Media Center Extenders: Xbox 360 vs. Media Center PC

With all its virtues as a Media Center Extender, Xbox 360 may be the obvious choice for extending the Media Center experience to multiple rooms of the house.

However, with Media Center PCs starting at around $500, only somewhat more expensive than an Xbox 360 system, some customers may prefer to purchase another PC instead of a gaming system.

Here are the tradeoffs of using Xbox 360 versus a full-blown Media Center PC for remote rooms.

Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender

• Quiet. Xbox 360 is designed to be as quiet as possible. In fact, the whole cooling system steps down a notch when the unit is in Media Center Extender mode (versus gaming mode), making it even quieter.
  
• Unobtrusive. Xbox 360 has a small form factor and is designed to take up very little space.
  
• All-in-one. Xbox 360 is a great game console, Media Center Extender and media rendering device all in one compact package.


• DVD player. Xbox 360 is a standalone remote-controlled DVD player, and it even upscales as appropriate.
  
• No local set-top box. Xbox 360 uses shared tuners from the host Media Center Edition machine. This means less equipment and clutter in the room; it also means fewer FM or over-the-air antennas at the box, and no need to run cable into the room to get TV.
  
• Portable. Xbox 360 offers some nice options if you want to move it around to different TVs without having to take a lot of wires. It also is great on a cart with a display and a wireless network connection for use by the pool or hot tub at night.
  
• Upgradeable. Xbox 360's Media Center Extender functionality is software-upgradeable, so Microsoft has the ability to add new features and functionality to the system.
  
• Low maintenance. Xbox 360 is pretty much maintenance-free. You can stick it in a room and forget about it.
  

Additional PC as a Media Center Extender

• Keyboard included. A keyboard is a useful tool for customers who use the Media Center version of MSN Messenger or want to edit music metadata via the TV interface. Media Center Extenders currently do not support a keyboard.
  
• Volume control. Media Center Extenders do not support volume control from within the Media Center's TV interface, but Media Center PCs do.
  
• Video codec support. Media Center PCs can decode a number of video formats that are not currently supported by Xbox 360.
  
• More applications. A wealth of third-party plug-ins and advanced applications run flawlessly on Media Center Edition, but they may not always extend to Xbox 360.
  
• CD and DVD burning. To burn DVDs or CDs locally, you'll need a full-blown Media Center PC.
  
• It's a PC! For another few-hundred dollars, would you rather just use a full-blown PC?