Watching videos from laptop on tv/xbox 360

candlegrease

I'm talking about videos saved to my laptop, not live streams.

What equipment do I need? (I'm tecnhologically illiterate)

seanybiker

Ethernet cable then you will need to share them with the Xbox. I think it depends on what OS your on to set this up

GarIT

candlegrease wrote: »

I'm talking about videos saved to my laptop, not live streams.

What equipment do I need? (I'm tecnhologically illiterate)

Save them to a USB and then put the USB into the Xbox then just go to video in the home menu and external device, or connect both to a wireless connection and follow the steps for windows media connect from the Xbox home screen.

candlegrease

GarIT wrote: »

Save them to a USB and then put the USB into the Xbox then just go to video in the home menu and external device, or connect both to a wireless connection and follow the steps for windows media connect from the Xbox home screen.

Will this work with an external hard drive?

steve_

I use Tversity to play videos on my xbox. Just add the video to your tversity playlist and then play it through your xbox

Softair

there is a torrent program called Vuze that you can drag and drop your video files to your xbox 360 and play from that, the program picks up your 360 once theres an internet connection. I use it all the time

GarIT

candlegrease wrote: »

Will this work with an external hard drive?

If it is just set up as a storage device and not a media player it should, I have heard of problems with some devices over 32GB though.

ibFoxer

GarIT wrote: »

If it is just set up as a storage device and not a media player it should, I have heard of problems with some devices over 32GB though.

AFAIR you need to have a drive formatted in fat32. Then it's plain sailing- drag, drop, plug in, enjoy.

EDIT: If anyone has any trouble formatting to fat32 inside xp/vista/7, i use this programme http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/

I seem to remember the formatting being finicky when it's done with the OS

ibFoxer

Softair wrote: »

there is a torrent program called Vuze that you can drag and drop your video files to your xbox 360 and play from that, the program picks up your 360 once theres an internet connection. I use it all the time

Has this worked for you with files you haven't......"acquired"....... with vuze, or something associated with vuze?

GarIT

foxerv1 wrote: »

AFAIR you need to have a drive formatted in fat32. Then it's plain sailing- drag, drop, plug in, enjoy.

EDIT: If anyone has any trouble formatting to fat32 inside xp/vista/7, i use this programme http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/

I seem to remember the formatting being finicky when it's done with the OS

Most storage devices are already formatted to Fat32 I think, because NTFS uses excessive writes and can damage a USB or Solid State Drive.

Windows 7 definitely has no problems formatting to Fat32 all you do is go to Computer, right click the USB drive and click format, then select Fat32. Formatting will erase all data though. I think vista should be the same, I cant say anything for XP though.

ibFoxer

GarIT wrote: »

Most storage devices are already formatted to Fat32 I think, because NTFS uses excessive writes and can damage a USB or Solid State Drive.

Windows 7 definitely has no problems formatting to Fat32 all you do is go to Computer, right click the USB drive and click format, then select Fat32. Formatting will erase all data though. I think vista should be the same, I cant say anything for XP though.

Maybe its NTFS it needs to be formatted to? Either way, i just seem to recall having issues formatting over a certain size when trying to do so with xp or vista.

CORaven

candlegrease wrote: »

Will this work with an external hard drive?

Yes it will work with a external hard drive. You will need it to be of FAT32 format however. Windows will not format a partition on a drive larger than 32GB (I think), so if you want a larger partition you will need to d/l additional software. ( a quick google will do it).

The actual file types that you can play is also limited. You can play .avis and .wmvs no problem, it cannot play .mkvs however.

GarIT

foxerv1 wrote: »

Maybe its NTFS it needs to be formatted to? Either way, i just seem to recall having issues formatting over a certain size when trying to do so with xp or vista.

Mine all work on Fat32, NTFS allows for faster read/write on drives with moving parts. And NTFS is better for reading and writing at the same time, like a computer would use the drive. Fat32 is more efficient for storage where you wont be reading and writing at the same time.

hidinginthebush

Also, FAT32 cannot accept file sizes over 4GB, so if you have dvdRip or blu-ray download, it will tell you the drive is full when you try to drag them over onto the drive.

On XP, there's a program that converts ntsf to fat32 it in seconds rather than the DOS method, which takes hours and doesn't seem to work for large drives anyway. I can't remember the name at the moment (something like gformat?), but I can have a nose around later, I think it should still be on my laptop.

And for converting .mkv's (or and other videos) to play on the xbox, I use a program called gotsent. Haven't had any trouble with it to date

Edit: also, I can say for certain that NTSF will not work on an xbox

Softair

foxerv1 wrote: »

Has this worked for you with files you haven't......"acquired"....... with vuze, or something associated with vuze?

yea it works with all video files once you drag them and drop them there