The XBox360 Solution
Its September and that means the new fall season of TV is coming. As usual the networks rearrange their schedules and schedule most of my favorite shows opposite one another.
I do not have cable or satellite, just an antenna to pick up local HD channels. My “DVR” consists of a tuner card on my computer running Windows Media Center — far and away the best DVR software despite the fact that the files it saves are proprietary. Between WMC, and websites like Hulu and streaming video on network sites (cbs.com, abc.com, etc.), and pay for TV like iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix, I do not miss anything I want to see, despite the lack of cable or Satellite.
The problem is, none of this can be seen on my TV, just my computer. All I can watch on my TV are live channels, DVDs, and my previously metioned Apple TV.
I decided that I would find a way to solve this once and for all. I researched many possible fixes: Wireless enabled television (too expensive), building a media PC (also too expensive), TiVo (another monthly fee to pay, high startup cost), a media server (none support the WMC proprietary files), a converted xbox or linux box with XBMC loaded (same WMC proprietary issue), a Windows Media Extender (difficult to find, most no longer being supported) and a PC toTV device (poor screen resolution no HD support). I mention these options because others may find them more suitable.
For me, the easiest and most cost effective solution is to get an XBox360.
I don’t own any consoles, never had the need, as my computer is powerful enough to play anything. But if I want to watch all this internet based television on my actual television, the XBox360 is the best way to go. I got the “arcade” model, the extras you get in the “elite” are needed for console gaming enthusiasts, but not needed for my uses.
Setting all this up turned out to be a major chore as I ran into some undocumented issues that Microsoft apparently does not even know how to fix. My computer connects wirelessly to a router in the same room as my TV, so all I had to do on the xbox is plug in a cat 6 ethernet cable (the 54mb limit of the way over priced wireless G adapter Microsoft sells is too low to stream HD). Once connected, my computer had no problem seeing my XBox, but the XBox could not see the computer.
The official answer from Microsoft is to make sure your network is “private” and that and that both file and media sharing is enabled. It turns out you must also turn off Internet Connection Sharing as well (its a service under administrative tools, disable it from ever starting so it does not come on when you reboot your computer). Microsoft either does not know about the issue, or they dont think it is common enough to publicize as a possible fix. Took me a good 4 hours of troubleshooting to find this out though.
Anyways, once fixed, I can play all my media files through my TV, including my DVR recordings via the Windows Media Extender feature. The xbox also has netflix built in.
What I still could not do was access hulu and other streaming video. Turns out there is an easy fix for that too called PlayOn ($40 one time after two week trial). It installs on your PC and plays online streaming video through your TV by pretending to be stored video. Works on PS3 and Wii as well.
And with that addition, I can watch anything I want on my TV, sans cable or satellite.
