One of the more disappointing things about the Xbox 360 is its very limited streaming video options. Without hacking, it has only been possible to stream video from a Media Center PC, and even then, it has only supported Windows Media Video, MPEG and related formats (DivX and Xvid are not supported, for instance). While Microsoft does offer some streaming capabilities with Windows Media Connect for Windows XP, those are limited to music and picture playback and presentation in most configurations.
With this week's release of Beta 2 of Windows Media Player, Microsoft caused a little bit of excitement in the so-called blogosphere with this quote:
If you have a home network (wired or wireless), you can use Windows Media Player 11 to stream the contents of your library to networked devices. For example, if you have an Xbox 360 or other digital media receiver (DMR), you can use Windows Media Player to stream music, pictures, and videos from your computer to that device.
The upshot was that you could use WMP to stream video to an Xbox.
After seeing this touted at a few other sites, I decided to fact check it and drop Microsoft a line. The bad news is that it was an error on their part. While WMP does support Windows Media Connect for pictures and music, video is not supported.
Sorry for this bit of anti-news, but a few of you sent it in and I thought it merited clarification.
HellDoc informed us he released a bugfix release of Xbox360 SS Merger(info) v1.7 released yesterday. This GUI tool allows you to easily insert the Security Sectors (SS) and PFI/DMI (Xtreme v3.0+ stealth media) on Xbox360 and Xbox1 images for Xtreme and NME-360 firmwares.
What's new/fixed:
* Fixed Iso Insertion file handling problem (thanks to HolyRoses from XBH Forum for reporting the issue)
The Microsoft counter-attack begins here folks. According to Jeux-France, MS has decided to release the core Xbox360 pack in Japan for the coming holiday season. Not only will the price be a measly 29.800 Yen (~250USD or ~200EUR), but it will also include Project Gotham 3 and Ninety Nine Nights.
My buddy owns his own disc repair business which fixes scratched or scuffed discs.
I gave him my Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero discs WHICH WERE SCRATCHED badly, so bad they would not play. The next day he came back with the discs and they looked like they just came out of the package. He fixed my dvd collection and ps2 collection as well as MY PSP games.
I have been reading alot on here about how people are stuck with scratched discs and cant do anything with them until now. He fixed mine really cheap since I paid 60$ for my xbox 360 games I had no problem giving him 5$ per game to fix it. They look new like I just bought them and work perfect. SAVED ME TONS ON MY DVD COLLECTION AS WELL. I have a library of over 1000 discs and 200+ were scratched now they all look new and work perfect.
I thought my fellow gamers would like to hear about this so they can get their games back into play. His email is [email protected] drop an email and see what he can do.
Some of my dvds had gouges which could not be repaired but there were very few he could not repair.
UK - 7th September 2006 — If you love your friends, enjoy spending time chatting to them, playing games , downloading exclusive content and listening to music with them - then you’ll really love Xbox Live™. The great news is that Xbox® is feeling extra sociable this month and offering European gamers a chance to experience Xbox Live™ for over a week, absolutely free, from 20th to 29th September, 2006. The free week of Xbox Live is sponsored by Windows Live™ Spaces.
Xbox Live is the world’s premiere, fully connected gaming service with more than three million members. It lets you find your friends, play with or against them through a broadband internet connection wherever they are and chat with them through a headset as you play.
Commodore4eva released a new version of his Xtreme Firmware for the Toshiba-Samsung TS-H943 DVD drive with a new (optional) Quite/Slow Read mode for backups:
Xtreme firmware 3.3 for TS-H943 Xbox 360
World first Dual Speed, Media Stealth, One Firmware, Xbox 360 backup and extraction firmware modification!
What's new:
* Dual Read Speed mode
Default backup Read Speed is same as original game disks 12x. When Original Game disk is booted, all subsequent backup loading will be at Quiet/Slow Read mode, Original Game disks are unaffected. Turn console off/on to reset back to Default backup read speed (12x). Quiet/Slow Read Speed is for quiet operation and/or cheap DVD+R DL media.
HQ Network: 8,901 | 
Guests: 4845 |
Members: 0
