Playing DivX and Xvid content on Xbox 360

[Cheezdoodles]

If we for one minute ignore DivX with it's dubious legal status, and just concentrate on playing MP3s, MPEG2 (which the XBox 360 can, since it can play DVDs) and Microsofts own WMV/WMA files.
Being able to play these from a standard network share would be very EASY to implement on the Xbox 360. But MS did not. Why? Because they want us to buy their crappy XP Media Center Edition. Having to run a fast PC to decode stuff that could easily be done on the 360 is a ripoff.

You have allways been able to stream MP3 from any pc to your x360.

The fall dashupdate gave you the ability to stream WMV and WMV HD files from any Windows based pc that has Windows Media player 11 (or windows media connect) , both are free of charge to download and use.

This topic, gives you pointers on how to stream virtually any media file you want on your X360, without the use of Windows Media Centre.

I have allready explained to you why they dont allow DIVX etc right out of the box, thats because they would have to pay a royality to whoever owns that codex. The program which this topic is about, is free of charge, and allows you to do just that.

 

[Sdw]

OK, so the Xbox360 can stream video content from a PC without the PC doing the actual decoding now?
In that case, I guess I am misinformed, I thought you had to have the PC decode the video (meaning that my slow but silent fileserver would never be able to keep up)?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

You never needed the PC to decode anything. You just need a PC to be able to transfer the file to your console.

 

[assen]

OK, so the Xbox360 can stream video content from a PC without the PC doing the actual decoding now?
In that case, I guess I am misinformed, I thought you had to have the PC decode the video (meaning that my slow but silent fileserver would never be able to keep up)?

If the video is in WMV format, the PC will simply serve it.

If the video is in another, unsupported format, like DivX, you will need a beefier PC to transcode it on the fly.

 

[swaaye]

If the video is in another, unsupported format, like DivX, you will need a beefier PC to transcode it on the fly.

Isn't that going to lower quality rather noticeably? Unless they use a monster bitrate it sure will.

 

[assen]

Isn't that going to lower quality rather noticeably? Unless they use a monster bitrate it sure will.

Well, yes, for some definition of "noticeably" or "monster".
Remember, compressing to a high bitrate takes less time than to a lower one, and the 11 Mbps of the slowest possible connection you will have between your Xbox and PC (slow wifi) is more than enough. So if you have a beefy PC, you can probably transcode to a quality that is comparable to the source DivX quality, and stream comfortably to the Xbox. It's a kludge, and everything would be much smoother if MS decide to bite the bullet and pay for a DivX/XviD license, or manage to play these files through some generic Mpeg4 decoder - I don't know if it's possible.

By the way, I just bought one of the Chinese supermarket-brand $50 DVD/DivX players, and the quality of some (not all) DivX's played is noticeably worse than what the PC achieves. The situation with those Mpeg-4 family codecs is a complete mess...

 

[swaaye]

Well, yes, for some definition of "noticeably" or "monster".
Remember, compressing to a high bitrate takes less time than to a lower one, and the 11 Mbps of the slowest possible connection you will have between your Xbox and PC (slow wifi) is more than enough. So if you have a beefy PC, you can probably transcode to a quality that is comparable to the source DivX quality, and stream comfortably to the Xbox. It's a kludge, and everything would be much smoother if MS decide to bite the bullet and pay for a DivX/XviD license, or manage to play these files through some generic Mpeg4 decoder - I don't know if it's possible.

By the way, I just bought one of the Chinese supermarket-brand $50 DVD/DivX players, and the quality of some (not all) DivX's played is noticeably worse than what the PC achieves. The situation with those Mpeg-4 family codecs is a complete mess...

I pondered deeply earlier today and came up with a solution. MS should offer a DivX codec or player for some points or $$ on their Live service. That would be quite popular I imagine.

And yes, some of the Divx-supporting set-top players do have lower quality. But, some are quite good. The newer models are better than say the Philips DVP642 I have. The ESS Vibrato II chip is the lowest quality I believe (used in DVP642). FYI, Philips makes a new model that's ~$50-70 with a Mediatek chip.

PC is probably best though because I bet the DIVX software codec has the best postprocessing. And you could use ffdshow with all of its various postprocessing filters too.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I pondered deeply earlier today and came up with a solution. MS should offer a DivX codec or player for some points or $$ on their Live service. That would be quite popular I imagine.
.

Ya I've been saying this for months, they should offer a $5-10 codec pack that people can buy, that way everyone is happy.

 

[DeanA]

Ya I've been saying this for months, they should offer a $5-10 codec pack that people can buy, that way everyone is happy.

$5->$10? Naah.. I'd pay a premium price (like the same as a full game) for something like that.. £40 or thereabouts.. but alas I think I'm more likely to see a guy in a red & white suit breaking into my flat to leave me valuable items in the early morning of the 25th of December than see Microsoft allow this happen.

Cheers,
Dean

 

[assen]

Dean,

I think they would be lambasted for charging more than $5, not to mention the hesitation the higher-ups at the movie studios would have, as they equate divx/xvid with a direct conflict of their interests. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the guidelines for having downloadable movies and tv shows on Video Marketplace is not including a (built-in) way of streaming any other video codecs.

What is the correlation between price and attitude of the movie studios? If anything, there could be inverse correlation, if MS decide to pay "ransom money" to movie studios, similar to how they pay for the Zune.