DivX streaming solution for 360 using MCE

by Christopher Grant { Jan 17th 2006 at 8:00AM }

Last time we heard from Casey at brains-N-brawn he had written a Media Center AddIn to control Windows Media Center with the wired Xbox 360 controller. Now he's back at it, crafting together a solution to get your DivX or XviD files to play through your MCE on the Xbox 360. He's quick to point out this is a software solution, and not a mod. "This is not a mod solution or an xbox 360 hack. this works purely using the extensibility points of Media Center and freely available tools from MS. i.e. no warranties will be voided. and when Vista MCE comes out, we'll be able to radically improve this."

The system works by transcoding, in realtime, your non-compatible formats into Windows Media files on a Media Center PC, making them readable by the 360. A clever solution to a problem that Microsoft insists doesn't exist. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was glad to see a solution was discovered that didn't involve all kinds of h4x0ring; Microsoft's Major Nelson even acknowledged it, calling it a "hacky way of doing it." I'm pretty sure that means "clever as a bag of ferrets."

[Thanks, Casey and Jake]

Tags: Divx, Xvid

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Crazyglues @ Jan 17th 2006 10:08AM

Finally some info I could really use, Now all I need is a sweet usb wireless internet contection that works really sweet...

Or is the one that xbox360 offers the best one?

If someone could answer this question then I would be complete.

What is the best wireless internet conection for X360? Can you use the usb one? Will it work?

Nitin @ Jan 17th 2006 1:24PM

this is gonna sound really really stupid but i though u could stream stuff even if you had windows XP

:(

casey chesnut @ Jan 17th 2006 2:51PM

answer 1) i'm using the XBox 360 adapter on an 802.11g network. i was going to replace it with something else, but it's been working great, so i'm keeping it.

answer 2) technically, you can stream with XP, but you've still got to have MCE to view the stream. i.e. MCE will host the .asx file that lets you access the stream. there is currently no other way to get that .asx file over to the XBox 360 because Media Connect only supports music and pictures.

Crazyglues @ Jan 17th 2006 6:29PM

casey chesnut thanks for answering my question, i guess i'll go with the xbox wireless adapter, it's a little higher then the other things but I want something that I know works with no problems.
Rather have no problems then a cheaper price. Since I have a linksys wireless router 802.11g should be sweet....

As far as streaming my movies I think I'll just wait for vista since it will have MCE built in, and they are saying it should come out this summer which will be sweet.