DivX Compatiblity for Xbox 360 confirmed?

[dimsumx]

Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/30/xbox-360-fall-dashboard-update-detailed-divx-xbla-hits-and-mo/) reports that the Fall Update will include what many have been waiting for: The ability to play DivX and XviD from your Xbox 360.

The final component of the update is a little amorphous. They've got the Parental Timer, which we'll gloss over here. There are also some notable updates on the video side. Small update: full-screen previews. Megaton update: MPEG-4 Part 2 video codec support. Specifically, MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP (advanced simple profile) and SP (simple profile) in an AVI container. What does that mean to us humans? Greenberg decodes, "What that basically means is that our users should find that most of their DivX and Xvid files will work because they're under that umbrella of the MPEG-4 Part 2 codec."

About time.

[Oddmaker]

Yay! Hopefuly be able to stick my external usb hdd to it and play my divx movies.

[Wolfgang]

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...yback-faq.aspx

**1. What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for AVI?

Xbox 360 supports the following for AVI:
· File Extensions: .avi, .divx
· Containers: AVI
· Video Profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2, Simple & Advanced Simple Profile
· Video Bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps. See question number 11 for more information.
· Audio Profiles: Dolby® Digital 2 channel and 5.1 channel, MP3
· Audio Max Bitrate: No restrictions. See question number 11 for more information.

Plenty of more info at the link above

[Shadowstorm]

Also @ Ars Technica:

On December 4. Microsoft will unleash the 2007 Fall Dashboard Update on the throngs of waiting Xbox 360 users. While the company has previously announced many of the features of this new update, a new one has just slipped out: DivX and Xvid support.

[dimsumx]

H.264 too? Sweet.

[Mdot23]

1up has an article about it too. They tested it out and said it was great. 1080p support and all.

[brokenFUN]

Yay! Hopefuly be able to stick my external usb hdd to it and play my divx movies.

I doubt it. network only.

[dimsumx]

I doubt it. network only.

actually, it's supported....

Scenario: From USB storage device to Xbox 360 Dashboard Video Player

Supported Codecs: WMV(Unprotected), Mpeg4,
H.264, AVI.

What I really want is just plain network share support, instead of going through Windows Connect and WMP11.

[Isamura]

This is going to rocketsauce.

[Harv]

Now I guess I just need to setup media center or whatever the heck software they require on my PC so I can stream the videos over my wireless.

Currently I'm doing it with my modded XBOX and XBMC.

[Maskatron]

Nice, I can unhook the old black and green XBMC machine finally.

[MrMeatshake]

Currently I'm doing it with my modded XBOX and XBMC.

which will almost certainly remain the best way to do this. if i were you i'd stick to that! :)

[Beelzebud]

Nice, I can unhook the old black and green XBMC machine finally.

Why would you do that? The XBMC box has SAMBA file sharing.

[Maskatron]

Why would you do that? The XBMC box has SAMBA file sharing.

Tell you the truth, I haven't investigated much just how this setup is going to work. But if it's "good enough", then I'll be happy with it.

[Goronmon]

Finally I have easy access to porn on my HDTV.

[51|RandoM]

This will come in handy for people with a bunch of divx on their network but only have 360s attached to their displays. They won't have to batch re-encode or transcode on the fly whenever they want to watch their perfectly legal divx/xvid content.

[Harv]

which will almost certainly remain the best way to do this. if i were you i'd stick to that! :)

I probably will, but I'll at least give this a try to see how well it works.

XBMC is just a great app. I don't think there is anything it can't play.

[Ebon Deth]

Yay! Now people can stream ALL of their porn onto their bigscreens!

[Goronmon]

Yay! Now people can stream ALL of their porn onto their bigscreens!I already made that joke. You fail.

[mkelehan]

I already made that joke. You fail.

1up beat you to it. In their video walkthrough on gamevideos.com, they said, "Now you can watch your hardcore pornography and pirated TV shows on the big screen."

[Mortis]

Yes! Full clan support and a buffed friend list is all that I want now.

[Goronmon]

1up beat you to it. In their video walkthrough on gamevideos.com, they said, "Now you can watch your hardcore pornography and pirated TV shows on the big screen."I'm pretty sure 1up wasn't the very first either if you want to get all historical on the subject.

[carnage11]

Right fucking on!:)



To those asking how to stream, I just use WMP11 and I haven't had a single problem as of yet.

[Shadowstorm]

I won't quote the entire update, but damn, is it long!

