I am looking to extend my MCE2005 PC to my living room and stream HD recorded TV shows.  I understand that the only way to do this is with Xbox360.  I would like to spend less than $300 to do this.  So I was wondering if I could buy an Xbox360 with a broken DVD drive and use it only as an extender?  Also, one of the things I don't like about all of the "non-MCE extender" extenders is that you cannot delete shows from them.  Will the Xbox 360 allow me to delete recorded shows?

 

Thanks.

You can get a refurb for as low as $164 at techforless. I buy from them.

Yes you can. I bought one with a broken drive for my bedroom so I could get a better deal. You don't need a hard drive either, unless you want to play divx movies, then you'll have to update your dashboard which requires a hard drive.

Edit: Sorry. I didn't notice the "MCE 2005" part. I'm using Vista MCE, so not so sure about 2005.

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MitchSchaft:

You can get a refurb for as low as $164 at techforless. I buy from them.

Great idea.  Unfortunately, I really want an HDMI port and even the refurb core systems right now are over $200.

In terms of other uses, I really only want to be able to pull up live TV, DVR-MS files, WMA/MP3 files, JPG files, (and AVI/WMV if possible).

Other than that, I am not too concerned about additional functionality.

Thanks.

 

 

bjbinc:

Edit: Sorry. I didn't notice the "MCE 2005" part. I'm using Vista MCE, so not so sure about 2005.

MCE2005 forum

bjbinc:

Yes you can. I bought one with a broken drive for my bedroom so I could get a better deal. You don't need a hard drive either, unless you want to play divx movies, then you'll have to update your dashboard which requires a hard drive.

You don't need a hard disk, a flash memory card will do the job just as well.

I've done the same as the OP is asking: bought a 360 off eBay with a dodgy DVD drive just to use it as an extender with MCE2005. I also got a cheap 64Mb flash memory card off eBay purely to store the codec download to enable full video playback through UPnP.

 

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MCE2005 (Will go with the Win7 public beta when available) | AMD64X2 3600+ | 3Gb Ram | 1.5Tb HDD | Hauppauge PVR150 | nVidia 7300LE silent GPU | Pig ugly big black case | Dead DVD drive | Virgin Media cable | Xbox 360 wired extender

mark1234:

I also got a cheap 64Mb flash memory card off eBay purely to store the codec download to enable full video playback through UPnP.

Thanks for the reply.  Forgive my ignorance, but I have 2 questions:

1.  Where would you install the flash card?  In a USB port?

2.  What does "full video playback through UPnP" mean?  Is this required to function properly?

Thanks. 

 

(OK, second, no third, fourth, fifth, sixth attempt at posting - I think I'm hitting another CS bug )

Sorry, I realise now I wasn't very clear.

When I said flash memory card, I meant an Xbox 360 memory card. These don't plug into a USB port, the 360 has specific connectors for them. As it's a proprietary interface, expect to pay, even 2nd hand, significantly more for a 360 memory card than for a regular flash drive. (ie, roughly 64Mb 360 card for same price as 2Gb flash drive). You do raise an interesting question about whether a regular USB flash drive would work to store the download, and I don't know. But I wish I'd thought of that before buying my 360 memory card.

For the video playback, the 360 has two interfaces to choose between: the Media Centre Extender interface looks (much) nicer but will only play DVR-MS and WMV files. The 360 dashboard interface will play WMV, divx, xvid and h.264 format files, using a streaming network protocol called UPnP. If you've already got WMP11 installed then it will happily talk to the 360 and stream videos from your WMP library to the 360.

Out of the box the 360 will play the MS video formats, though both interfaces, without any memory card being added. If you want to add divx, xvid and h.264 formats to the dashboard interface then you need a download that the 360 will fetch itself.

That file needs storing on either a memory card or a hard disk. So, whether you need a memory card or not depends entirely on what video formats you intend on watching.

I hope this clears things up.

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MCE2005 (Will go with the Win7 public beta when available) | AMD64X2 3600+ | 3Gb Ram | 1.5Tb HDD | Hauppauge PVR150 | nVidia 7300LE silent GPU | Pig ugly big black case | Dead DVD drive | Virgin Media cable | Xbox 360 wired extender

Thank you mark234.  Very helpful.

So...in shopping for a broken Xbox, the only thing I need it to do is boot up to the dashboard?  Is there anything else I need to worry about?

Also, will the Xbox360 extender allow me all the functionality of the MEC2005 interface on the PC (with the exception of watching a DVD in the PC drive)?  Will I be able to watch live TV and also delete recorder TV shows through the Xbox?

Thanks for all the help.

Yeah, but not through the dashboard part.

MitchSchaft:

Yeah, but not through the dashboard part.

Sorry to be slow, but I am not sure what you mean or were referring to. 

Also, I have never seen a Xbox 360 or the dashboard, so I am figuring out all of this sight unseen.

Thanks again.

The media center interface look the same on the xbox as it does on the computer.

You have access to schedule recording, delete shows, etc, just like you would if you on the comptuer itself.

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Foxer