xbox 360 iptv

New Xbox 360 User Experience

Plenty has been made of the Xbox 360 new user experience (well, by Microsoft anyway) this past month. “Only one week to go!” we were told. “It’s like we’re giving everyone a new console” they said, so let me say this from the get-go – it’s a huge pile of crap!

You realize you’re in trouble just about the time when you’re picking the style of your Avatar’s jeans.

Because I’m not twelve, I couldn’t give a flying-f*ck what hair style or T-shirt my “online character” has. Indeed, I don’t even want an online character. Unfortunately, while you don’t have to customize it, you don’t get a choice in this matter. It’s an annoying Wii-wannabe of an idea and it’s pointless and annoying.

BBC iPlayer (UK)

Having recently put together a new Home Theatre PC (HTPC), I’ve been looking at the various options that I have with new TV entertainment services, the latest of which is the BBC’s iPlayer UK service.

It seems to have taken a while in actually arriving as I’m sure that this service was first talked about a year or two back, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from it, especially after having already tried the Channel 4 On Demand application that downloads TV shows – however this isn’t always free and the fact that they were charging for something I could see for free on the TV wasn’t something that I was too happy about.

The BBC iPlayer comes in two different formats;

- a streaming online service accessable through the BBC website.
- a downloadable application which downloads the shows prior to viewing.