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Xbox 360: now with H.264, MPEG-4, PlaysForSure

Color us tickled, but we totally missed some of the finest points of all in Microsoft's Xbox 360 spring Dashboard update: they're totally tricking out the video (finally!). No longer will we be confined to our very least favorite video codec, WMV -- the new update will enable Windows Media Connect or Media Center streaming MPEG-4 up to 8Mbps, H.264 up to 15Mbps, and PlaysForSure WMV videos (and, as we understand it, PlaysForSure audio as well). Wow, finally we can actually use the 360 to play video that wasn't recorded off our Media Center or converted by our Zune software (cough, hack). See, was that so hard, Microsoft? Now just hold on to your asses until the week of May 7th, Xbox fans, that's all you've gotta do.

Pioneer's BDP-HD1 Blu-Ray player works with Windows Media Connect

Pioneer Blu-Ray
No, we haven't seen the expected BDP-HD1 Blu Ray player from Pioneer since CES, but might have overlooked an interesting feature. Aside from full 1080p output, the BDP-HD1 will also work natively with Windows Media Connect, which opens the door to additional content in the flavors of MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, WMV, MP3 and more. According to Pioneer, the BPD-HD1 will also support the PlaysForSure platform from Microsoft. As happy as we are with this additional info, we have to ask: what's with all this Microsoft stuff working on a Blu-Ray machine? Didn't they "back" the HD-DVD crowd?




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