The Xbox 360: Microsoft's "Apple TV-Plus" Further Matures

While my recent editorial output (hopefully) makes it clear that I don't underestimate the consumer importance (and therefore the monetary value) of 'it just works', I still find the now-shipping Apple TV's $299 price tag pretty mind-boggling. Yes, you can use it to directly access all of your music, still image and video content (as long as it's in Apple-approved formats, that is), including FairPlay DRM'd material. And yes, you can now watch TV shows captured via Elgato hardware, after you undertake a lengthy and redundant HDD capacity-gobbling export process, that is.

But none of the movie and television content currently available for download from the iTunes Store is in high-definition resolution, begging the question of why only HDMI and component video outputs are included (although I 'spect I know the answer; stay tuned for a high-def up-sell opportunity from 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA). And, in typical Apple fashion, high per-unit profit margins are assured by virtue of the inclusion of inexpensive and archaic hardware: a now-obsolete single-core 1 GHz Intel CPU, an equally ancient Nvidia GPU, a tiny 4200 RPM HDD, and a paltry daub of DRAM.

Can anyone explain to me why, unless a consumer is already heavily DRM-locked into FairPlay-secured content, he or she wouldn't instead select a much more robust product at a comparable to slightly higher price point? For Apple fans, refurbished single-core Mac minis are regularly available on the Apple Store for a shade over $500, and a brand new dual-core version is $500 (after rebate) through month-end at Micro Center. For the rest of you, Digital Media Receivers sell for less than $100. And then there's the Xbox 360, whose low-end $299 Core variant works just fine both as a Digital Media Receiver and Media Center Extender, and whose HDD-inclusive Premium SKU can currently be found both refurbished and brand new for $340. And movie and TV content, increasingly high-def as time goes on, is abundant on the Xbox Video Marketplace….including (finally!) The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Coming-soon Xbox 360 enhancements further enhance the console's status as a living room entertainment nexus. Among the features that'll be added in the upcoming Dashboard update is support for MPEG-4's Part 2 (simple profile) and Part 10 (aka MPEG-4 AVC, or H.264) video codec flavours, which just happen to be the same two MPEG-4 profiles that Apple uses for its content (note, however, no Advanced Simple profile support, which DivX and Xvid both employ). While I highly doubt that a Microsoft license of the FairPlay DRM is enroute, it'd sure be a slick means by which Apple could get European regulatory pressure off its back, huh?

One other welcome coming-soon Dashboard enhancement, which hasn't been widely promoted, is the ability to stream DRM'd video content from generic Windows XP systems. While this feature has long been supported for Media Center Edition systems, last fall's Dashboard update specifically excluded DRM'd material coming from conventional XP machines. After the pending Dashboard update, I'll be able to, for example, watch movies on the Xbox 360 in my living room that I've rented from CinemaNow and Movielink and downloaded to my laptop sitting in the office.

Microsoft's Amir Majidimehr also let slip, in a recent AVS Forum posting, that an update to the console's HD DVD playback capabilities was also on the way. And, showing that it hasn't forgotten about its customers with existing Xbox title libraries, Microsoft continues to beef up the console's backwards-compatibility support. Finally, I no longer need to hold onto my first-generation Xbox in order to play Oddworld Munch's Oddysee….