Your Thoughts On Xbox Smartglass?

Azhar said:
As a media center this has great potentials.

Question about the Xbox 360 for anyone who can answer it: The output capability is 720p, is it? If I made a 1080p MKV, can the Xbox 360 play it back on the television?
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nope it would be 720p and the 360 can not play MKV files any way only avi and wmv
 
I want to add, that i always keep my running 1080i since my Sony tube tv supports I but not p.

The only bad thing about xbox is it seems to not quite support all the diferent file formats as ps3 does.. I seem to have quite a few files that wont play on xbox but plays perfectly fine on ps3.
 
Elios said:
nope it would be 720p and the 360 can not play MKV files any way only avi and wmv
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Ah well, maybe the next Xbox then. Gives me time to save up for this Smartglass setup.
 
This really seems like something you have to try before you dismiss/accept it.

But props to Microsoft for making something that will work with the devices you already own... unless it's a blackberry device (like my playbook). I would have expected this to be WP7/W8 only.
 
theres no way this isnt the future. everything will be integrated one day. theres just no reason you should have a tablet, phone, pc, and console that all dont talk to each other. i think this will do a piss-poor job of it at first, but after a few years microsoft will be the most experienced at bringing everything together, and it will start to really come into its own. im really glad they are supporting iOS and android with this as well. it would be easy for them to say "only works on windows(tm) phones, tabs, pcs, and xbox. but the fact that theyre supporting other OSs means it might actually have a chance of catching on. support is going to be a bitch though. also i think this may be a big reason MS wants everyone on metro. one interface to rule them all. still dumb to force it since a lot of us want to just game on our PCs and do weak shit on phones/tabs.
 
i watched this and i have to say im stoked - the potential for this is fantastic. right now i have to agree with the post for the fantasy sports guy who says watch a replay on your tablet while watching the game - or see someone's stats while watching the game - all done automatically for you....very cool stuff

no i do not own an x-box, however i will probably buy the next generation device that they put out. this didnt seem like it was all that geared towards gamers - more getting their foot in the door to act as an HTPC really....which has me excited because i have been thinking about that for a few years really.... it seems damn close to being able to stream my movies stored on a SAN.....very interesting stuff.

Now Gamers - yes i am one, and im a PC gamer at that....hence the no xbox....what he scared at the end and totally played down that i dont see anyone else taking note of....play xbox games with your friends who play them on the pc....cool right? uh, was until he mentioned being able to get points and rewards and what not, right there tells me that if you want to play games on your PC with people who play them on xbox....gonna have to get a f***ing xbox account just to play a game on the pc....

that is the scary part, no more free to play games - i shouldnt have to pay a monthly fee to play a game i just shelled out 50 or 60 bucks for.
 
This is one of those things some people might think is cool when being demonstrated, but it's not one of those things anyone would ever use.
 
Ok seriously, Why would anyone use their phone to control their TV? Have none of you heard of a logitech harmony? It does everything your phone can only better and it does quite a bit more as well. I have enough crap draining my phone battery without needing it for my TV as well.
 
Tv shows - meh, I'm watching the show, not my toy.

Movies - I don't know about anyone else, but I can't fragment watch movies. Tablets/phones always seem to be about doing things in fragments, watch any ad for them, they'll do something for 2 seconds, get bored, move to something else. Not the best example, but it seems that's how people use them. I just can't, I have to watch the whole thing in one go.

Games - meh, who really wants to keep shuffling between toys (phone/tablet/controller), to play the game? Imagine pc ports of those games. Urg. You just know that one mouse and a left hand control of some keys will do everything that those three devices can do, but they'll stuff it up for sure.

Internet - has some use. Would be good to just sit on youtube all day with it with others around. If you just wanted to look something up, you'd use your phone/tablet anyway. Otherwise I don't see the real point of using a web viewing device to control another web viewing device. Just like he said that keyboards don't belong in the living room, to me surfing the net doesn't belong in the living room either.


Anyway, I think they just gave nintendo a big fuck you to the wiiU. :)
 
Definitely has a nice "geeky" sorta "coolness factor" to the tech, kinda like Siri. Also like Siri, I don't think it will be especially useful in it's current form/right away (outside of a pretested demonstration). Just seems like a solution in search of a problem. Maybe like 3dTV some day they will "get it right" (tech, price, etc...) and then everyone will say "Why didn't someone think of this sooner?"
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Ok seriously, Why would anyone use their phone to control their TV? Have none of you heard of a logitech harmony? It does everything your phone can only better and it does quite a bit more as well. I have enough crap draining my phone battery without needing it for my TV as well.
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I have a harmony for devices itself, I have my phone to control the tv & htpc itself, select the movies / tv / music shows I want to watch/listen to, utilize my DVR and get all the information about episodes, movies, which i've watched and not watched.... each has it's own place in how I use them, and sadly no.. the logitech cannot come close to replacing what my phone does.
 
From their demos, this is probably a feature that will never be implemented. I am not so sure they could even find a compelling use for this that would make me care. It is the same thing as motion controls vs using a game pad. I don't think they can make many types of games that I would prefer motion (mostly because it is slow and labor intensive) over using a game pad.
 
LordCalin said:
I have a harmony for devices itself, I have my phone to control the tv & htpc itself, select the movies / tv / music shows I want to watch/listen to, utilize my DVR and get all the information about episodes, movies, which i've watched and not watched.... each has it's own place in how I use them, and sadly no.. the logitech cannot come close to replacing what my phone does.
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I have a Harmony to control all of my devices, but compared to controlling the Apple TV with the iPhone Remote app, it's clunky. Which isn't to say that it is a bad thing... I don't ever want to give up my Harmony... it's just that I really like the smooth integration between my phone and the Apple TV. The problem is that it doesn't work with any of my other devices, because naturally it is Apple-only.

