Gizmodo
The Xbox 360 supports DivX and XviD as of today, which may make some of you with big file collections (like us) as giddy as a kid in store with puppies made of candy. We threw our entire collection of movies, TV shows and random clips at it and found that the 360 can play back pretty much anything. Here are some notes.
You can play files off of a CD/DVD. This feature wasn't listed on the Xbox Team's website as one of the supported locations for playing back content, but this is fantastic for homes that have wireless networks (or no network at all). In fact, reading off a disc is probably the best way to ensure your movie won't cut out in the middle due to network congestion (unlikely) or someone turning off the computer accidentally (fairly likely).
It supports almost all files. It played back all TV shows we threw at it, including My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, and The Venture Bros.. Most of these, and most TV downloaded TV shows, are encoded in XviD format. As for DivX, that's supported back to version 5.0, but it's unlikely that you're going to find any DivX 3 or DivX 4 online, unless you're talking about old files you've saved for a couple years.
AC3 Audio is supported. Nice! AC3 support was added in the Spring Update, but it's nice to see it working with DivX/XviD. Too bad it's not 5.1 though. 5.1 is supported!
It supports Windows Home Server as well. Along with USB drives and WMP11 streaming, you can also stream DivX/XviD from Windows Home Server too. It makes sense to store all your videos on here, since videos are big and WHS has a lot of room. QED.
Video Stretching is kind of weird. The Xbox will try and auto-fit your video to the screen when it starts playing, but it gets confused easily with different video dimensions. You'll want to manually change the playback mode to either letterbox or stretched, depending on what kind of content (widescreen, fullscreen, PAL) you're playing back.
You can skip through a video with the bumpers. RB and LB let you skip forward and back through the movie, but might not be granular enough to get to the place you want to be. You'll have to use the trigger buttons to FF or RW.
It's fast. If your network connection is fast enough (my network is Gigabit Ethernet enabled, which isn't a huge deal since the 360 is only 10/100), the video should play back without a hitch. It's quite nice to be able to play back stuff on your 360, in HD, without having to transcode it into WMV first.
It doesn't work in Windows Media Center Extender. You're going to have to kick out of WMC and back to the dashboard in order to play your videos. Annoying for people who like to switch between live TV and downloaded content.
It's not entirely perfect. It's 90% of the way there, but 5.1 AC3 support, improved handling of different video dimensions, better playback controls and Windows Media Center Extender support will make this the perfect DivX/Xvid implementation.
Comments
Does it play QPEL Divx/xvid files? Some of these fansubbers just love to use QPEL.
What file formats, avi, mpg, wma?
nice have to try this out when I get home...got the entire season of "The adventures of Brisco County Junior" to watch =) hehe Bruce Campbell > ALL
So does this hint at Zune support?
"Along with USB drives and WMP11 streaming..."
I was always under the impression that i couldn't use my WD myBook directly with my 360. So has that now changed as well?
My Upconverting DVD player plays DivX, wmv and all that with a USB port to boot. It cost me $50. I don't see what the big deal is.
@Ultraorange: Maybe, but no Zune support as of this update.
@eFish: AVI for DivX/XviD.
@Electroqueen: Not sure. Which release uses QPEL? I can test.
I have a modded xbox classic and this is one of the reasons I've stuck with it. I stream content and burn divx/xvid movies to disc to play them. This is reason enough to upgrade.
"It played back all TV shows we threw at it, including My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, and The Venture Bros.."
I love this list of tried and true testing shows... however it was missing Curb, Weeds, Entourage and Whitest Kids U Know... The real test would be that it plays the Superbad aXXo?
Any news on support for other containers like mkv?
so what's the interface like for playing back xvid/divx? I currently use a modded original XBOX with XBMC and love the thumbnail art (automatically retrieved from IMDB), etc. Does the 360 just show you a file list or is it more sophisticated like XBMC?
Will it play at any bitrate with no problems?
@ripfire4: There's no hard limit on bitrate as far as I know.
I just fired up 'Bender's Big Score' off my WHS from the 360 and it was great. I had to download a "Media Update", though, which was probably just a codec.
Okay, time to go to work. :3
Uh, the AC3 audio supported is 5.1.
@Asvetic: It plays back the Spuerbad aXXo just fine. I did it this morning when I downloaded the patch. It was my first test choice.
"If you can't beat them, join them"
So my guess is that nullriver's Connect360 should also now support divx?
Wow.
Another feather in the 360's cap, nice.
I just ripped our whole collection for our exclusive use.
@Jason Chen: Oh, I don't know, best example I can think of is [T-N]'s releases.
Too bad that they did not include divx support in Windows Media Center Extender. Thats a major drawback for me since I have totally bought Microsofts Media Extender concept and don't wan't to play with the dashboard.
@Erwos: I think you're right. I was looking at something else. Thanks!
meh.. it plays back files okay, but the interface and lack of options makes me go back to XBMC.
those tv shows they are talkin about...are those downloaded off of bit torrent or the regualr NBC site...im confused....
@Erwos: This is correct, for avi files. Not sure if it's AC3 though, they say it's only mp3.
AVI
Audio Profiles: Dolby® Digital 2 channel and 5.1 channel, MP3
H.264
Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)
MP4 Part 2
Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)
[blogs.msdn.com]
I don't quite understand how this works...
