Simon’s Blog

(This post last updated 11 Dec 2007, to reflect the 4 Dec Microsoft Xbox software update) 

The Xbox 360 is an excellent device for letting you stream media to your TV. Setting up your Xbox 360 to wirelessly stream audio and video from your computer is easy when you know how - you can be up and running in about twenty minutes. If you don’t know what you’re doing, though, it can take hours to figure it all out. Here’s my top five tips for getting up and running quickly:

1. The first time you plug it the wireless adapter to your 360, give it a few minutes to find your wireless access point - the 360 is really slow at finding available networks.
2. Downgrade the security on your wireless network to 128-bit WEP, and use a 26 character hex key - the wireless security on the 360 is crumby.
3. Make sure the computer you’re serving your media from is on a wired part of the network. Streaming video wirelessly to the 360 is going to put enough strain on the wireless network that if your server is also wireless, it can result in flaky performance.
4. Forget about using Media Center; instead use the Zune Player software to make most of your media available to your 360. That way, you’ll get the best possible support for different file formats: H.264, Quicktime, Mpeg, WMV etc.
5. Share your DivX/XviD (avi) content from Windows Media Player. You can run Zune Player sharing and Windows Media Player sharing from the same computer; it’s simply a matter of switching between Zune sharing and Media Player sharing on your Xbox which is easy and convient on the Xbox user interface.

So, as far as formats go, the simple rule is: everything except DivX/XviD on Zune Player; DivX/XiD on Windows Media Player. If you want a little more detail, here’s the nitty gritty of codecs supported by the player…

• Zune Player
  • Codecs
  • • WMV (Unprotected)
    • mpeg4
    • H.264
  • File extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov, .wmv
  • Resolution: anything up to 1080p (1920×1080) at 30 frames per second
• Windows Media Player
  • Codecs
    • WMV (Protected and unprotected)
    • AVI (DivX/XviD)
  • File extensions: .wmv, .avi