The Windows Media Player 11 beta is now available. This in and of itself isn't exactly earth shattering, but this little snippet is:"If you have a home network (wired or wireless), you can use Windows Media Player 11 to stream the contents of your library to networked devices. For example, if you have an Xbox 360 or other digital media receiver (DMR), you can use Windows Media Player to stream music, pictures, and videos from your computer to that device."
WMP 11 is an XP program. Putting two and two together led us to believe that WMP 11 would finally allow people to stream video to the 360 without a Media Center PC. Unfortunately, it looks like this functionality will have to be included in the expected fall update to the 360 dashboard. It's obvious that it's supposed to work, the 360 just needs an update to accommodate it.
On the bright side, WMP 11 does have Windows Media Connect built in, saving people a few steps in the 360 music/photo streaming process. We asked someone over at Microsoft to comment on the expected update for video streaming. We'll let you know what we hear.
[Thanks, Lorul2]
1. I found this functionally while messing with Vista RC1 (which I am primarily using now), I notced that instead of needing Windows Media Connect (which annoyingly searches though ALL your data every time you boot, which can really slow things down for people with mass amounts of MP3s or photos), it goes though Windows Media Player's media library (which doesn't do the constant search at boot up, to much relief). I am guessing they want to get rid of Windows Media Connect in the Windows XP version of Windows Media Player 11 as well.
I noticed right away that it looked for videos as well, which made me think about this functionality and how they they might add to the Xbox 360's dash in the Fall update. I personally think the Fall update will be huge, more than likely MUCH larger than the Spring update. I am sure video will be just one of the few updates that MS probity has in store (I wouldn't be surprised if they had a browser too, to compete with Nintendo's Opera for Wii browser and I am sure Sony will eventually include one). There's probably a few tweaks they can make as well. As well as some very minor changes (like getting rid of the "Windows XP PC" description in some parts of the dash because Vista will be going to computer manufacturers to be preinstalled on PCs very soon), and whatnot.
Posted at 11:22AM on Sep 5th 2006 by DA360 2 stars