If Microsoft wants to make the Xbox work with my iPhone (and especially if they add an Airplay equivalent for audio and video, though this is much harder, since an iPhone app can't add that feature to other apps), then I wouldn't see any need for the Apple TV any more, despite having an iPhone. This is really the future that I would like. I want it to not really matter whose brand devices you have, but for them to just work together. I already have an Xbox and an iPhone, so this just adds value without cost for me.

Also, to the person who says that free-to-play is gone, because you'll need an account to play online on the PC, that is not correct, as far as I know. Games for Windows Live (which is the horribly named Xbox Live on Windows piece) does not require you to pay for a Live subscription to play multiplayer, unless I'm totally mistaken.
 
So, my phone and tablet will be blowing up with information about the movie I'm watching and that's supposed to help me get more immersed in the movie? :confused:
 
Elios said:
huh maybe they did that in an updates
do soft subs work?
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MKV is just a container, not a format so it depends on how the video and audio tracks are encoded only. I play MKVs fine on mine. The Xbox seems to like MPEG2 best which I don't believe needs anything "extra" to get it to play. I did somehow manage to get Hx264 encoded video working at some point with a lot of hacks and codec downloads, streaming it from a Win7 Media Center. I don't know about the subtitles, maybe VOB (DVD format) subs might work in the MKV, haven't tried it though.
 
Azhar said:
As a media center this has great potentials.

Question about the Xbox 360 for anyone who can answer it: The output capability is 720p, is it? If I made a 1080p MKV, can the Xbox 360 play it back on the television?
Click to expand...

When you say "the ouput capability is 720p, is it?", is that asking if it can do higher, or your tv only supports 720p? If tv only supports 720p does it support 1080i? If it supports 1080i and you are running in 720p, i would immediately hop to 1080i.
 
Elios said:
huh maybe they did that in an updates
do soft subs work?
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It won't play them natively, but through media center.. if you make your windows media center capable of playing mkv, the x-box will be able to play them since it just streams it as an extender.
 
After watching this, I'm left with the feeling that...I need to spend more time outside.
 
Merc1138 said:
Why is it so many companies think that people want to mess around with a phone/tablet while their watching movies, tv shows, or playing games? The phone interface to control the web browser on the TV is nice, but beyond that it's pointless.
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I think it's for people like me that use their computers while the TV is on because TV is boring and I might have a touch of ADD
 
A couple of the posts at work sound a little like the people I help at work who've said they never expected to use a smartphone. A phone should only have buttons to dial the number, why do we need a screen on it?

And as a gamer, I feel like having more screens will improve gameplay. I wish more games would do multi-monitor (and I don't mean just have expanded resolution). I prefer an immersive experience.

And.. my logitech harmony sucks. It doesn't get me where I want to go fast enough.

And.. now I don't need to more cables running to either my laptop or tablet to get stuff to show on the TV.

I know the connection isn't something new, but everything else is pretty cool.

We should come back to this thread a few years from now and ask whether or not people are still using analog phon-- i mean, a non-smart TV :p
 
again, this is microsoft living up to its word.

this is just the beginning as well.

3 years ago, microsoft displayed this video

this is just the beginning of the realization of that vision.

it also makes the xbox absolutely destroy apple tv's functionality.

im stoaked about it.
 
I ran accross this late but, it looks cool, and appears it will not be 100% MS only products. Though surely it will work best with MS only products.

I love how people say I cant see the use for this. Really you cant see the possibility of playing a sports game with friends and not being forced to give away you play and choices or being able to draw up your own. You can't see how much better this is for controlling a xbox than garbage controllers?

The bigger question is will this xbox have a large enough user base and windows devices for content providers to make stuff that uses this. This is also a way better solution to things than the wii u which wants you to buy thier controller rather than using the nice devices you already have.

The kinect, and this are 2 great things that show that MS unlike most companies is really forward thinking. Really the whole business model of a console is to sell you as much useless crap to make up for the loss on the system. So when MS canabalizes their sales of silly controllers and devices that neither nintendo nor sony was willing to do it shows you they have a much longer term bigger picture in mind. Then people sit around saying they dont innovate, even though they are willing to sacrifice profit to get us into the future.
 
I generally don't want crap being pushed to my face in my other devices, but I gotta hand it to them--it's sheer genius using Game of Thrones as an example (embarrassed to admit that I'm retarded when it comes to that show, and rarely follow the interrelationships between the locations and people...).

One problem with all of this--ISP data caps...still...hasn't changed... :(
 
just gotta post, downloaded the smart glass app onto my nexus 7 tablet and so far its running great. typing this post on my TV using my nexus 7 to control my 360`s ie browser and it works great. very impressive idea. Looking forward to messing around with it some more tommorow
 
Hey ragenrok, did you need to side load the app, news online says it is only compatible with ICS devices and even said nexus 7 did not work. I assume like most android apps it will work on everything if you side load it.
 
rudy said:
Hey ragenrok, did you need to side load the app, news online says it is only compatible with ICS devices and even said nexus 7 did not work. I assume like most android apps it will work on everything if you side load it.
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just downloaded the apk from xda forums an installed it, works great and installed fine. But ya wouldnt let me install from google store.

heres the link to the page i got the apk from.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1957648
 
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