Windows 7 Streams Media To the Xbox 360 and PS3 Seamlessly 121
HardcoreWare reports that the release candidate for Windows 7 contains improved video codecs, and does a much better job of streaming media to popular consoles out of the box. "No longer will you have to install special REG files to 'trick' Windows into streaming video to your PS3 or XBOX 360. And no longer will you have to use UPnP media servers like TVersity that transcode video, severely reducing quality and cause unnecessary CPU load on the server."
Not so new... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What about the PS3, then? I find this step rather interesting. Microsoft often does not acknowledge their competitors even when those are market leaders. That they do so now, IMO, just points out how shaky they feel about the Vista situation and Windows 7.
Re:Not so new... (Score:5, Informative)
You can stream to the PS3 from WMP11. In fact, you can stream to any device that implements the right set of UPnP media functionality. There are even a reasonable number of digital media receivers that offer this functionality from 3rd parties too, meaning you don't have to deal with either MS or Sony, which is a plus in my book.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it's funny when people don't even RTFS...
You can stream to the PS3 from WMP11. In fact, you can stream to any device that implements the right set of UPnP media functionality.
From the summary:
And no longer will you have to use UPnP media servers
What's even funnier is people who RTFS but don't understand it. What "And no longer will you have to use UPnP media servers" means is you will not have to use a 3rd party UPnP media server as that service (DLNA) will be built into Win7.
The bit about not having to transcode, that's a load of hogwash as the PS3/Xbox360 only support certain subsets of certain codecs, anything that exceeds those subsets MUST be transcoded.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, I have to agree, not new. Why such a big deal, the old XBOX did this just fine. I mean I have been streaming media to my XBOX (not 360) for years, from my Linux media server, perfectly flawless, it's the center of my entertainment system.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Odd article (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like it cannot make up its mind:
--
And no longer will you have to use UPnP media servers like TVersity that transcode video, severely reducing quality and cause unnecessary CPU load on the server.
--
So how are you going to stream to the PS3? The PS3 is a UPnP client, of course you have to provide UPnP services. That has nothing to do with the transcoding.
They they state:
--
The Playstation 3 streams through UPnP.
--
So, now you do use UPnP.
And sure it is convenient to have this built-in, but why would that use less resources than a 3rd party server? The job has to be done anyway...
Its a nice feature, especially if they can get transcoding to work smoothly in conjunction with pausing, stopping, searching backwards and forwards in files. Otherwise the new PS3 feature to get 1 minute snapshots to browse back and forth in episodes will not work very well.
From what I can see from the format list, they don't do transcoding anyway, they just provide UPnP streaming, and it is way too rough when it says "YES/OK" for XVid/DivX. That depends not on the container, but what is contained in them. Some DivX files I have are not encoded with standard mp3 sound, hence they are not playable without transcoding to begin with.
Re:Odd article (Score:5, Informative)
UPnP serves up the plain ol' media to the client.
However, some UPnP servers are smart enough to know some UPnP clients can't decode certain files, so it, in real time, transcodes to formats they know are readable by most clients.
Re:Odd article (Score:5, Informative)
And that is why I will not stop using PS3Mediaserver(http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/). It is by far the best UPnP client for PS3 and is catching on with Xbox360 users as well.
It is an open source project that is updated quite frequently. For anyone still using Tversity I would highly recommend giving this a shot. It transcodes all basically all formats for viewing on the PS3.
The official forum for PS3Mediaserver = http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/ [ps3mediaserver.org] You can find beta builds here and interesting conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
I love ps3MediaServer. I use it on my mac notebook to serve files to my 360 and my ps3.
I am in the process of building a ubuntu machine to handle the streaming to reduce the load on my notebook.
Re: (Score:1)
If you're custom building an ubuntu machine you might as well install XBMC on it and have done with the streaming completely.
Re: (Score:2)
Check out mediatomb if you're installing ubuntu, it's available from the repositories and rather good.
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks!
Re: (Score:1)
Some DivX files I have are not encoded with standard mp3 sound, hence they are not playable without transcoding to begin with.
Of course they are playable if you have an AC3 codec ..
Or do you mean on your console of choice? One can't install additional codecs on either off them?
Re: (Score:2)
Or do you mean on your console of choice? One can't install additional codecs on either off them?
Yes, I meant on my PS3. And I cannot install codecs on that one apparently, so I'm stuck doing playbacks on the few formats it does support.
Hence the need for transcoding.
