Connect360 - iLife Meets XBox 360
January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I knew you could connect a Windows Media Center PC to your XBox 360 to extend the available content, but my primary machine at home is a Mac running OS X. This means all the fun media (movies, music, and pictures) is all on there. So after a bit of searching I turned up the absolutely amazing Connect360 by Nullriver Software.
So how exactly does it work and what does it do?
The iTunes integration allows you to browse and play your iTunes music by song, artist, album, genre or playlist. As expected, this allows support for listening to your iTunes songs while playing a game. It even updates your iTunes play count and play date for songs played on your Xbox 360.
In addition, Connect360 supports streaming of live Internet radio broadcasts by simply addind any station to a playlist
As for iPhoto, you can view your photo library, browse by photo album or watch a slideshow.
Any movies in your movie folder become available for viewing in full screen.
Connect360 supports the following formats:
MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless for Music. For Photos, Connect360 supports: JPEG, RAW, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF. For video streaming, currently only WMV+WMA, AVI (DIVX/XVID), H.264 and MPEG4 files are supported (in MP4 and MOV containers).
On top of all this sweetness, it also does “automagic transcoding”. With this feature, it can do on-the-fly automatic transcoding of many formats so that you can enjoy even more content on you Xbox 360.
As for setup, you drop a new control panel on your Mac and this Connect360 software will automatically detect your Xbox 360 and in turn your 360 will automatically detect your Mac and the media made available to it.
The demo is free, and the full version is merely $20, so if you have this setup, try it out, you won’t be sorry.
Tags: aac, avi, connect360, divx, h.264, iLife, mac, media center, media center pc, media pc, microsoft, mp3, music, osx, pictures, video, xbox, xvid
DRM is Cracking
April 3, 2007 | 1 Comment
Digital Rights Management or DRM is a concept I have always opposed. In general I feel it is expensive and complicated for vendors to sustain, while relatively simple others to break, all the while punishing consumers and paying customers. I had never really summarized my thoughts on this other than the occasional verbal tirade.
After Steve Jobs shared his thoughts against DRM last year I felt it was no longer necessary for me to chime in since he hit the nail on the head. Finally someone with the ability to influence direction of DRM today and in the future was making bold statements about why it is ridiculously broken. However, were these merely words? Was Jobs making these statements to pander to the European Union who is blocking the international expansion of the highly successful iTunes music store?
Apparently not.
Casey pointed to the huge joint announcement this week from Apple and EMI about their planned release of the entire EMI digital collection in DRM free, higher quality (256kbps) AAC files for $1.29 per song. This is a 30 cent increase that is well worth it to gain higher quality and vendor neutrality in the future. To sweeten the deal, when purchasing full albums, there will be absolutely no cost increase for DRM free music! What about those of you who have already filled your music collections with EMI music that has the Apple DRM? For a mere 30 cents, you can upgrade to the DRM-free version! This new service will launch in May.
EMI’s diverse list of artists includes: A Perfect Circle, The Beatles, David Bowie, The Chemical Brothers, Coldplay, Dandy Warhols, Gorillaz, Ben Harper, Norah Jones, KoЯn, Lenny Kravitz, Pink Floyd, Queen, Radiohead, Relient K, The Thrills, KT Tunstall, Robbie Williams, Yellowcard, The Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Keith Urban, etc. There are many old school artists, as well as new artists I’ve fallen in love with from Virgin Radio or idobi Radio. In short, no matter what type of music you’re into, EMI has something for you.
Hopefully EMI will see great success from this initiative. In turn, this could cause all of DRM in digital music to crumble. As the music industry succumbs to delivering more consumer friendly, flexible music, video should follow. This is good for everyone.
Since the beginning of the digital music revolution, I have reduced my music buying habits. In fact, I have bought less than 10 CDs in the last 7 years. Prior to that, I had built a CD collection in excess of 300 CDs. These have all been ripped to my iPod. Additionally, I listen to a lot of podcasts. For new music, all of this comes from internet radio. I’m looking forward to finally being comfortable purchasing music again.
Tags: A Perfect Circle, aac, apple, Ben Harper, Coldplay, Dandy Warhols, David Bowie, DRM, emi, Gorillaz, idobi radio, internet radio, Keith Urban, KoЯn, KT Tunstall, Lenny Kravitz, mpaa, music, music industry, Norah Jones, Pink Floyd, podcast, podcasts, Queen, radio, Radiohead, Relient K, riaa, Robbie Williams, steve jobs, The Beatles, The Chemical Brothers, The Rolling Stones, The Thrills, virgin radio, Yellowcard