Couple of silly follow on questions

[Bobvfr]

Some of you may have seen my other thread where I convinced myself of the NEED to own an Xbox One which I will purchase next month when I get back from holiday, although I could easily go out and get it tomorrow if the temptation proves too great.

So I have a couple of questions.

1 Is it possible to substitute another word for Xbox, for example I may want to call my Xbox "Betsy" and say "Betsy on", "Betsy volume up" or "Betsy turn off", or am I stuck with Xbox?

2 Music, I am a bit of an old fuddy duddy when it comes to music, I buy CD's (Still plenty of stuff I like available in second-hand CD shops) and burn them to MP3, these are currently stored on my desktop, and then copied to each device when we want them. Can you just copy these over the network to the hard disc of the Xbox and use them from their and can this be voice activated? Not into downloading music very much. In other words is the hard drive of the Xbox one just like a normal hard drive on a PC as far as sharing is concerne

3 As above for pictures, and does the Xbox have a picture viewer/slideshow feature?

4 Did I read or hear that the Xbox One will support external hard drives soon, I suppose they will plug into the USB ports?

What I am hoping is for the Xbox to take over the most if not all of the Windows media center functions on my PC that is currently hooked up to the TV, it will still be there, but it will then become our file server/back up machine.

Bob

 

[David P2]

Some of you may have seen my other thread where I convinced myself of the NEED to own an Xbox One which I will purchase next month when I get back from holiday, although I could easily go out and get it tomorrow if the temptation proves too great.

So I have a couple of questions.

1 Is it possible to substitute another word for Xbox, for example I may want to call my Xbox "Betsy" and say "Betsy on", "Betsy volume up" or "Betsy turn off", or am I stuck with Xbox?

2 Music, I am a bit of an old fuddy duddy when it comes to music, I buy CD's (Still plenty of stuff I like available in second-hand CD shops) and burn them to MP3, these are currently stored on my desktop, and then copied to each device when we want them. Can you just copy these over the network to the hard disc of the Xbox and use them from their and can this be voice activated? Not into downloading music very much. In other words is the hard drive of the Xbox one just like a normal hard drive on a PC as far as sharing is concerne

3 As above for pictures, and does the Xbox have a picture viewer/slideshow feature?

4 Did I read or hear that the Xbox One will support external hard drives soon, I suppose they will plug into the USB ports?

What I am hoping is for the Xbox to take over the most if not all of the Windows media center functions on my PC that is currently hooked up to the TV, it will still be there, but it will then become our file server/back up machine.

Bob

With regards to audio (and possibly video) sharing, if you set up sharing in Windows Media Player on the PC, you can stream straight to the Xbox. Possibly the same with pictures. I've done that with a 360 but I can't say much about the One.

 

[Maaz Mansori]

I don't have an Xbox One, but, I too, have been evaluating whether it would be possible for one to take over most of the WMC functions. What I found is, the answer is no, not at this time. In regards to your first question, I have no idea but I doubt it. It would be something that could be added in the future though. Xbox One got external hard drive support earlier this month and yes USB. But there is no media player to play music stored on it at this time. As for pictures/slideshows, they would need to be stored on OneDrive to work.

Without a built in TV or cable tuner, the WMC machine is still necessary. In addition, I have movies that I ripped from my own DVDs that would not be playable through the Xbox One, same with the large CD collection that I ripped. I don't have a problem buying new music online but it might not always be from Xbox Music. It could be from Amazon or iTunes. So as far as I can tell, there is no media player app as of yet for the Xbox One that would play them although rumors are that it will be added in the future. We got external drive support now so at least the first step has been taken.

So anyway, I decided to reconsider the idea of going for an Xbox One next year. I updated my WMC machine to Windows 8.1 so I can use Windows 8 Apps. Unfortunately they aren't remote control friendly. I pre-ordered Kinect for Windows to give it a try and see if I can do something similar to what you are asking with voice activated commands. However, I will need to research it a bit more and see what type of apps are in development before deciding to keep my order or cancel it.

 

[Bobvfr]

Another one for you all, just read this:

"Xbox One is more feature-packed in this area thanks to its HDMI in and IR blaster connections used for its TV cable or satellite box functionality."

So do you have to go and buy one of these IR blasters to make the voice commands work with say a Virgin Cable box if you want to change the channels etc.