Re: (Score:2)
It's supported nearly everything I ever threw at it. The PS3 has a wide range of codec support now. .mkv files are still a problem, but otherwise it's great. I've been using a linux based upnp server called mediatomb that can transcode if you like, but I've never bothered setting it up because it's unnecessary for 99% of stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, the PS3 does play far from everything. Lots of WMV files, and some downloaded divx/xvid, in particular those not with standard audio streams, it simply refuses to play.
I've that seen MPG4/AAC in AVI containers rarely works for instance.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are people putting mp4 vide + AAC audio in an AVI or mkv container rather than an MPEG4 container?
Re: (Score:2)
What the heck is AAC 5? I've never heard of such a thing and the AAC wikipedia page doesn't mention it. Let me guess, it's something the warez scene came up with so they can keep on complaining that their bittorrented Naruto fansubs won't play on the AppleTV/Xbox 360/PS3.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh I see that's a 5.1 not an l
Doesn't AVCHD support surround sound? I think the movie trailers on Apple's site are also in surround sound.
Re: (Score:1)
PS3 only reads DLNA not UPNP.
DLNA is a local network service discovered via UPnP.
Re:windows streaming to 360 (Score:5, Insightful)
Xvid plays fine from the Video Library. VOBs must be played in the 360's WMC. WMV
Re: (Score:2)
I have an xbox360 and 64-bit WMC TV Pack 2008. When I installed the 32-bit and 64-bit ffdshow stuff plus some beta 64-bit splitters everything works relatively well in WMC (64-bit) and WMP (32-bit, at least the one on the desktop). But there are still little annoyances. For example I cannot watch subtitles, skipping to chapters does not work, nor does FF in WMC. There are some ways to cobble those things in, but they did not work too well for me. Personally I am a big fan of ffmpeg-mt builds of mplayer and
Re: (Score:2)
It's a shame that uShare is the only one that can stream to the xbox. I used it for a long while because it's pretty lightweight, but it turns out mediatomb is as well and can stream to the ps3 perfectly. You can set up all sorts of custom transcoding operations in mediatomb, though of course if it's for the 360 then this is no use to you.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a shame that uShare is the only one that can stream to the xbox. I used it for a long while because it's pretty lightweight, but it turns out mediatomb is as well and can stream to the ps3 perfectly. You can set up all sorts of custom transcoding operations in mediatomb, though of course if it's for the 360 then this is no use to you.
Indeed. I helped a friend set up streaming media from a Linux machine to his XBOX 360, which was a tremendous pain in the ass. That's when you find out the hard way what embrace-and-extend is all about, because apparently Microsoft chose to slightly alter the uPNP standard for the 360 (is anyone surprised at that?). What I found was that a Java program called x360mediaserver can correctly stream music (mp3s) while uShare can correctly stream videos (mostly AVIs). uShare claims to be able to stream both
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, I never did try the music thing with ushare, or at least not after the first time. It grind to a halt right around 1000 songs. I put this down to lack of resources on the server it was on (266MHz, 32MB of RAM). But mediatomb is fine with it, for flat mode. You need much more for transcoding and I gave up on album/artist/genre indexing after two days of it grinding away at my 40G music collection and not appearing to get anywhere.
With a real PC I'm sure it would be fine. Also, I wonder what it would take
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
WMP11. Add files to your Media Library. Go to your Library Settings, then Configure Sharing. Settings button again, then Allow new devices and computers automatically. Reboot for good measure (we're using Windows here), reboot your Xbox 360, and try and play the media you added to your Library in WMP. If it works, go back to the Library settings and untick the automagic box. What I want to know, is it says I need to download codecs... But how?!
You can download free codec packs that you can install on WIndows much like any application, except that they're basically DLLs that programs like WMP can use. Just be very careful about where you get the codec pack. Make sure it's from a well-known, trustworthy site because I've heard that many unscrupulous sites offer codec packs that also include malware.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Try ps3MediaServer ( http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/ [google.com] ) It works with the 360 and is the best app I have found for this.
I suppose it IS news... (Score:2)
... assuming Microsoft really is supporting MP4 and other non-WMV-based codecs by default. Of course, they'll get all this credit from their fanbase for basically just catching up to where the rest of the world already has been for a couple years.
I still have a suspicion WMV will get snuck in when people least expect it - time will tell.
Re: (Score:2)
Another way of looking at is that they are now well ahead of where apple are in this regard.. i.e. locked down daap, only supporting one single video codec and 2 minimalist containers, etc.
