Xbox 360 to get DivX support?
by Blake Snow 
{ Oct 11th 2006 at 8:45PM }
A Dutch Xbox fansite (X Life) is reporting that Microsoft will officially support DivX and XviD formats directly on the Xbox 360 within two months time. While hack-happy 360 owners have been able to play DivX movies for a while now, the move -- if true -- would allow the console to play said video formats without the use of transcoding that converts DivX movies to WMVs on the fly.From a Microsoft retailer training session (translated from Dutch): "After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether there'd ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise, he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360."
This is only one rumored account "from some guy," so don't get all giddy quite yet.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom @ Oct 11th 2006 8:48PM
DivXboxvid 360
OTAM @ Oct 11th 2006 8:49PM
I so badly wish. Transcode 360 runs so poorly over my wireless network that I have to use the ethernet directly to my PC whenever I watch any Divx files.
aZn_1080p @ Oct 11th 2006 9:00PM
This is going to shock a lot of you... but here
goes...
If the 360 does this, and does it well (like XBMC well or better) and the
*PS3 does NOT* (which I expect it will), I will be getting a tard
pack 360. I was already considering getting one and modding it so I
can pir8 games to stick it to M$, and this feature would sell me on
it 100%.
Again, IF AND ONLY IF the PS3 does not do it, I will get the 360. Of course I'd rather do this on my PS3, whisper quiet, rather than listen to the 'hoover trying to clear a dustball' sound of 360 doing it, but if a decent media player does not make it to PS3, Sony will have forced my hand, and will have no choice but to forgive me for betraying them.
Sturat @ Oct 11th 2006 9:02PM
If XBox 360 or Apple's iTV are going to gain widespread adoption as media hubs, they need to support stolen video. It seems ipod sales were largely driven by stolen mp3s. This is a smart move by Microsoft; they can always push their wmv format later once they have a bigger userbase.
Colonel @ Oct 11th 2006 9:03PM
Azn_1080p considers buying an Xbox 360...
everyone needs to digg this. Now.
smellslikepie @ Oct 11th 2006 9:07PM
aZn_1080p : get a 360, it's the way forward :P
However the PS3 will do this, which is one of the reasons Microsoft is working so hard to do it, so that the PS3 doesn't have any features the 360 doesn't have.
“Well the PS3 used to have 1080p, high-def and DivX playback as its strong points over the 360, and so far we’ve taken down two of them…”
Ed @ Oct 11th 2006 9:07PM
This strikes me as being very likely true. J Allard said that the Zune will be able to play MPEG-4, and it's a small leap from there to make it able to play Xvid and DivX. Since the 360 will be able to playback music and photos from the Zune (won't it?), it seems pretty likely that Microsoft would figure out a way to playback videos from the Zune, supporting every codec the Zune supports.
It'll be even nicer if it upconverts those Xvids to 1920x1080 :)
HallwayGiant @ Oct 11th 2006 9:08PM
Oh "some guy" you never cease to spread baseless internet rumors...
penas @ Oct 11th 2006 9:11PM
I CAN ONLY WISH!!!
J Arcane @ Oct 11th 2006 9:20PM
As much as I really wish this were true, it'll never happen.
I'd love to see Microsoft finally admit that WMA/WMV is a failure, and start supporting real formats, but MS doesn't give up that easy.
Crazylink @ Oct 11th 2006 9:28PM
This could be usefull once I buy a 360. I wouldn't mind watching some Bleach or Naruto on my TV.
murc @ Oct 14th 2006 1:35PM
NICE.
I'm probably going to get a 360 in November...I'm still crossing my fingers and toes that MS will release a black one by then.
BTW aZn_1080p : Pirates games effects the game makers way more then Microsoft.
Also...if Piracy is so important to you...what were you going to do with the PS3 (?)...since a blank Blu-ray disc is like $20...and I doubt you have a $1000 Blu-ray burner in your pc.
jayntampa @ Oct 11th 2006 9:41PM
And ... it needs to stream effortlessly through Windows Media Connect, just like mp3s :P
Teuthida @ Oct 11th 2006 9:43PM
Would have liked to see VHS doing the Electric Slide but alas...
Anonymouse Rep @ Oct 11th 2006 9:46PM
The sad part of this is that I've been watching Divx movies on my TV for quite some time. Pretty simple, actually - my DVD player supports the format.
And it's going to be the stand-alone players like mine - not knocking any gaming system, but let's face it, in the retail market, people still tend to buy stand-alone products because when you specialize with the product, they tend to perform better - that are going to hurt both the 360 HD-DVD player AND the PS3 as a Blu-Ray movie player.
Heck, there was someone at Wal-Mart earlier this week complaining because they no longer had VHS movies. Yeah, they need to move up in the world to DVDs - but whether or not EITHER HD-DVD or BR actually make it as an industry standard will be interesting.
