Have your Mac talk to your Xbox 360

One of the neat features tucked away within the OS of the Xbox 360 is its ability to talk to a Windows XP-MCE machine and stream audio, video, and pictures. Cool, but on the PC side you need to put MCE as on OS on at least one machine. One the Mac side, there is no built in solution. Pesky MS. All the potential is there, but my machine of choice is not on the list. But there is a way.

But in the world of small software companies writing well done, focused applications there is a way. Nullriver has a small System Preferences Pane called Connect360 that does the job. It spoofs the 360 into thinking the Mac is an MCE machine, taking care of all the network protocols and giving the user a simple way to stream data to the living room where most 360's find themselves.

My friend Alex sent this link to me. See, I'm one of those conflicted friends he has. Macs all throughout the house, but an Xbox connected to the big TV. With Nullriver's spoofing app, I can use my Mac, play HD games and stream content (it only goes one way, from Mac as server to Xbox as client). Happiness.

As all Mac apps should be, Connect360 is simple to set up and use. It lives in the System Preferences panes, so its always easy to find. It points to the Music, Photo, and Movies folders in the OS X user directory. Cool, for then anything in iTunes or iPhoto can be streamed and flipped through using the game controller. I had a good time showing my wife pictures I had on the Mac up on the 60" RPTV screen we have. Makes for an easier time to show the family the pictures from trips (slides shows are now back in vogue!).

There are a few limitations, but for what I plan to use it for, its not a big deal. Music can't be Apple DRM'd AAC files. MP3's are fine. Photos as JPEGs. Movies as WMV files only (this last one only slowed me down a little). There is a list of supported file formats at the website. I don't care about the music portion, for I already have a Mini taking care of that. But the picture streaming is cool and now I can watch documentaries I find over the Internet up on the big TV from the comfort of the couch instead of sitting at my desk.

On the Mac side, WMV is not a deal stopper. I already had VisualHub for transcoding video. Its another small app. that does its job well and simply. I dragged some Divx and QT files over to it and a little while later out pops a WMV file. In my test (the app allows you stream one video file or look at 100 photos as a demo) I took a BBC documentary and streamed it from the Mini in the office/library over 11g to the Xbox in the living room. Stereo sound and full frame picture, what more could you ask for?

Now my Mac and Xbox live in harmony. What is the world coming to? :)

-Mike M.