No transcoding if natively supported on console (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
WTF are you people watching? Seriously? When my day is over I crash on the couch late at night and I turn my TV to the On position and channel surf.
Last night Futurama: Bender's Game was on. Cool. When it's time to veg out on the couch and stare at the tube there's usually something to watch on regular old TV (cable, FIOS, DirecTV, whatever). If there's something really cool I need to find, there's
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
There's little to no effort with setting these things up.
I Installed Tversity, and within seconds of turning on my ps3, I can be watching an episode of whatever I want to watch. No fuss, no mess.
I have recently though, bought another external hard drive, hooked it straight to my ps3 and watch movies, tv and whatever via that. Haven't had problems with codecs
well, it's dlna 1.5 compliant (Score:1)
So any device using this subset of UPnP A/V should work. DLNA 1.0 devices included. Check for the mark on your consumer electronics... or try to make the coherence plugin work -_-
Sounds awfully like trying to sell old features... (Score:2, Informative)
As long as you have a compatible router, Windows Media Player 11 streams via UPnP with very minimal setup. You configure media sharing in your library, then you allow the devices you want to see your media.
In fact, the process for me was this simple:
1) Install a bunch of codecs (divx/xvid) for the formats I wanted to stream.
2) Go to "Media Sharing..." under the library tab in WMP11 and tick the "Share My Media" box, then allow the 360 and the PS3.
3) Connect from the Console.
There is no need to put in specia
Re: (Score:1)
The reg hacking is for all the formats (chiefly .m4a and .mp4, if memory serves) that the 360 and PS3 will play just fine, but Microsoft don't like to point WMP at out of the box, because they're a little bit too Apple-y, or something.
how is this a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could just share your videos via samba and watch them with XBMC on the original xbox - this has worked great for years.
The fact that this is news shows exactly how broken closed source platforms are. The only reason this is not already possible is because you are not in contol of hardware that you own.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The 360 and Win7 combo isn't as feature rich as XBMC on an original Xbox. The only benefit I can see is that the 360 can support HD content whereas the original Xbox's hardware cannot.
XBMC, an old Xbox, and a NAS with Samaba or SMB and you have a great media setup. I have ripped all my children's DVD's and put them on the NAS for playing directly from XBMC. It boots fast and it's easy to use.
XBMC also does Internet streaming from Youtube. There is even a Hulu plugin that worked for a while until Hulu br
Re: (Score:2)
It all falls down when you move to HD unfortunately. The original Xbox lacks a digital video output and unfortunately it's poor little 733mhz cpu can't decode H.264/VC1.
I've been migrating all my old Xboxen to small form factor pc's running XBMC for Windows as each of the CRT's in the house has been replaced with a new LCD.
Re: (Score:2)
I know what you mean. I love running XBMC on my old Xbox, but it just can't handle higher quality videos.
Could you offer any suggestions about setting this up? My Dad has been wanting to set up something similar so that he can purchase a web subscription to Major League Soccer and stream those games to the TV.
I have two main questions. First, can you recommend a particular small form factor pc? Second, how well does such a system function as a general purpose PC? Would a person be able to sit 8-10 feet away
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mine are set up in ASUS P2-M2A690G Barebones, as at the time they were the only acceptable looking AMD compatable systems with HDMI out. There may be better ones out there now, so go take a look and see what's about. Inside it's running AMD Athlon X2 4800+ / 2x1GB PC6400 / 80GB Seagate Baracuda. It handles the decoding of 720P video just fine through XBMC Windows. The ram and hdd are probably overkill, but halfing the quantities would only have saved me £10, and you never know what things you mi
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, that is helpful. You make a good point about keeping the PCs as clean as possible to avoid slow downs.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think he is trolling. The fact is the story is reporting this as a new feature. If it's not then there's a problem with the story.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Why are you using Matroska when the MPEG4 containers are more widely supported by consumer devices? It's your choice to use the pirates format of choice when you could just use MPEG4.
Re: (Score:1)
It's your choice to use the pirates format of choice when you could just use MPEG4.
Matroska is a hell of a lot more flexible than MPEG4, and besides, not all of us want our files stored in a proprietary format (Matroska is Free).
Pirate's format? Give me a break.
Re: (Score:2)
Matroska is Free, sure, but only pirates ripping HD video, anime fansubbers (pirates lite), and those who are really into the "Free as in Libre" software movement use it. You know as well as I do about all that HD video ripped ino MKV on the torrent sites.
