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Posts Tagged ‘Turn Your Xbox 360 Into A Streaming Netflix Player’

Turn Your Xbox 360 Into A Streaming Netflix Player

Oct 31st, 2009 by cinypi

You can turn your Xbox 360 into a Netflix box. You just need an Xbox 360 and a Windows Vista PC. You can watch, browse and queue movies to your Netflix Watch Instantly queue all from your Xbox 360 or Vista Media Center.

What you are able to do:
1. Stream WatchNow movies direct to the Media Center player
2. Download WatchNow movies to a “Watch Later” gallery
3. Support for Vista Extenders on both x86 and x64 platforms
4. Support for Netflix Instant Queue
5. Support for Episode listings
6. Search movies by keyword
7. Browse DVD and WatchNow movies by genres
8. Sort Gallery by Title, Year or Star Rating
9. View your queue, history, and recommendations
10. Add, remove or move movies in your queue
11. Supports DVD/Movie Parental Controls

What you’ll Need:
1. An Xbox 360
2. Windows Vista with Vista Media Center
3. A Netflix subscription
4. The freeware vmcNetflix plug-in

Step 1: Set Up Your Xbox as a Media Center Extender
If you have already set up your Xbox 360 as a Media Center extender, you can skip this step. Unless you’re already using your Windows PC as a Media Center powerhouse and have a tuner card installed on your Windows machine, chances are you haven’t had much reason to set up your Xbox as an extender. With vmcNetflix, you’ve got a great reason. Microsoft already provides detailed instructions for setting up your 360 as a Media Center extender, so here’s the cut down version. Start up your Xbox 360, head to the Media blade, and select Media Center. Since you haven’t already set up an extender, your Xbox will walk you through the setup process between your Xbox and your PC. The Xbox will generate an eight-digit code to authenticate the link between the two. Then you need to start Media Center on your PC, go to Tasks -> Add Extender, and fill in the blanks in the setup wizard with your eight-digit code when prompted.

Step 2: Install the vmcNetflix Plug-in.
Now that your Xbox is set up as a Vista Media Center extender, you’re ready to download and install the vmcNetflix plug-in. Just download the latest plug-in from their site and go through the installer.

Step 3: Set Up Watch Instantly on Your PC
Before you can stream Watch Instantly videos to your 360 extender, you need to make certain that your PC is Watch Instantly-ready first. If you’ve already watched videos on this computer using Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature, you can skip this step. You’ll need to install a plug in or two from Netflix to help deal with the DRM and streaming videos. Installing them is as easy as logging into your Netflix account using Internet Explorer, click on the Watch Instantly tab, and then playing anything. You don’t have to finish it, so just click Play on the first video you chance upon.Netflix will prompt you to install their plug in before the video starts, so just enter through their prompts and install. When you’re finished, you should be watching the video you just chose.

Step 4: Set Up vmcNetflix on Your Xbox 360
Now you need to run your Xbox 360 in Media Center extender mode. To do so, turn it on, go to your Xbox dashboard, and start Media Center from the list where you set it up originally. Your Xbox will find your computer and start up in Media Center mode.Once there, scroll down to the Online Media section then select the program library. You should see an entry for vmcNetflix. Start it up. Since this is the first time you’ve run vmcNetflix on your extender, you’ll need to set it up with your Netflix account. You just have to provide your Netflix user name and password. Once you’ve done that you’re ready to start watching movies. That’s all there is to it.

You can now stream any Netflix Watch Instantly video directly to the TV in your lounge using the Xbox 360 that’s already there. vmcNetflix handles everything nearly perfectly, from separate episode listings for TV shows to managing and accessing your Netflix Watch Instantly queue. Also, Netflix can download Watch Instantly videos and save them on your computer. This comes in very handy because saving videos means you don’t have to worry about downloads buffering, and video playback, fast-forwarding, and rewinding all work better. The downside is that saving videos isn’t part of the Watch Instantly terms of service.
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