Here I am again bitching about Microsoft again, why this time? Because they have decided to add DivX support to the XBox360 – finally. Then why am I complaining? While they have added DivX support they’ve chosen not to support DivX inside Media Center extender on the XBox360. What? Huh? Why would they do this?

For those of you that don’t use Media Center (I’d assume everyone reading this) let me explain the issue here. There are 2 ways to use an XBox for video – the first is through the standard XBox360 interface. You can go to the media section and stream content from Windows Media Player on a XP or Vista box. This is very cool for people that just have a few photos, MP3′s, or video files they’d like to play on their TV. In the past DivX support wasn’t included here so you either had to per-convert your files or transcode them on the fly – neither a good solution. So the recent news that Microsoft was going to be adding DivX support was very welcome for someone like me who has tons and tons of DivX video (DivX is easily the most popular video codec on the net right now). The second way to get video/music/photos out of an XBox360 is to set it up as a Media Center Extender – this acts as a frontend to a Media Center PC by bringing that interface to your TV through the XBox360. They’ve been doing this for years and in general it works great, you get almost the same experience on the XBox360 that you would on a Media Center PC – with a few exception. One of those exceptions is DivX support (and a few other codecs and features).

So the news that Microsoft would support DivX on the XBox360 was very exciting to me as I could stop using my Media Center PC (that can be flaky, like most Vista boxes) and start using my XBox360 for all my video. Nope, Microsoft has screwed me again – they’ve, in typical fashion these days, done a half ass job of supporting the standards. Why would they do this? Why would they leave the early adopters, the ones that have shelled out the cash for a full Media Center PC/XBox360 out in the cold? Really, I’m asking? Microsoft care to answer? Nope, didn’t think so.