Streaming videos from PC to 360. Help!

thunderclump

I've decided to finally use my 360 as a media centre, and after installing the newest WMP and filling it's library with all my music it seems to work perfectly for audio. However, trying the same thing for video fails to work. My 360 sees plenty of folders with videos in, but when I go to access them it tells me that no videos can be found, and that it only reads from data discs, Marketplace downloads, DVDs and a Windows based computer.

Do I need to convert my videos to a certain filetype for this to work?

Thanks in advance.

Local H Jay

It supports .wmv only as far as I know.
Edit:

Wikipedia wrote:

After the Spring 2007 update, the following video codecs will also be supported:

* H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbit/s, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
* MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbit/s, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.

thunderclump

Ok. Does anyone know an easy (and free) way to convert other file types to .wmv? I can't be the only person having this problem, right?

mspencer

I believe the Windows Media Encoder encodes other files to WMV.

Edit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx

devoir

You should use the search function; a thread regarding this topic crops up every week.

Google Tversity.

Snowcone

mspencer wrote: »

I believe the Windows Media Encoder encodes other files to WMV.

Edit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx

It's been moved here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

xYUUBINKYOKUx

If you have vista or windows media center edition you can use transcode 360 to watch formats other than wmv http://runtime360.com/projects/ . I've been using it for awhile and it works well. There is a little lag between when you tell it to start and when it starts playing but this all depends on your computer and network speed.

Septus

devoir wrote: »

You should use the search function; a thread regarding this topic crops up every week.

Google Tversity.

Yeah, I downloaded this and read through the troubleshooting FAQ and everything, and still couldn't get the damn thing to work. "Unable to start server," or something like that.

And now, as I try to get by in the meantime with Windows Media Player, I mess with my library a bit and do some folder transferring with Itunes, my WMP library gets full of duplicate songs, I erase the library, and now can't get it to re-populate the library from my music folder.

zerocount

xYUUBINKYOKUx wrote: »

If you have vista or windows media center edition you can use transcode 360 to watch formats other than wmv http://runtime360.com/projects/ . I've been using it for awhile and it works well. There is a little lag between when you tell it to start and when it starts playing but this all depends on your computer and network speed.

Yup... Transcode 360 allows you to view a number of other file formats (other than .wmv). Trick is to select a file in the media centre interface (on the 360), select "info," select the "more..." option, then select Transcode 360. It's easy as hell, and the results (even streaming over a wireless network) is pretty damn nice.

Fiskebent

I try to avoid MS products because they always try to force me into using their proprietory formats and it's generally a pain in the butt.
I have a 360, but there's no way in hell I'll use it to stream video. I'll get a Kiss DP-1600 or a Netgear EVA8000 or something else that'll let me do stuff the way *I* want.

zerocount

Fiskebent wrote: »

I try to avoid MS products because they always try to force me into using their proprietory formats and it's generally a pain in the butt.
I have a 360, but there's no way in hell I'll use it to stream video. I'll get a Kiss DP-1600 or a Netgear EVA8000 or something else that'll let me do stuff the way *I* want.

Or... you could download a free copy of Transcode 360, save the cash, and "stick it to the man" by using software that circumvents what you dislike about MS?

Septus

zerocount wrote: »

Fiskebent wrote: »

I try to avoid MS products because they always try to force me into using their proprietory formats and it's generally a pain in the butt.
I have a 360, but there's no way in hell I'll use it to stream video. I'll get a Kiss DP-1600 or a Netgear EVA8000 or something else that'll let me do stuff the way *I* want.

Or... you could download a free copy of Transcode 360, save the cash, and "stick it to the man" by using software that circumvents what you dislike about MS?

Yes, if he wants to pay for Vista or Media Center.

Fiskebent

zerocount wrote: »

Fiskebent wrote: »

I try to avoid MS products because they always try to force me into using their proprietory formats and it's generally a pain in the butt.
I have a 360, but there's no way in hell I'll use it to stream video. I'll get a Kiss DP-1600 or a Netgear EVA8000 or something else that'll let me do stuff the way *I* want.

Or... you could download a free copy of Transcode 360, save the cash, and "stick it to the man" by using software that circumvents what you dislike about MS?

The media server I'm building will run FreeBSD. Transcode 360 isn't available on that AFAIK.

And there's really no reason why the 360 shouldn't be able to stream Xvid from a shared SMB drive. Everybody else can do it. And if MS really had my interest - as a consumer - at heart, it'd be able to. But no - I have to install Windows Media Center and muck around with weird MS video formats and shit...

No thanks.