I guess you didn’t expect to read this on my blog any time soon, but I have moved more and more in the direction of Microsoft. I have stopped using Ubuntu and ZETA, and I am now only using MacOS X and Windows Vista at home. This has been the case since last summer. Vista has been a pleasant surprise, and it made me change my plans. I had long planned to buy a Playstation 3, but I am pretty sure that PS3 will not fit in to the digital home, as long as the center is a box running Windows. And that is certainly the case in my appartment. The price of the game consoles were of course also an argument (Yes, I know that PS3 will have an inbuilt Blueray). I considered WII, but as it is only to be a game console, and not cheaper or with better graphics then the Core edition, it wasn’t much of a question. I love that the Opera browser is finding new markets, but I personally don’t need one even on my game console. I have two computers running it already. Especially since the game consoles (also WII) don’t have a proper keyboard.

After having been drewling and denying myself a new game console for years, today was the day I gave in. Today I bought a XBOX360 Core with Dead or Alive 4 included. Quite a bargain, only 180 € (1,475 NOK). I also bought a used game, that I have playing quite a bit over the weekend, Project Gotham Racing 3. Impressive car racing game and the graphics … WOW, I am so hooked. I used to play Dead or Alive on my Dreamcast, another cool game that will arrive from that platform to XBOX 360 this autumn is Sonic – The Hedgehog. Gonna be great playing Sonic games again :-) . I also wanted to buy a DVI cable to be able to connect the XBOX to my 19″ LCD screen, but I could only buy a VGA cable! I guess that CRT screens are getting quite rare even in homes here in Europe. But there is still a majority that cannot make use of HDMI, cause they don’t have HD Ready screens yet.

Connect360 - Main window

I also had a quick run on setting up the XBOX 360 as a media device, streaming music and photos between the PC and the game console and TV. On the MacBook I installed the Universal version of Connect360 from Nullriver Software. The integration between the Mac and the Xbox worked without any problems, and it couldn’t have been easier to set up! It even lets me stream music bought on iTMS (AAC with DRM) and Apple Lossless. I almost forgot, Connect360 also support streaming of Shoutcast radio stations. That is the radio stations that you find preloaded in iTunes. Thinking about it, Connect360 integrates the XBOX impressively well with the Mac, Connect360 will even automatically update the iTunes play count and when songs were last played. And you think it stops there? Of course not, you even have the ability to play your own tunes in place of the default soundtrack in Xbox 360 games!

Connect360 - General

Here is what you do to connect your Mac with the XBOX. Simply just a double-click to add the Connect360 setting to the System Preferences. Once installed, it was only to start the Connect360 server and then start a search on the XBOX for the Mac. One thing that I quite quickly found out, was that I need a memory card or hard drive for my XBOX, even to use it as a media device, as it was not possible save playlists created on the device. I could of course play playlists that I had saved in iTunes, so that’s a workaround. This software is real value for money, as it is only costing 20 dollars.

Connect360 - iTunes

Appearently Connect360 has a competitor, TwonkyMedia, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. I have not tried, nor do I plan to, as reviews told me that this software smells suspiciously of Java. TwonkyMedia must also be configured through a browser, and that is simply not the Mac way of doing things!Setting up a connection between the XBOX and Vista’s mediacenter wasn’t that easy, but I think this is a far better integration between once set up. I liked the fact that Microsoft had set up an encryption between the game console and computer, but what I didn’t like was that it required that I had a Live account. Why? And what is exactly a Live account? Well, I will have a closer look at that in the following days. I see that the Core system over time, will be extended with a wifi adapter and a hard drive. But for now it is not something that I need.

If you don’t manage to connect, then please check the following: Make sure that the internal OS firewall (on both MacOS and Windows) and on the network router have either port 1900 or 9335 open.

For those of you who don’t know how the sharing is done, and want to know more about it, head over to the Wikipedia and read the articles about WMC – Windows Media Connect and UPnP – Universal Plug and Play. I am gonna limit myself to say that WMC is built in to Windows Media Player 11, and that the purpose with UPnP is to allow computers and devices to connect seamlessly and to simplify the implementation of networks in the home (data sharing, communications and entertainment) and corporate environments. The UPnP standard is implemented in all the major operating systems, and sounds pretty similar to Apple’s Bonjour technology.