We bought an Xbox 360 on black friday morning… early. After spending the first couple of days playing games I decided to connect it to the Windows Media Center we have as our PVR.

First off, WMC cannot be beat as a PVR. Tivo has NOTHING on on it. It’s like a Tivo-zilla. I could go on and on about its features but you can google it of you want to know. I took an unused PC, put Vista on it and bought a Media Center remote control (with USB thingy to plug into the computer–you need this), and put a tuner in the PC. Friends are simply blown away by this thing.  Even my father-in-law is impressed with the sports features.

Anyway, so the WMC was already connected to the network for internet access. Once I put the Xbox on the same network–ok, pause for rant:

The WMC used the only network cable we had going to the entertainment center (you would need this no matter what PVR you use). Well, when i put the Xbox in, it needed an Internet connection as well so i unplugged the WMC and plugged in the Xbox. Later I decided to connect both using a small router. Nix that action… the power cable for the router was missing so I used another one. Well, the router uses a 5v, 3A power adapter and I (dumbly) plugged in a 12V, 1.2A adapter. The router died silently.

Anyway (again), after some the silent death drama I got a wireless USB-G adapter. *beep* wrong! The wireless router, an eggcellent ZyXEL X-500 XtremeMIMO, while it has the best transmission power of any (er, one) router I’ve owned, it is on the opposite end of the house, in the basement, in a closet, behind my offices. The signal, therefore, was just too weak to do great video. Nix the USB-G adapter.

Then I ran another cable to the entertainment center.

Once the Xbox and WMC were on the same network, the WMC poped up an notification that an Extender was online. Sweet. I hit next..next..next and it was configured. Oh, I forgot, there is an 8-digit code the Xbox will give you when it sees that you’re using a WMC remote control.

Now I can move the WMC into the basement.