Some worthy links to check out:

What's included in the update (full list): http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-system-update.aspx

Video Playback FAQ:
http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx

[straximus]

What I really want is just plain network share support, instead of going through Windows Connect and WMP11.

Amen to that, brother.

All of my shows/movies are stored on a Linux server, shared with Samba. I can't give up my XBMC XBox until either the above happens, or the XBMC Linux port is finished. I doubt the former will ever happen, so I'm stuck waiting on the latter.

[Slack3r78]

H.264 too? Sweet.

H.264 support has been in at least as long as I've owned my 360 (I bought it around the Forza 2 release in late May). The problem is there are a lot of idiots that think ripping H.264 to AVI or MKV is a good idea, which means they won't play back on the 360 since it expects standard container formats. (MP4, etc).

[Chainblast]

As silly as this might sound Divx and Xvid support is a big deal to me, and in conjunction with a couple other things has me trading in my PS3 for a 360. MS continues to beat Sony to just about everything (if not everything) this generation, this just being another example.

[dimsumx]

The thing I like about XBMC still is that I can just browse straight to shared folders instead of having to put everythng in the My Videos and run it through WMP, plus it can play straight off of zips and rars.

[sleepbox]

YAY! NO MORE TVersity!!

[Bingley Joe]

I really hope the Connect360 guys are quick about adding support for this (assuming it won't 'just work')..

[Sl1pstream]

Does this mean that the Zune will also support .avi files soon? I'd like to get a few tv shows on there without converting them.

[kababa]

I really hope the Connect360 guys are quick about adding support for this (assuming it won't 'just work')..

Yeah me too, I was wondering about this too, I hope their update is up before or soon after tuesday.

1 problem though, I hate watching movies on my 360 cause its so damn loud.

[Isamura]

I'm pretty sure 1up wasn't the very first either if you want to get all historical on the subject.

Correct.

Read post #28:
http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35548&highlight=divx&page=2

Clearly, I'm the big perverted winner here....

[Slack3r78]

I really hope the Connect360 guys are quick about adding support for this (assuming it won't 'just work')..

Thirded. Connect360 is awesome.

[FrogGodHero]

Now I can watch my porn on my HDTV!... =p

Yeah i gave up on my Xbox360 as a media center long ago and just hooked up a desktop to my HDTV to watch....C-SPAN....thats the ticket.

[Greeble]

As silly as this might sound Divx and Xvid support is a big deal to me, and in conjunction with a couple other things has me trading in my PS3 for a 360. MS continues to beat Sony to just about everything (if not everything) this generation, this just being another example.

PS3 will be coming out with support for divx as well so hopefully you have better reasons than that. In any case do yourself a favor and rent Uncharted: Drake's Fortune before you trade in the PS3. Best single player game of the year imo. I enjoyed it even more than Bioshock (great at the beginning but the combat got kinda meh) and Portal (great game, but very short and little replayability).

[vodka_mike]

Nice, I can unhook the old black and green XBMC machine finally.

I found the the Media Center over my home network was artificially slow.

Media Center was adding a ton of over head and menus that were fluid and smooth via tveristy were aweful in Media Center. So I caved and do sneaker net with a 300GB USB harddrive for my TV/jukebox needs.

I had wireless G hooked up, and then Powerline HD which is much better. Running CAT5 isn't an option. Under TVersity 100mbps powerline was streaming fine. With that same set up Media Center was unusable.

[trfe]

PS3 will be coming out with support for divx as well so hopefully you have better reasons than that. In any case do yourself a favor and rent Uncharted: Drake's Fortune before you trade in the PS3. Best single player game of the year imo. I enjoyed it even more than Bioshock (great at the beginning but the combat got kinda meh) and Portal (great game, but very short and little replayability).

How long is the Uncharted campaign again?

[LostToys]

It took me 7 and a half hours on the hardest difficulty. Will take you less if you do not stop to try to do the achievements or find hidden treasure.

Back the news, this would be good news several years ago. Unfortunately all of my HD content is in MKV these days.

[TrackZero]

1up has an article about it too. They tested it out and said it was great. 1080p support and all.

Dear god. Microsoft finally dropped the hammer.

[TrackZero]

Now I guess I just need to setup media center or whatever the heck software they require on my PC so I can stream the videos over my wireless.

Currently I'm doing it with my modded XBOX and XBMC.

Well, assuming it's like what already streams, it's just part of Media Player 11. Took me the whole of 5 seconds to turn on (unless you've got to open a few firewall ports, it all depends on your setup).

