XBOX 360 Media Sharing Woes

[Zombeez]

I guess this post could go either here in networking or in A/V HT but I'll start here I guess. I consider myself pretty computer savvy but I'm really stumped here recently. I'm trying to get my 360 to recognize my home desktop but I've had no luck this week. Here is the situation:

Network setup:

1. 360 wired directly to port on WRT54G2 router.
2. Desktop computer running Vista connected wirelessly.
3. Laptop running Vista connecting wirelessly.

The problem:
Now if I turn my XBOX on while using the laptop I get the pop up that the extender was found and in seconds I can get Media Center to see it and share content from the laptop.

If I do the same thing using my desktop I never see the pop up when the XBOX is turned on. My desktop can see the XBOX on the network map however.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken

1. I have verified that my wireless router has UPnP enabled.
2. I have tried restarting the UPnP services to get the XBOX 360 to authenticate with my desktop but this didn't work obviously.
3. I have tried disabling my firewall but no dice.
4. I have tried removing the desktop from the domain and authenticating it with the XBOX while in the default "WORKGROUP" domain, as I have been told that the XBOX does not support domains but sadly this didn't work either...and it should be noted that my laptop also shares my home network domain and it has no problem authenticating with the media extender/XBOX.
5. In all cases I have removed my laptop from the XBOX by deleting the entry for it on the Media Sharing tab of the XBOX dashboard.

At this point I keep trying different little things (restarting XBOX, restarting computer, etc) but in every case Windows Media Center on my desktop says that the media extender was not found. Is there anything else that could be preventing me from creating this share? I would love to be able to play my ripped DVD's from my home Vista server. Thanks!

 

[Zombeez]

Nineteen views and zero replies. Righteous!


I am screwed...

 

[James Bond]

I spent countless hours fucking with Xbox360 media sharing. Seriously, the amount of time invested was ridiculous. I had wireshark running and know what I concluded? Microsoft doesn't know what the fuck they are doing.

I eventually gave up. I am in the process of moving now and will likely try it again.

I think part of the problem was that I had 3 Xbox's in my old house. My new spot only has one.

PS: I'm a network engineer.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

You could look into PS3 Media Server.

I am 90% sure it works with 360. But it is somewhat more "manual" I guess?

 

[Rifter]

You might want to look into other options than media center. Like stated above try PS3 media server, it's what im using on my Ubuntu server and works great, it has a windows version as well.

 

[eBauer]

Try using TVersity on the desktop. The beauty with that is it can transcode media formats on the fly that the 360 doesn't natively recognize.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I just share my WMP library. (in Win7->Network and Sharing center->Advanced sharing settings->Media Streaming)

Then on the 360, go to My Xbox->Music Library, Video Library, etc.

Worked the first time and it's reliable. I'm using WiFi-G. It's just file sharing though, not transcoding like Media Center or other programs would, so some video formats won't work.