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iPod + Xbox 360 = Crazy Juxtapolicious!
Listening to music off a portable media device like and iPod on the Xbox 360 is very slick. Just about every Xbox game supports custom soundtracks so you can hit the Glowing "360 X" button on the controller and bring up an in-game dashboard "Blade" where you can pick a song or album that you have loaded on the hard drive ripped from a CD, an audio file that you have on an external USB device like an thumb drive, over a network from a Windows XP PC or a Mac or from a dedicated portable audio player like an iPod using the USB ports. The file, album or play list is played from that in game mini-blade and there are controllers to skip around or adjust the volume. The track data can be used by that game so that an in game display can show you what track is being played and the game's music soundtrack will stop but the sound effects and dialog will be mixed in like as if your music was always intended to be in the game.
Unfortunately DRM can really shaft things up. If you have certain Microsoft Play For Sure media devices then it can actually handle the DRM and play back through the Xbox 360 but if you tracks that you bought from the Apple iTunes Music store you can't use them on the Xbox 360 even though they are authorized and playable from the iPod. Apparently Apple was not interested in helping Microsoft help handle Apple's Fair Play DRM on the 360. Quite Defective by Design if you ask me!
So in order to play DRMed music from your iPod you need to convert it into a more compatible format. There are several iTunes 6 compatible De DRM tools under development for Windows and there are some Mac tools on the way but I just like to use a CD-RW to make nice clean MP3s that are 360 friendly. The new tools are fascinating since they are actually playing back the DRMed track and then recording a non DRMed file. It is slow but it works. My CD-RW method is quicker, still a bit of a pain but it works. Fair Use has a posse!
I have an external firewire LaCie DVD+R drive that I am now using for all my ripping and burning needs so I will not wear out the internal DVD SuperDrive in my iBook G4.
Here is what I recommend doing to get your iTunes Music Store purchased music to play back on your 360. It is pretty much exactly what you need to do to get iTunes purchased tracks to work on the PSP. This method is completely legal and Apple knows that you can do this. It is actually quicker than using the new DeDRM tools. As long as your own the music don't see any problem of converting it to a MP3 version so you can use it on all your nerd platforms like the Xbox 360.
Let's begin shall we.
1.In iTunes create a Smart List and set the filter to include "Kind" contains "Protected AAC". This will give you a list of all your DRMed audio tracks that you have in your iTunes library.
2.Make a normal play list of "track to DeDRM" and copy the contents of the "Protected AAC" smart list to this. This way you can delete the albums that you convert from the list. This will help you track your progress as you convert your tracks.
3.Make a playlist and call it "Tracks to Burn to CDRW" and pick an album that you want to convert.
4.In the advanced preference tab from Edit : Preferences set your burning settings to Audio CD.
5.Burn that album to a CD-RW. CD-RWs are pretty cheap these days and you can erase them over and over again. I just never take them anywhere since they are prone to be scratched easily.
6.After the burn is done select all the tracks from the CD in iTunes and right click to bring up the track info.
7.Add a space and "MP3" to the album name. This way you can import this album back into your iTunes library and keep your MP3 version separate from your purchased AAC versions.
8.In the advanced preference tab from Edit : Preferences set your import settings to MP3 encoder with the quality set to High or Higher.
9.Import the CD to a nice clean DRM free MP3 version.
10.Delete the album from your list "track to DeDRM" of albums to convert and from "Tracks to Burn to CDRW"
11.Use a disk tool to erase the CD-RW so you can use it again for your next conversion.
12.Move those MP3 tracks to your iPod or to a networked directory that you 360 can access and enjoy them on your Xbox 360.
13.Have some Red Vines and Mr. Pibb to celebrate!
It would have been awesome if the iPod could hand over the DRM key to the 360 at playback so you could play purchased tracks from the iTunes Music store without having to convert them into MP3s. However Apple can be a weenie about their DRM and Microsoft has a new portable music player called "Zune" that many folks from the Xbox team had a hand in designing so it is no doubt going to work great with the 360.
It is not a big surprise that a DeDRM conversion is necessary. At least Microsoft was progressive enough to include the ability to read Unix formatted USB storage devices like the Mac formatted iPods. I seriously have to tip my hat to them for pulling this off. The ability to play DRM tracks through a cross platform DRM hand shake would have been perfect but iPod support on the 360 is over 96% awesome!
Any handy USB storage devices like thumb drives and SD/MMC card readers work with the 360 but a USB extension cord can help with the inset USB ports on the front of the 360 that not every USB device can physically fit into.
Podcasting on the Xbox 360 is pretty interesting. It can playback MP3, WMA and AAC tracks from an audio podcast but not an MP4 video file since there is no support for video files that you don't get from Xbox Live or a Windows Media Center PC. There is no dedicated Podcasting client built into the Xbox 360 but it can work with just about any Podcasting client like iTunes or Juice. I particularly enjoyed listening to the Engadget Podcast while playing Need for Speed : Most Wanted, then I listened to a free Air America radio podcast while playing a rented copy of Amped 3 but listening to the bloody war news in the Democracy Now.org podcast was a bit depressing while I was trying to enjoy a game of Dead or Alive 4.
Ultimately I would love to see an Web Syndicated media reader on the Xbox 360 so users could read web comics, read independent news sources, listen to interesting podcasts, watch video podcasts, check their Netflix list status, get the weather forecast or view a Flickr feed directly from the Xbox 360 environment over a net connection without having to shuttle the content from a networked computer. I know that Microsoft is trying to promote Xbox Live as a "walled garden" of content but by adding a RSS reader/Podcasting client they could open up the the 360 game to a whole world of syndicated Web 2.0 content right from the 360. Heck they could even use Xbox Live as a content portal and make a ton of money off it. Come on Major Nelson is it a crying shame that it is 2006 and I can't listen to your podcast on my Xbox 360 without having to use a computer as a clumsy internet media nanny.
Play lists are limited to a hundred songs but they can be carried over from and iPod or similar device. I like to have one play list for each of my 360 games. It is a bit weird but now I have mentally connected those music tracks with the experience of playing that particular game. I don't think I will be able to listen to the Run Lola Run soundtrack and not think about playing Need for Speed : Most Wanted.
The audio features on the Xbox 360 is a perfect example about how video game experiences can be enhanced by the media convergence that you get when you opening up to some other media standards. That being said listening to Megadeth and Anthrax while beating down zombies in Dead Rising is completely Juxtapolicious!
Jake at September 6, 2006 
Games
Comments
Aren't you a fan of Mr Pibb as the original sketch says? :p
Posted by: Matt at September 6, 2006 10:52 PM
Damn man you are right. I did get Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper confused. I should be beaten with a bottle of soda.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at September 7, 2006 9:32 AM