(I love having to explain the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R to people all the time, too, since the average consumer really doesn't have a clue. -R you can play in your DVD player at home. +R you probably can play in your computer only, so get the -R. Argh...)
007craft @ Oct 11th 2006 10:04PM
Well this could be true. I was at the toshiba image tour last night and they had the HD-DVD drive for the 360 hooked up and running. The rep guy said it requires the new fall update to run, which was already loaded on the system. For this reason, he would not show us the 3 and 4th blades on the 360 dashboard. So much so, that he had a second xbox there, just to get to those next 2 blades for a 1 minute explination of what its all about.
My guess is that somewhere on the 3rd blade (the media blade) was a bunch of divx branding that he couldent reveal. He did however tell me that the fall update was coming out 1 day before the HD-DVD drive was released, which he said was sometime mid-november.
Furthermore, he said the price was $199 CDN as well as USD and that Microsoft fought hard to keep it that price point for Canada. so yes, in Canada the HD-DVD drive retails for $174 USD, or $26 USD cheaper then in the US.
otakucode @ Oct 11th 2006 10:10PM
Transcoding is not an option.
If they allow Divx and Xvid from a non-Media Center PC to be streamed to the 360 and displayed in HD resolutions... I will squirt with joy. So I don't expect it to happen. I'll prolly just have to stick with XBMC on my modded Xbox like I've been using as my primary entertainment solution for the past 3 years.
Tyler @ Oct 11th 2006 10:09PM
Finally! I've been waiting forever to watch all my TV shows and movies that I've "stolen" ;) on my Xbox 360 through Media Center extender. It sucks having to convert files just for that sole purpose. This has been one of the biggest complaints I've had so for with the 360. Hopefully this rumor is true.
I think Microsoft has the right idea of having your Windows Vista PC (when it comes out) be the place where you download, store, and manage all your media (music, photos, and videos) then extend that experience through Media Center (again when everyone has Vista this will be possible) throughout your home. It just makes more sense practically and economically from a consumer standpoint, rather than trying to copy and put it on every device around (I'm looking at you PS3).
Also, when has the PS3 supposed to do Divx and Xvid? I understand if it's only playing burned DVDs or CDs with Divx/Xvid content, but that takes too much time and burnable DVDs when many people have hundreds of gigs of videos on their computer. And how the hell is Sony going to try to ever come close to what MS has with the one-two combo of Media Center and Xbox 360? Is the PS3 going to try to stream from a PC? In that case, wouldn't MS not let them create software that allows that?
LordMinogue @ Oct 11th 2006 10:10PM
will i be able to play movies from my flash drive?
kftgr @ Oct 12th 2006 1:22PM
1) Hope this is true
2) wish that it'll be playable over WMC on XP. if not, then over USB or burned on a disc.
3) hope it'll support matroska containers
@14,
The problem with standalone players is that you're stuck with the hardware you've bought. Most of the players are certified for only Divx 5. There's more content out there everyday encoded with incompatible options (Divx 6, QPEL xvids). You'll soon require either a lot of transcoding or have to pony up for more expensive players that can play those files.
A software solution backed by a pretty powerful processor can bypass those problems -- just hope that microsoft puts it in.
sonofnone @ Oct 13th 2006 2:52AM
I so hope the guys at Penny Arcade hear about this.
Wild Homes @ Oct 11th 2006 11:08PM
this is fantastic news, especially given that Windows Vista (at least RC1 and Beta2) would not permit Transcode to run at all, something about different permissions built into the OS. I don't want to get excited, in case it's not true, but this news is so good I can't help but hope.
Wild Homes @ Oct 11th 2006 11:15PM
Anonymouse, yeah, but you're missing the point. the implication of this post is that should this prove true, the 360 will now support DivX and Xvid video content streamed from Media Center.
and unless you, in the future, opt for a DivX-enabled DVD player that has licensed the Vista-MC extender technology, you won't have the same convenience that this rumored update would give the 360.
thrall @ Oct 11th 2006 11:14PM
Original Xbox with XBMC = No need for Xbox 360 except for HD Xvid files. :D
Wild Homes @ Oct 11th 2006 11:43PM
thrall, that's great and all, except for two things:
one, HD video in Xvid is a big deal, and...
two, the original Xbox cannot play 360 games.
seems like you forgot one.
Bill @ Oct 12th 2006 12:54AM
I'm on pirated XP. I cant get media extender cus it does a validation check. Is there any way I can get XP360 connectivity at this time? Is it planned for the fall update?
I plan to purchase Vista when it comes out btw. I know it'll work, but I'm asking for the meanwhile.
