is it possible to stream ripped movies stored on my pc to the 360 via media center?

You can watch dvix on the 360 in the my video blade if they are encoded correctly.

It depends on what you mean by "ripped movies" If you're ripping them from a retail DVD, they will be in .VOB format, which the 360 doesn't understand. If you're talking about .avi movies in general, then yes. I haven't encountered an .avi movie my 360 wouldn't play....yet.

I am using Vista Ultimate and a 360 Premium, by the way.

So I have an interesting issue with this very topic and it's raised some concerns. Do you guys happen to know if the playback of HD (720p) WMV content is in any way limited by the PC that the content is stored upon? The reason I ask is that I see similar playback stuttering and freezes on the XBOX 360 when using it as a media extender as I do when I play the content back on my 2.4Ghz machine. I am using a wired Gigabit e-net card in the PC, a gigabit router and Cat5e cabling to the XBOX 360. My Cat5e wiring is the weak link in terms of netorking speed, but I still think that 100Mbps should be plenty to stream HD WMV files. I haven't tried any other experiments other than playing the couple of Microsoft HD WMV files I got ages ago, so I'm not sure at what point I can reliably stream content, but this seems very odd.

Thanks,
Jeff

Suzook:

I have Vista Home Premium and a 360 Elite. To stream ripped DVDs (movie only, single soundtrack, stored as multiple VOB files on the HTPC HDD), I use Transcode360 V1.6.3 for Vista and the 360s media center interface. Problem is that not every ripped DVD plays. 300 won't play. Cars will play. Of the movies I checked, about 40% did not play. I have 105 movies, and checked about 5. Transcode360 is a hit and miss solution for me.

Iceblade,

My HTPC is a 1.8 GHz e4300 C2D over-clocked to 2.4 GHz. Both my PC and 360 are hard-wired to a WRT54G. I have no issues playing HD, be it OTA 1920x1080, OTA 1280x720, or WMV HD 720p. All play flawlessly on the PC, and on my 360 via the 360's media Center interface. My understanding is that the PC transfers the file to the 360… and the 360 is responsible for decoding the stream, not the PC.

Under Settings in the 360 Media Center interface, there is an option to tune the network, and view network performance.

-T

I have recently started streaming movies from my pc as well. The only problem I have is finding something to convert and play mkv files on the 360.

I watch all kinds of .avi and WMV HD movies on mine, all streamed wirelessly from my PC. Some of the movies run as high as 20 mbps bitrate and no problems so far,

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'll see if I can find out what the network performance is the next time I try it. For reference, I was able to play back the same files on my dual core laptop without fail, so I know it's not the file.

Regards,
Jeff

Ok, so either I am blind or an idiot... or both. I don't see anywhere in the Network settings tabs and options that show me a bandwidth measurement. Where specifically should I be looking to see the bandwidth I am getting over my wired connection to the 360?

Thanks,
Jeff

So I have an interesting issue with this very topic and it's raised some concerns. Do you guys happen to know if the playback of HD (720p) WMV content is in any way limited by the PC that the content is stored upon? The reason I ask is that I see similar playback stuttering and freezes on the XBOX 360 when using it as a media extender as I do when I play the content back on my 2.4Ghz machine. I am using a wired Gigabit e-net card in the PC, a gigabit router and Cat5e cabling to the XBOX 360. My Cat5e wiring is the weak link in terms of netorking speed, but I still think that 100Mbps should be plenty to stream HD WMV files. I haven't tried any other experiments other than playing the couple of Microsoft HD WMV files I got ages ago, so I'm not sure at what point I can reliably stream content, but this seems very odd.

I have seen this from the media center extender - try playing back just from the xbox 360 Video rather than the extender feature.

Richard,

Do you mean placing the WMV file on a USB key or something and then playing it on the 360 from that? I'm not sure how I can transfer content to the 360 other than through the extender.

Thanks,
Jeff