Connecting you to your media

I think I have some understanding of, if not appreciation for, the codec limitations on MCX.  Working in IT, I've certainly developed appreciation for comprehensive testing and change management.  I generally applaud Microsoft's rollout mechanisms for updates on its various platforms.

From a consumer perspective, though, should we not expect a higher level of consistency from our entertainment devices?  If I can play H.264 content on both my Media Center PC and Xbox 360, is it so unreasonable to assume that I can do so via MCX?  Yes, Transcode 360 is a good option for MCE geeks.  Yes, one might argue that most consumers aren't looking to play H.264 content.  It'd be nice to have an easier, supported solution, though.

Simply put:  if one's family becomes accustomed to the Media Center experience and a Media Center "Extender" is added to the household, they'll expect a virtually identical experience on the MCX device.  It's "just" extending MCE to another display, right?  ;)

[Insert query about offering Xbox IPTV functionality on VMC here.]

Thanks again for pointing me here during yesterday's MC Expert Zone chat.

So, it boils down to money, time and resources?  What in life doesn't?  ;)

I appreciate that it may not be feasible to license every codec for every platform.  It seems to me, though, that Microsoft is largely endorsing H.264 as a supported codec; it'd be nice to see such support in modern extenders, especially since the 360 can now handle such media outside of MCX.  Is the license for the 360 written such that it limits support to the dashboard, or is 360 MCX support only a time and resources issue?

Maybe we'll see changes to bring the 360 MCX implementation into line with Pika devices when they're released.  I look forward to Microsoft and its partners making such information public.

I understand that codec support within MCX on the 360 is independent of the 360 dashboard/media player's own codecs.  I just wanted to reiterate that that might be a point of confusion for consumers, and that H.264 support within MCX would be welcome.

As to third-party extenders, I assume you're referring to the forthcoming Pika systems.  (To my knowledge, v1 extenders did not support additional codecs.)  Are there plans to update the 360 MCX to support whatever codecs form the  baseline of Pika?  (Please see http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/182810.aspx.)  Might there be means to add third-party codecs to 360 MCX via Xbox Live Marketplace?

Oops.  I should've reread this thread.  In your original post, you make it clear that any updates to MCX would be delivered through Windows, not XBL.

Please allow me to rephrase my last question:  Might there be means to add third-party codecs to 360 MCX?  Perhaps a mechanism within VMC to publish codecs to 360 MCX, if only from a list of approved vendors?

i must be a complete moron...can someone tell me how to stream my movies?

all of my movies on my hard drice are in quicktime, whenever i try to stream, it says i dont have the correct codec

Hi, I realize this is old news, but after searching for about 2 hours now and writing scripts to restart SSPD and it's dependent services just to be sure Windows Media Sharing is picking up the files and sending them to my 360 I still can't see m4v or mov files in the Dashboard interface. Wow, run on sentence alert! Anyway is there a tutorial I'm not seeing? all my wmv files show up fine both in directories and in the root directory. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

BTW, the quicktime files are aac stereo and not 5.1

Follow-up:

I am able to play an .mv4 and .mp4 file from a USB flash drive. Is this the intended user experience?

I have 3 wmv files.  Two of them I create a long time ago and don't remember what I used.  The third I created lastnight using Windows Media Encoder 9.   I can only see the first two wmv files.  I can't see the one I created lastnight when using my xbox 360 media broswer.  I'm streaming video using my XP Pro machine w/ Windows Media Player 11.

Anyone know what's going on?