Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Spring Update To Offer Codecs, MSN Messenger
adachan writes "It seems that Microsoft has decided to add Xvid playback into the upcoming Spring Xbox 360 dashboard update. Xbox.com has a list of all the upcoming enhancements to the dash. The playback of video using H.264 and mpeg4 codecs seems to be the biggest news for those using the system as a media extender. If this is indeed true, my Xbox Media Center will be used less and less." Update: 04/09 17:29 GMT by Z : MSN Messenger is kinda interesting as well. Several sites are reporting that instant messenging is being added to the Xbox Live experience, with a USB keyboard controller attachment to be offered sometime in the near future.
The real question is whether I can play vidoes from an external drive, such as an iPod. Survey says...no. :(
Sure you can, it works fine with my Zune. The Zune supports Xbox 360 playback of music, photo's and video...
And it works great.
Um, you got that the other way around. Microsoft was in the market with the Xbox 360 well before the AppleTV. Microsoft offered movie downloads far before Apple did with the AppleTV.
Umm, the PS3 already does H.264. It's only xvid that it doesn't do, to my knowledge.
It does need a better interface for media libraries though. At least the PSP allows you to create playlists on your memory cards (by creating boxes/folders when you load your music from your PC). The PS3 is pretty annoying in terms of music playback. Video playback isn't too bad, though. No playlist control there either, to my knowledge.
I didn't see xvid or h.264 mentioned anywhere in the link, but even if they did support xvid and h.264 playback, that doesn't mean supporting these formats in streaming. Note that Xbox 360 supports only WMV and Mpeg2 streaming (The later, only through Media Center).
Without the support for streaming, the only other option for someone trying to turn an Xbox 360 into a media center will be to use an external hard drive via USB. That's not an ideal solution because (a) the hard drive will need to be Fat32 - What do you do about your high-def files that are 4GB+? (b) The front-end for an external hard-drive based videos is no where as good as that of a Media Center or Myth TV.
Still no sign that the update will enable fast forward and rewind in audio tracks.
What year is this?
There was already free transcode software out there, but that requires going into a submenu on the 360 and requesting the transcode, instead of just having it play. It also offloads the transcode to the PC, making it work as well as making the 360 decode and play it.
This is obviously much better, but doesn't actually make anything possible that wasn't before.
There's other updates that interest me, as well, though.
Windows Live Messenger: Why the fsck didn't they do this from the start? It just makes too much sense.
"A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list." Nice. I almost always went to check out what it was I'd done.
Should be a nice update.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
From everything I've read, it's not hard to compete with Apple TV given the video quality issues. I ordered an Apple TV and sent it back. Now, I rip DVD's from Netflix, keep them on my Media Center (Vista) system and stream it all to my Xbox 360. Adding xvid support to the 360 will make life a little easier because right now a movie in MPEG format takes about 2-3 gigs of HD space...using DVD Shrink and VOB2MPG. Transcode 360 simply wasn't working with Vista, so I welcome native xvid support.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
All they need to do is add Office to it and we're back to having a PC...
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Well, you could look at it that way as historically Windows Media Extender boxes - which is what the Xbox 360 essentially is - have been around since the first release of Windows Media Center and as far as I can remember, they've always been able to play videos from the host PC. In that respect, the AppleTV/Front Row combo is Apple's response to the Media Extender/MediaCenter kit from Microsoft, although they got there first with movie and TV downloads.
Needless to say, as MS have one of the best online systems in the shape of xBox Live, it makes sense for them to distribute buyable media content through it. Since the 360 was released, you've been able to get some trailers and stuff, but they haven't been consistent in coming or impressive in scope. I've always wondered why they didn't make anything more of this ability, but I guess one reason was the crippling 20GB optional drive.
With the imminent release of the Live service for Windows owners for gaming, I think that it has the potential to be Microsoft's answer to the iTunes Music Store and more. Once PCs get access to Live, you're looking at much increased storage on client machines and also teh ability to stream that to the 360 - a lá AppleTV. If - and I say if - they can pull off the integration of online gaming, chat, media downloads with their combined MediaCenter (I suppose Vista too), 360, Zune (bleh!) platform, then Apple are going to have some serious problems on their hands, especially from the console/games perspective.
With the release of the AppleTV, I guess we might see a cut down 360-type device that has the same kind of functions. Based on the current 360 price, I'd wager that it'd undercut the AppleTV by a considerable amount too.
