Streaming H.264 video to the Xbox 360
For the last few days I’ve been trying to get some mp4 files, which Microsoft say are supported in the latest update for the Xbox 360, with little success. However, this morning, I’ve finally managed to get it to work – here’s what I did for those struggling with this too.
First off, let me say that these are the steps I’ve followed for my Windows XP SP2, Windows Media Player 11 – based “server”. The server itself is a Mac Mini, running Boot Camp and booting into Windows. I keed Mac OS X on it in case there are ever any firmware updates etc.; I get the feeling Apple don’t like anything but their own software on this box. Why did I buy a Mac Mini as my server? It’s silent, it’s small and most importantly, I got it cheap on eBay.
Having looked back over what I did, I’m not certain this step is necessary, but the first thing I did was to install an H.264 DirectShow filter. I got mine from the Windows Essentials Codec Pack. Downloading and installing this was a breeze – this gave me the ability to add .mp4 files to my Windows Media Player 11 library and play them back. However, when navigating to the library on my Xbox 360, none of these showed up. Why?
I examined the file and could see no reason why it wouldn’t work. H.264 is supported by the Xbox 360, as is the stereo AAC audio encoding used. Note that 5.1 encoding is NOT supported, but that wasn’t the problem in this case. I tried several things to no avail – the files simply weren’t showing up on the Xbox 360.
So, what to do? Well, my last shot was to try renaming the file from an .mp4 file to an .wmv file. I’ve had some success with this in the past with Windows Media Player – the player refuses to play a file because it has an unknown extension. And guess what? Deleting the .mp4 files from the Media Library, renaming them all as .wmv files and then re-adding them worked like a charm. Media Player gave me an error message, but the files were finally showing up on the Xbox 360.
Now, when I first tried to play one of these files on the Xbox 360, I got an error message – fortunately though it was just telling me that I needed to download an optional media update in order to play this file. After a few seconds of waiting for the (free) download to complete, I tried again – and finally I have High Definition, H.264-encoded video streaming to my Xbox 360!
So two final thoughts on this. Firstly, do I actually need an H.264 codec on the server? Changing the filename to .wmv from .mp4 should allow the Xbox 360 to see the file and play it. Okay I wouldn’t be able to play the file back on the server but hey, it lives under the stairs with no keyboard, mouse or monitor installed. Secondly, WTF Microsoft? Having to rename a file from .mp4 to .wmv so that the Xbox 360 can play it? Seriously, how hard is it to recognise another file format?
Hey,
Yeah the issue I think has been resolved as of the December 2007 update.
But yeah before that I think you have to rename .mp4 to .wmv, which I think was more then retarded.
Also you need to keep the audio on your mp4s to AAC, low complexity and nothing more then stereo :( Which I think kinda sux, because the 360 has brilliant 5.1 audio capabilities.
h.264 is also a better video encoding format then xvid and divx, the 360 will play DD5.1 out of those two. So you’re left not the best of both worlds in the end, you can have great audio with Divx/Xvid or great picture with h.264.
Well I can confirm that this issue still remains, at least in the UK. And thank you very much for the fix, worked a charm, I just renamed to .wmv and as if by magic…it works.
I wish I could say the same, still having problems.
A bit of info that might help:
I believe you can also apply a regitry patch to Windows Media Player 11 so that I picks up .MP4 file extensions correcly and shows them on the XBox 360, there’s more into here (http://a8t8.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2518DD508BB713E8!156.entry), also google might provide more info.
You can also use TVersity (instead of WMP11) amongst others for streaming file to an XBox/PS3, that’s what I’ve used in the past.
Neil
still needed here.
works.
When investigating this issue, it was looking more and more like I was having to re-encode some stuff in order to get it to play. I was becoming quite annoyed with that.
This is one of the final sites I came to about this problem and the first I’ve seen to suggest renaming the files. To my surprise, this actually worked, lol. It’s so stupid that the Xbox refuses to play stuff by file type alone. I see others say this is fixed but this issue definitely still exists in the UK and this is the perfect solution to avoid re-encoding stuff.
Thanks very much for posting this.