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Beam Streaming, Intuitive Guide and more come to Xbox One starting today

Theorry

Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0wsQa0Cws

Mike Ybarra, Head of Platform Engineering discusses new features coming to the broader Xbox One community starting today. Read the details below:

We’re excited to announce that we are shipping new features to the broader Xbox One community today. This is a big release, and includes Beam streaming, an updated Xbox experience with the new Guide, home improvements, and much more. One major goal for this release is to make streaming your Xbox gameplay even easier. And by updating the navigation of the Xbox console through the new Guide, we’re aiming to put the features and experiences you love the most right at your fingertips. For our PC gamers, or anybody who loves to create and play, check out this post on the Windows Blog to learn about the gaming updates coming with the Windows 10 Creators Update on April 11.

Here’s a detailed look at some of the top new Xbox Live features rolling out to Xbox One today, which we announced and released to Xbox Insider earlier this year:

*An updated look at Home: One of the first things you’ll notice with this update is a new look for Home on Xbox One. We made these changes to simplify the UI and increase overall system performance. To do that, we’ve optimized for speed and are prioritizing the most valuable content for your games. Now, you’ll see a smaller icon for the game with options to dive deeper into the community surrounding the game, as well as the ability to interact with your Club or find Looking for Group posts, view your Achievements and more. If you do not have a custom background set, you’ll see that the updated Home also spotlights the game you’re currently playing by featuring hero art as your Xbox background.

*Faster and more intuitive Guide: The next thing you’re likely to notice is that the Guide has been updated. With one press of the Xbox button on your controller, you can now pull up the newly enhanced Guide as an overlay on the left side of your screen. No matter what you’re doing, the new Guide experience puts the features and functionality that you use the most right at your fingertips. The first page of the Guide is designed to get you to the content you care about most, including your Games and Apps, Home, Store, your recently launched applications, the latest Games and Deals with Gold for Xbox Live Gold members, and your top Pins. If you have music playing in the background from any number of apps, you can access the controls directly from the Guide, enabling you to control play, pause, rewind, fast forward, and manage volume controls. Finally, you’ll be able to capture screenshots and record video with a simple press of a button. And in the GameDVR menu, you now have easier access to capture gameplay and to modify your options – when recording, you’ll see in the menu overlay that it lasts up to 5 minutes and within the Guide, you can also ‘Record this’ for up to 10 minutes.

home-screen.gif

*New way to multitask: In addition to adding a new start page to Guide, we’re also evolving the way gamers multitask on Xbox One. To simplify discoverability and to make it easier to get to the things you care about most, our multitasking features were designed with the new Guide in mind. We’ve added a new achievement tracker that is active based on the game you’re playing, and allows you to select and follow multiple achievements in an overlay, all while you’re playing. Cortana will also appear as an overlay on your screen, allowing you to set reminders and alarms, access Party controls, and play music with simple voice controls.

guide-with-background-music-controls.gif


*Watch, chat and interact with Beam on Xbox One: now stream your Xbox gameplay directly from the Guide on your Xbox One, with the ability to manage your Beam broadcasts and interact with fellow gamers on chat overlays that appear on your screen. If you’ve never tried to broadcast your gameplay before, this is the easiest way to get started as you don’t have to download any extra software – Beam broadcasting is built right into your Xbox One. Once you start streaming, Beam makes it easy to connect and engage with your viewers no matter where they are. You’ll also find the new Beam viewing app in My Games and Apps, which lets you watch, chat, and interact with your favorite game streamers in near real-time. To learn more, check out our Beam article.

*Enabling Xbox One to be more accessible for everyone: We felt it was important to enable Xbox One to make gaming experiences more accessible. Take for instance our new Copilot feature, which allows two controllers to act as if they were one. This will help make Xbox One more inviting to gamers who can benefit from playing along with another person, more fun for families by adding cooperative controls for any game, and easier for players who need unique configurations to play. We are also adding new enhancements to Magnifier and Narrator, as well as giving more options over audio output and custom rumble settings on a controller, which was previously reserved for the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. You can find these accessibility options, and more, in Settings > Ease of Access.

beam-from-guide.gif


*Blu-ray player bitstream passthrough: The Blu-ray disc player on Xbox One now supports bitstream passthrough, which allows your receiver to decode audio natively. All bitstream formats are supported, including newer ones like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. This feature will light up later next week.

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https://majornelson.com/2017/03/29/...e-to-xbox-one-starting-today/?linkId=35963307
 
Glad that people outside of the preview program will finally get their hands on this! I've been using it for at least a month or so and I absolutely love the design and speed. Easily bumps Xbox One OS to my favorite console OS in terms of functionality/ease of use.
 
I got this update last night. I know Snap was removed, and as a result the entire system seems much Snappier. However, I can't figure out how to get TV window into a PIP menu over the game. It's not as obvious as before. What am I missing? I use this feature all the time to play games and watch the news.
 
I got this update last night. I know Snap was removed, and as a result the entire system seems much Snappier. However, I can't figure out how to get TV window into a PIP menu over the game. It's not as obvious as before. What am I missing? I use this feature all the time to play games and watch the news.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but my understanding was that there is no replacement for snapping video just yet. The whole PiP thing is the ultimate plan, but I'm not sure they gave us a timeframe yet. It's certainly not in the preview builds.
 
