Xbox 360 streaming

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rapperwith1p

Gawd
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Oct 23, 2005
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Not sure if this is the right place but it's the closest. Anyways, I have a few questions regarding streaming from media center to my Xbox 360. First off, how is the quality? Is it really enjoyable (same quality as watching on pc) to stream videos over your network to your tv? Also I'm a noob to the 360 scene and just found out about the Spring update adding H264 and MP4 support. Which codec is preferrable for higher quaity? Which is preferrable for smooth streaming playback?

I'm sorry for the high number of questions but I am very curious about the concept and what other people think about it (qualitywise).
 
TVersity..

thou, I find for media center work, I find my old softmodded xbox works better.
 
Media Center is painfully slow when browsing on the 360. It's probably due to my PC connected via a wireless connection but it's unusable. I can't even get to my folder to even play a video.
 
rapperwith1p said:
Media Center is painfully slow when browsing on the 360. It's probably due to my PC connected via a wireless connection but it's unusable. I can't even get to my folder to even play a video.
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Yeah I think it's your connection, I have no trouble browsing my music/movies on my 360, although my computer and 360 are connected by ethernet.
 
rapperwith1p said:
Media Center is painfully slow when browsing on the 360. It's probably due to my PC connected via a wireless connection but it's unusable. I can't even get to my folder to even play a video.
Click to expand...

what are your computer specs? Is your wireless b or g? Vista or MCE2k5?

I've used bother MCE and vista and vista is noticeably slower when using it on the 360 and that is both over ethernet and wireless g.

As for the OP, are you using vista or MCE? if not, then TVersity is your best bet. For quality I think is looks great but the experience is going to be different for you if you dont have an HDTV.

I've had no problems streaming large videos over wireless like I said above with the computer on wireless with the router in the same room and the xbox wired to the router. Compared to ethernet I havent even seen a difference even when downloading large files on the same computer.

As for which codec that is up to you. I just started reencoding my videos from divx and xvid to wmv with encode360 so I could watch more of my downloaded TV shows on my tv. To me they look and sound great but I havent tried other codecs so I couldnt say much about it other than WMV looks good.
 
I'm running Vista Ultimate 32-bit over wireless G. However, the connection seems to be really dodgy even though the router and the pc are in the same room. I have a high gain antenna hooked up to the router as well as the wireless card. The 360 is hooked to the router via ethernet. From what you guys have posted it seems that everything should work fine and I should be enjoying just as good quality on my 360/tv as I would on my pc.

I haven't had the opportunity to hook up the pc via ethernet as well since I don't have another 50 foot cable handy. Regardless, media center on the 360 should not be this slow. I move the thumb stick left or right and it takes anywhere from 5-10 secs for it to register and actually cycle to the next option.

Do I need to do anything special on the 360 or on Vista? All I did was go to media center on the 360 and obtained the code to enter on my pc. Everything looks ok as they both see each other and connect. I patiently sit through the slow navigation to go to tune network on the 360 and do the same on the pc (it's smooth as silk on the pc). I set up which folders I want to monitor i.e. my converted videos folder and then try to browse to pictures & videos on the 360. I eventually get there and then try to make my way rightward to videos and when I press A to confirm my selection is just sits there and does nothing. I'm at a loss as I really want to enjoy this wonderful experience without having to put the videos on the 360 hd.

Speaking of which, the 360 does not detect my iPod touch. Is there a way to transfer files from the pc to the 360 hd? Thanks for all the feedback and help.
 
For windows recorded TV in HD/SD and WMV I use the 360 as an extender and it works flawlessly. Smooth and without any stutters or delay. Of course none of my gaming consoles or pc's use wireless so this may be the reason. For streaming mpeg 4/H.264 AAC videos I use the regular 360 xbox dashboard with Windows Media Connect/ZUNE software and I also get a smooth connection. All of my DVD's have been ripped and re-encoded using Handbrake's PS3 preset and even on a 1080p TV the picture looks great and there doesn't seem too much of a loss of quality from the original DVD. Sometimes my kids will be streaming a movie in one room, my wife in another while I'm playing Halo 3 on a 3rd and there are never any issues.
 
rapperwith1p said:
I'm running Vista Ultimate 32-bit over wireless G. However, the connection seems to be really dodgy even though the router and the pc are in the same room. I have a high gain antenna hooked up to the router as well as the wireless card. The 360 is hooked to the router via ethernet. From what you guys have posted it seems that everything should work fine and I should be enjoying just as good quality on my 360/tv as I would on my pc.

