Digital Home Thoughts: The Xbox 360 in Videos

Be sure to register in our forums and post your comments - we want to hear from you!


Zune Thoughts

Loading feed...

Apple Thoughts

Loading feed...

Laptop Thoughts

Loading feed...



Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The Xbox 360 in Videos

Posted by Jason Dunn in "HARDWARE" @ 05:40 PM


Profile Overlay in MCE Mode: A quick video that shows how the green Xbox button on the controller pulls up the gamer profile while watching TV in MCE mode. Presumably this allows you to go from watching TV to a deathmatch in a few clicks. [View Video - 5.6 MB]

Blade Switching Performance: The interface of the Xbox 360 is made up of "blades", each one contains specific user-interface elements to interact with the Xbox 360. This video shows the power of the GPU in the Xbox 360 as I flip rapidly through each blade. [View Video - 4.6 MB]

Xbox 360 Noise Levels: After reading early reviews commenting on how noisy the Xbox 360 was, I was quite concerned. Thankfully, it's not as noisy as I had feared, but it is noisier than I thought it was going to be when I first start reading about it. It was common to read reports that the Xbox 360 was water-cooled, and since the power supply is external, that's one less fan. My expectation was that it would be a nearly silent device. That's definitely not the case - I believe there's some water cooling that happens on the CPU, but there are still fans inside for other parts, likely the GPU. So how loud is it? Well, I booted up my original Xbox and compared it to the Xbox 360 and the original Xbox is about 20% louder...with no optical media inserted. When you put in a disc, the Xbox 360 is easily 50% louder than the original Xbox. So this is good news for people who are interested in using it as a Media Center Extender, but bad news for people wanting to use it as a DVD player. Most games are fairly noisy, so it's likely less of an issue when you're playing a game. The video demonstrates the Xbox 360 in idle mode and what happens with a disc is inserted. [View Video - 12.9 MB]

Xbox 360 Browsing External Media: One of the features that the Xbox 360 has over the original Xbox is its ability to browser external media connected to the USB port on the back. In this video I connect a 1 GB USB Flashdrive and browse the contents. The USB port is very poorly positioned on the back (UPDATE: I've since discovered the two on the front), and it's surprisingly frustrating to get a USB device connected to it. I had to carefully line up the flashdrive before it would insert properly. Once in, it was easy to access and flip through photos. [View Video - 20.9 MB]

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Alberta, Canada.

Tags:

Featured Product

The Canon PowerShot S100 - The incredibly fun and small camera that offers you 12.1 megapixels with a bright f/2.0 lens and full 1080p video recording . MORE INFO

News Tip or Feedback?

Contact us

Thoughts Media Sites

Windows Phone Thoughts

Digital Home Thoughts

Zune Thoughts

Apple Thoughts

Laptop Thoughts

Android Thoughts

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...