Does the 360 make a good home theater system?

As far as I know the new slimline will support streaming from XP, Vista and 7. As long as you have Windows Media Player etc then it will be fine.

Codec wise the 360 plays pretty much all files except for a few, mainly quicktime files, and some HD files, but with the slim they may have fixed this and added those codecs.

I don't have the slim, I've got the 360 original and I plug in my portable HDD via the USB ports and I can stream movies perfectly fine off of it.
Where your concerned about buffering rate for HD, like I said, if it's a different codec (which I've encountered before, i.e .ogg(?)) it may not play, but like I said, the slim may have added these to keep up with the ever expanding HD market. From what I've witnessed however, with 720p and 1080p files they run perfectly fine with no out-of-sync audio or picture (just make sure the file you've got plays fine on other systems as if is a problem, it's most likely the file).

Hope that helps you. :)

I like my 360 and my PS3 very much. However, lf I had to choose only one it would be the PS3 hands down. The included blu ray player is the main selling point for someone looking to make their console a home theater centerpiece. Otherwise there are pros and cons to both systems.

120GB PS3 = $299.00

250GB 360 = $299.00

Now, I would just do as much research as you can on both consoles and if you are not remotely interested in PS3 then sorry for this advice.

the xbox 360 can stream videos from xp using media playa or zune...it also supports avi, divx, mp4, m4v, mp4v, mov, wmv video playback and can read usb drives but needs to be in fat32

the 360 slim has a built-in wifi n so u'll be able to stream ur HD videos flawlessly

Sure you get the blu ray but can the PS3 play the different file types? The 360 also has the benefit of being able to sync up to your PC.brandon2802

These are the file types ps3 can play. source

• Memory Stick Video Format
• - MPEG-4 SP (AAC LC)
• - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile （AAC LC）
• - MPEG-2 TS（H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC）
• MP4 file format
• - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (AAC LC)
• MPEG-1 (MPEG Audio Layer 2)
• MPEG-2 PS (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AAC LC, AC3(Dolby Digital), LPCM)
• MPEG-2 TS（MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AC3（Dolby Digital）, AAC LC）
• MPEG-2 TS（H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC）
• AVI
• - Motion JPEG (Linear PCM)
• - Motion JPEG (μ-Law)
• AVCHD （.m2ts / .mts）
• DivX
• WMV
• - VC-1（WMA Standard V2

I believe the PS3 can also now stream from a person's PC as well.

Both systems pretty much play the same files, and both systems can stream from a PC with Vista or Windows 7 nicely. The PS3 does have blu-ray, but honestly the 360 upconverts DVDs a lot better than the PS3 does so if you have a lot of newer DVDs they will look just as good as blu-rays. If you have a lot of older DVDs or a lot of blu-rays then the PS3 might be better.

Addressing the TCs original questions, the 360 will do everything you want it to. It will stream 720p, and 1080p just fine, although I will admit I don't have a lot of experience doing it with WiFi, since mine is hard wired, I would guess since the new 360 has wireless N it shouldn't be a problem though.

I believe the PS3 can also now stream from a person's PC as well.

Zanwolf

Personally I think the PS3 would be better for home theater if not only because of blu ray.gbpackers94

Well it depends. If you really have a nice theather with a good HD setup than no because of 1 thing no blu ray so the PS3 would be better for that. Now if you can live with dvd than yeah get it.