xbox 360 functionality

[mirowr]

I'm seriously considering buying an Xbox360... There's already plenty of games to sway me to the dark side of Microsoft rather than splurging for the Sony ps3. I'm just wondering what additional capabilities it has... my friend told me that you can torrent blu-ray movie files and move them to your xbox hard drive and watch them, so that sounds cool. my questions are:

is the 20gb hard drive enough? What else do you use it for outside of saved games and downloadable content?
are there any other extra perks that i should know about?
does anyone have any idea if it's safe to buy an xbox like this from ebay?

cgi.ebay.com/Microsoft-Xbox-360-System-Bundle-FAST-FREE-SHIPPING_W0QQitemZ230299981480QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item230299981480&_trkparms=72%3A1208|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1308&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

thanks for any input

[Nauren]

1. Never buy from Ebay.

2. The 60 Gig 360 has taken over the 20 Gig as of recent

3. Blu-ray movies range as high as 30 gigs per movie...do you want to download 30 gig ISO's? Not to mention you can't convert them. So your buddy is technically wrong about watching blu-ray movies on your 360. You can watch HD Divx movies on your 360...but it will eat away at your HDD space unless you watch them via DNLA.

4. Demo's and downloadable games take up a large portion of the hard drive with demo's coming in over 1 gig each at times. Sure you can delete them but not having the option sucks. Also keep in mind that the OS takes up around 6 gigs of the HDD.



All in all the 360 is probably the best system to go for at the moment. Cheap, best library, readily available. The only problem is the RROD (red ring of death) so you want to make sure you buy a brand new one so that if this does happen to you, you can send it in and get it fixed for free.

[Sosa]

I would not recommend purchasing a used 360 console, regardless of where you're getting it from. Get it new - and get it with a warranty. I haven't had any problems with my system in the year and a half I've had it now, but I still got it with a 3 year warranty. If you have an HDTV setup, you want to make sure your console has HDMI out. Some systems (such as the cheap arcade version) don't have this function. Even if you don't have an HDTV right now - it's worth upgrading... the prices on them have been falling steadily, and they are very quickly becoming the mainstream TV to pick up and use. Look for the HDMI feature - it should be on the box. The 360 has a couple of interesting perks that come along with it if you're interested in using it as a media player.

First and foremost, you can easily network it with your home PC and stream media to it directly - so don't be too concerned about the hard drive space. With a simple home network, you don't need to actually transfer media over from your PC, because the console is capable of streaming/buffering it for live playback.

You may note that some websites state that in order for this function to work, you must have a computer with Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Vista. This is not true. I currently run XP Home on my main system and am able to stream media normally, as well as from my XP Pro system. In order for it to play the media, however, it has to be in WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or DVR-MS format to be recognized. Videos in other formats need to be converted first.

One other thing to note about the playback is the fact that you can locally store and rip soundtracks from audio CDs onto the system's hard drive, in addition to streaming the content from a computer on your network. This music can be played at any time during the console's use, be it during the main "lobby" of the X-box Dashboard, or while actually playing a game. This allows you to pick your own soundtracks if you don't like the music that comes with a particular game.

[mirowr]

Thanks guys that was very helpful. I just picked up a 40" Samsung 1080i HDTV a couple months ago so I'm dying to pick up an Xbox ASAP. I'm definitely not going to go e-bay/used, I'm just too scared, and the warranty definitely sounds like something I want. There's so many RROD stories out there it would be very unwise for me to buy a used console. It sounds like there's a lot I can do with the 360 though, so I'm looking forward to it. It's too bad about the Blu-ray movies though, I was pumped for that but it sounds like I'd have to drop another couple hundred bucks on another external hard drive anyways, so fuck that for now!

Now I guess I just have to decide whether I want the 20 gig or the 60 gig. I can't imagine myself downloading any demos really, but there are definitely some arcade games that I want to get.

I have a Mac so I don't think I'm privy to all those perks you can get with XP or Vista... Maybe I'll set up my old PC and give it a go though.

Thanks for the help guys.

[Sosa]

If you plan on using it pretty much exclusively for the XBLA games that are down loadable, 20GB is enough room to download every one of the currently available titles and still have some room left over. However - not all models have the HDMI port built into the back of the system. That is what you'll want to check for. Without the port, you will need to use a set of composite cables instead, and frankly, the difference in quality is night and day.

As already stated, game demos can run upwards of several gigs in size; however, you have stated that it shouldn't affect you much. One other consideration is whether or not you choose to use the marketplace to rent other media; especially high definition media. The marketplace allows you to rent recent movie or TV releases for a fee and download them to your hard drive temporarily. A full HD DVD download can run several gigs as well.

My only problem with it is that you're not making a permanent purchase for download rights in the future; it's a temporary license that expires in a few days. Since the average price for a rental on a movie is like $4, that's just not really worth it to me for something digitally distributed. It would be cheaper to use Netflix or something... which will actually be an option with the new "X-Box experience" (lol) they're rolling out sometime this month, which is basically a major upgrade to the dashboard. They promise the ability to use your Netflix account on your 360, and more than that, stream the movies in real-time with friends on their console.

As for transferring files from non-Windows XP or Vista based OS's - official support would say no. I've heard stories of people running various incarnations of Linux on their 360s with relatively little effort; and that would give you media and networking capability. I could probably point you to a resource for it if you decide to look into that further, but I will openly admit that it exits my area of knowledge.

[Nauren]

There is no difference in price from the 60 gig to the 20 gig. The 20 gigs are being phased out...so get the 60 gig.


Another advantage to more space..is that some games are now coming with a "pre-install" option which allows you to drastically reduce load times at the cost of HDD space. You can always delete the data later...but its a cool option to have.

[mirowr]

I think I'll go buy one today. =]

[geriatrix]

i have an xbox 360 for a bit and loved it broke my heart getting rid off it. had to as moved in with my missus lol she didn't know i had it . it is a great machine really fun to play on games are good and a lot off fun.

also had a loan off a ps3 for the last few months and only played it once wasnt a major fan to be honest. gave it back on monday. was sitting in the press in its box for months lol.