Xbo360 issues that are stopping me from buying one

By craybox
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Grand Master

craybox

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Hi all, i have been considering upgrading from my ever so faithfull media center XBOX to the 360 but have always had 3 concerns, can you tell me if they are true/still relavent.

1. Noisy, the original Xbox is noisey when i watch movies so is the 360 worse than the old one?

2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

3. is there anyway of backing up the origianl games. I have two young kids so i don't want to have to replace the disks every month.

TIA

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Gelob

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Hi all, i have been considering upgrading from my ever so faithfull media center XBOX to the 360 but have always had 3 concerns, can you tell me if they are true/still relavent.

1. Noisy, the original Xbox is noisey when i watch movies so is the 360 worse than the old one?

2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

3. is there anyway of backing up the origianl games. I have two young kids so i don't want to have to replace the disks every month.

TIA

1. Yes it makes noise, i never owned an xbox for a long time but xbox 360 does make noticable noise.

2. There is a work around to play xvid files over on the xbox-scene.com forums, xvid support is not nativetly supported yet.

3. Backing up is useless because you cannot play the backups.

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Grand Master

ozgeek

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My Xbox classic (yes that's right the black one) has never made any noise. Have never had any problems. I suspect that you modded your xbox and that's why. I have never modded mine and never will because it just does it's job.

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Grand Master

Danrarbc

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My Xbox classic (yes that's right the black one) has never made any noise. Have never had any problems. I suspect that you modded your xbox and that's why. I have never modded mine and never will because it just does it's job.

Unless you have an amazing new all solid state Xbox I can guarantee it makes noise. A fan, a hard drive, and a DVD drive. All produce noise. You just haven't listened for it or noticed it.

As for how much the 360 makes, it has a faster DVD drive and more fans - it's noisier than the original for sure ;)

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Grand Master

goji

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2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

Try this:

Transcode 360

Its the best thing since sliced peanut butter. Its still in dev mode, and they are working on beta 3. Beta 2 works, slightly buggy but its great to unload all of your xvids to media center and then use the plugin from your pc to watch your files.

GK

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quanta

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My biggest beef is the ridiculous amount of noise it makes. Fortunately, when you're just noodling around the Dashboard or playing a DVD, it goes into low-noise mode. Unfortunately, the moment you pop in a game, it throws all the fans into full power.

It is about twice as loud as the old-style PS2 (remember how loud THAT was?) and sounds a bit like a hairdryer on the lowest setting.

Even in low-noise mode the fans have a bit of a harsh pitch to them. :(

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Grand Master

AndyD

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1. Yes, it's as loud as a hair dryer. But unless you're playing with the volume on mute, it shouldn't be that much of an issue. I wouldn't watch dvds on it though. It's the dvd drive thats making all the noise. If the drive isn't spinning, then it's pretty quiet. I bought a Best Buy warranty in case later in it's life cycle a better dvd drive and/or cooling system is used for future versions of the 360

2. The work arounds mentioned are silly if you ask me. Why on earth would I want to transcode a video on the fly and suck up performance from my pc in the process (educate please if this isn't the case)? If I'm going to do that, I might as well just transcode all my xvids to a playable format. Plus, MCE is still required.

3. http://www.d-skin.com/

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Grand Master

Jeston Veteran

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I've never had a problem with the noise. I've heard a lot of complaints about it, but mine really is not noisy at all. I can play it for hours on end without hearing any noise from it or having any kind of heat issues. As mentioned there is a workaround for playing XviD/DivX movies thorugh media center. As far as backing up games, there is a hacked firmware being developed by a few teams that seems promising. The hacked firmware will allow a backup game to be playable on the 360 and should be coming out within the next couple months. Hope this helps.

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Grand Master

giga Veteran

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Ill admit it, it is loud. I dont think its a problem with the fans themselves but rather the DVD drive. Theyre constantly spinning during a game so thats why it gets loud. I have no problem as the music or fx cover it up just fine.

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Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

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Weird, mine is quiet enough that I've never noticed any of the noise it makes. The loudest part is the DVD-drive, but it's considerably quieter than the motorcycle engine they apparently used in my Mac Mini's disc drive.

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Grand Master

kylejn

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Hi all, i have been considering upgrading from my ever so faithfull media center XBOX to the 360 but have always had 3 concerns, can you tell me if they are true/still relavent.