Bob

 

[Bobvfr]

Just found this:

"Microsoft also supports MP3 and DLNA playback with the Xbox One,"

Sounds like it will deal with MP3 files....


Bob

 

[Bobvfr]

Also found this on the Xbox site:

My music

"Easily manage and play all of the music from your collection right in the Xbox Music app, including songs purchased from iTunes or other services, playlists created with Xbox Music, or albums ripped from CD’s."

Doing well here, if any one can convince me to buy an Xbox One it's me :wink:

Bob

 

[ncxcstud]

First question - you can name your XBOX - but its only used to see it on your network or between multiple xbox one's. You can't say 'Betsy On' and your XBOX One will turn on. I mean, you can say it... but, it won't do anything .

Fourth question - External hard drives are now supported, you need at least a 250gb hard drive and it has to be USB3.0. It plugs into the XBOX's USB ports.

Fifth question - the Kinect is the IR Blaster. If you want to use the XBOX One to control your cable/sat box you need a Kinect for the XBOX One.

 

[Paul Nicholas]

Hey Bob,

1. No, although Cortana is coming to xbox one, so maybe in the future.
2. This is difficult, you'll need a pc and put the mp3s on your xbox music account (it's free don't worry) then you can stream them on your xbox, you can't plug a hard drive in and get it to play off of that (no idea why microsoft took away this feature)
3. The xbox does have a picture viewer but it's accessed through onedrive, so you'll need to upload your pics to onedrive (it's automatic if you have a windows phone)
4. The external hard drive is only for game installations at the moment, no media.
5. I can confirm the xbox works perfectly with virgin after you connect it through HDMI it's does a quick configuration then you can say "xbox watch bbc1" it's the ultimate in laziness and I love it.

Phew... any other questions Bob? I really should be charging you a consultation fee

 

[Bobvfr]

Well I succumbed to temptation and the Xbox One is up and running, although I admit I still have a bit to learn, but for now all I will say is:

THIS IS F***ING GENIUS.

No games installed yet (Only got Titanfall download) but without games so far it is all I wanted and more, I LOVE Smartglass, already have it installed and working on my laptop, Surface Pro and 1520.

All MP3's already on PC so just off to figure out how to put them on Xbox Music.

Shame I have to go to work tomorrow, I need more time to play with this.


Bob

 

[Coreldan]

Well I succumbed to temptation and the Xbox One is up and running, although I admit I still have a bit to learn, but for now all I will say is:

THIS IS F***ING GENIUS.

No games installed yet (Only got Titanfall download) but without games so far it is all I wanted and more, I LOVE Smartglass, already have it installed and working on my laptop, Surface Pro and 1520.

All MP3's already on PC so just off to figure out how to put them on Xbox Music.

Shame I have to go to work tomorrow, I need more time to play with this.


Bob

I'm not sure if there's a direct way to put them to Xbox One atm. You can "PlayTo" to the Xbox One, but that has to be initiated from the PC. I'm sure this will change in the future and it'll allow storing/playing music off of the HDD/external HDD.

I think there is a slideshow feature, but I believe it is through OneDrive-app, meaning the pics would have to be there.

 

[Bobvfr]

Got pictures on Onedrive working, and I can play all my albums, but god knows where they are playing from, but it works, so far everything I have thrown at it is working.

OK so it does sound like I am becoming an MS fan boy, but it all works, hated Windows 8, but from the minute I first saw 8.1, I could tell MS had managed to sort it out and it just works. With the Xbox being the icing on the cake, even my wife was impressed by turning the TV over by voice, it may take her a few weeks before she speaks to it, but my guess is she will be able to watch a DVD without me or the lad having to set it up for her before long, this stuff is smart so you don't need to be :smile:


Bob

 

[Paul Nicholas]

Yes Bob, I'm a microsoft fan boy too. I don't use any tech now that isn't microsoft.

Oh by the way there are two free games with xbox games with gold, max curse of brotherhood (it seems childish at first but trust me it's a very fulfilling puzzle game) and halo spartan assault, this is a basically a port of the windows 8, wp8 game and it's not great on the xbox one but it does have multiplayer which the others don't.

Get them quick as they'll be gone next week and more free games will be out.

I can invite you to the xbox one beta program if you share your gamertag or email address. You won't be guaranteed to get into the program but you get the xbox one updates 2 weeks early if you get in. This months patch helps with the snap feature (which was slightly troublesome switching between the two apps)