Connect360 2.5
Nullriver Software
Price: $15 (free trial)
Pros: Your Mac's music and photos on your Xbox, easy installation and operation.
Cons: Movies and songs purchased through iTunes don't get to play.
by Gerrit Dalman, 1st Lt, USAF
While Microsoft Windows is rightfully criticized, another of the company's products has been garnering a lot of praise these days - the Xbox. It's hard to deny that the new Xbox 360, is pretty good for what it is. In fact, a lot of people have compared it to Apple products to highlight the things Remond has done right.
It shouldn't be any surprise then that even a lot of die-hard Apple fans have one in their home now. New features in the Xbox 360 have even allowed it to provide more entertainment than just gaming. The trouble is that if you want to use all the media features, your Xbox has to be networked to a computer running Windows Media Center.
Nullriver Software's Connect360 solves that little problem by helping your Mac pose as a compatible media center PC. With it, you can access your iTunes and iPhoto library directly from your Xbox 360!
Since Connect360 can send JPEG, MP4, MP3, AAC, and more, about the only things you can't stream are videos and protected content purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Don't get me wrong - those are big exceptions - but they're limitations of the Xbox, not Connect360.
Perhaps of more interest to the Xbox's primary market is the ability to play your own tunes in place of the default soundtrack in Xbox 360 games. I'm not a fan of the heavy rap soundtrack in Need For Speed: Most Wanted, but my own racing playlist sets the mood to my tastes.
Multiple Xbox's can access the stream too, so in a LAN environment, like a dorm or barracks, several users can enjoy your media collection. You can even use iTunes or FrontRow sharing simultaneously. Of course if you wanted to crack down, you could choose to stream only checked songs and photos or use the built-in access control list to restrict Xbox's by IP address.
All of this is accomplished quickly without lagging the host Mac. Music plays almost instantly and photo load times are reasonable. In fact, the default photo transition is long enough to hide any loading as long as you don't skip ahead. The demands on the streaming Mac are measurable, but in hours of testing were never noticeable when performing even heavy office functions or playing last years games.
As strange as it may seem, using Connect360 to bridge the gulf between your Mac and an Xbox 360 may be the best way at present to get your iLife into your living room. Especially since the Xbox can simultaneously make up for the limited Mac gaming market.
If you own a Mac and an Xbox360 you owe it to yourself to download the limited trial and see what is possible with Connect360!
System Requirements (Mac):
* Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
* iTunes & iPhoto
* Xbox 360