I haven't had the opportunity to hook up the pc via ethernet as well since I don't have another 50 foot cable handy. Regardless, media center on the 360 should not be this slow. I move the thumb stick left or right and it takes anywhere from 5-10 secs for it to register and actually cycle to the next option.

Do I need to do anything special on the 360 or on Vista? All I did was go to media center on the 360 and obtained the code to enter on my pc. Everything looks ok as they both see each other and connect. I patiently sit through the slow navigation to go to tune network on the 360 and do the same on the pc (it's smooth as silk on the pc). I set up which folders I want to monitor i.e. my converted videos folder and then try to browse to pictures & videos on the 360. I eventually get there and then try to make my way rightward to videos and when I press A to confirm my selection is just sits there and does nothing. I'm at a loss as I really want to enjoy this wonderful experience without having to put the videos on the 360 hd.

Speaking of which, the 360 does not detect my iPod touch. Is there a way to transfer files from the pc to the 360 hd? Thanks for all the feedback and help.
Click to expand...

honestly I think its vista's mce that is the problem. I noticed the same lag time when using my vista computer so I switched to using my MCE one. Works much smoother.
 
I have a dormant XP install handy so I'll give TVeristy a try on XP to see how things go. My system specs are more than capable of performing these tasks. It's either Vista's media center or my PC's wireless connection acting up.
 
SC385 said:
honestly I think its vista's mce that is the problem. I noticed the same lag time when using my vista computer so I switched to using my MCE one. Works much smoother.
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Really? I am using Vista, haven't noticed it being slow but then again I never got MCE to work on XP. I didn't think MCE features did work on XP Pro?
 
whrswoldo said:
Really? I am using Vista, haven't noticed it being slow but then again I never got MCE to work on XP. I didn't think MCE features did work on XP Pro?
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I didn't know XP Pro had media center...there's XP Media Center Edition but I've never had the chance to try it. With Vista I was wandering into unknown territory and I just couldn't get it to work right.

However, I just tried TVersity on XP and WOWWWW what a difference that made. My videos work the way everyone has been describing it should work, they look great! I got my converted MP4 videos to play but I wasn't able to play other files, not even the internet videos. My understanding is that other files will be transcoded in somewhat realtime and I'd be able to see it on the tv while it was converting to wmv. It doesn't seem to work that way as it just complains about unplayable formats.
 
Hm, it'll transcode using the WMV8 codec but not WMV9 or MP4. Oh well, as long as it looks acceptable I'm satisfied. Thanks again for all the help.
 
Do any of you use Transcode 360?

I use it by contacting the 360 to my media center PC, then I hit the info button on my video and select more then hit "Stream this movie to a media center extender"

all of that is done on the 360, no PC interaction required except for installing the transcode 360 software
 
kent said:
Do any of you use Transcode 360?

I use it by contacting the 360 to my media center PC, then I hit the info button on my video and select more then hit "Stream this movie to a media center extender"

all of that is done on the 360, no PC interaction required except for installing the transcode 360 software
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm using it. Works very well for watching divx/xvid movies on my 360.
 
Ive used transcode 360, but it puts my single core HTPC at 100% and prevents any other extender from accessing it. Works well though. Since all my stuff is H.264, its better for me just to stream it via the 360 dashboard and let the 360 do the work. With transcode 360 I could also let the HTPC have my quad core do all the hard work, but that means I'd have to keep more than one pc on all the time.
 
Does anyone know what my options (if any) are for accessing my ubuntu mythv/dvd iso/mp3 server via the 360?
 
I actually use my Xbox 360 to stream movies from my Vista Ultimate (Media Center) box to my living room TV via network. It works very well though you can't fast forward or rewind when using videos larger than 2GB. At least I haven't been able to. I actually rip all my movies and leave them in a lossless format for maximum quality. That and I don't care enough to encode them into another format. In any case the quality is virtually indistinguishable from the original disks and playing it via the Xbox as a media center extender. It's been a very easy setup to manage and to use.
 
i am running Vista Ult 64bit and having a problem with the Transcode 360 Vista program....the menu on the 360 always tells me something about an "object not being referenced to a target" or something stupid like that when i choose transcode (info, more, transcode 360, yes i am doing it right)

i dunno....seems awfully dodgy and buggy honestly, cant find any solution yet

TVersity was a hog on my system with XP....afraid to even load that up on Vista...

is there any program out there that will actually transcode avi's and such on the fly to my 360 as an extender? wish there was one that worked well without being a huge PITA
 
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