So basically no Youtube + Gaming?

This was one of my most used scenarios for snap: I'd get a podcast rolling (like Kinda Funny) and play side missions/get collectables on a game like Ghost Recon or Fallout 4.

Shame to see it go.
 
What's the point of Beam? They already had Twitch, which is way bigger in community...

Beam is like twitch, but better. It's lightweight and there's much less delay. The Community is small, but growing.

This doesn't replace twitch btw, but MS owns Beam so they are naturally going to push it.
 
I'm glad to see that double-tapping the Guide button is dead. I never liked that.
What's the point of Beam? They already had Twitch, which is way bigger in community...
Beam is better than Twitch in some technical aspects. Time will tell if streamers or viewers actually care enough to use it, though.
 
Is there still a way to show real-time achievement status with snap being removed?

Yes, they do a transparent overlay now. I'm not a fan because it covers up the game. But at least they made it configurable to be manually moved around the four corners. They've at least made it as nice as could be. See the video at around the 2:40 mark.
 
Can you stream directly from xbox, without any additional encoding pc or so? If so, can you simultaneously stream to Beam and Twitch?
 
What's the point of Beam? They already had Twitch, which is way bigger in community...

Beam is much better than Twitch on a technical basis. Unless you're somebody trying to make a living off streaming and need a huge potential viewer base there's no reason to use Twitch on Xbox now. Twitch's Xbox app is pretty garbage.
 
RIP Snap. I'm in alpha so I had this update for a while but I still miss watching TV and playing games at the same time.
 
I haven't tried it, but sounds like from you guys that the dashboard is faster and more fluid.

I thought we would have to wait for Scorpio for that.
 
I hope this continues to grow the Beam community now that it's going live for everyone. Me and two of my friends chose to use Beam for our streaming over Twitch as we really enjoy the community on Beam right now and the real time chat with our viewers. We started just under 2 months ago and are growing at an ok rate.
 
Blu-ray player bitstream passthrough: The Blu-ray disc player on Xbox One now supports bitstream passthrough, which allows your receiver to decode audio natively. All bitstream formats are supported, including newer ones like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. This feature will light up later next week.
What does this mean?
 
I got this update last night. I know Snap was removed, and as a result the entire system seems much Snappier. However, I can't figure out how to get TV window into a PIP menu over the game. It's not as obvious as before. What am I missing? I use this feature all the time to play games and watch the news.
Not all apps support pip yet, we are probably going to wait for updates.
 
Will Cortana's speed and abilities be improved at all by this update?

I turned off Cortana because stuff like "Xbox open that" simply didn't work under Cortana (Cortana takes so long to understand that the notification has left the screen). I'd like to turn it back on if these issues have been fixed; I enabled it for a bit recently and it seemed like nothing had been changed since it launched.
 
Hope Major Nelson is dropping hints about RDR with his new homescreen from this video...

Doubt it... but I'll take anything.

Anyone got the update yet?

Got it as part of the insider program a week or so ago. It's good.

UI is improved, performance is better. It's still slow navigating the store, but generally jumping around menus is snappier.

The new layout is good. Took me a few mins to get used to it, but you can do mostly everything from the guide. I'm used to hitting the Xbox button to go to the home screen,a nd now it brings up the guide which is fine... You have to hit Xbox + A + A to go home, so once you learn that it's quick if you want to go home

You can do mostly everything w/o going home though so there's less need.

The new Game DVR controls work great, and I love having the option to hit Xbox + Menu (Select) and then you can specifically choose how long to capture gameplay. This used to be a major pain and was very slow/unresponsive (had to Snap game DVR, it never worked especially with Cortana).

The new look is good too... Just looks more sleak.

Will Cortana's speed and abilities be improved at all by this update?

I turned off Cortana because stuff like "Xbox open that" simply didn't work under Cortana (Cortana takes so long to understand that the notification has left the screen). I'd like to turn it back on if these issues have been fixed; I enabled it for a bit recently and it seemed like nothing had been changed since it launched.

It's supposedly improved. I haven't tested it, because I've gotten so used to not using Cortana because it just never worked. Cortana replacing the simple "Xbox..." command system is one of the biggest steps back that a major software company has made. Can't think of any other major feature that failed so badly and made something appreciably worse.
 
Tip for everyone getting the update today:

you can do everything from the guide no need to go back to home screen
 
Tip for everyone getting the update today:

you can do everything from the guide no need to go back to home screen
Almost everything. Technically you still need to go home to get to the community section and to access the bottom 2/3s of your pins. Other than that, no need to go home.
 
Beam is God tier

There are some really good streamers on Beam such as Magnetron, RocketBear, FauxDaddy (and a shameless plug for ourselves, LetsBeBluntGaming) and TopicTech that you should check out. There's more than that obviously, but those are great.

Tip for everyone getting the update today:

you can do everything from the guide no need to go back to home screen

Yep! I almost never go to the home screen anymore. I just hit the guide button when my xbox boots up and do everything from it.
 
Almost everything. Technically you still need to go home to get to the community section and to access the bottom 2/3s of your pins. Other than that, no need to go home.

Ye that's true, completely forgot about community tab but tbh i never used it
 
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