Xbox 360

4th time is the charm. GTA4, MGS4 and COD4.

gta4mgs4cod4
This is a list of games that are on their fourth version and also the first time I've ever played them. GTA4 is amazing, I had also never played a GTA game before. It's so much better than games that are similar. COD4 is awesome, I had never played COD before this one and I've invested more time in it than Halo 3. MGS, another game I've never played but MGS4 is going to make me buy a PS3. With DualShock3 of course.
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Apple TV and external hard drives

I look forward to owning an Apple TV. First I'm going to have to get a widescreen TV which is the only kind they work with. They also work with 480p TVs but what's the point in that?

I don't currently own an Apple TV but I do own an Xbox 360. And as it turns out the Xbox is one hell of a good video device. I have a 500GB external USB hard drive formatted as FAT32. It must be FAT32 for you to be able to connect it to your Xbox 360. Once connected to your Xbox 360 over USB you can watch many video types. I've been using Handbrake to convert my DVD movies to M4V video files. I'm using Handbrake's Apple TV Take 2 settings with 2-Pass. Then I transfer the video files to the Movie folder on the external hard drive.

I can easily select the hard drive from the Xbox 360 menu and play any movie or TV Show (Firefly) I have on it. And they look fantastic. You can also put image files on the drive and view them from the Xbox. I plan on getting a PS3 (maybe) by the end of this or beginning of next. The PS3 will also read this same drive connected over USB and play the same video files or view image files.

The Apple TV has been out for a year now and it's one USB port currently serves no purpose. When I get an Apple TV I want to be able to connect my pre-existing 500GB external USB hard drive to it. And have it play the movie files I've already encoded. I am making sure to select Apple TV specific settings.

Why does it matter. Because I really like the idea of all my movies accessible from one location. This is taking time and effort to setup. It would be nice not to lose the effort when it comes to the Apple TV. If the Apple TV never supports external storage, the drive will remain connected to the Xbox 360 and will continue to be my main source for video content. I already rent more movies from Xbox Live than iTunes or TiVo.

"Apple, by the time I get an Apple TV could you enable external storage through the USB port? And make sure it can read FAT32 so I don't have to reformat and transfer all of my video files."
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