I downloaded the latest firmware update for the XBox 360 last night which included support for streaming Divx/Xvid movies, and it really is a nice update and worked really well.  I threw a couple test videos the box and they all worked well, and the ability to change the aspect ratio on the fly was a nice addition for people who have videos from different sources that have different aspect ratios. The only minor annoyance is the lack of support of Divx/Xvid files via the Media Center Extender interface.  The Xbox has two options for streaming video from a PC, one called Video which works with any PC running WMP 11 that has it set up to share video.  The second is the ability to use the XBox as a full Media Center Extender if you are running MCE on your home server; that works well for streaming live or recorded television (if you use it as a DVR), but the video library embedded in MCE won’t stream Divx movies to the XBox.    You can still get to your videos the first way, but you need to leave MCE on your XBox to do it.   Hopefully they’ll fix this in the future since MCE is a pretty good product and when connected with the XBox, it makes a great way to distribute video.  

Everyone from Sony to Apple to Microsoft are fighting to control the living room as it becomes the next battleground of the computer revolution, but I haven’t seen too many affordable computers I’d want to sit in my living room in my entertainment center. Sharp’s new product line, the Internet AQUOS, however, looks pretty awesome and adds the features that many have ignored in the past including a stylish wireless keyboard and mouse combo.

If the price is right, this product could very well.

(Hat Tip: Engadget)

Krunker.com has a great in-depth look at the changes that are coming in MCE when it gets wrapped up in the Vista release.

It took almost 24 hours to download the beta release, but after reading the article, I’m more looking forward to trying it out.

(Hat Tip: eHomeUpgrade.com)

Via the ubiquitous Thomas Hawk, Bill Gates mentioned that they’ve shipped over 2 Million copies of MCE. That’s becoming a a sizeable market niche for developers.

Thomas Hawk has some insightful criticism of my post yesterday where I suggested Microsoft should give MCE away as a free download. It’s well worth reading all of Thomas Hawk’s comments, but his main contention is that Microsoft would balk at giving it away. Here’s the gist:

With regards to giving the software away, although this would be quite exciting, I don’t think that Microsoft would go for it. Microsoft LOVES XP and Office. These are cash cows at the company. Despite what they may say, they HATE IE and WMP. IE and WMP were built out of desperation. These were defensive products primarily designed to help lock down the cash cows that are XP and Office. LOVES and HATE are too harsh of words of course but I’m using them here for sensationalistic effect to make a point.

Gates sees the tv thing as really really big. He’s put a lot of his own time and energy into pushing it. If you give it away today you set a precedent where MCE cannot really be a cash cow of the future. If you gave away the application that is MCE people would just load it on to their existing XP operating system PCs. Microsoft doesn’t want that. They want to sell you an entire second operating system and get the dough that comes along with that. And if MCE is as big as it is in Gate’s head (and this is much bigger than the folks at Jupiter would guess) then giving away the software doesn’t make sense to him.

I would not disagree that these insights reflect the mood at Microsoft, but let me defend my suggestion that it would be a sound business move by Microsoft and my reasoning behind it. Let’s look at the costs and benefits.

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If you don’t like TivoToGo and its DRM technology (copyright protection), you’re really not going to like the next version of the Windows OS codenamed Longhorn, at least according to eHomeupgrade’s article, “The Broadcast Flag is Nothing Compared to What Microsoft Has in the Works for DRM”.

Thank goodness DRM technology wasn’t available when they invented toilet paper, or we’d have to type in a password before use for fear that we might use it to scribble copyrighted Walt Whitman poems.

(Hat Tip: Digital Media Thoughts Newsletter)

In case you are asking, yes, I do read more than ThomasHawk.com, but he’s been posting some great stuff on DVR technology lately. Anyway, here’s part 3 of his MCE interview.

Thomas Hawk posted the second part of his four part interview with some of the MCE program managers. Part 2 talks about the role of partnerships in this market.

Thomas Hawk has Part 1 of a 4 part series interviewing some members of the Microsoft Media Center Edition team. It’s good inside look into MCE and the team.

The number one challenge of MCE according to interviewee Matt Goyer, “we need to take our HDTV support to the next level.”

HDTV is the next big hurdle for DVR penetration, particularly at the retail level.

Thomas Hawk blogging from eHomeUpgrade, describes his wishlist for what he’d like to see in MCE moving forward. He’s got a lot of interesting ideas, trying to move MCE from DVR into home convergence central.

While I may have to wait a while for MCE to walk the dog at regular intervals, I’d add home security webcams to the package. When I travel and my wife hears a noise in the middle of the night, it would be a lot better for her to flip through the cameras on our bedroom television as opposed to walking around the house with a baseball bat. Add a secure internet connection, and it would also be handy during vacations to check to see if the house burned down from an internet cafe on some beach somewhere.