Steve2 @ Oct 12th 2006 3:01AM
Who cares?
MS will not allow you to stream video from non-Media Center Edition Windows machines. Not from regular XP, not from Macs, not from Linux.
Bill, the program you can download for XP to let you stream media to the 360 only works for audio. You can't stream video from it. So don't sweat it.
When MS is ready to let me stream from what I want instead of only from their DRM-heavy (and expensive) OS upgrades, maybe I'll take a look. Until then, I'll still be using XBMC on my old Xbox 180.
Bender @ Oct 12th 2006 3:47AM
I use my original Xbox with XBMC for Xvid movies and tv shows far more than i do for games. I'll buy a 360 when they get Xvid and DivX codecs supported properly - that's what i'm waiting for.
FSK405K @ Oct 12th 2006 3:53AM
Why do you want a game system to play movie files? Don't you have all your game systems and computer and everything all hooked up to the same video screen anyway? For me it's a video projector.
The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 12th 2006 5:30AM
@26 (FSK405K)
NO. We do not have all our game systems and computer hooked to the same video screen! Some of us have family- wives, particularly- that wouldn't take kindly to us tying up the main screen with a video game or web surfing when she wants to watch a television show, and vice-versa. Some of us do things on the Internet that we don't want to show off in on the 27" HDTV in the living room. Some of us don't like to squint at little fonts on a huge screen, either.
I understand some of the younger crowd might have an all-in-one setup, but you'll find it pretty valuable to have some space and separation in technology when you've been married for a long time. Telling your girlfriend to go watch her show on the small TV is not quite the same as pissing off your wife. Trust me.
Wild Homes @ Oct 12th 2006 6:52AM
Bill ...
if you opt to check out the Release Candidate version of Windows Vista, you can use the Vista build of Media Center, which works with the 360, and Vista has Windows Media Connect pre-installed. just create a new partition on your existing hard drive (or one of them, if you've got a couple), download the OS from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista and burn the .iso to a dvd, then install it and run your PC dual boot along with XP (for the security-intensive stuff, because Vista isn't completely bug-free yet). you can manage this on a relatively low-end PC if you don't wish to run Vista's Aero Glass UI.
that way, you have a genuine version of Windows, and it's valid until June, by which time the RTM version of Vista will be available in stores.
Ben Hobbs @ Oct 12th 2006 7:33AM
thrall - Original Xbox with XBMC = No need for Xbox 360 except for HD Xvid files. :D
Not really, Seeing as you can have upto 5 360's linked into one media centre with each 360 being able to stream its own movies, watch, pause and record its own TV shows etc.. get RSS feeds and watch HD files.
Matt @ Oct 12th 2006 12:54PM
But without MBAFF for BBC HD it's useless!
Tom Home @ Oct 12th 2006 9:31AM
This is FANTASTIC news! I like Transcode360, but would like a simpler way to play all codecs on my 360.
Rootbeer @ Oct 12th 2006 11:05AM
"you can have upto 5 360's linked into one media centre with each 360 being able to stream its own movies, watch, pause and record its own TV shows etc.. get RSS feeds and watch HD files."
HD I will give you. The Xbox1's CPU isn't powerful enough to decode HD files on-the-fly.
Ability to record TV shows is limited by the Media Center server, not by the clients. If you have 5 360's linked to a MC box with only one TV tuner, only one show at a time is going to be recorded. And Live TV counts as a recording.
Everything else you mention is already capable with a modded Xbox 1 running Xbox Media Center. There's no 5-client limit, either... because it uses standard Samba/Windows File Sharing protocol, anything can be streamed to as many clients as you like, up to the bandwidth limit of your home network.
VGA @ Oct 12th 2006 11:32AM
Bill,
Here is an answer to your little problem. You'll need a torrent client (i.e Bitcomet) of some sort and a web browser (screw IE), maybe winrar or some unzipping utility. Go to isohunt.com or mininova.org.
Look for WGA Workaround. You'll have to replace some file in System32. It's a little file I forget the name. But it is on mininova.org, trust me I had the same problem. Once you do it you'll be able to download the Media Extender. Piece O Cake.
GOLD5 @ Oct 12th 2006 11:49AM
Microsoft would have to pay royalty fees for these formats a la Immersion. I can see this happening only if they decide to charge people some marketplace points so that they can "enable" the playback feature, just like PSP does with flash player. (Except they don't charge money but you have to go online and accept a license agreement for PSP so far.) I'd be for it, that's fer sure, then I can fulfill my life's dream of being able to watch porn on literally every device I own!!
GTgamer @ Oct 12th 2006 9:46PM
Holy sweet mother of awesomeness, I hope this is true. The transcoding "hack" sucks. The lack of support seriously hobbles most of the MCE functionality for video playback.