How to stream subscription music through your Xbox 360

One of the coolest features of the new Xbox 360 is the ability to stream music and photos through your desktop or laptop. If you have a large music collection on your PC, you can simply connect the Xbox 360 to your network and access your collection from any room in your house. Very cool.

If you subscribe to Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, or "Napster To Go", then it gets even cooler. These services allow you to download almost any song onto your hard drive for a low monthly fee. With the Xbox 360, you can stream these subscription songs to your Xbox and through your stereo system, giving you an almost unlimited collection of music. If you are like me and listen to a lot of new music, these services allow you to discover lots great new songs, and they can save you a lot of money.

How do you do this? It’s really very easy. If you have an Xbox 360, then the first thing you need to do is connect it to your home network. The Xbox 360 comes with a built in ethernet port and cable. Just connect the ethernet cable to a standard router and the Xbox 360 will automatically detect the connection (this only works for broadband internet service). The Xbox 360 also has a wireless adapter available if you have a WIFI network at your home. It’s currently selling for around $100 so the basic cable connection is currently the less expensive option.

After you’ve connected your Xbox 360 to your home network, the next step is to download either Windows Media Connect or Windows Media Player 11 on your main desktop or laptop (whichever computer you use to store your music collection). I prefer WMP 11 because the network media sharing feature loads much faster after rebooting your computer. For those of you running Vista, the media sharing option is already built in.....no need to download anything new. Visit http://xbox.com/pcsetup and follow the instructions for the download. It’s really easy to install, and the software will detect your Xbox 360 automatically.

Next, go to your Xbox 360 unit and pull up the media menu. Select music. You should see the network name of your home computer. If you click on it, it will take you to a menu that allows you to browse your music collection by artist, album, genre, and playlist. It can take a few minutes for your Xbox 360 to detect everything in your music collection. Don’t panic if only a couple of artists show up at first. They will all show up after a few minutes. If you run your Xbox 360 through your home stereo system, then you have a great new way of enjoying your music collection.

Finally, to add an unlimited number of songs to your collection, sign up for a subscription music service. All of them offer a free trial so you can check it out without spending any money. Even if you don’t stream these songs through your Xbox, you still have the ability to listen to them on your computer, or transfer them to a compatible mp3 player and take them with you. They are all great services, but I’ve really been enjoying Rhapsody lately. It has a lot of songs and a really nice interface. You can even stream any song instantly without having to download it onto your computer……..Have fun!