Preferred File Type, MP4, avi, divx etc Options

[anthdci]

Apologies if this has been asked before, I have searched and not found anything.

At the moment my xbox 360s just has an internet connection for live, there is no media centre server (it is at my girlfriends house my PC is at mine) so to watch media through it I put it onto my 500GB portable hard drive which is formatted with HFS+. I have found some files work and some don't, which is unsurprising since there is a range of file types used, from MKV, avi, mp4 etc most are SD but some are HD (720).

I am going to be moving in with her next month, so will be bringing my computer which has win7 and media centre and cabling it up. So I will be streaming through that.

I would like to format my library so it is a constant file type that I know will work and will provide a smooth watch-able video both from USB hard drive and other Ethernet. I am thinking MP4 would be the best? I know it can only handle stereo sound, but since I only have the TVs built in speakers that is fine.

Conversion time isn't an issue, my work computer has 2 Xeon X5650 cpus and 12GB of DDR3.

[f0xrolder]

My favourite file type is still avi as far as streaming and playing media through the 360 is concerned. Dual audio mkv's for example are a pain in the @$$ as, even when set for english audio and subs half the time it will play the original japanese and without english subs. And once the file has been opened and started playing there is no option in windows media center to switch audio tracks or to turn on or off subs.

I'd been called names such as a newb in another post, but the truth of the matter is, that mkv's might be a superior format playing through a dual core pc's with the correct codec packs that actually allow the change of audio and subtitles and play brilliantly in 720p-1080p the 360 absolutely sucks in comparison.

So in my opinion plug ur pc into ur telly and use that as a media centre pc rather than the 360 as an extender to the pc as it will give u nothing but grief especially if trying to play dual audio mkv's

[lordvader129]

well for one thing, .avi, .mkv, .mp4 etc arent codecs are video formats, they are just the container and inside the container is a video stream and one or more audio streams

typically an .avi will have 1 divx or xvid video stream, and 1 .mp3 audio stream

.mkv and .mp4 files usually has .h264 video and .aac audio

but these arent hard and fast rules, i have quite a few .mkv files with xvid/mp3 in them, and even some .avi with .h264


this page details what container/codec combinations the 360 supports:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xboxteam/archive/2...ayback-faq.aspx

i would suggest leaving avi/xvid as-is, mkv you can probably just repack into mp4 without actually converting (so it should go very quickly)