Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• XBox 360

• Having trouble connecting to games on Xbox Live through a router?

  If you are having trouble connecting to games through a router, and you don't have issues when you go directly to the cable modem, you can set your Xbox as the DMZ host. Background Basically, your cable connection gives you a single IP address that the rest of the world can talk to. When you connect the modem directly to the Xbox, you don't have to worry about this - you have a single device and all traffic is sent directly there. When when you go into a router, you have two networks - the external one (i.e., the Internet) and your internal network (your computer, your router, your xbox). If Xbox Live wants to send data to your Xbox, it has to rely on the router to figure out where to forward the traffic to. This is where Network Address Translation , or NAT, comes into play. If you're having trouble connecting to games (or hearing certain players in, say, Rainbox Six: Vegas), then NAT is probably the problem. You can confirm by going to the System Blade and testing your network... Posted Jan 21 2007, 04:27 PM by Tim with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming

• Streaming (HD) video to the XBox 360 - but only if you have MCE

  Kevin is streaming HD video from his XP Media Center Edition to his XBox 360 ( via James ) It's a little disappointing that the 360 can't stream video with Windows Media Connec (it does great with music and photos, but not video). My Streamium SL400i does the video thing very well, and it's probably the only reason I haven't moved it from my living room so far. How does MCE stream the video? Are there any technical reasons why MCE can stream video by WMC can't? (To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if MCE used WMC internally - seems redundant otherwise!). Or is this just a matter of positioning by reserving functionality for Media Center? It's good to see video is supported though, one way or another. I may just have to rebuild my primary desktop as a Media Center build (even though I don't have a tuner). Along these lines - has anyone tried to use 360 + Vista ? Vista Ultimate Edition includes Media Center functionality (the beta is ultimate edition). I'd... Posted Dec 09 2005, 10:45 AM by Tim with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming

• Play me on Xbox 360

  If you're one of the lucky ones who already scored their 360, come play me on Xbox Live. ( My gamertag is corpcow ). My RitzCamera pre-order fell through, but I managed to score 2 over-priced bundles through Amazon and Dell. Unfortunately, my impatience led me to open the Core bundle from Amazon the day before the Premium bundle shipped. (It was listed as backordered and wasn't expected to ship for another month!). Anyways, I ended up selling the second bundle (at cost) to someone I know through work. Oh well, these kids should have a great Christmas. In the meantime, I have to wait on the hard drive since it's backordered everywhere, but I'll deal. (I did want to see how some of the older games looked when upscaled). The only game I am really any good at is Madden 2006. I've been playing Project Gotham Racing 3, which is fun, but I'm pretty much terrible. Of the maybe 10 races I've done online, I think I've only finished one before time ran out. Ouch. Posted Dec 06 2005, 06:59 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming

• The XBox as Entertainment Hub

  Matt passes along an MSN article about the XBox 360 as media hub. [Gates] told the annual meeting of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers that Xenon's software menu would be similar to that of the company's Media Center edition of Windows, which is designed for computers meant to be located in the living room. "If you're used to that menu, when you use this Xenon you'll see a menu a lot like that that lets you get photos, TV, music and all those different things." This is hardly surprising, as the original XBox was largely about having a presence in the living room. The Media Center "failed" (I say this in the mass market success) largely because it was not a consumer device. The primary factor here is cost - TiVO and other such devices are priced in the hundreds of dollars; most MCEs are powerful computers and priced accordingly. Granted, we've seen some cheaper options lately, but still nothing close to the $200-300 price point.... Posted May 05 2005, 12:15 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming

• XBox Live disconnects with a Linksys router? [Answer: Downgrade the firmware]

  I had some disconnect problems when connecting to XBox Live through through my Linksys wireless router (BEFSW11S4). It would be fine for awhile but eventually I would just get booted. (e.g., in a game of Madden, I usually didn't make it to the second half). For those of you with similar issues, see the resolution here . It turns out it was related to new firmware. The weird thing is that it worked initially and only started acting up a few weeks later. To fix the problem, I downgraded the firmware to 1.42.7. Linksys only includes the latest version on the website, but the older versions are available on their FTP site. (Here's a link ). Please note: This was written awhile back and is applicable only to the router mentioned above. Linksys may have also released updated firmware that works. I'm now using a Netgear 614 v5 router and I haven't had any issues If you are having trouble connecting in the first place (or not using this router)... The issue I described above is specific to this... Posted Oct 25 2004, 11:29 AM by Tim with | with 37 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming