I'd not bought into the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war. Not because I thought one standard was better than the other, but because over the last couple of years I've become more and more convinced that over the wire and over the air distribution are going to dominate.

In the US with Comcast and Verizon pushing speeds (12Mbps and 50Mbps are fairly common for Cable and Fiber respectively) and despite the grandstanding about net neutrality and p2p on-demand video is growing - you only have to look at Netflix, AppleTV and the Xbox Marketplace to see that.

Rather than jump on the Blu-Ray bandwagon with the demise of HD-DVD Microsoft are betting on downloads as the way forward. As long as the infrastructure continues to advance and the ISPs and record/music business don't spoil it for everyone I think it bodes for a great future...

I was pretty excited with the December update to the Xbox360 Dashboard that provided some additional codec support but after using it for a while I'm less sure that it's solved my problems.

For a start the big downer is that, unlike with a Media Center, I still can't use the system to view archived DVDs - that means we still have to expose the physical media to scratches if our daughter wants to watch Barbie rather than have her able to stream it from a remote location (or she has to use the Media Center in the living room which does support DVD Library mode).

The other frustrating thing is that some archived content still refuses to play back - though it's encoded with the same codec as content that's fine. It also appears that I need to be logged in to play back content (though this may be a limitation brought on my my current Gamertag not being US) - which means if my daughter is watching something she still gets messages popping up from folks who think it's me logged in.

Here's hoping the next Dashboard update brings some more Media goodness (though I am questioning the value of a noisy and power hungry Xbox360 as a component in our home entertainment setup.... maybe a dedicated Media Center extender would be better).

In the meantime we're supplementing support with TVersity. This transcodes on the fly the content we're having codec issues with (it runs on the Windows Home Server where the content is archived) and is pretty reliable. Again, it currently doesn't support archived DVDs and it's not a native WHS add-in (but there are enhancement requests being considered for both). For Wii users TVersity (like Orb) provide a very good Media Experience using the built in Opera browser to render a Flash user interface - on the Xbox360 TVersity etc are limited to the simple folder hierarchy and text listing.

When I moved from Aus to the US I tried to change my Xbox360 Gamertag from AU to US so I could take advantage of the cool new content available locally for my (US bought) Xbox360.

I'd hoped it would be something simple - a change to my LiveID or an upgrade to my Gamertag ... contact customer service and have some magic happen.

Sadly that couldn't happen.

Then in December there was a new update to the Dashboard on the XBox360 that allowed me to change the LiveID associated with the Gamertag. Yippee I thought, problem solved. So I changed the LiveID to my new US-centric one (with US billing records for MSN Direct, Hotmail Plus etc) ... but that didn't change my country for the Gamertag - it left me with both the US and AU accounts tied to the Gamertag.

So... another chat with customer support (externally and using some contacts internally) and the upshot of the story is that because the EULA I agreed to when I signed up says I can't change countries with my Gamertag I have to cancel the account and create a new one (because the Gamertag doesn't get released into the pool I can't even re-use the name). So I lose my history / reputation / stats (which I'll admit isn't that crucial for me) but (more importantly) my identity.

I can't imagine I'm alone in this.... in fact I know a few others who've faced the same problem (but are obviously better mannered than me and don't complain!). As someone who's not a hard core gamer but more uses the Xbox360 to supplement our home entertainment solution this is annoying and hopefully something will change in the future to stop anyone else having to give up their identity because of a line in a EULA.

When I moved from Australia to the US I discovered a not so small problem. Because me Xbox Gamertag was tied to a LiveID which had billing services (my, now expired, Gold account) in AU there seemed to be no way to access the US goodness without giving up my Gamertag and picking a new personal.

In the latest update a new dashboard option was added to change the assigned LiveID for a Gamertag which got me all excited as I thought this would help.

Wrong!

All it's done is tie the two LiveIDs to the same Gamertag in the billing page, and left me stuck in AU. At least it doesn't appear to have screwed up the existing US billing stuff for my new LiveID but it's not turned out to be quite as good as I hoped.

I logged a support request on the off-chance, but after trying on and off since getting to the US I'm not holding out much hope (after all, I had to clear my Space and sit with the name in limbo for 60 days just to swap that between LiveIDs and I still can't use my nickname in the Windows Live Gallery with the new LiveID - I just get told it's "in use")

Just in time for Christmas there's an update to the Xbox360 firmware. I know I spotted it way after the Delicate Genius but the same thing grabbed our attention... improved codec support.

We're using the Windows Home Server tucked away upstairs for most of our file storage now and so, using the Media Connect capabilities of WHS, this now lets us use the Xbox360 as almost a first class media citizen.

It's not quite perfect - we still have some content that the Media Center with it's variously sourced codec packs plays without a hiccup that the Xbox won't touch, and of course archived DVDs (gotta try and keep 'em scratch free somehow because there's no replacement warranty) which again Vista Media Center is fine with.

As I'm not much of a gamer the rest of the update didn't make me rush to get it, but having more reasons to have the Xbox in the living room as part of a real family entertainment solution is a great move. Here's hoping we get more media support in coming releases.

Luckily I've not had a ring of death with either my AU Xbxo360 or our US one but to help reduce the fear and uncertainty of the one year warranty Microsoft has announced they're going to extend the warrant to 3 years to cover the problem.

The best news is for existing customers who've had to pay for the fix...you may just get some money back.

For the full story read the open letter on Xbox.com or check out the FAQs.

I can slot a DVD into my Xbox360 and watch it just fine. I can slot the same DVD into my Media Center PC and watch it just fine.

