Shameless plug to the main page news!

As announced at CES, Microsoft has struck an interesting, even exciting deal with DirecTV. I guess they say it best here from the press release in January: "Deal will enable flow of high-quality digital content between Windows-based PCs, DIRECTV set-top boxes, PlaysForSure devices and the Xbox 360 system." This sounds like before long those of us running Media Center Edition (MCE) may be able to use the satellite service from this company as well!

Hurry up, I am waiting for this capability for my awesome home theater! Forget those IR Blasters!

Don't assume that they won't cripple the thing with DRM. I think you'll be looking mainly at streaming capability, nothing else. I hope I'm wrong. Using a PC as a DVR would sure be cool, but don't hold your breath on this. And HD content will surely be down-sampled.

Of course it will have DRM. But I have been looking around a bit this morning and here is some more info from ArsTechnica:

Some thought that this would involve simply hooking up a DirectTV box to an Xbox 360 and using it like a simple media extender, much as the Xbox 360 already functions as an extender for Media Center PCs.

However, an column in the latest Xbox magazine seems to indicate that the integration may go much further than that:

"Well it looks like they might not just be hooking up a DirecTV box to the 360 and calling it good, but might in fact be adding a whole new blade to the Xbox 360 Dashboard that would allow for HD movie and TV downloads along with "standard-definition streaming DVR (i.e., TiVo) functions."

This "blade" (some old fashioned folks would simply call it a "tab") on the Xbox 360 Dashboard would join the existing Xbox Live, Games, Media, and System blades, and thus occupy a prime piece of real estate on the Xbox 360 user's screen. Of course this is still just a rumor, but it does indicate a serious effort by Microsoft to try and position the Xbox 360 as more of a media hub that may eventually see Microsoft squaring off directly with Sony, if recent plans are to be believed. Microsoft has long extolled the virtues of hooking up a Media Center to the Xbox, but they may be worried that Sony has the advantage of already owning a giant media empire. Deals like this one with DirectTV may help Microsoft compete by bringing in content directly from other content providers.

Whether the "DirectTV blade" will allow Xbox 360 owners to view DirectTV content with no other required hardware or if it will require a hookup to an existing Media Center PC is not yet known. However, the former option seems somewhat unlikely, considering the small size of the Xbox 360's hard drive, and the fact that existing DirectTV boxes cannot communicate directly with the Xbox 360 (this last problem could theoretically be fixed with a firmware upgrade, or a new DTV model, but this would have to be communicated to existing Xbox 360 and DTV owners). So it seems more likely that this is designed to work with a Media Center PC + DTV box combination instead.

Sorry, I'm just not that eager to have a PC that doesn't do anything but watch TV. You can already send video and audio of the same "standard def" quality to your PC with Svideo and stereo connects, so what does this offer us really? I already got a DVR, using my PC for that purpose only makes sense if I can actually DO something with the content besides watch it.

They will try to invent reasons for you to buy new hardware, mostly aimed at consumers that don't know they don't really need it. If you already have DTV hardware, why do you need to have it integrated into your Xbox? I don't get this. If all you want is PC connectivity, use a good vid card with inputs and you're good to go.

I think it's a way to get the Xbox as more of a media hub. But, I agree with other things you say. However, I just hope it adds functionality to the DirecTV set top box.

I'd settle for some HD channels.
Does Xbox have any HD capability, DVI output and such? I'm happily Xbox ignorant.

Hell if I know! But I wonder if Sony will now try to cut a deal with Dish for the PlayStation 3?