Playing

I was late to bed last night because I was messing about with Last.Fm again. It has to be the best £1.50 a month I've spent. You don't have to pay for majority of stuff the site provides but to be able to create custom radio stations its worth the cheap price.

I was also trying out the beta site which lets you play with some of the features that are going to be available on the regular site soon. Like a shoutbox and better displaying of Tags.

Tonight I upgraded the version of Xbox Media Center (XBMC) that I was running on my Xbox and it supports playing Last.Fm radio stations. XBMC just keeps getting better and better. For anyone who doesn't know what it is. Here's a quick overview.

XBMC lets you play media like videos and music using your Xbox. There are other ways to do this with dedicated players but they are more expensive and can't play anywhere near the amount of formats. Download a video from the internet and its almost certain (99%) that you will be able to play it on XBMC. Doesn't matter if its XVID, DIVX, VOB, Quicktime whatever it will most likely play. The same with audio it doesn't matter if its MP3, OGG, WMA the only problem is it can't play DRM'd crap like from Napster :-(

Imagine being able to play any song or video you have on your computer or any internet radio station from the comfort of your armchair using a £99 Xbox and your TV.

I haven't sold this very well it has to be seen to appreciate how good it is. I've been using XBMC and it's predecessor since it first appeared god knows how many years ago (4?).

Off to play with Last.Fm Radio & my iTunes music playing through my Xbox...