I have read and read info about the xbox 360 and WHS not playing well nice with each other, and then again that they do.

I would like to get clarification.

What I am wanting to do is setup WHS and store all of my movies there. I will put an xbox 360 in each room (4) and connect it to the network wired 10/100.

Will the Xbox 360 extender functionality work seamlessly with WHS, or do I have to point the Xbox to the Vista Media Center? What format plays the best without loss of video quality? I have ripped my dvd's down, and currently converted to dvr-ms and they look great. Is there a better format that doesn't take up so much space and yields greak looking video?

My current LAN consists of WHS, WS2K3, 3 XP Pro desktops, 1 XP Pro laptop, 1 Vista Home Premium Laptop, 24 port 10/100 switch, Netopia router, various network printers, Linksys Wireless G access point.

so, you're talking about a different world--outside of the Media Center Extender interface, correct?

If so, there is media sharing setup in WHS, that allows for relatively easy extending of media content. If you purchased an HP MediaSmart Server, then it comes with Twonky Media Server, which makes streaming all sorts of content even easier, but if not, it just takes a bit of effort.

Assuming you're outside the MCX interface, then Xboxes have support for a lot of formats, and you simply need to share the permissions for the files and it should be able to play them fine.

Fyi, i keep bringing up MCX, because ever since the WHS Power Pack 2, it makes life ridiculously easy for sharing content. just fyi...

I think he is talking about using the media center extender interface.

I'm going to be setting up my WHS next week (hopefully), so I can't really help you with that.

As far as converting DVD's though, I think that dvr-ms is the best way to go. DVR-MS is an mpeg file, same as DVD's, so you aren't converting from one format to another. The problem with converting to something else, like h.264, is you are converting from one format to another. So, you will get smaller files, but there will be some loss of quality, since you are going from one lossy format to another.
It may be an acceptable loss in quality for you though, just depends on what you want. My opinion though is that hard drives are so cheap now (1TB for ~ $80) that it's just not worth it to compress them.

shadymg:

so, you're talking about a different world--outside of the Media Center Extender interface, correct?

If so, there is media sharing setup in WHS, that allows for relatively easy extending of media content. If you purchased an HP MediaSmart Server, then it comes with Twonky Media Server, which makes streaming all sorts of content even easier, but if not, it just takes a bit of effort.

I want the Media Center Extender interface functional on the XBox. I'm just not clear on if I will get that interface connecting dirrectly to the WHS, or if I have to connect it to my Vista MC machine. I have installed MyMovies on the WHS and the VMC. I would like to have the MyMovies interface appear on the XBox. I really like the library setup, and it really adds to the ease of use for the wife & kids. My wife leverages technology like a caveman. My kids are all very young 8 & younger.

If I have to connect the XBox to VMC then I'll just build another beefy machine and strip it down to only run VMC with MyMovies. It would seem a bit crazy to me that I'd have t oleave a desktop on 24*7 as well as the server.

No, I didn't purchase a Media Smart. I had a HP DL140 sitting here that wasn't being used. Dual 2.4 Xeon, 4gb ram to 80gb internal hdd's, and added a USB 2.0 controller with (2) 2 TB external drives.

Yes, the server sleeps. even if I'm streaming movies to multiple machines.

Having Media Center run as a service on the WHS box is an extremely common request to the Windows Home Server product team.  The current version of WHS does not include Media Center software.  In WHS v1 they wanted to deliver a solid base solution and if the added something as complex as WHS..there was no way they would ship on time.  But the real limiting factor was that WHS v1 is based on Server 2003.  Porting Vista version of Media Center isn't straightforward.  Okay..that today's state of things.  WHS 2.0 is slated to be released next year and I think we're going to hear more about it at CES 2010 come January.  This version will be based on Windows 7/Server 2008.  Rumor has it, and it is just a rumor, that WHS 2.0 will come in two flavors..one of which (a premium version) may include Media Center.  If this comes about, it will be interesting to see if they keep the headless requirement (no video/audio output).  I actually prefer it to be headless because I think they should be promoting Extenders much more.  If it does remain a headless device they will have to add some facilities in the WHS control panel for configuration/setup of Media Center.  For example, today you need to generate an access code from the Media Center PC and enter that into your extender when you set it up for the first time.  Microsoft/WHS Team will need to add some facility in the WHS Console screen to do the same.

So for me to get the VMC interface on the XBox I will have to connect it directly to the VMC. I can deal with that. I wish it wasn't that way, but for now that will be ok.

When connecting the XBox to the VMC so it can see the MyMovies add in........

Does that make the streamed movie run from the WHS to the VMC and then finally to the XBox, or will the entended MyMovies on the XBox find the source file directly on the WHS?

I don't want a bottleneck.

In Extender mode, everything is done via Extender/Media Center connection.  So its not direct to WHS.  You can virtually eliminate bottlenecks by having VMC and WHS wired to the same router/switch.  Sounds like you are already setup for that.  The bottom line, you'll be spending abit extra for electricity and abit more time managing (updates/virus protection, etc) while running VMC 24x7.  Keep your fingers crossed that we see these two platforms unified.

Thanks for the reply.

One other quick question. I have a 2.4ghz P4 with 3GB of RAM in it. Should this be able to handle the simultaneous streaming to the 4 extenders? If not, I have a HP ML 350 G3 with dual Xeons and 4GB RAM that I could attempt to put Vista on. I'd rather not go that with the ML350 since it's a power hog.

