forgive my ignorance but i know nothing about 360's

120_Minutes

question: can i hook up an external usb drive to watch media stored on it on a tv?

i'm assuming its either a flat out "no", or "not unless.."

theteal

for the most part it's a flat out. . .yes, just depends on the file type you're trying to play. connect to XBL and try play the file, it'll then try to download the codec automatically which will cover you for most file types

120_Minutes

the reason i ask is i'm calling to a friend later and was thinking of bringing my drive to watch stuff. its FAT32 but afaik the 360 is not connected to the internet.

grizzly

If it's not connected to net you may have trouble playing files like .AVI. I'm not sure, but I think some of the latest game disks contain system updates – this may update your codecs. Or you could download on another PC and burn the updater to a CD.

godtabh

grizzly wrote: »

If it's not connected to net you may have trouble playing files like .AVI. I'm not sure, but I think some of the latest game disks contain system updates – this may update your codecs. Or you could download on another PC and burn the updater to a CD.

Is that an XBL update or a codec update?

Kenny_D

You or him will have to have downloaded the codec to a harddrive to play the files in offline mode. If it's fat32 you should be able to see the drive anyway. If you try and play an avi or divx file and it tries to connect to xbox live then you'll have to get connected before you can play

120_Minutes

thanks guys, we managed to connect to live via his laptop as a network bridge and get the update and codecs. he was quite impressed.

Toft

I'm trying to do something similar. I formatted an external hard drive and popped some files on it but my xbox doesn't even show the presence of the drive. I tried to connect through my laptop but it's having probs with the ip address.
Am I not shouting at it loud enough?
serously any thoughts. I won't be able to get the net till after xmas but I can download stuff to my laptop..

ROC1977

Toft wrote: »

I'm trying to do something similar. I formatted an external hard drive and popped some files on it but my xbox doesn't even show the presence of the drive. I tried to connect through my laptop but it's having probs with the ip address.
Am I not shouting at it loud enough?
serously any thoughts. I won't be able to get the net till after xmas but I can download stuff to my laptop..

You won't have the net till after Xmas but you can still download?
Make sure you HDD is fat 32 otherwise it won't work. You can connect your laptop via router to 360, use Tversity on your PC and stream media from PC to 360 and transcode any video on the fly.

Toft

ROC1977 wrote: »

You won't have the net till after Xmas but you can still download?
Make sure you HDD is fat 32 otherwise it won't work. You can connect your laptop via router to 360, use Tversity on your PC and stream media from PC to 360 and transcode any video on the fly.

Well I can take the laptop to the local hotel and download stuff. I formatted the drive to fat32 but it still doesn't show up. I'll get that Tversity.
and if that doen't work I'll go back to shadow puppets.

beardo81

get Tversity, its such a good program.... i ripped the 1080p version of Lord Of The Rings off the net and it streamed it no probs, 7.8GB!!

ROC1977

beardo81 wrote: »

get Tversity, its such a good program.... i ripped the 1080p version of Lord Of The Rings off the net and it streamed it no probs, 7.8GB!!

I can depend on your PC's power though. Lower end PC's will stuggle with converting MKV files on the fly. But any half decent multimedia pc should be ok. I find it really depends on the bitrate of the movie rip in question. But most work fine without any buffering issues. I find if do have buffering issues, best to pause the movie for ten mins before watching it, giving the PC time buffer up a bit. If you know what I mean, like watching youtube on 56k modem! lol

One bad thing to point out with Tversity. It can't transcode 5.1 digital from the PC to 360. Only 2.0 stereo, which then can be recoded to pro logic on your home cinema. Which is a bit of a shame, as the best thing for HD movies for me is the HD sound. But Tversity is constantly being updated so its only a matter of time for 5.1 support.

Dexterm99

But you are limited to a 4GB file size with Fat32 so HD movies are out of the question.

If you format your usb drive with the apple file system, the XBOX will pick it up. There is no size restriction with this and HD WMV movies look fantastic on the xbox.

ROC1977

Dexterm99 wrote: »

But you are limited to a 4GB file size with Fat32 so HD movies are out of the question.

If you format your usb drive with the apple file system, the XBOX will pick it up. There is no size restriction with this and HD WMV movies look fantastic on the xbox.

yes your limited to 4gig with a USB drive. We aren't using usb drive, but streaming from a PC I've 25gig HD movies that stream to my 360 perfectly.

And if you think HD WMV is good, you ain't seen nothing yet. 4gig HD WMV is far from true HD quality. Its fairly good but not as good as a true HD rip.
Plus converting movies to WMV HD takes for ever. I've got about 20 HD WMV movies and 60 MKV movies. MKV blows HD WMV out of the water.

Dexterm99

ROC1977 wrote: »

yes your limited to 4gig with a USB drive. We aren't using usb drive, but streaming from a PC I've 25gig HD movies that stream to my 360 perfectly.

And if you think HD WMV is good, you ain't seen nothing yet. 4gig HD WMV is far from true HD quality. Its fairly good but not as good as a true HD rip.
Plus converting movies to WMV HD takes for ever. I've got about 20 HD WMV movies and 60 MKV movies. MKV blows HD WMV out of the water.

True but it's a quick and cheap solution for 120_minutes who has a USB drive and who doesn't seem to have a wired or wireless solution.

MKV is good. I remux them into vobs to watch on my PS3. very nice!