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?
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 11:24 am and is filed under Windows XP. Find similar posts by selecting any of the following tags: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Sunday October 14 2007 at 1:19 pm Xbox » Streaming H.264 video to the Xbox 360 wrote:
[...] Stephany wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFor 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 … [...]
on Monday January 5 2009 at 2:53 am Brian wrote:
I’ve had the same experience but changing from .mp4 to .avi is what’s worked for me. For some reason the .wmv files don’t show up. Everything I stream to my XBox has to be converted to an .avi format.