way of improving it.

 

[ilovejedd]

Not sure if they've changed it recently, but iirc, standalone devices use Windows Media instead of Silverlight to stream. I think it might be the streams themselves that are higher quality. Unfortunately, if you've switched to Silverlight, there's no way to go back to Windows Media. Besides, Windows Media DRM isn't available on OS X anyway.

 

[leonardg]

Got it. Thanks for the help!

 

[vladd]

The XBox 360 uses Silverlight but there are HD streams available for the XBox 360 that are not available for the PC/Macbook.