Re: xbox - was- There's hope yet!!

["Mark McCall" <Mark@xxxxxxx>]

> Well, it's funny you should mention that ... I was planning to get
some
> kind of mini-itx system in the lounge, but if the XBos can do it all
> (and play games) as well as being cheaper....

Depends what you need it to do.  Last night I got the latest version
playing
VOBs accross the Lan.  I've also been playing with this software
www.dvd2one.com which is designed to copy a DVD-9 onto a 4.3gig DVD-R etc
(works fantastically and only takes 30 mins!).  Now, you could also use
this
to decrease the size of the VOBs on your Jukebox.  A 7gig movie can be
recompress and stored in (say) 4gig (still with full AC3 sound) and a
decent
looking picture.

The integration with IMDB (internet movie database) is improved again in
the
latest version of Media Player.  It now shows the user rating out of 10 for
each movie as well as remembering the plot info etc so you don't need to
download it everytime you hit the INFO button.

MP3 playback now has a funky new Visualisation, however the MP3 playback is
still the weak link with poor playlist handling and no FFWD etc.  But this
will all come in time.

M.