[LostToys]

1up has an article about it too. They tested it out and said it was great. 1080p support and all.

1080p decoding or 1080p output (scaling)?

[Harv]

Well, assuming it's like what already streams, it's just part of Media Player 11. Took me the whole of 5 seconds to turn on (unless you've got to open a few firewall ports, it all depends on your setup).

I'm getting that impression. I guess I have to import my media into Media Player 11 or some such.

[TrackZero]

I'm getting that impression. I guess I have to import my media into Media Player 11 or some such.

Yeah, you can just give it some directories and it'll scan everything under that to figure out what it can stream.

Edit: And yeah, you specify what device gets access (in this case, the 360, it'll show up with it's own little 360 icon).

[TrackZero]

1080p decoding or 1080p output (scaling)?

Gift horse, see mouth.

[Harv]

Yeah, you can just give it some directories and it'll scan everything under that to figure out what it can stream.

Edit: And yeah, you specify what device gets access (in this case, the 360, it'll show up with it's own little 360 icon).

Wonder how my Top Gear downloads will look in HD, probably like ass since the source isn't HD.

[carnage11]

Yeah, you can just give it some directories and it'll scan everything under that to figure out what it can stream.

Edit: And yeah, you specify what device gets access (in this case, the 360, it'll show up with it's own little 360 icon).


I've noticed though, that some videos it will scan and find and will show up on the 360 but aren't viewable. I don't know why, but I'm hoping this update will fix it. It seems to be mpg files usually.

[LostToys]

Gift horse, see mouth.

Why not? It is a legitimate question, as one would allow me to playback 1080p DivX files, while the other limits me to only 720p (previously reported) decoding. There is a huge difference between decoded and output resolution.

[Imran]

Why not? It is a legitimate question, as one would allow me to playback 1080p DivX files, while the other limits me to only 720p (previously reported) decoding. There is a huge difference between decoded and output resolution.


From Wolfgang's previous post:....

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...yback-faq.aspx

**1. What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for AVI?

Xbox 360 supports the following for AVI:
· File Extensions: .avi, .divx
· Containers: AVI
· Video Profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2, Simple & Advanced Simple Profile
· Video Bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps. See question number 11 for more information.
· Audio Profiles: Dolby® Digital 2 channel and 5.1 channel, MP3
· Audio Max Bitrate: No restrictions. See question number 11 for more information.

So it looks like HD scaling, not decoding.

Max FPS - 30 as well, perfect for movies and the like, but I would have loved to have 60.

Can't complain though,


Come on Sony, man up and match!

[Imran]

Gift horse, see mouth.


It's not really a "gift" when a company throws on a feature to a product that you paid for. It's just a welcome addition that helps them stay competitive.

Now, if I got a free Xbox 360 with DiVX support, then it would be a gift.

[Watership]

Why not? It is a legitimate question, as one would allow me to playback 1080p DivX files, while the other limits me to only 720p (previously reported) decoding. There is a huge difference between decoded and output resolution.

not 1080p native for Divx/Xvid. But for VC-1 sure.

edit: Repeated http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/default.aspx post :p

[Jack B]

Yes! Full clan support and a buffed friend list is all that I want now.

On the 1up video they said 100+ friends lists it might make it into the Spring update. They wanted to add it, but it's a real technical challenge, because of the way they designed the Marketplace. Not sure if it's a software issue or hardware resources.

Hope it happens in the Spring, although our EvAvFriends list Friends of Friends thing, might work pretty well for now.

They didn't say anything about clans though.

[firecut]

So if this is official it'll be a matter of days before SONY makes the knee-jerk announcement confirming full Divx and Xvid support on the PS3. Win-win for us on both fronts! =)

[Haemorrhage]

XBMC was a great, cheap media centre program when it was first developed for playing standard resolution Divx and Xvid files, but it is quickly becoming outdated. Due to the low RAM and video card of the Xbox, it cannot play HD resolution videos. It can't even play H.264 videos at 720x576 resolutions. Also, it can be a technical headache to setup with Vista and still has many system crashing bugs.

You can defend the XBMC all you want, but accessing the Samba shares is really the only major advantage it still has over the 360. And that is a pretty weak one.

[springah]

You can defend the XBMC all you want, but accessing the Samba shares is really the only major advantage it still has over the 360. And that is a pretty weak one.