In the "real-world" of the average consumer, MPEG4 containers are more practical, because they can use them on their actual consumer level widely available hardware.
Totally useless without transcoding (Score:2)
I hope they add transcoding (perhaps hardware accelerated) because without it, streaming various formats is very trouble some.
Currently I am using PMS (PS3 Media Server for Win/Mac/Linux http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]) to watch movies on my PS3 and there is minimal quality from transcoding as PMS can create 70+Mbps MPEG2 streams on the fly. Only thing it current is missing is ability to playback ripped DVDs.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but sadly, the PS3's wifi can't handle that, and mine's not in a place where I can run a wired connection. I also like PMS, and it works quite well, but for HD stuff I still mostly use sneakernet. Eventually I'll get Tomato or DD-WRT installed on my Linksys router and try booting the signal a little, see if that helps the wifi speed.
Matroska and ASS Subs? (Score:2, Insightful)
What about MKV containers and ASS subtitles. I bet it can't handle those or if it does, it renders these crappily.
No thanks! I'll stick to my chipped XBox server running Samba on Gentoo and my other chipped Xbox running XBMC.
This setup worked better in 2005 than Microsoft's current offering.
Re: (Score:1)
Or MKV with any subtitles for that matter. If it only plays back WMV crap, it's useless.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I've often thought it was a conspiracy that all pirate downloads for HD content are in MKV. It's not like you cant do high def content in containers that all major consoles will play.
All pirate downloads seem to not work with apple tv's, 360's, or ps3's out of the "box" so to speak. Yet when I transcode my own video's I can easily pick a format that any of those 3 will play.
In fact, I've straight up associated in my mind mkv files with piracy.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
If pirates used MP4 containers, they couldn't complain anymore. IMHO they don't want their stuff to work on the commercial boxes, thay way they can proclaim how superior their setupfoo is.
Re: (Score:2)
So what do you buy that says "Hey, I love mkv support"?
I didn't buy my ps3 to stream movies, that is just a bonus. Same with the 360.
I can't think of a device I would buy to just stream movies, and I can't think of one that has mkv support naively.
I'd probably build a computer and stick linux on it if I was looking for something like this.
Re: (Score:2)
But how do you watch HD .mkv's on XBMC? I've never had any luck running anything 720p or above.
Re: (Score:1)
Like you said, the XBox's CPU (a Celeron 600MHZ) is not capable of running an MKV which contain x264 video encoded on anything higher than 720p.
Fortunately, XBMC is also available for both Linux, AppleTV and the Apple Mini.
The Linux editionof XBMC (and I think the Apple version) comes with the bonus that ASS subs are rendered correctly (i.e. as styled in the Subs).
I'm just waiting to find a good Linux supported HD video capture card before I build my new Linux PVR.
Worst acronym ever... (Score:2)
What about [...] ASS subtitles.
That has got to be the shittiest acronym ever! I wonder who would approve of it; you know, who would get behind it.
What the... (Score:2)
Installing REG files? Does TFA author have any idea what they're talking about or did I suffer a head injury and forgot this part of getting my movies on the XBox?
Re: (Score:2)
I was wondering the same.
Installing reg files to stream to my XBox 360 is not something I've ever had to do, it has always just worked.
Oh so it will support Matroska .MKV? I doubt that. (Score:2)
I doubt we will see it support Matroska .MKV files. I'm sure they want everyone to use WMV.
I'm not sure if i'm a fan of .MKV but the asian films I watch are mostly in mkv format. Its probably because of subtitles. Will windows 7 start supporting .srt files? I doubt it. I doubt it will support MKV.
I'm sure Tversity... or even better, PS3 Media Server, will still be required unfortunately.
Of course SONY could solve this issue by supporting codecs/containers better but i doubt that it is in their interest.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sony is slow at doing EVERYTHING.
Windows 7 supporting divx/xvid is no big deal. Its a little too late thing and thats the point.
Still no MKV support.
Will windows 7 support the latest divx spec or will it be behind just like the 360 and PS3's divx support?
The latest divx atleast supports mkv containers and subs.
The real solution is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real solution is simple do not use consoles for viewing media. Use a PC.
Build yourself nice small PC with some horse power and HDMI out. Network it to a storage server and play every dam media format available easily.