I have a PC upstairs that is wirelessly hooked up to my network and has plenty of Divx and Xvid files on it.
My 360 is wired into the router downstairs.
How can I view the Divx/Xvid files on the 360? Can I stream them wirelessly? Or do I have to copy them to the 360's hard drive?
A little off the subject - but has anyone checked yet whether image quality for playing back regular and HD DVDs has improved at all? Just wondering if MS has made any improvements in these areas.
@Enrique: In your case, you can stream it wirelessly as long as you have Windows Media Player 11.
I tried this morning and none of my xvid AVI files played. Maybe my update wasn't done? I'll be trying again when I get home and verifying my codecs via link from here: [blogs.msdn.com]
@Jason Chen: Is there any documentation anywhere that describes how to do this? Do I have to share the video files on a network share?
5.1 is supported. Thank the Gods!
time for me to learn how to rip DIVX movies with AC3 5.1 ...
If you want to play the vids via your network you need to have a machine with Windows Media Server running. Or in my case I have a Mac and use Connect360 to link all my movies, iTunes and iPhoto to my 360. I am sure there are other options other option on a Win machine.
Some info I found by google:
[www.microsoft.com]
I have WMC and it doesn't seem to work. How can I get it to play DIVX/XVID movies through WMC? It says that I have to kick out of WMC and play them on the dashboard, but how exactly is this done?
Does it play subtitles? I think they are called srt files... anyone know?
More info on Media Sharing with WMP11:
[www.microsoft.com]
ALEXNC: One word for you. HANDBRAKE.
@stephena: Go to the dashboard, then media, then videos.
will it play x264 720p videos? i can't play them on the less powerful XBox1/XBMC. which i love to death.
@laterthanyou: No, subtitles are not supported when playing back Divx or xviD files.
@jiznerdo: It doesn't automatically retrieve IMDB information from my limited testing. There is a way to create thumbnail images if you have a JPG named similarly to the AVI file. I was not able to get this to work though. The Xbox 360 blog says there is a 512k size limit on the JPG, but doesn't offer dimensions. 640x480 doesn't seem to work...I plan to try 400x300 when I get home from work.
If you get the movie cover/art working please let me know. That is one thing I want if I go with my 360 for the media center. I will give it a go tonight as well and see what I can figure out.
One thing springs to mind...Divx for PS3 will be out within the next two weeks or so...;)
This is awesome. Commence downloads. Now I can finally use utorrent and pull all my TV shows via RSS!
Suh. Weet!!
so... what is up with this no media center support - WMC is pretty much the biggest reason I want to get an XBOX 360, but now I'll have to dump out of it to get to my videos? I wish microsoft would get it together and support what is pretty much their best software product right now across the board.
Needs MKV. Who cares about nodef xvid AVIs when I got a pile of 1080p MKV/H.264 files?
I am glad to see they are finally doing this, but I seriously doubt I will give up my old-school xbox running XBMC any time soon. It still does lots of stuff that my 360 can't (download IMDB info and cover art for starters, not to mention the emulators). Plus XBMC is prettier, more configurable, and just plain cool for geek cred.
Personally I had issues with playback (totally black screen with sound playing) of some XviD they were from a PAL source (50Hz) and at 25 FPS via the VGA connection. I had to reucde the X360 resolution to 640x480 to enable playback.
Anyone at Gizmodo care to check this out?
So the Apple TV Hacked can do best, hehehe
@Husar: thanks bud. That looks like a easy app to use. I like easy =)
Still not sure why people upload DivX/XviD in the first place... There's got to be a reason other than "a long time ago it was the best option".
@deanslist: umm, not having to drop another $50 or more for an upconverting dvd player and having to hang yet another device off the hd, for one thing. being able to store all the stuff in one place and being able to stream it to the tv via the 360 or to any of the other computers on the network without having to do any conversion for another. not having to burn shit to cd/dvd to watch it on the tv for yet another.
There are way too many, "what the hell types" I for one am well happy that MS have finally added, DivX/Xvid support, shame they did not do it before I purchased my latest DivX/Xvid player to replace a dead player (now about the fifth I have owned). Nice to have another option viewing my extensive collection of encoded media. Have a few friends who will be well chuffed with this, nice one MS.
I'm speechless. Great, they added DivX support to the 360, but it doesn't work when the 360 is in media extender mode? WTF where they thinking? What idiot at MS thought that it would be a good idea to allow a new type of media to be played, but not through their flagship media interface? This is such a stupid call on their part, and now I am still forced to use transcode 360 when the 360 will do native divx... Or log out of the sweet interface and hit the dash board? Oh yeah, the wife will love that...
I am stunned by the stupidity of this decision, seriously.
I guess no AVHCD love? Probably a bit away, but I would love to be able to pull my home videos straight to this...
So I'm a complete newb. I want to rip one of my DVDs to my computer and watch it from my 360. Can I just rip it directly from the disc or do I need to encode it into something? I know what DivX is... but no clue on XviD.
Any insight would be appreciated.
They really need to fix it so it works under MCE Media Extender.
My Xbox spends 80% of its life so far as my Media Exteder and jumping out and flipping through menus sucks but its not the end of the world.
I'll take this a huge baby step.. now fix the media center extender MS :)
Does .mp4 work? And can I copy files from a USB drive to the 360's hard drive?
I hate having to download some stupid update to play a file. It should have been built in. I don't have broadband.