DivX/ Xvid Support for 360

Vyse

http://techdigest.tv/2007/11/xbox_360_offici.html

Pacifico

Good stuff. If its true

CarefulNow

Excellent news. The other features for the new update are pretty crap IMO.

Zonda999

i always tought that microdoft were scetptical of divx and so i tought the 360 would never have it.Actually the ps3 is getting it too so it'll be fairly commonplace

Kristok

i dont think microsoft ever really cared about divx they just tried pushing their own format but as it hasnt really caught on they are just giving in before the competition gets any leg up on them. Now if they just let me browse network shares without having to run WMP and update codecs without having to wait for dash updates id be able to stop using my orignal xbox.

jayteecork

A bit off topic, but could I transfer .avi files to my 360 and watch them on my telly?

TheDoc

alot of websites saying this finally " ends the need to purchase windows media centre or another streaming utility"

does this mean if you put a disc in with movies or whatever on this format they will work?

thebman

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

alot of websites saying this finally " ends the need to purchase windows media centre or another streaming utility"

does this mean if you put a disc in with movies or whatever on this format they will work?

That would depend on whether the DVD software could access the DIVX codec. I doubt it. That would probably require editing the DVD software itself which they probably have no interest in doing.

I'd say its more for the video marketplace than anything else so they can stream high quality shows in a very popular format. What it will allow you to do is stream divx natively without the need to convert it to a wma file. Programs like TVersity were doing this on the fly so it was transparent to the user but this saves all those resources your computer uses just converting files to wma so it is a welcome update. You also loose quality when converting between formats.

The DivX web player is becoming more and more popular too because the DivX guys got that right too by allowing you to save the videos from the software and having good full screen support in the web player and desktop dimming when not viewing in full screen. Really incredible for a web player IMO.

conzy

Everything supports DivX and Xvid these days... Its about time Sony and Microsoft implemented it

hshortt

More details are needed, but it's not that far off. If I can't play a divx encoded avi from a disc, usb media or over the network then in my opinion it's not implemented properly.

Including divx.xvid support is a big step for MS as it will no doubt harm their media centre market (I've two installed and in use too), for me I'll be able to remove the media centre from the living room if the divx implementation is good. This opens up space for something new

Cheerio
Howard

unklerosco

I assume you'll be able to play it from a usb key or external drive.... Either way i'm happy, I can watch my movies from my HTPC on a nice big 100" screen now :-)

Flaccus

Divx is really only a technology which people who pirate stuff care about. At least that's what it has turned into for the majority from what I can see. You know it's true. Anyone who cares about quality playback has DVD's, BD's or HDVD's. How many of you convert these to divx ? None I'd say. For the vast majority with 360's it just means you can stop using Nero media home, Winamp or TVersity to transcode on the fly your divx of some US show you just torrented down.

ghouldaddy07

Hope this turns out to be true but I wreckon microsoft would have made a big announcement about it.

The media centre portion of the 360 has been fairly useless to me cause I dont keep any files in proper mpeg format and had to use the likes of tverseity but I get the use out of it if its implemented.

ghouldaddy07

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

hurrah:)

zod

when is the update out ?

unklerosco

Updates out on the 4th december....

And I suppose Flaccus is right but i've converted all my dvds to divx/xvid so I can have access to them anywhere around the house....

WellyJ

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

alot of websites saying this finally " ends the need to purchase windows media centre or another streaming utility"

does this mean if you put a disc in with movies or whatever on this format they will work?

The 360 already plays .wmv from dvdr and this update will allow DivX/XviD to play from dvdr also.

Or you can connect an external drive filled with videos through USB.

ghouldaddy07

its abit crap that the 360 wont read ntfs external drives though but still one update at a time

thebman

Flaccus wrote: »

Divx is really only a technology which people who pirate stuff care about. At least that's what it has turned into for the majority from what I can see. You know it's true. Anyone who cares about quality playback has DVD's, BD's or HDVD's. How many of you convert these to divx ? None I'd say. For the vast majority with 360's it just means you can stop using Nero media home, Winamp or TVersity to transcode on the fly your divx of some US show you just torrented down.

Its not illegal to download tv series in all scenario's. It depends on region licensing.

Then you have people who have the boxsets who don't want to bother converting them on their Pc who will just download someone elses converted files.

It could be your back up copy. There are lots of legitimate scenario's, its just the pirating one is the most popular.

WellyJ

ghouldaddy07 wrote: »

its abit crap that the 360 wont read ntfs external drives though but still one update at a time

I use the mac file system because, like ntfs, it allows for files over 4GB.

There a cool program called macdrive that will allow XP to recognise and write to drives formatted like this.

Its great for HDWMV files that are way over the 4GB limit.

LegacyUser

will i be able to download the update to a disk and then update the xbox as i dont have abox live??

BloodSugarSex

robdcu wrote: »

will i be able to download the update to a disk and then update the xbox as i dont have abox live??

more than likely yes.

Flaccus

brim4brim wrote: »

Its not illegal to download tv series in all scenario's. It depends on region licensing.

Then you have people who have the boxsets who don't want to bother converting them on their Pc who will just download someone elses converted files.

It could be your back up copy. There are lots of legitimate scenario's, its just the pirating one is the most popular.

That's true..but we all know most people download those tv shows...and I am not so sure whether it it legal or illegal to dl tv shows. I thought it was illegal just like movies.

Also as regards backup copies..people talk about the "right" to make a backup and fair usage and all but didn't the EU recently rule on this and say it was illegal even to rip a CD you own to MP3 ? I'd assume something similar applies to DVD's also. Or maybe that's just in Norway right now. I know in the UK, they turn a blind eye. And in France and Germany there is a tax on blank media. Not sure about Ireland. Anyway, I'm off topic.

I welcome the udpate all the same

Basq

Excellent news to be honest..

Now to look for a nice 320GB - 500GB USB powered external disk!

(the 3 external disks i have all required a seperate power supply)

Scruff

hurry up and fix my xbox!

bit of a sting in the tail in that they wont support 5.1 AAC though

Do you support 5.1 channel AAC?
No. Only 2-channel AAC is supported. If you want to play a 5.1-channel video on your console, you will need to encode it to WMV with WMAPro 5.1 audio or use the AVI container with Dolby® Digital 5.1 audio.

WellyJ

basquille wrote: »

Excellent news to be honest..

Now to look for a nice 320GB - 500GB USB powered external disk!

(the 3 external disks i have all required a seperate power supply)

Was looking for the biggest USB powered drive,

Highest I could find was 250GB.

unklerosco

They go up and over 300gb now but ur gonna pay for it...

LFCFan

does this

From Windows Media Center to Xbox Media Center Extender
WMV(Protected), WMV(Unprotected),
Mpeg2


mean you still won't be able to stream a DivX file from your PC to Xbox?

Fingleberries

In the FAQ it seems to cover most questions about what it will mean.

I think the section you mention is for Windows Media Center streaming to the Media Center Extender - if you're using another option, like WMP11 you seem to be able to do DivX/AVI files over streaming. I presume that other solutions like TVersity, etc. will update to follow this level of support.

Scruff

Anyone know what would be a good NAS server with wifi that the 360 could connect to to stream them off? Now that xvids wouldnt need to be encoded on the fly it looks like a nice option.

ghouldaddy07

Have a 500 gig NTFS external hardrive i want to some how get my xbox 360 to read the drive without converting to a fat 32 drive that would make me lose alot of the discs volume any solutions.