agentsmith Wrote: > Hope I am not causing a stir here. > > Just wondering how the new XBox 360 compares with the Slim offering. I > have an Sb2 and am wondering if I should get an XBOX too.
The 360 has several big advantages over the Squeezebox: 1. It can use WMC (on a regular XP box) or Media Center (on an MCE box) functionality, so doesn't require installation of third-party software like SlimServer. This is nice if you have a Media Center, but not important with XP, since WMC is about as resource-hungry as SlimServer (no surprise; it's doing basically the same task). 2. It's PlaysForSure compliant, so works great with the subscription music services (Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster) and non-iTunes online music stores. This is a huge, phenomenal benefit if you have a subscription service or lots of purchased DRMed tracks, and a total non-issue otherwise. 3. It can do HD photo slideshows. This is very nice, at least with the Media Center UI (I haven't tried it with the 360 Dashboard UI). If you have an HDTV, lots of digital pictures, and people who want to see them, this is a big deal. Not competitive with the Squeezebox, but it puts the Roku HD-1000 right out of business, as far as I'm concerned. 4. With Media Center, It can stream HD (and non-HD) video. This is wonderful if you get HD over-the-air and have a system that can handle it; or if you get NTSC via any source; or if you really, really love to watch the three minute snippets of Imax movies available from Microsoft's WMV-HD Content Showcase. Otherwise, it's a bit of a novelty until Vista comes out with CableCard support. 5. The available games are much, much better. SlimTris doesn't even begin to compete with Hexic, never mind Kameo. But the SB has some big advantages of its own: 1. The UI is better, even compared to the Media Center UI on the 360. The 360 limits you -- like a lot of devices -- to a two-tier browse. Genre, then Album; or Artist, then Album; but never Genre, Artist, and then Album. The larger your music collection, the more this matters. 2. It has real audio output hardware. The 360 resamples everything to 48KHz (like the Roku M1001) and in general isn't aiming for hi-fi street cred. Considering it sells for $400 and has the gaming capabilities it has, no surprise. 3. It's quiet. The 360 is loud, about like a standard desktop computer in media mode (and more like a SFF computer at 100% CPU utilization -- which, really, is what it is -- when playing games). If you're using it for party music, or to watch Armageddon, no biggie. But for listening to relatively quiet music? Unacceptable. 4. It doesn't need the TV. I wasn't sure if this would be a big deal, but it is. Having to have the TV on to listen to music bothers me. My recommendation: If you don't have a Squeezebox, and play your music on your stereo with those round disc things (CDs, I believe they used to call them), you absolutely need to get SOMETHING that'll get you into the modern era. Both the 360 and the SB are excellent devices, but the SB is a device built for one purpose -- and an excellent single-purpose device will nearly always beat an excellent multi-purpose device when performing its intended function. If you don't care about gaming, don't use your MCE PC as a DVR, and don't have a lot of PFS DRMed music, skip the 360 and just get a Squeezebox. It's significantly better for pure music. But if the non-music capabilities of the 360 appeal to you, absolutely buy one. Its music capabilities are better than any non-Squeezebox device (the 360 is much, much better than a Roku SoundBridge, for instance), and given the video, photo, and gaming capabilities, it's a steal for $399. If you do buy a 360, though, seriously consider getting a Squeezebox, too. If you can afford it, and care about music in a significant way (if you have a receiver that costs over $1000 -- or separates of any kind -- you probably can and do), it's worth it. -- mkozlows ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mkozlows's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=62 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=20092 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
