I apologize if this is not the right forum for this question:

I am contemplating the purchase of a hd camcorder. I will be saving the files to my computer which is on a home network. My Xbox 360 is also on the home network via wired ethernet. Will I be able to view the saved file in hd through my xbox 360 on my hdtv? Will I have to convert the file to some other format than what it is natively saved at when I capture the file from my camcorder?

The 360 can stream your HD content to your LCD no problem. However, your content has to be in a format the 360 supports. Until you tell us what your camcorder saves recordings as we won't be able to let you know what you can do to get it to play on your 360.

HMerly,

Here is what I found on the website for the Canon HV20, which is the camcorder I plan on buying:

"MPEG-2 codec with a fixed data rate of 25Mbps".

Is this the information you need?

Thanks

I hear that in a recent update to xbox live that almost all formats will be able to be streamed via pc. Not sure though.

HMerly,

Here is what I found on the website for the Canon HV20, which is the camcorder I plan on buying:

"MPEG-2 codec with a fixed data rate of 25Mbps".

Is this the information you need?

Thanks

It will most likely work, depending on the speed of your network. You might also want to look at the authoring sticky thread in the HD DVD software forum. There are a number of posters burning these files to DVD-/+R for playback on the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.

you'll have to have vista or xp MCE, and the file will have to be in dvr-ms format, which is accomplished easily with videoredo. but the files should stream just fine.

I don't think the Xbox 360 can stream data at 25 Mbs, which his camera records at a constant bit rate. I thought the max was about 15 Mbs for the X360, which means he would need to re-encode all his videos to a lower bit rate.


- H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
- Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.


Update: It looks like it may accept MPEG2 at a peak of 19.2 Mbs, which is still lower than the sustained rate of 25 Mbs from your camera.

The 360 can easily support it. Your information is just incorrect. This is mpeg 2 we're talking about.

The 360 can easily support it. Your information is just incorrect. This is mpeg 2 we're talking about.

I'm sorry. My information comes from Microsoft. Are you saying they are incorrect about their own product?

Ultimately the reason the camera encodes in such a high bit rate and MPEG2 is because it takes a minimal amount of processing power to do so.

You're going to need a pretty hefty amount of space if you plan on storing a bunch of HD footage at 25mbs.

It's sort of the normal thing to do to use the raw footage as a source for editing and encoding into something that is more realistic on space requirements. If I was buying an HD camcorder like that I'd be looking at getting at least a terrabyte of storage... maybe 5.

Ouch, a terabyte! I will pick up a NAS when it becomes necessary. thanks.

I am curious about an earlier post though with respect to requiring MCE or Vista. I was under the impression that the XBox360 could now stream video from an XP with SP2 machine, which is the OS I am using.

I gather from these posts that assuming I am correct about the above, that the xbox360 should be able to read the raw file that I capture to my computer from the HV20 camcorder.

Is that correct?

Xbox 360 can stream from any PC with service pack 2 (or mac with connect360) i use both as well as a MCE version too. I'd go for the old "WMVHD" file format. or install VLC360 (although unsure how it transcodes HD content).

Hope that helps.

You can either stream from the dashboard 'media' section which does not require Media Center... or use your 360 as a Media Center Extender. I don't think that bitrate limitation is correct. The only limitation I see for MPEG2 is resolution (1920x1080). http://www.xbox.com/en-us/pcsetup/xboxmediafaq.htm

Ok, it looks like I am going to need some help please.

I purchased the HV20 today and I am having fun harassing my kids with it. Before I purchased any capture/edit software I used Windows Movie Maker to try and capture some video. It worked just fine once I realized that I had to set DV lock in order for WMM to be able to read that the HV20 was connected. Of course, doing that and maybe because of the software, the video was being downrezzed to 640x480. However, the good part is that I could wonderful stream the video through my xbox360 to the my hdtv. I guess WMM saves the file as WMV.

Next, I purchased PowerDirector 6 and tried to capture the same video as I did with WMM. I unset DV lock, PowerDirector recognized my HV20 just fine and interacted with it well. However, when capturing the file PowerDirector says there is an error in trying to open the file. It cannot read the file that I captured. I can see that a video file was captured through Windows Explorer but I cannot open it. It is listed as a .mpg file.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks. I do not yet know if I can play this file through the xbox 360.

Ok, it looks like I am going to need some help please.

I purchased the HV20 today and I am having fun harassing my kids with it. Before I purchased any capture/edit software I used Windows Movie Maker to try and capture some video. It worked just fine once I realized that I had to set DV lock in order for WMM to be able to read that the HV20 was connected. Of course, doing that and maybe because of the software, the video was being downrezzed to 640x480. However, the good part is that I could wonderful stream the video through my xbox360 to the my hdtv. I guess WMM saves the file as WMV.

DV lock didn't cause the video to be downgraded. WMM in most version only supports 640x480. In Vista Premium or Vista Ultimate it includes a version 6.0 that supports HD and HDV formats and can output WMV files with up to 1920x1080 resolution. All previous version (XP, XP SP2, Media Center Edition, etc only support DVD quality output).

