Dyre Straits

I'm brand new to the console scene and have been enjoying the new 250 GB "Slim" for a week now.

I've installed the XBOX "Extender" and am able to use the Windows Media Center to view content from my PC's HDD.

But, man, is the video quality ever crap!!! The same videos that I play directly from the PC via Windows Media Player are AWESOME quality-wise.

But, those same videos played through the Extender via the console are so blocky and pixellated [is that a word?] is not even funny!

I did a bit of Googling prior to this post and downloaded something called, Antipack. According to another user, this fixed their problem. But, it's done nothing for me...if not making things worse.

As it stands, if this is all that can be done, I don't see how anyone would use their XBOX to view any videos at all.

Suggestions?

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[hobo]eclipse

Have u heard of TVersity

it may provide better quality, im sure though. the free one should do for anything you want that you have stored locally, i think the pay one only adds more web content.

Dyre Straits

Here's the thing: I have the new 250 GB XBOX 360 and am using a HDMI cable between it and my 1080p ViewSonic 24 inch LCD.

I'm not in a situation where I HAVE to ABSOLUTELY have the 360 Extender to view my videos. But, I really expected the setup to provide a much, MUCH better video quality rendering than what I'm getting.

When I play these videos directly to my LCD from the PC [without the Extender] they look clean, crisp and very, very good!

But, through the Extender they look almost like they are being pushed through at 640x480 and expanded. They are blocky, pixellated so bad it hurts to watch them at all.

Now, I do know that the 360's HD claim is actually, I believe, 760p or 1080i. I've seen plenty of 760p videos that look amazing! But, definitely not on this system and using the Extender.

Does it all boil down to Codecs?

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Necrosis

How is your 360 connected to your network? It could be a bandwidth issue.

Dyre Straits

Wired via the router. I did the Network Tuning on it and it comes out with an excellent result.

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BlueMak

Any chance it is a resolutions issue? Native resolution of the monitor vs resolution you have set for the Xbox vs scaling?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Gastrian

Have you upped the resolution on your Xbox? I had to do mine manually through the system settings

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Dyre Straits

In the settings I have it at 1080p.

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BlueMak

If you copy the files to the 360 hard drive, do they still look bad?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Dyre Straits

This must have everything to do with Codecs.

If I try to play these .avi files directly through the Video Folder from my PC on the 360, I get an error that the files cannot be played. However, if I play them through the 360's Windows Media Center option, the videos play but are totally crap.

So, it has to be something about the Codecs required.

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BlueMak

Use Super to change them to something else, if you so desire.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

[hobo]eclipse

no no, this is the point of tversity and what media center extender is doing, transcoding the material on the fly to an appropriate format.

i have not done a lot of this because the device i stream to, WDTV live has playback support for just about every file type.

have a look at these, 1st half of 1 is worth skipping





what you are doing is setting up a DLNA Server (WMP/TVersity/etc...) to stream media you put in its library to DLNA receiver devices on your network (xbox360), which can range from a console to a mobile phone.

Poke around in here

Digital Living Network Alliance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DLNA software

people set up crazy stuff with this, a central media server in a home running a DLNA server client pushing media to multiple devises in multiple room that support DLNA playback over wired and wireless connection. And to top it off there are DLNA controller apps that can be ran off mobile phones w/ wifi to control the media to any of the devices. Thats obviously both pretty cool and a treat to set up im sure. I think with a lil more reading up on DLNA servers and players and what transcoding is best for your devise you'll get some better results.

Judas

after trialing an extender i just thought it was a waste of time and money and was better off just grabbing a long hdmi/vga cable .. everything is better directly from the pc

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BlueMak

Why do all that when with SUPER you can just drag and drop the files and have them ready in a few min? (depending on the files etc).

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

[hobo]eclipse

lol folks watever

super is a POS, and i dont think re-encoding your entire collection of mutimedia is a good choice, it can be time consuming and quality damaging(usually your starting with a heavily compressed source).

BlueMak

SUPER is a pos? right...

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

[hobo]eclipse

regardless, the point of all this he is trying to use the extender, not re encode. i believe that when u use the Media Center extender it transcodes to .wma and .wmv formats with windows codecs. I believe the 360 also accepts .mp4 with h264 and aac codecs. Transcoding to these may provide better quality all around.

BlueMak

He can easily just change a file to check if and how it works best. Then try tversity. But I seriously think it is a mistake continuing a conversation with someone who claimed SUPER to be POS. As far as I am concerned, you obliterated any creditibility you had. It's like claiming Michael Jackson didn't sell plenty of records or that Germany doesn't have a good football team, etc.
Perhaps in the end he will find tversity a better solution, but that is irrelevant with you calling SUPER, POS.
Just...good day.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

[hobo]eclipse

welp dyre, i hope maybe u can gather a lil somethin out of this, its pretty sry, and i am sry. im sure you'll get it all functioning in way that works for you if it is a priority.

Dyre Straits

OK....both of you, Calm Down!!! This isn't the Flame Zone.

I have no problem with conflicting opinions and welcome all the suggestions. But, do keep it civil.

As for transcoding any of the videos I've got, it's easy enough with AVIVO converter.

I believe my problem is simply that I'm just so new to the XBOX 360 that it will take some more time to get a good handle on what it can do...and what it can do WELL.

As it stands now, any of the .avi files...both those captured with FRAPS, and those I've converted using VirtualDUB, will NOT play directly from the PC location via the 360. In order to play those, I have to use the 360's Windows Media Center and then there's this "buffering" message -- which indicates it's doing the transcoding of the file. And, the end result is HORRIBLE! It's like the entire video is comprised of big square blocks and looks like crap.

FWIW, since I have the ability to play these right on the PC, that's likely what I'll end up doing.

BUT, with my curiosity intact and the 360 being so new, I find it difficult to resist tinkering.


BUT while we're on the subject of videos and the 360: Why do some of the videos change the screen to a 'pink' hue when they start up? I've found that, when this happens, if I push the button on the monitor to toggle back and forth with the PC's DVI and then back to the 360's HDMI, the colors correct. This happens quite often. I've tried changing the settings to use AUTO, or SOURCE, and made other changes but the only surefire correction is toggling the monitor input.

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