What's the best way to use my 360 as an extender?

[swbsam]

I'm a total xbox n00b and was able to stream to my brand new arcade in about 20 minutes.

a) you don't really need a hard drive to stream your own content (i.e. files off of your desktop). I Have the included 256 mb card and I've been streaming non stop
b) install tversity and the codec pack
c) add your media directories to tversity
d) be sure to go to the SOURCES screen (for video) - do not choose MEDIA CENTER, but the new tversity icon that's there

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
Windows media center simply does not support divx/xvid avi's at all. It's freaking rediculous. It doesn't matter what codec you provide, it will never work until Microsoft updates it. To me, it ruins WMC and makes it completely useless.

The only way to play AVI's from your computer is to use WMP 11 by setting up the sharing through the Library function of WMP. You just need to allow the machine to see it, then set your folders that you want monitored.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/pcsetup/XPSP2.htm

Click on WMP 11 and then follow the instructions. It's simple and it flat our works.

PERFECT, this is all I wanted...they look/play great now.

My next question is, how do I get my music to play on my 360? I cannot select folders like I could under video options.

Yeah, I have NO CLUE why they don't allow WMC to play DivX/Xvid. It's so silly.

As far as the music. Make sure you are monitoring the folders you have your music in. Just go to the 360 page that you use for Videos, and select the Music folder instead. You should automatically see it, the same as videos. It works the same. If not, you may need to reboot your computer and/or Xbox 360. I never have to do this, but it's worth a shot. You shouldn't have to do anything different than just make sure you are monitoring the folder!

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: swbsam
I'm a total xbox n00b and was able to stream to my brand new arcade in about 20 minutes.

a) you don't really need a hard drive to stream your own content (i.e. files off of your desktop). I Have the included 256 mb card and I've been streaming non stop
b) install tversity and the codec pack
c) add your media directories to tversity
d) be sure to go to the SOURCES screen (for video) - do not choose MEDIA CENTER, but the new tversity icon that's there

I was using Windows Media Center, thinking that was the only way to get it to work, luckily it's much easier then that. You just select the options above the Media Center options....works GREAT, and you do not have to go into Media Center on the console.

I will try that when I get home Like Linus.

 

[ViviTheMage]

works great, thanks

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
works great, thanks

Glad it works for you. We have an Xbox in our Living Room for the kids and I have one in my bedroom. I stream all of our movies using WMP. It actually works great and it's nice to just have a centralized location that you can view content from anywhere in the house. Good stuff!

 

[vi edit]

So if I am reading this right, there's no (easy) way to stream ripped DVD movies from a Vista MC to an Xbox?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: vi edit
So if I am reading this right, there's no (easy) way to stream ripped DVD movies from a Vista MC to an Xbox?

Ripped how?

I used Fair Use Wizard to rip my DVDs to Xvid with 5.1 surround sound and then watch them via my 360.

Pretty easy.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: vi edit
So if I am reading this right, there's no (easy) way to stream ripped DVD movies from a Vista MC to an Xbox?

Ripped how?

I used Fair Use Wizard to rip my DVDs to Xvid with 5.1 surround sound and then watch them via my 360.

Pretty easy.

I'll have to look into that. With terrabyte drives going for under $100 now I'm finally looking to moving the DVD collection to a "diskless" format for the future movie watcher.

There's a billion different apps out there and I've look around a bit but just came away shell shocked by the complexity of some of them. I'll gladly sacrafice some sharpness/clarity for convenience when it comes to the ripping/encoding side of things.

I'm just trying to find an app that lets me put a DVD in the drive, point it to a directory, click a button, and 20-40 minutes later I'm able to pull it to the Xbox.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: vi edit
So if I am reading this right, there's no (easy) way to stream ripped DVD movies from a Vista MC to an Xbox?

Ripped how?

I used Fair Use Wizard to rip my DVDs to Xvid with 5.1 surround sound and then watch them via my 360.

Pretty easy.

I'll have to look into that. With terrabyte drives going for under $100 now I'm finally looking to moving the DVD collection to a "diskless" format for the future movie watcher.

There's a billion different apps out there and I've look around a bit but just came away shell shocked by the complexity of some of them. I'll gladly sacrafice some sharpness/clarity for convenience when it comes to the ripping/encoding side of things.

I'm just trying to find an app that lets me put a DVD in the drive, point it to a directory, click a button, and 20-40 minutes later I'm able to pull it to the Xbox.

I was almost sure you could. You probably need to rip to one large VOB file (or join them together), and rename to .mpg...but it should work.

However, if you mean DVD menus and video_ts folders and all that, then yeah, I don't think the Xbox can do it. There seems to be a way to adjust the registry the get Vista Media Center to do it on the computer itself (link). But it doesn't work for extenders.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: vi edit
So if I am reading this right, there's no (easy) way to stream ripped DVD movies from a Vista MC to an Xbox?

Ripped how?

I used Fair Use Wizard to rip my DVDs to Xvid with 5.1 surround sound and then watch them via my 360.

Pretty easy.

I'll have to look into that. With terrabyte drives going for under $100 now I'm finally looking to moving the DVD collection to a "diskless" format for the future movie watcher.

There's a billion different apps out there and I've look around a bit but just came away shell shocked by the complexity of some of them. I'll gladly sacrafice some sharpness/clarity for convenience when it comes to the ripping/encoding side of things.

I'm just trying to find an app that lets me put a DVD in the drive, point it to a directory, click a button, and 20-40 minutes later I'm able to pull it to the Xbox.

That's pretty much FairUse Wizard in a nutshell. Though, I used AnyDVD and ImgBurn to rip ISOs of my DVDs first and then use FairUse to convert multiple movies to Xvid at once.

 

[vi edit]

I was messing around last night with Media Center on my Xbox and my Harmony Remote. I was able to stream live HDTV feeds from the OTA signal piped to my PC. My Harmony Remote had the FF/RW/Pause buttons already programmed in and I could use the Media Center as a full on DVR.

I had no idea that it was that seamless of an integration. Very slick and almost eliminates the need of a dedicated DVR device for OTA stuff.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

vi, what youre describing is much what id like to do, what hdtv tuner are you using on your pc?