Er, Really? Have you ever USED XBMC? Everything is sorted much better than on the 360. Can sort by Name, Date, Size, etc. Browse all kinds of directories, scripts, themes (Blade themes are Blade themes. I'm talking THEMES), file manager - I can go on. It has a browser these days too..

But if you're being serious, you're nuts... in my opinion.

[TrackZero]

It's not really a "gift" when a company throws on a feature to a product that you paid for. It's just a welcome addition that helps them stay competitive.

Now, if I got a free Xbox 360 with DiVX support, then it would be a gift.

Getting something for free which was never promised/expected in the first place is a 'gift' by definition. Smarten up or get off the sauce.

[Jack B]

So if this is official it'll be a matter of days before SONY makes the knee-jerk announcement confirming full Divx and Xvid support on the PS3. Win-win for us on both fronts! =)

Didn't Sony already say they were going to add Dvix and Xvid support? Or was that just internet rumor and not an official announcement?

[Haemorrhage]

Er, Really? Have you ever USED XBMC? Everything is sorted much better than on the 360. Can sort by Name, Date, Size, etc. Browse all kinds of directories, scripts, themes (Blade themes are Blade themes. I'm talking THEMES), file manager - I can go on. It has a browser these days too..

But if you're being serious, you're nuts... in my opinion.

Yes, I have been using XBMC for the past 2.5 years, ever since I bought my 360. I am not disagreeing with your arguments of file sorting, that is a great feature. Scripts, really, what useful scripts have you found?

But still you fail to argue the point of a MEDIA CENTER, it's ability to function well as a media center. The XBMC will become obsolete soon as people are wanting higher definition videos.

[Beelzebud]

Yes, I have been using XBMC for the past 2.5 years, ever since I bought my 360. I am not disagreeing with your arguments of file sorting, that is a great feature. Scripts, really, what useful scripts have you found?

But still you fail to argue the point of a MEDIA CENTER, it's ability to function well as a media center. The XBMC will become obsolete soon as people are wanting higher definition videos.

I have a few XviDs in HD and they play fine. Furthermore, XBMC can upscale DVD's to 720p and 1080i. I'm not sure if you've actually tried running some HD video on XBMC, but I haven't had any problems, and I do have a 1080i 54inch TV it's outputting to.

Earlier you said it had problems with configuration on Vista. How so? You use ftp to modify files, and if you're accessing your shared folders in Vista you just put the username/pass in the sources.xml file.

No useful scripts? Shutdowntimer, Shoutcast browser, TV guide, Comedy Central Video archive, etc. I find those all very useful.

[straximus]

You can defend the XBMC all you want, but accessing the Samba shares is really the only major advantage it still has over the 360. And that is a pretty weak one.

I'm not defending it. I just use it because it does what I want, in a way I find pleasing. If you value some other features more, that's fine by me.

I don't even have an HD set yet. When I get one I'll probably opt for connecting my server to my set directly, and using something like MythTV as a frontend (until XBMC for Linux comes out). I administrate Windows servers all day at work, and don't really enjoy using the OS. So I'm certainly not going to value using a media center that requires me to use Windows at home.

Different strokes.

[springah]

But still you fail to argue the point of a MEDIA CENTER, it's ability to function well as a media center. The XBMC will become obsolete soon as people are wanting higher definition videos.

Read: Supported formats. (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=XBMC_Features_and_Supported_Format s/Codecs)

Though, agreed, no HD kind of sucks. But it's not XBMCs fault! :)

[Slack3r78]

I have a few XviDs in HD and they play fine. Furthermore, XBMC can upscale DVD's to 720p and 1080i. I'm not sure if you've actually tried running some HD video on XBMC, but I haven't had any problems, and I do have a 1080i 54inch TV it's outputting to.
HD content encoded in XviD? There's a laughable thought in and of itself.

[Carnifex]

HD content encoded in XviD? There's a laughable thought in and of itself.
Why? You can encode HD material with any codec you want as long as it supports HD resolutions. Both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP based codecs work just fine, though if you want the same quality level on the encodings then bitrate efficiency will be compromised.

[Slack3r78]

Why? You can encode HD material with any codec you want as long as it supports HD resolutions.
Because ripping HD content to XViD/DiVX is kind of dumb when H.264 and other more modern codecs exist.

[Harv]

I got the dashboard update the other day and started up WMP11. So far I've found that I can play just about everything through the 360 media player. I'd get more specific, but I have to review what some of these are encoded with. I know some are XVID.