Media Centre - xbox or ps3 ...

[Scott328i]

Good afternoon chaps.

I would like to use my xbox or ps3 for a media centre.

I have a basic surround sound which is perfectley fine and only as 1 AUX input so rather than keep swapping leads from TV to my laptop I want to use one or the other. This will also free up enough space on my laptop.

Which does the better job of keeping a media centre organised. The ps3 has a bigger HD but I have never used the interface.

Bearing in mind the TV will also have to be on, do they both have sets of visualisations?

Are they easy enough to update? And could I use them for a running photo gallery whilst playing music?

Your help is much appreciated.

Thanks

[Tycho]

Both are great. If you have a PC with XP of Vista on then you can use the 360 as a media centre extender and even use a tv card in the pc to watch tv on the 360. Both will stream media from a PC but you can use any notebook hard disk in the PS3 (mine has a 160Gb hdd) but only MS ones in the 360 which are quite expensive. TBH whichever you go for you'll be better off streaming from a PC or plugging in a usb hdd.

Both have visualisations but I believe the PS3 has better photo gallery abilities. The PS3 also has a nice web browser that you can plug a usb keyboard and mouse into. I have a wireless keyboard and touchpad on mine.

I personally prefer the PS3s XMB interface over the 360's NXE but you can find lots of info on the web on the differences. If you want to then you can put Linux on the PS3 but it isn't that quick.


ETA: Didn't see that you had both already so you probably know most of this....

Edited by Tycho on Sunday 8th February 17:14

[Swillsy]

xbox 360 + wireless/wired + tversity running off the pc is unbeatable

[4hero]

Swillsy said:

xbox 360 + wireless/wired + tversity running off the pc is unbeatable

I would say that the ps3 and tversity is very nice too

Edited to say, yes you can view photos and play music at the same time on the ps3. When you are playing an album, just press the ps3 button to return to the main menu, scroll to photos and view.

There's a great tutorial for getting tversity set up for the PS3, works a treat!

Edited by 4hero on Tuesday 17th February 15:49