How To Integrate Windows Media Center and Your XBOX 360

A really nice and convenient feature with the XBOX 360 is the integration of Windows Media Center and the XBOX 360. You can also stream music and videos and photos off your PC and straight to your XBOX 360. If you use Windows Media Center and record TV shows or games on your PC, you will be able to watch those shows from the XBOX 360 as well. It's pretty simple to get this all going with your XBOX 360 and I will show you what is necessary to do so.

The first thing you will have do for any of this is to make sure you have a form of connection to your PC. The most common method is to just run an Ethernet cable from your XBOX 360 to a router that's connected to your PC. If anyone has XBOX LIVE then you will not have to worry about a connection because you already have one. For more information on Internet connections to your XBOX 360, check out my article titled "How To Connect Your XBOX 360 To The Internet".

Once you have a basic connection to your computer, if your wanting to stream music and videos onto your XBOX 360 you will have to download the program Zune for your PC. This is pretty much like Windows Media Player or other music players. Zune is a pretty simple program to install and run and it will guide you the whole time.

The primary purpose of Zune is pretty much getting all of your music off your PC and putting in a recognized folder so it's easier for the 360 to find the music. Zune will also ensure that all the music is in the proper format to be played on the XBOX 360, which most like MP3's will be played and I believe WMP files can play as well. Zune will also do the same for any video files on your PC that you may wish to one-day view off your XBOX 360.

In terms of using Windows Media Center with the XBOX 360 it's pretty simple. The same thing will apply like streaming music and videos but you won't be using Zune for this. If you normally record any sports or TV shows on Windows Media Center, the XBOX 360 will normally pick any shows up you have already stored on Windows Media Center and you can choose to stream those shows straight from the XBOX 360.

You can do all of this from the media center tab on your XBOX 360 dashboard and choose which your looking into. Sometimes it will take a moment to pick up the connection from your PC to your XBOX 360 but once it's done you can stream away. You can't take and transfer music from your PC to the 360 unfortunately but you can at least listen to it. This is a great addition to the XBOX 360 but it's not something that's required to use it. Just a very nice convenience.