That Xbox 360 in your living room? It's not just for video games anymore. In addition to the high definition movie download service Microsoft launched earlier this year, you can expect an IPTV service to launch towards the end of 2007, effectively turning the video game console into a personal video recorder and multimedia device.

You'll be able to watch live streaming broadcasts, and you can even a game while recording a program in the background. Of course you'll get all the usual benefits of a personal video recorder, like an on-screen program guide and the ability to pause, rewind, and fast forward through recordings.

While there were rumors that Microsoft would announce a brand new version of the Xbox 360 capable of acting as a traditional video recorder, going the IPTV route means that Microsoft can roll out these new functions with a software update, no new hardware needed.

There are no details yet on pricing and whether you'll need to install a larger hard drive on your Xbox 360 for the service to work, although I'd imagine that you'd really want more than 20GB.

GBPVR is a free PC PVR software package including media-center-like functionality, free for download. Unfortunately, it didn't support the PVR card I have in my PC, so I couldn't tell you how well it works. The interface looks nice, and it seems that the setup isn't too hard, so you'll have to let me know what you think of it if you install it on one of the supported cards listed. The currently supported TV tuner cards (as listed on the GBPVR website) are:

• Hauppauge PVR250, PVR250MCE, PVR350, PVR USB2, PVR150, PVR150MCE and the dual-tuner PVR500MCE
• ATI Theatre 550 Pro
• Emuzed Maui-I, Emuzed Maui-II, Emuzed Maui-III
• DVB-T and DVB-S devices with BDA drivers including:
  • Hauppauge Nova-S
  • Hauppauge Nova-T
  • Hauppauge Nova-T USB2
  • Pinnacle MediaCenter 300i
  • Twinhan DVB-S, DVB-T, DVB-C
  • FireDTV DVB-S, DVB-T, DVB-C
  • Dvico Fusion DVB-T
  • V-Box DTT-150
  • Blockgold GDI DVB-T
  • Lifeview FlyDVB-T
  • ...and lots of others
• GO7007SB based capture devices, such as Plextor PX-M402U, Plextor PX-TV402U and Lifeview TV Walker
  

The program requires Windows XP or 2000, and the Microsoft .net framework 2.0 installed to run. Windows 2000 requires MDAC 2.6 or higher as well. GBPVR is not open-source, but you can get started writing your own plug-ins in C#, VB.NET or C++ for it by visiting the developer's forum.

[Via PVRWire]

SnapStream Media releases version 4.5 of its personal video recorder, BeyondTV today. 4.5 is a dot release, and doesn't feature any spectacular changes. Version 4.0 for example, added support for HDTV and DivX. But there is one major new feature. For $30, SnapStream is selling a DVD burning plugin that integrates directly into the BeyondTV interface. Now, when you record a show, you can choose to play, delete, save, or burn to DVD.

Since BeyondTV records in MPEG-2, DivX, and WMV formats, you could always have burned your own video-DVDs. But the ability to do it with your remote control from 10 feet away is new. If you've recorded programs in DivX or WMV, BeyondTV will automatically convert them into DVD-compliant MPEG-2 files. Or if you've recorded a high definition program using an over-the-air ATSC TV capture card, BeyondTV will convert the file into a high quality DVD. There's no support for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burning yet, but Snapstream CEO Rakesh Agrawal says those features are planned for future releases.

I interviewed Agrawal for this week's PVR Wire Podcast. You can hear him describe some of the other features in BeyondTV 4.5, as well as the impact he thinks Windows Vista will have on 3rd party personal video recorder programs like BeyondTV and SageTV. Several of the retail versions of Vista will ship with Media Center functionality.

While the question that usually occupies my mind is "Does anyone care about Blu-Ray/HD-DVD?" our sister blog PVR Wire raises another salient query: "Does anyone care about Intel's Viiv?" Like PVR Wire's JJ Hawkins, I've got to wonder if Intel's marketing, which tries to paint it as the only way to build a real multimedia PC, is really getting through to anyone, and if there's anything to it. "This Business Week article describes Viiv as 'Intel's response to demand for personal computers that can record and distribute digitized TV shows, music, and movies around the house-be it on a PC, TV, stereo system, or portable media player,'" say Hawkins. "Call me zany, but I'm already distributing digitized media around my house without the use of Viiv based PC, and while Viiv may be a platform that simplifies this entire process, I can't say the process is all that difficult to begin with - especially utilizing the Windows Media Center PC OS." Do you own a Viiv PC? Is it doing anything spectacular that we should know about? Backflips, maybe? Impromptu iPod commercials? Let us know in the comments.