Kinda cool really - technology in the front room has suddenly got a whole lot more interesting...
I've been using TVersity to steam videos from my compuater (like a media center but much better). I can play divx xdiv and rmvb. The only drawback is that it cannot rewind.
The PS3 H.264 support is extremely fussy. Just look at the tools that do transcoding and their forums and mailing lists. They're full of problems getting the PS3 to play H.264. Currently the best method it to use an Apple TV preset profile, but you can kiss goodbye to any surround sound, and be left with stereo only.
The PS3 is also finicky about the container, and certainly won't play any of the H.264 files you can find online, TV shows etc. You cannot simple passthrough the streams and write a new container header.
The PS3 doesn't support Baseline, Main, and High profiles. I believe it's limited to Main only.
The article doesn't mention xvid or vidx, so the 360 still offers less than the old xbox with XBMC. It's a shame the original xbox doesn't have the processing power to cope with HD, because nothing comes close to matching its functionality as a media hub compared to the newer consoles or Apple TV.
Xbox Live (for the 360) has been selling HD movies and TV shows for quite a while, in WMV format.
Divx and Xvid require MPEG4-ASP (Advanced Simple Profile). This update only includes Mpeg4-SP (Simple profile). Therefore this dash update does not add Divx/Xvid compatiblity.
There is a possibility that Microsoft cannot claim "MPEG4-ASP" because they do not support GMC and QPEL however nobody cares about those features of ASP and 99.9% of the divx/xvid videos dont use them. This leaves open the possiblity that Microsoft may still support Xvid and Divx, just not the full suite of MPEG4-ASP features. Im not holding my breath.
Leaving Apple with just the tiny advantage of being entirely legal.
In Redmond, Washington J Allard is pressing his fingers together repeatedly saying . . . "Excellent."
Godless heathen.
Xvid is an implementation of MPEG4.
Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
This should really be a no brainer. Just add a driver and/or pairing interface so we can use Bluetooth keyboards!
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I am currently ripping my DVD collection to VOB, converting VOBs to a single straight MPEG-2 file with 5.1 (using VideoRedo http://www.videoredo.com/ not free, but very easy) and streaming from WinXP MCE server (with the My Movies extension installed - http://www.mymovies.name/) to my Xbox 360. This setup works flawlessly and quality is at least DVD quality video with 5.1 surround. However, 4-6GB per movie is eating up my 1.5 TB storage faster than I would like.
H.264/MPEG-4 support could mean significant storage savings in the long run for me. As others have already mentioned, it's not really Xvid, and it would mean lots of transcoding with some quality lost, but I will be experimenting with it when I get my update to see if I can still get decent quality with some storage savings.
[wandering off topic/troll] Although my setup requires more setup and nerd-skills than the Apple TV option, the audio and video quality is significantly better AND I can stream. The lack of streaming of the Apple TV for video is what killed the Apple TV option for me (that and it looked terrifyingly horrendous in the Apple Store - even on the streamed "HD" trailers). For those that are unaware, the Apple TV only allows you to synch selected video content to the measly 40GB drive. You can stream audio from iTunes and some trailers from the Introweb, but you can't stream video from iTunes. With MCE/Xbox 360 I can hang whatever storage I want off my MCE server and stream 'til the cows come home.
I wouldn't recommend the MCE/Xbox 360 combo for everyone, but it was the choice for me because it streams DVD quality video and 5.1 surround AND I was able to convince my fiance to go with it, which also got me a decent gaming console. That and she LOVES Feeding Frenzy HD, which is strangely addicting yet simple.
I still love (and own) Apple/Mac and I would bet Apple TV v2.0 or 3.0 will overcome some of the current shortcomings.
I personally think that the main reason Microsoft branched off into Games and the Xbox was to eventually have a home computing platform with its OWN hardware and its OWN absolutely controlled software environment. I'm pretty sure Microsoft would love to tell all the OEMs to fuck themselves (just not in so many words) and take on Apple directly with their own hardware and controlled OS.
In other words, I'm pretty sure they want to make the XBox a home PC, with games, messanging, browsing. email, Voip, a home version of office, some other home productivity crap and stuff. That way they can take on Apple directly in the market segment where Apple has an advantage, and slowly build up their own empire here.