AppleTV replacement: a UMPC and an Xbox 360?

Q1p_to_xbox
(Update for the nearsighted like me: there is a hard-to-see UMPC that’s serving up music via WiFi just in front of the HDTV!)

For a few days after the AppleTV launched, I considered getting it to pair up with our 60-inch HDTV and 5.1 Surround Sound setup. Then I realized I had too much invested in Microsoft for my digital media to make the switch. We already have an XBox 360 and a WMCE desktop with an ATSC tuner for free HDTV streaming in the house, so there’s really no need to add the AppleTV here. It’s a nice product for sure, but too limiting for me since it’s tied to the iTunes store.

I bring this up only because I realized something today that jogged my memory: the UMPCs running Vista (either natively or potentially upgraded to Home Premium or Ultimate) include the Windows Media Center functionality, so why not use a UMPC with our Xbox 360 to take the place of an AppleTV? Ultimately, I was wondering if I could stream audio content from my Zune Pass subscription on the UMPC to our surround sound system…

Sure enough: it’s a no-brainer and works like a charm as I have access to my entire, rented Zune music collection.

Zune_music_on_hdtv_2

You can set up a Windows Media Extender to have your Vista-based UMPC act as a media server over a wired or wireless LAN. Since I don’t have an Ethernet jack in my family room for the Xbox 360, I set everything up over WiFi. There’s not much effort required either: the Windows Media Extender dialogs walk you through everything: you just need your devices on the same network and you’ll need to enter an 8-digit code provided by your Xbox 360 on your UMPC. It takes about five minutes to do the setup.

Q1media_center

I already knew that my Zune Pass subscription music was playable via the Origami Experience software; in fact, that’s how I play the music after I’ve downloaded it due to the interface that’s optimized for touchscreens. I figured if I can play the subscription content outside of the Zune software on my Samsung Q1P, I should be able to stream it to the Xbox 360.

Right away, folks will say "What’s the point since you can just connect a Zune to the 360 via USB for playback." That’s fair, but there’s a few advantages to what I’m doing.

1. You don’t need a Zune player for what I’m doing. Although I do own the Zune hardware, I find that I listen to my music more often on my UMPC. The Zune is used when I don’t want to carry a small Tablet PC.
2. Zune players are current limited to 30 GB of music. I actually have more free space than that on my UMPC since I have a 60 GB drive (for now!) and only a few important applications installed. I have an external USB drive that I use for data.

The streaming audio sounds stunning on the stereo system and thanks to the "all you can eat" subscription plan (something Apple doesn’t offer, unfortunately), I now have an easy way to play a multitude of digital tunes in the background when entertaining or relaxing.

Now I haven’t tried streaming video from the UMPC with this method, but I’m not sure I personally have a need for that due to the Xbox 360. With our XBox LIVE account, I have the ability to purchase SD and HD television shows as well as rent SD or HD movies; trust me: we take full advantage of that and haven’t rented a DVD movie in months as a result. I don’t see the point of renting a 720 x 480 resolution DVD when I can rent a 1280 x 720 resolution video for a bit more. Still, I will be trying to stream some video from my Q1P to the Xbox 360 just to see how it handles it. Ironically, the AppleTV innards aren’t that much different from the engine driving my Samsung Q1P. Both use a 1.0 GHz Intel Pentium M CPU and a similar Intel Mobile 910/915 integrated graphics chip, so video performance should be relatively comparable from a hardware perspective. [Edit: Additionally, I’d expect the Xbox 360 to handle the video processing which should help performance.]

Video aside, it’s just amazing to see a 7-inch touchscreen portable tablet used a wireless server for a 60-inch HDTV and 5.1 surround! Reason # 372 to own a UMPC and reason # 22 why I’d like to see Microsoft consolidate their digital media offerings into one place….or make the Zune & XBox Live platforms completely compatible.

There’s one other interesting comparison to be made here in pricing the Apple offering and the Microsoft offering as well. AppleTV is great at what it does for $299, but it is isn’t a standalone device, i.e.; you still need to own a Mac, so let’s use a MacBook at $1,099 for illustrative purposes. That brings you to around $1,400 for a situation where you have a portable computer and an easy way to stream digital content. A current UMPC that can run Vista will cost you between $900 and $1,200 right now, even less once the Q1 Ultra arrives shortly. You’ll need an Xbox with a hard drive and wireless adapter, so that’s $498 ($399 for the Xbox 360 and $99 for the adapter) which brings us to a range of $1,400 to $1,700 which is a little higher but still fairly comparable.

Again, we already had too much invested to move to the AppleTV. Folks just starting out in their purchasing decisions have a fairly equal choice with just a few differences, the biggest one being: do you want to buy your content or do you want to rent it? I’m sticking with the renting for now and I’m happy that I’ve found yet another great use for my UMPC.

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