Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Matt Welch photo
1 Level
1357 Review
57 Karma

Review on ๐ŸŽฎ Enhanced Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote by Matt Welch

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Works well with my XBOX360 for remote TV/DVD/stored movies/limited range

I use an external SiliconDust Dual HomeRun tuner for my router and later for the PC. This allows me to record up to two channels simultaneously in HD using Windows Media Center. I also use an old (but legendary) Linksys WRT54G router (the blue one you see everywhere). This router is too slow to stream HDTV wirelessly, I would have to upgrade to a gigabit router for that. That's a lot of data to send over the air. FYI, the SiliconDust tuner is over-the-air (OTA), so you need an antenna. You can connect a cable to it, but with this setting you will only see unencrypted (QAM) channels. Cable companies have been encrypting almost everything lately. So I ran 50ft of Cat 5E cable from the router to another room where I have a 50" Panasonic HDTV with an XB360 connected via an HDMI cable. It works amazingly well. who knew you Can you stream HDTV over a $10 CAT cable? Now I know. You need to add XBOX360 Media Center Extender app to both XBOX360 and Media Center PC. I'm using Windows 7 Home 64-bit. The apps can be downloaded for free. The image quality is indistinguishable from OTA broadcasts. What does all this have to do with reviewing this remote? Well I was using a standard XBOX360 game controller which is so clumsy when watching media on it. Anyone who has watched DVDs on an XBOX360 with a controller knows what I'm talking about: to fast forward almost any video you have to press the shutter buttons on the bottom of the game controller and this only allows you to fast forward 30 seconds. at a time. It's very frustrating! But with this remote control, you can easily switch between FF or Rew 1, 2 or 4X when streaming video, or directly select chapters on a DVD. I think such a remote control is necessary to use the XBOX360 as a remote media center. You can use the BOX360 remotely to view programs (and the guide) and set them up for recording or playback. As clumsy as this configuration is, it's more of a BOX360 design issue than this console. When using this setting, the XBOX360 will not save anything. All media files are stored on PC and transferred to your XBOX360 via CAT cable. My game console does not have a hard drive. So for the money and the convenience I like this thing. A disadvantage is the range. I believe it should be aimed squarely at the XBOX360 and no more than 10 feet away from it. Remote control IR (infrared = line of sight) and only not a very strong signal,

Pros
  • Accessory
Cons
  • Secret