Xbox 360 or Echo as of February 2013

[jerryt]

Which one is the best choice ??

Will mostly be used for accessing Comcast Live TV channels in WMC.

[adam1991]

As the owner of both, I would have to say that you should have at least one XBox extender in your 7MC life. (If you have Win8, XBox is your *only* choice.)

And if you've never had an extender, your first should be an XBox. After that's set up and working, you may then try out Echo.

But if you start with Echo, you will not get the proper idea of what an extender should be.

[wilkcards]

I don't get the price point of the echo (you can easily buy an xbox for the same price with way more function), and wouldn't consider buying one until windows 8 is supported. What if it never is?

[mdavej]

Smaller, less energy, less noise. No win 8 support is a big plus in my book. The sooner it dies the better.

[adam1991]

You would choose a probably inferior performing product (OK, it does win on size/energy/noise) *because* it lacks Win8 support???

[makryger]

I don't get the price point of the echo (you can easily buy an xbox for the same price with way more function), and wouldn't consider buying one until windows 8 is supported. What if it never is?

Also you're not forced to get an xbox live membership to get access to online streaming video (which should be available on the echo at some point through Android)

[adam1991]

Never, ever buy into a product because "it should be better down the road" and "while it can't do any of this one thing now, it should be updated to do that thing that its competitor *can* do now but for which they charge extra"

Leave buying futures to the stock traders.

[staknhalo]

Agreed. ^

[lithium630]

Never, ever buy into a product because "it should be better down the road" and "while it can't do any of this one thing now, it should be updated to do that thing that its competitor *can* do now but for which they charge extra"

Leave buying futures to the stock traders.

I don't agree. If all else is equal (not saying it is), then I would go for the product that is actively being improved. That being said I wouldn't assume any specific features will be added either.

[wilkcards]

The xbox is great/terrific/amazing as an extender. DTS/MKV support would be nice...

I would like the echo for $80-$100

[Sjchmura]

MKV/DTS works fine with XBOX360 as an extender.... installed shark007 codecs (shark007.net). reall simple. USes LAV as default. It just "works". Sure you can tweak it how you like, can completely uninstall etc.

XBOX is not fast enough for FULL BD rips to MKV however. Seems to top out at about 20mps

[ERamseth]

Xbox 360 definitely. I've found that Windows 8 actually greatly reduces the lag and improves responsiveness on the Xbox 360 as an extender. Also, not sure if echo supports plugins like Recorded TV HD or MediaBrowser, but those might be of interest... Windows 8 also improves responsiveness of those plugins as well (in my experience at least). I believe Windows 8 might remove the necessity for the Shark007 codecs for MKV playback, but I'm not certain. Either way, it is about a 5 minute exercise to install the Shark007 codec pack to get MKV streaming working on Xbox.

Also, the other streaming video services available on it through the Xbox interface are worth it as well... HBO GO, Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, WatchESPN, etc. Yeah you'll need an Xbox Live membership, but those can be had for around $35/year if you spend about 5 minutes to search for a deal. Totally worth it.

[Skybolt]

MKV/DTS works fine with XBOX360 as an extender.... installed shark007 codecs (shark007.net). reall simple. USes LAV as default. It just "works". Sure you can tweak it how you like, can completely uninstall etc.

XBOX is not fast enough for FULL BD rips to MKV however. Seems to top out at about 20mps

Exactly, I have no issues with the 360 running DVD MKV rips, BD rips ~20mbps seems to be the ceiling for the 360.
I have an older HP extender in the office, an xbox Elite in the HT and a slim in the MB.

That said, the Echo can not do that, along with many live TV issues at the moment. At least for me.

The Echo is currenly un-plugged pending FW that will stop lockups and reboots. Also the Echo does not support conventonial theming like the HP or Xbox does.

[Cryofax]

I use 2 echos and 1 XBox 360 slim that stream live Comcast TV (cablecard w/ InfiniTV4) from an HTPC running windows 7. The echoes work better than the cableboxes I used to have by far. If that is your main objective, then I'd go with the echo. It's quiet and uses less power than the 360. My 360 is better at streaming video files from my PC than the echos, but I haven't done much work in finding the best format for them yet. If you're wanting Netflix/Hulu/HBOGo etc I'd say it's a choice between waiting for the android implementation of the echo and being willing to pay for an XBox Gold subscription to get it now. Personally I'm waiting. I can get those on my PCs and PS3 to tide me over until the echo is ready.