Accessing Digital Media from the Xbox 360

Is your Xbox 360 hooked up to the biggest TV and the best audio system in the house? If so, you might want to browse the videos, pictures, and music stored on your other computer. I thought you have to run Windows Media Center for this to be possible, but it turns out you can just run something called TVersity.

Install it, then use the provided user interface to pick which files/folders are available for browsing.

Once you get this running, how will your Xbox 360 know that it's there? The Xbox 360 looks for a media server broadcasting its presence on the network. For this to work:

• The Xbox 360 and your computer have to be 'on the same network'. I don't know exactly what this means (same subnet?), but basically, if both of these are going through the same router, you're ok.
• The computer's firewall needs to allow this new type of network traffic. On Windows XP, these are called Exceptions. There're two exceptions:
  • uPnP Framework (TCP 2869 and UDP 1900) - this entry's probably already there but might not be enabled yet
  • TVersity Media Server (TCP 41952) - you have to add this port yourself

At this point, you should be able to browse media through the Xbox 360 Dashboard menus. Instead of picking Console, pick Computer. If all is well, you should then see something like 'TVersity on XXX', where XXX is the identity/name of your computer.

Good luck!

Stumbling Across Music

It's strange -- I don't have a favourite artist or genre. It's pretty rare when I hear music that I actually like. That's probably why I only own 15 or so music CD's, which I've been told, is a low number.

It's not all one type either -- I've got lounge, ballads, soundtracks, ambience, etc...

It's also interesting how I stumble across music. Just a few weeks ago, my friends mentioned a new game coming out called Gears of War. I watched the TV commercial and got hooked on the song that plays throughout (seriously, it played in my head any chance it got during the day). I found out that it's a version of Mad World featuring Gary Jules, so I now have a copy of the Donnie Darko soundtrack, a movie which I haven't even seen yet.