Xbox Multimedia Accessories

Xbox users can purchase a number of accessories in order to take full advantage of the console's multimedia capabilities. These include:

Xbox Media Centre Extender

A kit that allows the Xbox to act as a Media Centre Extender to stream content from a Windows XP Media Centre Edition PC. It can also be used for DVD playback.

DVD Playback Kit

As DVD playback was not included as a standard feature of the Xbox, the console can only play Xbox games and audio CDs. This was due to licensing issues with the DVD format that would have added extra cost to the console's base price. Xbox owners can buy a kit that includes an infrared remote control and receiver to enable them to play VCDs and DVDs from the local region, which bundles the cost of the DVD licensing fee with it. Although there is nothing to prevent the Xbox from acting as a Progressive scan DVD player, Microsoft chose not to enable this feature in the Xbox DVD kit in order to avoid royalty payments to the patent-holder of progressive scan DVD playback.

Xbox Music Mixer

A utility software bundled with a microphone that connects to an adapter which plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. This provides a music player with 2D/3D visualizations in addition to basic karaoke functions. It also allows users to upload pictures in JPEG format (to create slide shows) as well as audio in MP3 format and Microsoft's WMA (for karaoke or a game's Custom Soundtracks feature) from a Windows XP machine running the Xbox Music Mixer PC Tool.