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Argh!… We turned on the Xbox 360 earlier, and what happened?…

THIS:

So after approx 30 mins on hold to Xbox support, I finally get put through to a call centre where a helpful man takes down my details and registers a free repair.  Whilst looking at the serial number label I took note of the manufacture date…  3rd December 2005!  Today was my Xbox’s 3rd birthday!

*sniff* :’(

UPDATE 15th Dec: A brand new healthy Xbox landed on my doorstep this afternoon!

AT LAST!

After a quick cleanup of my WMP 11 library, I fired up the Xbox 360 and found all the videos on my PC are playable!  Maybe I can finally get rid of the old Xbox 1 brick from underneath the TV…

Just spotted this news on the Gamerscore Blog
– Bungie will be conducting a public beta test of Halo 3 multi-player next spring!

I can’t wait!

Gamerscore Blog Post
Press Release

Looks like Happy Beggar might have a half-decent solution to the Xbox 360/WMV Transcoding problem: Encode360

I’ll probably give this a go at some point, but I doubt its going to replace Xbox Media Centre sat on my old Xbox…

The Clicker: Dear Microsoft, “help me help you.” – Engadget

Earlier this week Microsoft rolled out their highly-anticipated Xbox 360 update. The update was chock full of bug fixes and new features. However, to me, one of the most exciting new features was their long-overdue update to the 360’s UPnP client. That’s right; they finally added the ability to stream video from your computer to the 360. While it’s technically always been possible to stream (using the 360’s Media Center Extender technology), the new update gives the masses who aren’t yet using a Media Center box a quick and easy way to stream video to the television. Or does it?

On the surface it’s quite an exciting turn of events. However, as many now know all too well, there’s just one problem: it only supports WMV. There’s no DivX support. There’s no H.264 support. There’s just WMV. Now, I’m sure that there are many purists out there reading this right now who are flat-out appalled by this decision. The anti-Microsoft crowd (you know the type — they’re the ones who think it’s still clever to say Micro$oft) are quick to malign anything not open source and/or anything Microsoft. Frankly, I’m not one of those people. I respect Microsoft’s decision to not pay licensing fees to each of the different codec companies. In the end, the decision keeps the price of the unit down. However, there is one HUGE caveat:

Microsoft, you have got to make it easier to transcode into WMV.

The details of the latest Xbox360 Dash update have been announced!

The bits I’m most looking forward to are:

• Stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect.
• Play video from storage devices such as USB flash drives, Xbox 360 Memory Units, etc.
• Play video from CD or DVD data discs.
• Automatically download newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games.

And finally:

• Optionally disable notifications from Xbox Live while watching DVD movies. (At Last!)

Click here to see the full list!