 

If you wanted to keep it all on one box, then you could probably run Vista in a virtual environment on your WHS box.  Bear in mind, however, that extenders don't work all that terribly well movies.  You can get some things to work, but it may be a royal pain.  I like to think of extenders as more of a live TV and EPG extender and not so much as a movie extender.

The only format I'm going to try to serve to the extenders is dvr-ms which as I understand it works great with the XBox. Just so long as that is the case I'm golden :)

I am trying to eliminate all the damaged DVDs from the kids and also unfortunately my wife. It get's rather old seeing discs get all scratched up from just not caring about how you handle them. Of the 150 or so movies I've ripped so far about 15 were damaged beyond reading.

I have a set up similar to what you are thinking about doing.  I have a WHS that I store all of my movies on.  My DVDs are ripped using DVDFab and stored as VOB high quality files.  I do have a 2.0 ghz. laptop that runs Windows Vista with Windows Media Center on it.  Currently I have 2 Media Center Extenders in my home; 1 Linksys Media Center Extender and 1 Xbox 360.  Everything is hard-wired with the 2 extenders going over Linksys Powerline adapters.  I use Transcode 360 to decode the VOB files to the appropriate file format needed for each device.  I have played 2 movies at the same time on the extenders without any problems.

My recommendation would be to use some kind of pc with Windows Vista SP1 installed.  You can get this software for around $100 at http://www.buycheapsoftware.com .  I do have the My Movies add-in on both the WHS and the client on my pc.  It is a great add in that helps in cataloging the movies and getting them to the extenders.  Extenders are very finiky and I have found that the less you complicate things the better.  I am not sure how the extenders would do against any kind of virutal image and would not want to waste the cycles experiementing....but that is just me. 

 

josie13:

I have a set up similar to what you are thinking about doing.  I have a WHS that I store all of my movies on.  My DVDs are ripped using DVDFab and stored as VOB high quality files.  I do have a 2.0 ghz. laptop that runs Windows Vista with Windows Media Center on it.  Currently I have 2 Media Center Extenders in my home; 1 Linksys Media Center Extender and 1 Xbox 360.  Everything is hard-wired with the 2 extenders going over Linksys Powerline adapters.  I use Transcode 360 to decode the VOB files to the appropriate file format needed for each device.  I have played 2 movies at the same time on the extenders without any problems.

My recommendation would be to use some kind of pc with Windows Vista SP1 installed.  You can get this software for around $100 at http://www.buycheapsoftware.com .  I do have the My Movies add-in on both the WHS and the client on my pc.  It is a great add in that helps in cataloging the movies and getting them to the extenders.  Extenders are very finiky and I have found that the less you complicate things the better.  I am not sure how the extenders would do against any kind of virutal image and would not want to waste the cycles experiementing....but that is just me. 

 

 

I picked up a 360 yesterday and started experimenting.

First I tried the virtual machine running Vista Ultimate on VPC 2007 running on the WHS. VU runs fine on the VPC, but I could not get the 360 to connect to it. It would see it, but it ultimately would not make a final connection. I will be playing with that a little more later and trying to get it to run right.

Second setup: WHS running MyMovies 2.52

Vista Home Premium on Laptop running Media Center

Some of my dvd's are ripped using AnyDVD and saved to the WHS \\homeserver\videos\I Am Legend\dvd_video

Most of them I have ripped using AnyDVD and then used Video Redo to save the .vob files as dvr-ms.  \\homeserver\videos\I Am Legend\I Am Legend.dvr-ms

Most of the dvr-ms files will play fine, but some of them are not. I am currently makeing a list of what plays and what doesn't. I'm not sure why some will play and other's won't. They were all processed the same way on the same machine.

I know that the XBox will not play the .vob through extender mode. I installed transcode 360 on the laptop and click watch stream on the extender and it won't connect to T360. I'm not sure why just yet.

MyMovies works perfectly on the laptop. All of my movies have the covers showing with no problem, but on the X360 the covers do not show. It just shows the default movie reel icon as if there was no image associated to it. Does anyone have any idea why the covers would not show up on the X360?

Does anyone know what happened to the MyMovies forum? It's been down for 2 days.

 

Problem solved. It was permissions on both accounts.

The share d:\mymovies\filestorage   needed "read" permission for the "everyone" group. That got the artwork working properly.

The videos share I reset the permissions on the entire directory and now all dvr-ms files play fine.

I still haven't gotten Transcode360 to work right yet.  Another day......

I am having a problem playing movies on my x box 360, I can play all my movies on my windows media center PC but when I try them on the x box it says missing codec some one please help.  I have an HP elite m9400f, with windows home premium,  a netgear range max router, which is wired to my xbox, and my desktop.  someone please help.

http://www.htpcug.org/Default.aspx?tabid=169

I used the info from this link to create shortcuts on my VMC box to point to my WHS movie rips in VOB format.   I had to have UAC - OFF for this to work, otherwise it would not make the links for me.  It basically transcodes the vob's to mpg's on the fly so you can view them on an extender and leaves your VOB's intact..

I regged the .dll to allow the DVD library to be viewed in the extender (XBOX360)

I then pointed the XBOX 360 to the shortcuts location and the movies played fine.

FWIW, I still use My Movies for coverart and such....so they show up in the DVD library.  In my case, it works awesome!!  Mind you, you lose chapter skips and FF/RR is in 10 second bursts, but it works.

Hope this helps!