First of all, let me just say "well done, great job" to the team on the new XBox 360 support.
I've been playing with media extenders for some time now and I'm a long standing owner of a DSM-320 that has clocked up a plenty of TV episode mileage so I've got LOTS of experience in streaming videos to my home theater system. I've tried numerous media servers and I can safely say that TVersity is the best offering out there by a country mile, and it's free!
I've spent a fair amount of time playing with the XBox360 / MCE combination since my 360 arrived, so I know all about that too.
This new version of TVersity is the answer. For the first time ever I can now stream every single video I have to my 360, without exception, with virtually no quality loss and with no lag. Excellent!
The problem of course is that this does require some configuration and as with everything you can't expect perfect performance without some setup and tweaking. So, I've decided to share my experience here and hopefully help out those who are still battling because, frankly, I feel their pain
First of all, a quick breakdown of my setup for reference:
XBox360 connected to Dolby/DTS amplifier and 42" Plasma - On CAT-5 network cable to PC.
PC Spec
----------
AMD 4400+ Dual Core, 2 Gig RAM, SATA-2 hard drives.
I'm only giving the specs so that people know what I using to get results.
My setup procedure for TVersity (on a fresh Windows installation) to play everything correctly is as follows:
1. Install Windows Media Player 11.
2. Install latest FFDShow.
3. Install latest AC-3 filter (required for streaming AVI files with AC-3 5.1 soundtracks)
4. Register mp4splitter.ax (google for it). This helps with HD Quicktime movies.
5. Install latest Quicktime Alternative.
6. Install TVersity itself.
7. Go to the settings in TVersity and check the settings. I'm streaming over a 100 MBs LAN cable so I find that setting compression to min results in excellent quality and my connection can cope. You might have a Wifi connection and so you may need to set compression medium or even average. It pays to play with the settings, especially if you are having problems with quality.
Important things to note that WILL screw with TVersity
1. Installing codecs like XVID and DIVX after you've installed FFDShow can cause problems with streaming AVI files encoded with those codecs. I strongly recommend that if you do encode movies that you install all your codecs first and then install FFDShow last.
2. Programs like AutoGK tend to install codecs when they install so watch out!
3. AVI movies with AC3 Dolby 5.1 audio streams don't seem to work at all unless AC3Filter is installed, eventhough they play fine on the PC.
Helpful hints and tips
1. The new version of TVersity has an excellent GUI that you can use to test streaming of movies. Basically, if you navigate through your shared media via the TVersity GUI itself and click a video to play it from there, TVersity will stream the movie locally to WMP 11 and will transcode it exactly the same as if it was streaming to the 360. This is important because it means that if it doesn't play via the TVersity GUI on the local PC then IT WILL NOT STREAM TO THE 360. This is how I troubleshoot. My 360 is downstairs and my PC is in my study, so it's a pain to keep running back and forward and I find it very useful to use the GUI to troubleshoot problem files.
2. The 360 has a +- 40 second timeout when receiving streamed videos, and that is why it sometimes gives you an error when you attempt to play certain movies. On my PC, which is fairly potent, I typically wait no more than 20 seconds max for a movie to start streaming from the PC (it takes a few seconds for the PC to build up a buffer). On slower PCs the leadtime may vary and the 360 may timeout if you are streaming very high definition video that is taking a long time to transcode and buffer on your PC.
3. TVersity will basically transcode and stream any movie that can be filtered and played by DirectShow. You will therefore be doing yourself a BIG favour if you get hold of:
a. GraphEdit.
b. GSpot.
GraphEdit is particularly important because by simply dragging a movie and dropping it onto GraphEdit you will be presented with a graphical representation that shows you how DirectShow is interpreting your movie and what filters and codecs are being used to play it. It will also, more importantly, show you why DirectShow can't play certain movies and exactly where the problem is. It's a great troubleshooting tool.
GSpot works in a similair fashion and will also show you what codecs are required to playback a given movie.
I hope this helps any newbies who are currently as frustrated as I've been over the years and are desparately trying to figure out why their XVid copy of Casino Royale has no audio and their HD Quicktime Trailer for Happy Feet just will not play
If I think of anything else, I'll be back to add it in.
ff: