Media centre apps

Both the 360 and PS3 play media files, including audio, images and video. Both support a similar range of codecs - MP3 and WMA for songs, JPEG for images and XviD and DivX for video files. Both can play files from USB devices, rip CDs to their hard disks and stream media over a network, either by browsing folders or connecting to a DLNA media server/sharing program such as Windows Media Player 11. There are caveats for both. The 360, to its credit, understands iPods, so if you plug in one, you obtain access to all your songs. It can't, however, copy files from external drives or across a network. The PS3 can copy files, but in a moment of supreme churlishness from Sony, it's incapable of understanding an iPod's file structure. Well, it's only the most popular MP3 player on the planet. Even more annoyingly, by default, the PS3 lists MP3 files alphabetically.

Despite the fact that the PS3 supposedly supports Xvid and DivX, we didn't find it very consistent in our tests. Given a selection of TV episodes, all compressed using the same codec, it decided to play the first two shows without a hitch, before calling the third 'unsupported data'. This causes the file to be permanently flagged as 'unsupported data', so you can't even try to play it again. The 360 was much more dependable - it handled every sample of downloaded DivX video we had. The only problem is that it's horrendously noisy.

The PS3 can upscale DVDs and also has a Blu-ray drive for playing back high-definition movies; if you want this on the 360, you can either rent HD movies from the online store or buy the HD-DVD drive addon. The Wii's media functions are limited to a photo viewing channel.

We've certainly been critical of the PC acting as a media centre in the past, but we still feel it's better than any of the consoles, if only because it's easier to tolerate its flaws. Getting all the right video codecs for a PC is annoying, as is the fact that each media playback app has a different interface, but unless you're going to use the consoles in a very limited, rigidly defined manner, we challenge anyone who is accustomed to the power and options a PC offers not to get frustrated with a console.

• Tidy your cables
• Modify an MSI Wind
• Hide your ATX power cables
• Monitor your PC with an analogue meter
• Cool your VRMs
• Make your own SSD for less than £20
• Create a 3D animated Logo
• Set up a secure browsing environment
• Remove motherboard heatsinks and heatpipes
• Remove a GPU cooler

These are the most popular features articles over the past three months.

• Intel Core i7 - all you need to know
• VIDEO: 6GHz plus: Overclocking the E8600 with liquid nitrogen
• How to add any song to Guitar Hero 3
• The FAIL Feature
• How to get a cooler Radeon HD 4870 with manual fan speed control
• Interview with Hardcore Computer: The quest for a full immersion cooled desktop PC
• Ten Technologies that can Revolutionise PCs
• VIDEO: Dream PCs 2008: Scan's Great White
• Inside Intel's SSD
• Wishlist for a next-gen EeePC