Playback AVI files on XBox

[forestpc]

I have a problem playing AVI files in the following scenario. Have a networked Vista Home Premium PC with Media Player 11 configured to share media with an XBox Elite. Have AVI movies on a networked attached Buffalo Linkstation. Media Player and Media Center can both playback these files but it's a different story on the XBox. The XBox is updated with all Microsoft updates. When I select Media Center PC on the XBox it sees the files but cannot play them but from reading various articles I can see why this might happen. However, when I use the Pictures/Video/Music tabs on the XBox I also have problems. The PC is located using these tabs but Media Player library folders/files are only shown (and hence playable) if they are located on a hard drive local to the PC. The netwrked locations are just not listed (even though Media Player 11 has no problem playing them). Is this a recognised limitation? Is there a way around it (TVersity) or do I have to consider converting the files to other formats (e.g. mpeg which do seem to be playable via the XBox Media Center link.

Tx

[admin]

Is this for the Xbox 360 or the original Xbox?

TVersity I think is what you'll need, as it seems to work better with the Xbox 360 than Microsoft's own software. Through TVersity, the Xbox 360 will play all MPEG-4 ASP (DivX, XviD) encoded AVI files natively (no need for TVersity to transcode the files), as well as H.264 (level 4.1, with LC AAC stereo audio). Anything that it won't play natively, TVersity will transcode them to a format that the Xbox 360 does support in real time.

[forestpc]

Hi - it's the latest XBox 360 Elite. It has the updates necessary to play AVI files streamed from the PC but it appears the files must be located on a local hard drive of the PC. Any AVIs on a network drive just do not appear in the XBox menu even though the host PC Media Player 11 plays them without any problems. I assume this must be a limitation which hopefully TVersity does not have.

[admin]

I've not tried this before through TVersity, so please have a go and let us know if it works.

[forestpc]

It works! Installed TVersity and hit a few problems but doing the following finally got it to work.
1. Make sure network drive folder sources are defined using \\server\folder rather than as a mapped drive
2. Turn of Windows Media Player 11 sharing completely (not just for the Xbox)
3. Disabled SSDP Discovery Service

The downside of this is now I can't use the XBox Extender service at all which means I cannot view TV programs recorded by my PCs Media Center via the XBox unless I convert them from dvr-ms to AVI since TVersity doesn't appear to handle the native format! I think the lesson from all this is that if you want to store media files on a network device you really need to invest in something like a Home Server.

[admin]

Thanks for posting an update.