Mac Media via Xbox 360 with Connect360
September 23, 2008 by Ross McKillop
There has been a lot of talk lately about using your Mac and a next-gen console to provide picture and video content to your TV. I suppose this has a lot to do with the Apple TV and being able to mimic its features, or just for the sake of being able to play your movies and iTunes from your TV.
I recently got back into gaming again, and hooked up my wii to the TV, and after a vigorous workout decided I needed a sit down game and plugged in my Xbox 360.
“What does this have to do with your Mac?” I hear you scream. Well, after my wind down on the 360 I decided I was going to try a program I had recently downloaded. This program is called Connect360.
Now my Xbox 360 has a wireless connection to the network, where I used to connect to the Live marketplace and download patches etc. But with Connect360 I can do a lot more. I can listen to all my iTunes music, watch all my movies, and look at all my photo content which is stored on my Mac from the comfort of the living room.
I know there is nothing special about this, and It can be done from a Media Center PC, but I have tried this and the Mac does the streaming of movies so much better. I am prone to downloading and watching Heroes, and although I watch the HD quality movies from my 20″ iMac screen using front row, it just doesn’t beat being able to just watch them on the TV.
The setup is simple, it adds itself to the system Preferences and allows you to share out the folders from iTunes, iPhoto and the Movies folder. It detects when your 360 is on and thats as complicated as it gets, the rest is up to you accessing the media.
Not only can you access these features but you can actually listen to iTunes while playing a game, you can listen to Shoutcasts internet radio, which is a big bonus for me, as they have the best alternative rock stations. Did I mention it does on the fly HD video streaming?
I have yet to find something it can’t do. This is really impressive and any Mac user with a 360 should get this program as it saves getting an Apple TV.
Author - Wrath2021
The last version I tried out did work, but the movies I shared werent organized in folders. I found unfeasible to manage all the tons of divx I have as a single list to scroll down to find the movie I want. I took me forever. Does this new ver support folders?
I bought the full version of Connect360 after trying it, and I absolutely love it. I’ve been using it to stream songs to my XBox while playing online matches. However, there is unfortunately one very important thing that it (understandably) can’t do, and that’s streaming my DRM-protected iTunes Store content, like TV shows and some purchased music.
Darn, cant stream DRMed stuff!?!? Thats most of my library, so this is pretty useless for purchased music and video. Guess thats how people are squeezed into buying an AppleTV…
Works great! Yeah, its a bummer about the DRMed stuff, but iTunes is going DRM free now. You can even free your existing songs of DRM for a fee (that sucks). I have a similar complaint about how movies are organized, I wish it would show folders.