That might be a little confusing – let me back up.  I own an XBOX 360.  In my opinion, it’s one of (if not the) very best home media devices ever made.  I enjoy playing video games, but the XBOX Live has a lot of cool functions, including the very best implementation of Netflix I’ve ever see (blows the TIVO interface out of the water.)  And one of the other things it lets you do is plug in external media.

Basically, here’s the deal.  I rip all of my movies and TV series (from The Big Lebowski to Entourage) into digital files, generally MPEG 4 files (either .MP4 to .M4V) with AAC audio encoding.  To do this I use either DVD Fab Platinum (a paid software available only for PC) or Handbrake (a free software that works best on the Mac, though it does have a PC version.) I then store these files in multiple locations (a future post on redundancy will elaborate on this point.)  One of those locations is a Maxtor OneTouch HDD (pictured right) – I bought a 750 GB drive at Costco a while back.  I transfer ripped movies and shows, and plug it into my XBOX.  This gives me a backup of those files, and a medium to deliver them to my big screen.  The files, ripped into 720p quality, play beautifully on my plasma.  I have a large library of content, accessible through an awesome UI, and totally independent of things like an Internet connection or a solid WiFi signal.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still watch DVDs.  And I still stream shows through Netflix (30 Rock in HD is awesome.)  But I am a hoarder (OK not that bad), and I like having the files themselves, locally, and the XBOX is perfect delivery device for watching those local shows.  Now I can see each and every episode of Arrested Development as often as I like, on the big screen, right off my HDD.  That makes me happy.  10 happy.

I’m a big fan of using an external HDD as both a storage device and a delivery mechanism.  You’ll need to rip your DVD collection, but it’s satisfying to have it at your fingertips and not have to fuddle with disks.  Yeah, I said fuddle.  Sue me.

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I got the red rings of death about a month ago.  It’s a well documented (and sucky) phenomenon that afflicts older XBOX 360’s.  Basically, if three red lights come on around the power switch you know that you are well and truly fuct.

I am not technical and geeked out enough to try the “rip it open and tinker” method that Doug demonstrates on Crunchgear, so I tried the anti-intuitive but briefly successful method of superheating:

I was shocked that this actually did fix my XBOX… for about 3 days.  Then it crapped out again.   Fortunately for me, I shop at Costco.  From all reports Microsoft has actually been very good about fixing or replacing these consoles, and I did print out a free UPS shipping label.  But then I decided I was better off to simply purchase a new console at Costco and return the old one.  Their outstanding return policy is, after all, part of the reason I shop there.

So now I have a new XBOX 360, and one with a 60GB HDD instead of a lowly 10GB HDD.  Hooray.  Except, all my data is still on the 10GB.  This includes saved games, unlocked songs on Guitar Hero, downloaded content (DLC) like map packs for Call of Duty and more.  In aggregate that represents a large investment in time and energy.  But I don’t know how to get my data off the old HDD and onto the new one.

I’m aware that there is a transfer kit, with a special cable and a disc.  But XBOX doesn’t sell it.  And neither does any other reputable retailer.  I found and bought one on Ebay, but it turned out to be a complete POS.  The disc does not work at all – the XBOX 360 reads it as a “mixed media disc” and won’t effect the transfer.  This leaves me with very limited options.  I’ve emailed Microsoft asking for help, but I am not sure what their response will be.  I’ll update this post when I find out.  If you have other suggestions, I’m listening.

If I were forced to give this entire experience (the red rings of death and the difficulty in making a data transfer) a numeric score between one and ten… Well you can probably guess what my ranking would be.

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I have an Xbox 360. When I heard about the new Xbox Live experience (new UI, new architecture, more features, more customization, etc.) I thought it sounded really cool. I’ve always thought it was a neat product, but I also thought there was a better interactive experience waiting to be enjoyed, if only someone would come along and develop it. Last Thursday, November 20, 2008, that experience became available for everyone.

