- Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium is more than sufficient. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate though just because I have it. - Software (For playing/streaming movies)
Windows Media Center (already installed)
DivX Pro (purchase the full version for full mkv support and encoding of HD DivX's. http://www.divx.com/) - Downloading movies
a. JDownloader (http://www.jdownloader.org/) to queue and download content - especially dlc packages - from RapidShare
b. http://www.rslinks.org/ for RapidShare links to movies.
c. A RapidShare account from http://www.rapidshare.com/ - Hardware (sufficient to handle 3 simultaneous HD streams with no problems)
a. Dell GX-280. P4 2.8Ghz with 2Ghz RAM. These are good solid servers and can be picked up in SA for around R1,500 with the above spec and a DVD drive. Cheap cheap goodness.
b. As much HDD space as possible to store all that movie goodness.
c. No need for a decent graphics or sound card. The on-board rubbish is sufficient. Only to work on the machine. Once setup though, remote desktop is fine. The XBox will handle the rendering.
d. A good wired network. Streaming HD on wireless is not recommended unless it is a good high speed wireless connection on the n draft.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Summarised Setup
This is the cheapest yet most effective way I could get Windows Media Center setup on a dedicated box and streaming to my XBox's around the house, and also share the media folders for other computers that play using Windows Media Player.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
General
I have gone through the PS3MediaServer option, the TVersity option and some other smaller lessor knowns. With Windows Media Center and DivX Plus everything else falls away. You don't need anymore than these 2 pieces of software to stream to your XBox with no problems.
On the networking side, the wireless adapter on the 360 is fine for SD movies. HD movies tend to stutter and take forever to pre-buffer when the movie starts. Just not worth it. I took the plunge and had the entire house wired up with CAT5 cable and got everything wired. Now we can have multiple streams going around the house with no worries. Wire definately the way to go until wireless picks up in reliability and speed.
On the networking side, the wireless adapter on the 360 is fine for SD movies. HD movies tend to stutter and take forever to pre-buffer when the movie starts. Just not worth it. I took the plunge and had the entire house wired up with CAT5 cable and got everything wired. Now we can have multiple streams going around the house with no worries. Wire definately the way to go until wireless picks up in reliability and speed.
Software
When I first started out with MCE streaming to the XBox360 I used to try all sorts of codecs. It was also painful to get .mkv's to stream with ease.
No more. All you need is MCE (preferrable Windows 7 over Vista) and DivX Plus (www.divx.com) and you can pretty much throw anything at your XBox. I am streaming .mkv's with this setup with no problems now. DivX Plus even extracts thumbnails from the videos for display in your video folder. Slick!!
No more. All you need is MCE (preferrable Windows 7 over Vista) and DivX Plus (www.divx.com) and you can pretty much throw anything at your XBox. I am streaming .mkv's with this setup with no problems now. DivX Plus even extracts thumbnails from the videos for display in your video folder. Slick!!
Hardware
When I first started with Windows Media Center streaming to the XBox360 I started with a Dual Core 3.0Ghz Xeon processor. This worked like a dream but I could not afford a UPS backup to keep this beast up in the event the power tripped. This resulted in many a time the HDD failed and I had to re-install the OS and start over.
So I moved the media center to my development machine. A Core2Due 2.4Ghz machine. This worked great too with zero problems streaming to multiple machines around the house (got 3 XBox's just for streaming video).
Lately I got hold of a second Dell-GX280. These are brilliant machines and I have been using one as a source control server and SQL server with no worries for around 6 years now. It is only a P4 2.8Ghz proc but more than enough for my purposes. Someone was selling them cheap so I grabbed a second one for only R1,500. Not sure what to do with the new one I decided to give it a bash with Windows 7 Prof and use it as my streaming machine. Hmmm.... This was to be interesting.
While windows its-self runs "ok" I would not use it daily to physically work on. I just re-configured one of my XBox's to talk to the new Dell for video streaming and shared my media drives with the Dell to stream to the XBox's. Now the interesting stuff begins and lots of testing.
Initially I will push the limits with just the one XBox. If CPU consumption does not hit 100% too often I will hook up a second one and do simultaneous streaming to see how it copes. If it still copes I will hook up the 3rd and turn this Dell into my new dedicated Windows Media Center server. Holding thumbs...
So I moved the media center to my development machine. A Core2Due 2.4Ghz machine. This worked great too with zero problems streaming to multiple machines around the house (got 3 XBox's just for streaming video).
Lately I got hold of a second Dell-GX280. These are brilliant machines and I have been using one as a source control server and SQL server with no worries for around 6 years now. It is only a P4 2.8Ghz proc but more than enough for my purposes. Someone was selling them cheap so I grabbed a second one for only R1,500. Not sure what to do with the new one I decided to give it a bash with Windows 7 Prof and use it as my streaming machine. Hmmm.... This was to be interesting.
While windows its-self runs "ok" I would not use it daily to physically work on. I just re-configured one of my XBox's to talk to the new Dell for video streaming and shared my media drives with the Dell to stream to the XBox's. Now the interesting stuff begins and lots of testing.
Initially I will push the limits with just the one XBox. If CPU consumption does not hit 100% too often I will hook up a second one and do simultaneous streaming to see how it copes. If it still copes I will hook up the 3rd and turn this Dell into my new dedicated Windows Media Center server. Holding thumbs...
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