I dont know why we keep trying to stream stuff to game consoles. I'm guilty of it as well, but why turn a console into a PC when we already have PCs capable of far more, with more freedom and less headaches?
Its the fault of the console makers really. They want to let you do somethings, but they really dont want you to do other things :)
Sony could have done far better, even though its fairly good at what it does. It still cant play DVD's with regions outside of yours. It still cant play MKV, it still has poor MP4 support.
Its just not going to happen. Build a small PC and use it for watching media.
Re: (Score:3)
And wait again because I just realized I don't really want yet another device in these rooms, especially not one that could get viruses or have other problems. Sure my 360's can get the RROD or crap out for some other reason but I already have them
Re: (Score:2)
"What you seem to be missing is the current consoles ARE pc's"
If your 360 is a PC, show me how to browse the internet on your 360? Ok you can browse the internet on the PS3 but its painful.
They COULD be PCs, but they are not. They're not even close. They're strictly limited in format support and functioanlity. They're designed to deliver you content with microsoft and sony's approval
I agree it would be IDEAL to easily stream to these things without transcoding etc... but Microsoft and Sony do not make it so
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"YellowDog Linux runs just fine on My PS3"
But can linux take full advantage of the PS3 hardware? No. Sony decided not to give you that freedom.
A PC will always win as long as they are open and free. Microsoft and many others are trying their hardest to put an end to computer freedom. Consoles are in fact evidence of this.
Re:The real solution is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My game console is the Wii. Which is the weakest of the current gen systems. Using homebrew, I'm able to watch videos. It works great. There's some movies that don't play, either because of encoding errors, or unsupported codecs, and network is a little slow, but on the whole it works pretty good. If there was commercial software product that "just worked" and provided this functionality, I would be one of the first to buy it. I will get around to building a media centre box sometime, but until then we should at least let the boxes do what we all know they are capable of.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Show me a Xbox360 that can play 1080p. I have yet to be able to get a real 1080p video displayed out of a xbox360 and streaming video from the useless WMP11 client or other Upnp server.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've toyed with the idea, but ultimately I keep deciding against a pc in the livingroom.
I already have a 360, ps3, wii, Uverse 2wire box, Uverse DVR box, wireless router (the Uverse box does not do wireless N), and a UPS (for the uverse phone) all in my tv stand. I really don't want anything else there.
Both the 360 and the ps3 are powerful enough to do the job. There is no reason they can't.
Re: (Score:2)
PS3 media server is pretty dam good however while it will play MKV, it will usually transcode them to mpeg2. PS3 media server is very picky about what streams are in an MKV and there fore usually transcodes it.
Its supposed to remux MKVs that have ps3 friendly streams in them but MKVs just vary too much. Some have AAC audio, some have mp4 streams that ps3 does not support etc.
But overall it is nice software and the better of the streaming server options out there.
Re: (Score:2)
I dont know why we keep trying to stream stuff to game consoles. I'm guilty of it as well, but why turn a console into a PC when we already have PCs capable of far more, with more freedom and less headaches?
Why pay for enough horsepower to rival a small PC and then pay for another small PC to do what the first chunk of hardware could do itself if only the console manufacturers didn't build walled gardens?
I think the console makers aren't just shooting themselves in the foot but fucking themselves up their own asses. They could make a killing by creating a new model for people to get used to, console as not only game machine but general PC. I suppose that Microsoft's biggest fear is that people will run miro or
Re: (Score:2)
Build yourself nice small PC with some horse power and HDMI out.
Microsoft already did that. It's called the XBox 360 Elite. It's been streaming media from my old Mac for some time now.
Why is this useful? (Score:1)
Server build? (Score:2)
Nice as it is to have this on your desktop, I'd much rather have decend UPNP/DLNS/whatever on my NAS.
Does this have any ramifications for the server build? Better yet, are there any BSD or OpenSolaris with similar functionality out of the box that'd give you ZFS capabilities?
On the Mac. (Score:1)
WMC? (Score:2)
WDTV (Score:1)
Windows 7 and media much nicer but also more evil (Score:2)
The nice thing about Windows 7 in relation to media is that MS provides a much wider selection of audio and video codecs and splitters for more containers than ever before. That is nice for those that are not into using things like mplayer, vlc, or ffdshow. The bad thing is that somehow Windows 7 treats the system supplied ones as special so things like ffdshow and Maali media splitter stopped working, the MS provided stuff was always used first. By now I think the devs have a handle on stuff like this but
Finally (Score:1)