Transcode 360
Published by runtime 360 February 4th, 2006 in TranscodingIt shouldn’t come as a surprise that I like many others, was a little underwhelmed with the media capabilities of the Xbox 360 out-of-the-box. Yes it can serve as a ‘multimedia hub’ with some pretty big caveats. You’ll need a Windows Media Center PC before you can even think about streaming your own video content across a home network for playback. Even with this in place, only certain types of media format are supported, and unfortunately this doesn’t include the very popular DivX and XviD formats.
Some folks are of the opinion that Microsoft can excuse themselves for not supporting MPEG4 codecs on the grounds of potential legality issues. Clearly, that hasn’t stopped a large number of consumer electronics manufacturers who extend this functionality to their customers, including Sony in the form of their Playstation Portable handheld console.
Still the Xbox 360 community came through and a couple of weeks ago /mceDivX360 was released. The solution transcodes video files into Windows Media Video which is supported by the Xbox 360. As a first iteration, author Casey Chesnut has done a great job in turning over a working solution. There are of course several things that could be improved from the usability perspective. Thats where Transcode 360 steps in. I’ve taken the same concepts and written a solution from the ground up with the purpose of making video playback more robust and accessible. I’ll post more details later.
great news. if you get a chance would you mind dropping me a hint at what you’re doing? i was actually investigating a new programming model this weekend to change the UI. but if you’ve got it covered then i’ll work on something else. casey NOatSPAM brains-N-brawn.com
Thank you for leaving a comment on my blog - first poster no less! I’ve mailed you with more detail about how the project works, I’ll swipe a little of that explanation for my next blog posting which will be as soon as I get the rest of my hosting setup.
Hi there! Great news indeed! I’am hoping for a more user friendly version of /mceDivx360 wich was not bad at all! Hope you come up with a great solution!
Victor
nospamATvanhillo.net
I was alerted of this idea from brains-N-brawn, hes done some great work, but for random reasons it doesnt work on mine done to port allocation or somin’. Its great news to hear more people are finding ways around MS prevention of divx rather than moaing about it.
Im really impressed how gamers and developers assist each other in these communities, so well done matey, good luck and keep up the good work
Works fantastically well.
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Had an initial issue with the logon to the Transcoder service but changed the settings to log on as Local System Account and everything was working perfectly.
BTW - if no-one else knows the Info button mentioned in the help is the blue button on the keypad (for those of us who haven’t read the manual
Blue button you say? Must remember to add it to the manual for next time!
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FYI, Windows Media Center is not the required OS (as mentioned in the blog) to stream media to the Xbox360. My brother runs Windows XP Pro with Microsoft’s free “Windows Media Connect” utility. I helped him set it up and it streams his MP3s, some video and pictures.
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@JJ - Windows Media Center IS required to stream VIDEO to the 360, which Runtime correctly states in his blog. You cannot stream video with WMC.
Big props to Runtime.
Runtime i love what you did for xbox with media center. i will officially nominate you for saint hood if you can get my 210 movie- mp4 collection working on my 360. i was so excited about the media capabilities while looking at the hardware, only to be dissapointed by microsucks. i am a mac user was really getting the shart till the release of “connect360″. so any help you can give the xbox world is greatly appreciated. thanks for all your hard work in advance.