When I wrote about the XBOX 360 vs. PS3, one of the PS3′s biggest advantages was its superior multimedia support. The 360 could play WMV files, some MPEG-4 files, and some MPEG-2 files with crappy containers, but that’s about it.
Well on December 4th, that is all about to change.
The XBOX MSDN blog has a ton of details in a Q&A format regarding how the Fall 2007 update affects the 360′s multimedia capabilities. In short, it adds proper AVI support, MPEG-4 Part 2 (aka DivX/XviD), and even h.264 (Quicktime MOV)!
Yes, the Playstation 3 announced DivX support first, but the 360 is the one that will be actually playing these files first.
All these files can be streamed to the 360 from Windows Media Player 11, Windows Home Server, or from a USB drive. They don’t mention whether it will read these files off a disc, but I can’t see why not.
so can u watch movies through a wireless home network?
Yeah and there is no problem at all :)
Does anyone know if it is possible to stream directly from a network storage drive or does it have to be streamed using windows media player from a pc?
scrap that found my own answer —- hack my NAS drive!
It seems to ONLY play WMV files unless you are connected to Xbox Live… Says you need a media Update and I get it when I am connected to Live but then it won’t work if I am not connected.
got a 2nd console? Create a new profile, download media update again and be sure, it’ll work without live connection,..