Xbox 360 observations

notice: currently work in progress.

System Music Player

tl;dr, picky with aac, hates mp3s with cover art

• Supports MP3, AAC (at least from iPods), and presumably WMA.
• Can play CDs and rip to the hard drive just like the original Xbox
• Does not support ALAC, FLAC, or newer formats
• Embedded cover art worsens loading performance even though the 360 never uses it.
• The bigger the cover art, the more time it takes to load.
• For excessively large cover art (over 1MB) it can several minutes per album...
• Loading performance is dependent on the game. Loads quicker in the menus than in game.
• Won't play AAC above a certain bitrate (probably 256kbps)
• CVBR 256kbps encoded AAC may or may not play (incl. iTunes Plus)
• Supports iPods and can read their music and playlists.