How To: Transcode Anything to your Xbox 360
NOTE: There is a Vista Beta edition of Transcode 360 available now, which solves the permissions workaround in this tutorial.
Recently I took a passing interest in Microsoft's Windows Media Center, mostly because it looks gorgeous and I had heard it was easy to use. After realizing that Xbox 360's have MCE support, this passing interest became a prevalent one. Then it occurred to me that there are three Xbox 360's in the house. I about exploded with anticipation as I looked into what flavor of Media Center to pick up.
I decided on Windows Vista Ultimate Edition Build 5840 (The closest thing to final release available at the moment), mostly because it's Vista. You know, the shiny.
Anyway, setting up Media Center with a 360 is, in and of itself, a piece of cake. Run Media Center on the desktop, and go through the wizard on the 360. Takes about five minutes, tops. However, I quickly encountered a problem: for some reason that defies...reason, MCE on the 360 refuses to stream anything but Windows Media Video (WMV) format videos. But, what about all of my XVID, Quicktime, MPEG4, and other file types? This is a load of crap.
Fortunately, Google loves me.
A quick search and a bit of reading the 'friendly' manual led me to an amazing little piece of software called Transcode 360. It integrates right into MCE, adding an option to transcode a file under the 'More' menu. Simply click that, and the MCE server (my desktop) will convert anything into WMV and stream it straight to the 360, without so much as a hiccup.
The only remaining problem here is...Transcode 360 requires a bit of special treatment under Vista in order to work properly. Written in .NET 1.1 for Windows XP Media Center Edition, Transcode 360 has a few security issues. Due to the way Vista handles file security, if you install Transcode 360 to it's default directory, it will crash when MCE tries to use it. To get around that, simply install the app under the Media Center user directory:
I used C:\Users\Mcx1\Documents\Transcode360 as my full path, but anything should work so long as it is in the Mcx1 directory. Note: This user directory will not be there until you have run the Media Extender Wizard at least once.
Also, you must have .NET 1.1 and .NET 1.1 SP1 installed. Vista Build 5840 comes with .NET 2.0 only, so you need to install them yourself. Those redistributables should work fine.
And with that, it works like a beauty. Transcoding on my Athlon X2 4200+ takes only about 15 minutes to process a 700MB, 1 hour 30 minute XVID file. Playback starts almost immediately after clicking on the transcode button, and the quality is quite good. Transcode 360 manages to make the entire process essentially seamless, sans the Vista tweaks needed to get it functional.
I'm going to go watch some Venture Bros now. じゃまた
Comments
I downloaded the newer version that is supposedly built for Windows Vista. I still have to install .NET 1.1 and .NET 1.1 SP1 but that's ok. I did the steps you said and it works great under Windows Ultimate RTM.
Hey,
I have tried everything to get this program to work on Vista but keep getting the same error. I have followed the steps above but with no luck.
Any help would be appreciated.
Sorry, this is the error i am getting.
************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.SetVisibleCore(Boolean value)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.SetVisibleCore(Boolean value)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.set_Visible(Boolean value)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Show()
at Transcode360.Controls.Tab.AddTab(Form aForm)
at Transcode360.TrayForm.OnFormLoad(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at Transcode360.TrayForm.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Transcode360Tray
Assembly Version: 1.4.1.0
Win32 Version: 1.4.1.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Mcx1/Documents/Transcode360/Transcode360Tray.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
Skybound.VisualStyles
Assembly Version: 1.2.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.2.4.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Mcx1/Documents/Transcode360/Skybound.VisualStyles.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
Transcode360.Interface
Assembly Version: 1.4.1.0
Win32 Version: 1.4.1.0
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/transcode360.interface/1.4.1.0__86aea28265d7ddec/transcode360.interface.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Runtime.Remoting
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.runtime.remoting/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.runtime.remoting.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll
----------------------------------------
************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
application or machine (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.
For example:
<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>
When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.
You should try out the Vista Beta edition of Transcode 360. It handles the various permissions issues that I worked around in my blog entry.
http://runtime360.com/projects/transcode-360/transcode-360-download/
Dustin
In vista you can tell the service to run in administrator mode by right clicking on the executable, click properties and click the security tab. The checkbox for run as administrator can be checked. The next time you run it, it will ask for your permissions.
If this is not working, please comment.
Hi,I have managed to get past all of the permission issues using the above suggestion. Thank you.
However, when i go to run a video on my xb360 the same way i usually did with XP, it doesn't work. I have all the codecs installed on the PC. Any thoughts?
I am at a total loss. I have tried everything and still cant get the videos to stream to my XB360. Do I need to adjust anything in the config file?
I have TC360 installed to c:users\Mcx1\documents and I can see all of my videos on my XB360, but I still get an error saying that it is unable to stream videos using transcode. I am seriously considering going back to XP if I cant get this to work.
Any help would be so greatly appreciated. Please feel free to add me to msn at jbrowne18@shaw.ca if you would like to help me in realtime.
Thanks for all of your help. I figured it out using this page http://transcode360.co.uk/
Explains how certain virus programs cause issues with the codecs, including Avast which i a running.
Im up and running now! SWEET!!!!!!!