Xbox media centre, what cans, what noes?

ShadowHearth

Hey lads. I wanted more info on media centre and interaction with my pc of xbox.

I use ps3 as my main media box now. Watching all movies, music etc.

So how does it work with xbox? Can I stream videos from my pc? Can I drop in movies from pc on xbox? Does it supports different formats?

And music now. It is posible to listen music while playing on xbox? Can I just drop a few albums I like on USB key in to xbox? Or do I need to set up media centre?


I love tue way ps3 works as media centre. It's just brilliant, but I play xbox alot lately, so wanted to squeeze moist of it.


Cheers

Enigma IE

I have mixed sucess using the Media Centre. Very hit and miss with poor performance. On the laptop, I generally use Windows Media Player and turn on Media Streaming and allow streaming to your xbox. From the console then, you can 'browse' to your media collection on your laptop, external drive. I usually copy media from my external drive to laptop for better performance.

http://support.xbox.com/en-gb/pages/xbox-360/how-to/xbox-360-as-media-player/play-media-from-portable-media-player.aspx

chin_grin

From here - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100413121045AALfcHy

Your Xbox 360 supports a variety of video formats, with playback quality dependent on the type of video you are attempting to play. Read through these specifications and tips to understand the capabilities of streaming media from your PC to your Xbox 360

Supported File Types
The Xbox 360 supports AVI, WMV, MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264 and QuickTime movie formats. The file extensions included are as follows: .avi, .divx, .wmv, .mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, and .mov.

Video Playback
For video files with the WMV container, playback occurs at 15 Mbps (Mega-Bytes Per Second) with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Files with the H.264 container have the same resolution, but are played back at 10 Mbps. For AVI and MPEG-4 Part 2 video files, playback is 5 Mbps at 1280 x 720 resolution.

Audio Playback
The Xbox 360 supports WMA 7-9 and Lossless audio profiles for WMV video formats. Dolby Digital and MP3 profiles are supported in AVI formats. For MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 encoded videos, the console supports only two-channel AAC audio encoding.

Streaming Video
With Zune software, the Xbox 360 can stream unprotected AVI, MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264, and WMV video formats. Through Windows Media Player, protected and unprotected WMV videos can be streamed.

Streaming Tips
Download a third-party video codec package to expand the amount of video formats you can stream using the Windows Media Player. For better playback, convert video files into the more Mircosoft user-friendly WMV format using a third-party video conversion program.
Source(s):
Video Playback & Audio Streaming FAQ for the Xbox 360

ShadowHearth

Thank you.

While I was playing I went to media centre and checked music. I got surprised when I sow all my music library in there. When I set a song it turns off the game music and leaves sound effects on. Nice touch.

For video streaming it will need more setup I guess...

mcgovern

Video streaming should work the same way, if your xbox is seeing your shared files, that's the hardest part out of the way.
If you are using the xbox as a Media Centre extender, it doesn't work too well if you have loads of video with folder art etc, as it takes so long to download (over wireless anyway).
I usually use TVersity, as it transcodes as well (but interface is obviously no where near as nice).

Actually, one other nice touch, if you have TV setup on the PC your are streaming from, using WMC, you can stream the TV too, again, probably better for wired connections though.

johnn

I just realised you can watch content off USB sticks directly through the Xbox by plugging into the port at the front. this is on the new Xbox.

Downloaded a movie and put in the key in hope for than anything, and it just popped up "downloading free update" and within seconds i was watching the movie

its some machine

ShadowHearth

johnn wrote: »

I just realised you can watch content off USB sticks directly through the Xbox by plugging into the port at the front. this is on the new Xbox.

Downloaded a movie and put in the key in hope for than anything, and it just popped up "downloading free update" and within seconds i was watching the movie

its some machine

Idd. I camt bellieve Microsoft gave all this... Knowing theyr history. When I discovered that I could use USB as memory card and do transfer from old xbox I allmoust fainted...

All my videos work from pc, no need extra software. Amazing