XBox 360 is back, Media Center is awesome!

Alright, finally got my XBox 360 back from the "Repair Center". I've been looking forward to trying a few things.

First, I had some WMV video (Twenty20 cricket) burned to a CD. I tried playing it, works great!

Second, I'd installed Windows XP Media Center 2005 onto my PC and wanted to try it out. It took a little bit of effort to set this up for the XBox. I had to download the Media Center Extender software from Xbox.com. When I tried that, it prompted me to install Media Center Rollup 2 from Microsoft.com. When I downloaded that, it prompted me to install .NET 1.1 and .NET 1.1 SP1!! What's up with this crap MS? Can't make all-in-one updates? I don't mind downloading all those updates in one package to skip the steps!

Anways, the final result after all the installs - stunning! I have a boatload of WMAs on my PC that the Media Center picked up and added Album art to. I also had a compatible TV Tuner card, that let me watch and record Live TV through the 360. The experience was quite compelling - the audio playback even used all the surround speakers, something that music playback from the 360 Dashboard just can't seem to. The Media Center experience on the XBox 360 is one of the standout features and I am amazed it hasn't been pushed more. With Vista, the Home Premium and Ultimate versions have Media Center built-in and with the addition of a compatible TV Tuner, every 360 user with those versions of Windows Vista can partake in the fun. I'm going to spend more time trying the Media Center functionality, watch out for that.

Third, I accumulated a few games when the 360 was gone - Halo 2, Halo 3 and Viva Pinata (for App). We'll have to try those games out. I don't think I'd really play Halo 2 after playing Halo 3 so I've decided to play Halo 2 before opening the Halo 3 game.

For all the trouble I had to go through, Microsoft sent me an anemic 1 month free of XBox Live Gold. It's worth $5 at most - well better than nothing I guess.