1. Noisy, the original Xbox is noisey when i watch movies so is the 360 worse than the old one?

2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

3. is there anyway of backing up the origianl games. I have two young kids so i don't want to have to replace the disks every month.

TIA

1. Sure, but when you're playing a game or movie, you don't notice it.

2. In the next big Dashboard update, this will likely be added.

3. Hell no. It's (arguably) illegal, so Microsoft would never allow it. If you're worried about your kids, either keep the games high up off the ground so that they can't get 'em, or buy your games at EB/Gamestop and pick up the scratch insurance on them. It ranges from $1 to $3 (depending on the price of the game) and allows you to replace your copy with a new one (if you bought the game new) for free so long as it isn't lost or stolen. It's good for one year, so it's a pretty good deal.

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Grand Master

ozgeek

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Unless you have an amazing new all solid state Xbox I can guarantee it makes noise. A fan, a hard drive, and a DVD drive. All produce noise. You just haven't listened for it or noticed it.

As for how much the 360 makes, it has a faster DVD drive and more fans - it's noisier than the original for sure ;)

Yes, it does make noise, but not enough to judge it as an annoyance to my xbox experience. It's only a bit noiser than my computer and my computer is silent. You have to be close to the case to hear the fans spin. I love you Zalmon for your lovely CPU fan. :D

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Grand Master

magik

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Hi all, i have been considering upgrading from my ever so faithfull media center XBOX to the 360 but have always had 3 concerns, can you tell me if they are true/still relavent.

1. Noisy, the original Xbox is noisey when i watch movies so is the 360 worse than the old one?

2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

3. is there anyway of backing up the origianl games. I have two young kids so i don't want to have to replace the disks every month.

TIA

1. It does not make any noticable noise while playing a movie. They made it so that it is whisper quiet for movie playback, even during really quiet scenes. But yes, during gaming it can be a bit noisy but unless you like to play with the volume on mute (or very low) you won't notice it. It's as loud as most PCs during gameplay.

2. Video playback is coming to Windows XP soon enough (this was officially announced, I will dig up the source as soon as I can), and it will also be a function built into Windows Vista. Transcode360 and other utilities will convert your DivX/XviD/whatever format of movies you have on-the-fly to allow streaming to the 360.

3. Not currently as there is no modchip out for the Xbox 360 (yet).

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Grand Master

craybox

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ok thanks for the feedback ppl.

looks like i'll hold off for a while untill the more media formats are supported, i am glad that magik mentioned the quietness when playing movies e.t.c otherwise i would not even consider it.

ONE more question though, i don't have a HDTV just a 32" Sony Flatscreen, what do the games looks like on a non-HDTV i don't see any screenshots anywhere for obvious reasons i guess

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Grand Master

Sheppard

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Im running mine on a 16:9 SDTV till i can afford an LCD HDTV, obviously doesnt look as good as screenshots due to the low resolution, you do also get some flickering in menus and stuff due to the downsampling resolution. Still looks very sexy.

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Grand Master

Andrew Lyle Global Moderator

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Hi all, i have been considering upgrading from my ever so faithfull media center XBOX to the 360 but have always had 3 concerns, can you tell me if they are true/still relavent.

1. Noisy, the original Xbox is noisey when i watch movies so is the 360 worse than the old one?

2. Ability to play Divx/Xvid/over the network without Windows Media Center Edition. I have a Mac and a PC but it is the PC that's hosts the video archive.

3. is there anyway of backing up the origianl games. I have two young kids so i don't want to have to replace the disks every month.

TIA

1) no, it is not noisey

2) thats illegal dude... putting media center on your xbox.. :no:

3) backing up games? or download them off the internet for free.. thats also illegal :no:

so basically you don't want one, because you can't "hack" it..

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Grand Master

kylejn

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Wishful thinking...it will never happen. At least not officially

I've been hearing that one of the top requested things is for non-MCE PCs to be able to stream video to the 360. But, really, I think we're just gonna have to wait for the next update to see if things pan out like we hope they will.

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Grand Master

Sheppard

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1) no, it is not noisey

2) thats illegal dude... putting media center on your xbox.. :no:

3) backing up games? or download them off the internet for free.. thats also illegal :no:

so basically you don't want one, because you can't "hack" it..

Playing movies on the 360 isnt illegal, its a Media Center Extender which means it has its own little Media Center and can stream movies from your PC via the 360 onto your TV. But at the moment it only supports WMV and MPEG2 video files.

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