Gibber Posted May 1, 2009 Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Does anyone know what kind of success rate would I be looking at while trying to watch .avi files on a 360 from a usb stick? I've heard that it can be hit and miss as to whether video files will play and I won't be having the PC networked to the 360 to stream through Media Player. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohanofNess Posted May 1, 2009 Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Could you copy the files to the hard drive on the 360 would play better than being retrieved from the stick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roachmill Posted May 1, 2009 Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Should be fine *most* of the time for avi files as they're *usually* MPEG-4 video with mp3 audio. Usually. It's only when you get someone who's been too clever with their codec choice you hit problems. One thing worth mentioning in these HD days is the FAT32 4GB single file size restriction... lots of HD movies are bigger than this so they won't go on any supported flash drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinner72 Posted May 1, 2009 Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 I regularly play files from USB pens using a cheapo DVD/DivX player, and I can't see the 360 being any different. The only thing I've found (other than the codec and size limits mentioned above) is that fragmented files tend to skip. So if that happens, sticking the drive back in your computer for a quick defrag should sort it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Thanks for that JohanofNess and Roachmill Only 256 mb (360 arcade). Its more a case of the codecs used rather than the transfer from usb to 360 I was wondering about. In theory most avi's should work, in practice I was wondering if anybody had any experience of doing this. I used to receive freeview TV and run video playback from my PC. Now with a big LCD telly I was thinking of getting a DVD player with a USB slot to play avi's. Then I though that I might as well get an Xbox for not much more money if it can play DVD and avi as well of course games. As the Pc is going to be in another room I'm not going to hook it up to the tv so I need a way of playing avi files from a USB stick. Can anyone can think of another solution before I but an Xbox? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 I regularly play files from USB pens using a cheapo DVD/DivX player, and I can't see the 360 being any different. The only thing I've found (other than the codec and size limits mentioned above) is that fragmented files tend to skip. So if that happens, sticking the drive back in your computer for a quick defrag should sort it. Cheers Spinner, can you recommend a cheap DVD/DivX player? My daughter would prefer a Wii so I would be up for a cheap alternative to the Xbox. The DVD/Divx players I saw were about £50 (360s are down to about £95 now) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Was looking at this refurb http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Philips-1080p-Upconverting-USB-HDMI-DVD-Player-Refurbished/3415268/product.html?sec_iid=33969 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAStewart Posted May 3, 2009 Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 I regularily play .avi's and .mp4's on my xbox through my harddrive. Awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 I regularily play .avi's and .mp4's on my xbox through my harddrive. Awesome. Do you mean the Xbox's hard drive or an external one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roachmill Posted May 3, 2009 Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 Awesome.You experience a feeling of fear and reverence because an Xbox can play video files? You're easy pleased Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 Or does anyone know roughly the minimum spec of laptop that will play video on a 32" LCD TV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinner72 Posted May 4, 2009 Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 Was looking at this refurb http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Philips-1080p-Upconverting-USB-HDMI-DVD-Player-Refurbished/3415268/product.html?sec_iid=33969 I assume from that you're looking for an upscaling player, in which case thats a pretty good price. The nearest I can find from a quick browse through my usual shopping sites is THIS ONE , only roughly a tenner cheaper. It's worth noting that almost all DVD players now play standard Divx files, like Tesco's current £17 one. You mention the spec of a laptop to play through a 32inch TV, well it depends on what you want to play. If you're looking at full HD H.264 encoded avi's, it'll ned to be a fairly decent machine. If you just wanna play normal divx's pretty much anything half decent (say 1.2Ghz/512RAM) will do, assuming it has the output capabilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 Thanks Spinner Eventually went for this cheapo http://www.avforums.com/forums/dvd-players-standard-definition-upscaling/827611-silvercrest-hdmi-dvd-player-lidl.html £20 from Lidl. Runs off a 4gb usb contrary to the 1gb limit stated in the manual. Takes about 15-25s to start playing a selected avi but does a good jop of it. I imagine it won't take a powered 3.5 in ext HDD because it won't have the software but I'm going to try later tonight just in case, you never know. thanks for the advice on the laptop, someone was selling a thinkpad from 2004 with 32mb video memory, 1.7ghz chip that I was thinking of using for this. I got an Xbox as well to see if that is much cop at reading an external HDD. If anyone is sooth today looking for a 360 Arcade go to PC world and price match with Asda who have them at £97. PC World will sell you one (with a newer cpu than Asda's old stock) for £93. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibber Posted May 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2009 The Lidl dvd player worked with and ext hdd for about a day and now won't read any usb input so that went back. Got an xbox 360 which will read from the 3rd party (not the official MS Xbox HDD) HDD but I get the error message Status Code 51-c00df236 when trying to play AVI files which means I have to be connected to the internet to download the licensed codecs from MS, downloading these codecs from a pc onto a stick and then installing onto the Xbox (like you can with dashboard updates) wont work. Does anyone know of a fix for the "A media update is required to play this content Status Code 51-c00df236" error message that doesn't involve connecting to the internet? I'm going to try connecting the network cable from my work pc into the back of the xbox to see if that will give me a connection (or is this totally stupid?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roachmill Posted May 7, 2009 Report Share Posted May 7, 2009 ^Assuming your work PC gets the various IP addresses for an internet connection automagically, the Xbox should too. Failing that you'll need to copy down the network settings for your work PC and manually fire them in to the Xbox under system > system settings > network settings > manual settings (or something like that). Are you on the latest 360 dashboard / XBE? Depending how old your 360 is (and how long it's been, if ever, since it last had an internet connection) you may well have to download that first. Have fun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.