Connect 360: Apple and Microsoft Living in Harmony… sort of.
In my ideal world Apple would have a gaming platform to rival the likes of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Alas, they don’t, so we must look elsewhere. My personal preference is the Xbox 360, an excellent gaming console with rich multimedia capabilities.
When I first got my Xbox 360 back in December of 2005, getting it to communicate with a Mac was impossible. Now we have Connect360 from Nulriver, recently updated to version 3.1. Connect360 is a simple but effective piece of software that allows media connectivity between your 360 and your Mac.
Connect360 does a similar job to WindowsMediaConnect but adds iTunes integration allowing your iTunes library and playlists to effortlessly stream to your 360. Connect360 also supports streaming of live internet radio. Just add the stations to a playlist and soon you’ll be streaming 80’s Pop to your Xbox while chainsawing someone in Gears of War… or am I the only one?
Setup couldn’t be easier, just a couple of clicks and Connect360 installs within System Preferences. Just hit the start/stop button and Connect360 will automatically share your iTunes library, iPhoto library and Movies folder. On your 360, go to the media section, select Music, Picture or Photos. Then select computer, press the A button and then select your Mac running Connect360. Not exactly Apple-intuitive, but it gets the job done.
The newest iteration of Connect360 coupled with the latest update from Microsoft allows streaming support for WMV+WMA, H.264 and MPEG4 (in MP4 and MOV containers).
Nulriver’s Connect360 is available for $20. The trial version allows 100 songs, 100 Photos, and 5 movies to be shared. You can’t pick the songs, photos or movies in the trial version so registering is a must to get the best out of it.
This is a great app, with a solid dev crew, and well worth the $20 imo. 3.1 has pretty much cleared up any issues I had with this tool as well. Good review.
Top application. Since 3.1 My Xbox 360 has become the media center of my setup. No problems whatsoever. Apart from when moving media into the Movies shared folder. Remember to use Finder, if use you use another file manager app (sans Pathfinder)the directory won’t index the new media files.
Highest recommendations. I own two NullRiver apps and I’ve never had any issues. They work sensational. Update frequently and have excellent additions with each release. Best of all you receive future additions for free.
I now stream all my movies, photos, and music to my living room seamlessly. Worth twice as much!
(Regarding WrinklyNinja’s comment above, you can also browse to choose a folder that already contains your movies. I have all of mine backed up a hard drive which I access just for media…)
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