360 HD Video from an XP Machine.

artoo

So I got this HD MKV file video I made with the program XenonMKV. Thing is, I don't know how to get the damn thing onto my Xbox. And my PC is running plain old XP, but Windows Media Center wants fucking Vista. Any freeware solution or something? Also, I tried putting the files on a external hard drive, but the 360 didn't recognize anything.

Thanks!

Willeth

If you have WMP11 you can share stuff from your Library to your 360. If you have WMP10 there's a tool called Windows Media Connect. I'm not sure if either of them support MKV though - I doubt it.

You might want to look into TVersity, but I've never needed it so I can't really give advice on that.

artoo

Yeah, I tried to add the MKV file to my WMP11 Library, but it didn't add the file.

EDIT: Note that I can play MKV files in WMP11.

taliosfalcon

tversity is pretty much the best program for streaming anything to anything (including the 360)

devoir

Use xvid or divx avis instead of mkv and you can stream it across using the library.

Tversity is horrible after native streaming.

Recoil42

artoo wrote: »

Yeah, I tried to add the MKV file to my WMP11 Library, but it didn't add the file.

EDIT: Note that I can play MKV files in WMP11.

Doesn't matter. The 360 is decoding the data, not WMP11, and the 360 can only decode DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV in AC3/AAC/WMV/WMA/H264/MPEG4. It won't even list them if they're not in the above container formats.


Since MKV commonly uses a lot of those though, you might have some luck just renaming your .mkv to a .avi.

Try it, it's worked for me in the past. It's a crapshoot though, if your MKV wasn't encoded with the above formats, it wont work, and you'll have to re-encode.



If it's a HD stream, I wouldn't use TVersity unless your rig is insane. TVersity is basically on-the-fly transcoding. You have to have a hefty cpu to pull that off in HD.

skarsol

Yeah, the 360 could play back mkv/x.264 but Microsoft doesn't want us to do that. Connect360 is the tool of choice here, but it's not ideal (Tversity and Twonky are okay, but mainly useful for PS3 and/or if your media server is linux). I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't look at the success of the old modded Xbox as a multimedia platform and tout the 360 as similar with the option to install any codec you like. As it is, as soon as the PS3linux guys figure out how to get HD decoding done smoothly (stupid Sony is making essentially the same mistake by restricting access to the RSX) then the combination of Blu-Ray player and multimedia center will make the 360 into an almost-ran for that segment of the market.

Edit: Oh, to actually answer your specific problem:

XenonMKV (formerly MKVOfDeath) is a Windows frontend utility, similar to GOTsent and Videora Xbox Converter. It repackages high-definition H.264/x264 video and 5.1 audio contained in MKV files to an MP4 format that the Xbox 360 can play.

You need to be producing a .mp4 file (360 will show this in the lists and will open and attempt to play it) not a mkv. Even if you rename the mkv the 360 will choke after opening cause it won't play x264 from an mkv or avi.

As for sharing it through WMP:

You’re going to have a more difficult time streaming MP4 files to the console than comparable XviD AVI files. Windows Media Player 11 is weaksauce when it comes to recognizing filetypes that aren’t WMV. XenonMKV now includes a registry patch that fixes this issue in the Tools menu.

Have you done that?

artoo

Oh god, I'm an idiot, I put the thing through Xenon to make it an MP4. Been calling it an MKV by accident.

apotheos

If anyone has any tips on how to get the extremely common HD MKV wrapper to work with a 360 or PS3 using a Mac I sure would be happy to learn how.

skarsol

apotheos wrote: »

If anyone has any tips on how to get the extremely common HD MKV wrapper to work with a 360 or PS3 using a Mac I sure would be happy to learn how.

http://www.nullriver.com/products/connect360

artoo

Ok, new problem, I have gotten WMP11 to recognize my MP4 file, and its in the Library. So I enable sharing to my 360. I can share photos and music fine, but I don't see any option to look at video from my PC...

Am I not capable of video through WMP11?

Willeth

Hit X to 'Change Video Source'.

artoo

lol. Thanks. :P

EvilBadman

On PC, I use TVersity to run a media server that auto converts a number of codecs into something the 360 can run. Works on any of the anime series I've been watching before they get released here, so I know it works with about 50 of the goofy codecs used.

artoo

Thanks again to all of you, watching Blade Runner HD through WMP11.