More than just a games console

The Xbox 360 is a pretty neato games machine. Hovever, lately I’ve discovered that it simply excels as a media center. Why? It plays MPEG-4 videos of course! It required a minor software update which was straightforward once I got Xbox Live up and running. It plays videos from a burnt CD or DVD which is handy, but the real treat is its ability to play videos on mass storage devices connected via the USB port. Brilliant! It also connects to a Windows PC which is nice but a feature I’ll probably never use as my MPEG-4 stuff is on USB HDD or DVD. I have to hand it to Microsoft though, they’ve nailed it here. The Xbox 360 has already replaced my Macbook Pro as the primary device for watching MPEG-4. The icing on the cake is my Logitech Harmony 525 universal remote, whose software simply downloaded all the codes for the Xbox 360! Truly awesome.