New Xbox Media Hub On the Way?

By on October 20, 2007 in Digital Media Receivers, WHS v2, Windows Home Server

Ian Dixon points to a Smarthouse article concerning rumours of a new Xbox-based media hub rumoured to be in development. He asks:

Would you prefer a all in one Xbox devices with Tuner cards or a centralized Windows Home Server with Media Center Server built in and then user Extender devices to consume the content? I think putting the tuner cards in the Xbox would work for some people but I would prefer my tuner cards in the server and then Extenders, Xbox 360s and other PCs to be able to stream Live and Recorded TV from the server.

The potential of a Windows Media Server (possibly a WHS v2 box?) is an exciting proposition for many people – my concern would be a bossting of WHS’ minimum hardware requirements. One of the main reasons Windows Media Center was such a problem to self build was TV tuner drivers – I’m no longer a big Media Center user (I’m a big fan of the UI and TV Guide, but it’s a cumbersome solution compared to Sky HD), and I’m sure tuner drivers and the built in MPEG decoder in Vista Media Center are helping drive a better experience, but I love WHS’ simplicity – both hardware and software – and I’d hate to see it be compromised in the future through more complex hardware.

I’d prefer to see the tuners in the Xbox, as well as the option for the Xbox to be used as a full v2 extender (ie. with the ability to playback a wider range of codecs from the server). The option to back up recorded and downloaded tv from the box to the home server would be ideal for my needs.

At the moment, this is all rumour and conjecture - but let’s hope the WHS, eHome and Xbox teams keeping working closely together over the coming months and years.


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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • Darrell

    I see your point but I’d prefer that there is a choice of Media Centre integration in WHS. Not all WHS users have Xboxes.

  • GaMeR™

    I don’t see the point of extenders, or I don’t understand the basics of extenders. Could anyone care to explain this to me, or at least a link wich is understandable for a 3 year old?

    I love WHS though, still runnning the RC1, but I’m planning on buying it very soon!

    What is WHS v2 all about? The same as WHS but then updated? Is it going to be some update for WHS or a complete new package?

  • Terry Walsh

    Sure – Media Center Extenders are basicially Digital Media Receivers (like a set top box) that playback media from a Windows Media machine on your TV. Check out:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/default.mspx for more.

    With regard to WHS v2, it’ll be a major new version of the product, rather than an update. Won’t be out for a good while yet but it’s in its planning stages right now.

  • Atomusk

    GaMeR:
    the concept of the Extender is to be able to have a simple set top box to relay the “media center experience” to the TV (just like AppleTV is an Extender of front row).
    So if you have a MediaCenter PC in the house, you just connect your set top box to it, and it will pilot the display of your box.

    So you can buy a simple and slim box that is compatible and hook it on your tv to remplace a big and bulky HTPC, and be as powerfull.

    But the main benefit is that you can hook up many extender to a single MediaCenter PC. So if you have 3 TV and 3 extenders, hooked to a mediaCenter “HUB” with 3 HD Tuner, you can watch 3 different channels on the 3 TV or -if the other tuners are not used for instance- record 3 channels at the same time.

    The goal would be to have the WHS server to have 3-4-6 tuners to “stream” TV all over the house to be displayed. for it to be the real Server of everything media related in the house (TV, Recordings, music, photo …).

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  • Jules

    To the person wondering whata trhe pont in a media extender – I recently purchased a decent HP media centre running vista – quad core, 500mb video, 860gig Hard diskand and 8gig RA… ;) and an Xbox 360 elite. I already had a decent wirespeed wired network.

    Within 1 hour I had .. but I didnt buy £1350.00 woth of equipment to just be able to have PVR.. as there are cheaper ways to do this!

    One of the other big advantages of the Media Centre/Xbox it to backup my huge pile of purchased DVDs and stream to any TV in the house with a media extender attached.. this is a god send as my kids had loads of DVD’s piling up around the TV, getting eaten/scratched etc, and now its clutter free and they can watch stuff on other TVs.. so adults get to watch adult TV also. then combine with the Nice PVR with loads more storage that Sky + (plus Ive seem triple TV tuners!) and music storage played in various rooms via wireless music players.

    Plus media centre PC makes an ideal beefy games PC.. and Ive checked I can play games and play content on the TVs with no hassle.

    Only slight reconfig I needed to do was due to jumpy video quality for decent quality on WMV quality end (above Zune/WMV1 ) i know my network was fine as its wired 100/1000 LAN, in the end I traced down to there is a family of a High def setting on Xbox.. which fixed problem… plus I moved Xbox to 100Mb port on switch and changed media server to full duplex… but setting on ebox to High def probably made the difference.

    Hoping this helps someone out.

    Has any tested/installed duel/triple tuner cards with Vista media centres – how did it work?

  • Jules

    I’ll try again.. with less typo errors!

    To the person wondering whats the pont in a media extender – I recently purchased a decent HP media centre running vista – quad core, 500mb video, 860gig Hard diskand and 8gig RAM… ;) and an Xbox 360 elite. I already had a decent wirespeed wired network.

    I had everything setup within a hour.. with no instructions, setting up PVR functionaly, schedule recordings, streaming content via Xbox and love menu system was a breeze.. M.S got it right for one.!

    but I didnt buy £1350.00 worth of equipment to just be able to have PVR.. as there are cheaper ways to do this!

    One of the other big advantages of the Media Centre/Xbox it to backup my huge pile of purchased DVDs and stream to any TV in the house with a media extender attached.. this is a god send as my kids had loads of DVD’s piling up around the TV, getting eaten/scratched etc, and now its clutter free and kids can watch stuff on other TVs.. so adults get to watch adult TV also. then combine with the Nice PVR with loads more storage that Sky + (plus Ive seem triple TV tuners!) and music storage played in various rooms via wireless music players.

    Plus media centre PC makes an ideal beefy games PC.. and Ive checked I can play games and play content on the TVs with no hassle… and also media cenre is the family PC…

    Only slight reconfig I needed to do was due to jumpy video quality for decent quality on WMV quality end (above Zune/WMV1 ) i know my network was fine as its wired 100/1000 LAN, in the end I traced down to there is a family & a High def setting on Xbox setup.. which fixed the problem… plus I moved Xbox to 100Mb port on switch and changed media server to full duplex… but setting on ebox to High def probably made the difference.

    Hoping this helps someone out.

    Has any tested/installed duel/triple tuner cards with Vista media centres – how did it work?