When I buy a DVD for my daughter I can rip a backup to my Maxtor HDD and file the original away to keep her sticky fingers off it but let her watch it on the Media Center. But what happens if I want to use the Media Center and have her watch the DVD in the other room on the Xbox... I've gotta go find the original disk again.

Why? Because while the Media Center is quite happy to stream a DVD image over the local network from the network connected Maxtor (or maybe soon a Windows Home Server) the Xbox only lets me do that for photos and music.

IMO this is a real limitation, a pain, and thorn in the idea of connected home entertainment. I'm not going to argue the legalities or the technicalities, just the user experience.

In his CES keynote this year Bill Gates talked about the connected media experience. I want it, and I want it all and now!

Well, in order to live the dream for the moment I have to make some sacrifices. Namely quality and convenience. While the Xbox won't let you stream a DVD to it, you can transcode it to WMV and it will let you watch that.

There are two solutions - live transcoding and manual. While Live transcoding seems like it should be the best solution it's fine for me, but a little hard for my daughter to control so I've gone the manual route at home.

The live solutions are Transcode 360 (for WinXP MCE and Vista) or TVersity. The former requires a Media Center machine, and the latter runs under any flavor of Windows XP or Vista.

Transcode 360 plugs into the existing Media Center interface or can be accessed as part of My Movies and is fairly simple to use though (in common with other on-the-fly solutions) you're at the mercy of a remote transcoding queue. Movies are selected from the usual user friendly UI within the Media Center Extender display and you then elect to start the transcoder to play it.

TVersity is another good solution (and doesn't need MCE - it works on any PC) that works pretty well (with the same caveats as Transcode 360) however the selection of available content is from within the Xbox Video list - a text filename list... so it has the added disadvantage for my daughter of no pretty pictures.

With both the live solutions I've had problems with the queues not starting/stopping as expected and the software getting itself tied in knots. As I say... okay for me, but not a good user experience for the wife and daughter.

So, that leaves manual transcoding. After looking around at a few I've settled on one that's fairly quick, easy to use and a good price.

Mobile DVD from SPBSoftwareHouse is intended to take your DVDs and transcode them for portable devices (mainly aimed, like most of their apps, at the Windows Mobile platform). I tried it because I use some of their other apps every day and think they're very good developers. With some tweaking of settings the resulting movie is as good a quality as pretty much anything I've seen via a transcode (and their forums indicate that support for a specific Xbox profile might be in the works).

This solution enables me to keep the original DVD in their jewel case and just transcode the main movie to a WMV, attach a pretty JPG to the folder and present the movies to her in the Media Center interface and she can use the Xbox just like she would the Media Center. I do however resent the extra work and storage space (as some movies we keep in DVD archive format as well because we want the special features and are happy to usually watch on the Media Center machine)

Note: With Transcoding you will loose extra material, multiple audio tracks, subtitles, etc., and a transcoding process always degrades the quality some

Update: Wii users can brag... Orb makes their life even easier!

The Xbox360 just became a more integral part of your home media experience. Carbon adds IPTV support to the dashboard - allowing you to watch high quality digital TV without needing a third party set-top box, TiVo or a Media Center PC.

Cool features such as picture-in-picture, media guide and full PVR support make this a great add on.

Luckily it's early days yet for this product as I think there are some questions that will need to be addressed before it's prime time.

• With only a very small HDD on the Xbox360 how much content are you going to realistically be able to store?
• Will it talk with a Media Center PC - allowing me to deliver live or recorded TV to a tunerless but still MCE capable machine (like my laptop)?
• Will it be able to consume recorded TV from a Media Center?
• Will it be able to store recorded TV on a Windows Home Server device?

I'm a huge fan of the idea of totally integrated, seamless home entertainment but I think at the moment we need to do some work to get that goal. I'm happy to have an Xbox360 and a Media Center as they're both good at different things, but limiting content to one platform or place is frustrating as it means I can't optimize placement and setup - having a Media Center capable Windows Home Server (or a pair of devices) that does all the gruntwork hidden away in a cupboard and just needing the Xbox360 in the living room would be awesome. But at the moment the "best of both worlds" involves having two living room devices, some hacks to get the MCE working with WHS and it still won't stream archived DVDs or CableCard content to either device.

Still, the delivery is slated for the 2007 holidays so there's a lot of time to tweak all the platforms to make something truly awesome...

To help folks get started with the XNA Game Studio Express check out the "Dream - Build - Play" competition - grab a (free) copy of XNA Studio and check out this site for more info...

Microsoft is hosting a 72-hour conversation, and you're invited.

MIX07 :: April 30 — May 2nd, The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas

MIX is Microsoft’s conference for Web designers, developers and decision-makers who make their living at the forefront of the consumer Web. Join the conversation with Microsoft and others on how to harness the latest technologies, unlock new revenue opportunities, reduce development costs and improve customer experience. MIX is for cutting-edge Web professionals designing and building next-generation experiences.

Registration is now open, and if you sign up before March 15 2007 there is a 15% discount. You could even get there for FREE - Check out the IE7 AddOn Content (but be quick!)

Following on from it's debut in 2006, MIX will continue to explore how to build more interactive and responsive experiences that take full advantage of the capabilities of the Web. MIX will also be an opportunity to dive deeper into Microsoft’s Web technology offerings and discover ways to create more dynamic customer connections that take user experience to the next level.

If you're serious about developing for the future (be it Ajax, Rich Internet Applications or just delivering compelling content) is there anywhere you'd rather be?