One of the features I was most interested in was the Netflix streaming directly to your Xbox 360. I believe that digital home media have a long way to go. Networked media PC’s are a pain to set up, streaming media servers even more so, and Apple TV (even with Apple’s vaunted user-experience) isn’t an elegant or simple solution. But I have an Xbox 360, a computer (for all intents and purposes,) already hooked up to my television and with an HDMI connection.   Netflix streaming directly onto my TV? Sounds excellent.

I even resurrected a membership for this. I had Netflix a long time ago, and ended up canceling because I just didn’t get enough value from it. I get lots of movies from the Library (I know, laugh all you want, but’s it free) and I felt like I was always forgetting to return the Netflix discs and just throwing money away on the membership. So I canceled. But this Xbox partnership seemed like a good reason to renew the subscription, because of the ease, convneience, and my sheer exuberance at the prospect of streaming it right on to my Xbox. Then reality set in.

I just re-subscribed to Netflix, activated my account on the Xbox, and added (hang on) 39 movies to my queue. Thirty-nine movies. Of those, not one is available to stream the Xbox 360.  Not one.

Now that, my friends, is weaksauce.

And before you retort smartly, let me say that this is not just a bunch of brand new, extra fun movies.  Among others I have indies (Run, Fat Bot, Run – 2007), thrillers (Revolver – 2005), TV (How I Met Your Mother Season 1 – 2005), Action (Blade – 1998), Sci-Fi (Resident Evil: Extinction – 2007), and comedy (Forgetting Sarah Marshall – 2008) to name just a few.  There’s a good blend, in my opinion, of older and newer, hotter and less-hot choices in my list.  And none of them are available to stream.  That’s not acceptable.

After searching diligently I did finally find one movie, National Treasure 2, that was available for streaming to Xbox Live, and I wasn’t wholly opposed to watching it.  It worked flawlessly.  I’ve never watched any of the National Treasure movies, but my wife convinced me that I might like them, so I gave it a shot.  Truthfully, I enjoyed the movie.  Low expectations help a lot, and the history is a lot of fun.  But more importantly, the Netflix experience on the Xbox 360 was fantastic.  Moments after adding the movie to my queue, the Xbox Live page displayed it as available.  I asked to watch the movie, and in 15 seconds it was ready to go.  The picture quality was excellent, and the controls all worked perfectly.  I was REALLY satisfied with the experience of using Netflix.   Unfortunately, there’s not much for me to watch.

Netflix and Xbox have bragged that there’s a library of 12,000 shows to choose from and stream to your Xbox 360.  That’s not real helpful, if I don’t want to watch any of them.  I am sadly unimpressed, and if I were forced to give this a numeric rating between 1 and 10, right now it would get a 4.  I like the idea and the service worked well, but there’s no content I’m interested in seeing.  No bueno.

Some Related Stories & Links:

News 4 Gamers

Gizmodo

CNET News

Tom’s Guide

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Update 11/30/08:

I’ve been thinking about this situation some more.  Jivebotic and Wunder both left very good comments (on 1to10) about what movies are available, and the benefits of the Xbox / Netflix experience.  I agree with both of them.  The way I see it, there are two major problems:

1. There’s still not enough good content available on the Xbox.  Jivebotic pointed out some good movies that I can watch, sure enough.  But they’re still not the ones I want  to watch.  I don’t know why that rubs me the wrong way, but it does.  Out of 40 or so movie titles that I want to watch, I should have been able to find a couple that were available.   For me, there was not one.  

2. Netflix needs to add some kind of serach and identification mechanism, and that right quick.  Currently they do identify their “instant” titles, but there are 4 or 5 different “instant” mechanisms for streaming movies, and not all titles are available for all mechanisms.  I need a way to search for Xbox-compatible films, they need to visibly tag those films with an Xbox logo, and they need to quickly add more titles if they want to keep my business.  

This post is also available on LIVEdigitally.

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