Next, I purchased PowerDirector 6 and tried to capture the same video as I did with WMM. I unset DV lock, PowerDirector recognized my HV20 just fine and interacted with it well. However, when capturing the file PowerDirector says there is an error in trying to open the file.

Did you try setting DV lock like you did with WMM?

Thank you for the clear explaination. I have not tried DV Lock with PowerDirector yet but I will try when I get home.

I have a couple of questions:

1.) What is DV Lock? I assumed it "locked" the video output to dv quality as opposed to HDV

2.) Is there a way to re-code the raw data that I get from the camcorder into WMVHD?

3.) The raw data that comes off of the HV20 is in what format? When I right click the file and check properties, it seems to list the file as .mpg. However, this is after I have captured it with PowerDirector. Is there a better way to tell what the format is?

4.) I appreciate the link to the codecs that the xbox 360 can pass, but it seems to indicate that this is from a media center machine, not necessarily a XP machine. Is there possibly a difference?

Thank you

Thank you for the clear explaination. I have not tried DV Lock with PowerDirector yet but I will try when I get home.

I have a couple of questions:

1.) What is DV Lock? I assumed it "locked" the video output to dv quality as opposed to HDV

2.) Is there a way to re-code the raw data that I get from the camcorder into WMVHD?

3.) The raw data that comes off of the HV20 is in what format? When I right click the file and check properties, it seems to list the file as .mpg. However, this is after I have captured it with PowerDirector. Is there a better way to tell what the format is?

4.) I appreciate the link to the codecs that the xbox 360 can pass, but it seems to indicate that this is from a media center machine, not necessarily a XP machine. Is there possibly a difference?

Thank you
1) DV Lock forced the HDV camera to output in DV mode (640x480). I wanted you to check using that in power director 6. If it works in DV Lock but not normally then PD6 may not support HDV.

2) There are a couple encoders but the simpliest and cheapest is WMM. The problem is the only version that suports WMVHD vs just SD WMV is a part of Vista.

3) The raw format of HV20 is HVD (Here is wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV). HVD is a stadardized format that uses mpeg2 to capture HD picture on a DV tape. DV captures at same speed except it captures uncompressed. HDV captures compressed in CBR high rate mpeg2 which allows higher resolution for same tape speed / bit rate.

You likely can grab the complete mpeg2 file off the camera by using the included canon transfer software but I don't have any experience with it.

4) Not sure on this one.

The problem is that your camera records in high bitrate mpeg2 (19mbps for 720p, 25mbps for 1080i. I don't think that 360 supports streaming at those speeds. If it does then you don't even need to transcode it. Likely you will need to transcode it to a lower bitrate wmv file. The second problem here is the wmm only support HD in Vista version. I am not sure of any relatively cheap encoders for WMV HD but maybe someone else is?

Namechamps,

Thanks for the reply:

I was able to capture a file to PowerDiretor with DV lock on. However, it is very clear that PowerDirector is suppose to support HDV. It clearly says it on the website and is available on the installed software. When I set the HV20 to HDV/DV the PowerDirector software recognizes the HDV and starts to capture it. the problem is that at the end of the capture an error message pops up stating that the software cannot open the .pdf file and closes off the program. I think this might be a problem with my downloaded version of PowerDirector. I have a phone call into Cyberlinks tech support.

That is a shame about WMM only doing WMVHD in Vista. Is this a standalone product that can be bought? Is there one if WMM is not it?

Thank you to the wikipedia link. It was extremely informative!

I am coming to the conclusion that only Windows Media Center will allow the xbox 360 to see the mpeg2 format. it seems the Xbox360 will not recognize the format from a XP machine. My son has a WME2005 computer which is recognized by the Xbox360. Once I fix the capture issue, so I can capture the HDV, then I am going to transfer it to my son's computer and see if the Xbox360 will see the file and stream it.
T

I want to share what I learned this evening through testing:

1.) Power Director will not be able to capture hdv when the file that I am trying to capture includes part of the blue screen that you get just at the beginning of a recording. I have no idea why but when I start a capture of a file where the actual recording happens then the capture is completed with no problem. If there is any blue screen that you see on the LCD then the capture results in an error. I am now able to capture HDV with PowerDirector and can finally get to some editing maybe.

2.) You cannot stream the native HDV file from a Windows XP machine to a Xbox 360. It simply will not recognize the file. HOWEVER, you can stream the native HDV from a Windows Media Center 2005 computer to the xbox360 and it will display nicely on whatever HDTV you have hooked up to the Xbox360. My son's WMC computer is connected to the network via wireless so there was some, but not too bad, congestion on the network as a result. I can imagine that a wired connection would be perfect. I have a fairly robust wireless network so your results may differ from mine.

3.) You can use Windows Media Encoder 9 to encode the HDV native file to WMV format. the encoding is rather slow but the resulting file encoded at the best resolution is not too bad. This way you can stream the video from the XP computer to the XBox360. Not good enough for constant use, but at least acceptable until some other solution is found.

For the time being I am simply going to transfer the native HDV files to my sons WMC computer and stream the files through the Xbox 360 that way.