How to play .MKV on your Xbox360.

What you need:

Hardware: Xbox 360, WIndows7 with MCE 32 bit or 64bit and if you have one, Windows Home Server.

Software: MediaBrowser( http://www.mediabrowser.tv/download) , Shark007 Codec (http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html) and Yammmconfig (http://mikinho.com/yammm/)

Note: MAKE SURE YOU UNINSTALL ALL CODECS.....and THEN INSTALL Shark007

I'm not going to tell you what to do, however these are the only THREE things you need to ENJOY the MCE experience.

To play .MKV files you ONLY need Shark007. If you have a 64bit Machine, you will need to install the Windows 7 Codecs first which is the 32bit install, then the X64 Components. When you have made the install, for 64bit Machines only, make sure you set the WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER in SHARK007 to 64bit WM Player. if you dont you will get a choppy picture. LEAVE everything Defualt.



MediaBrowser: This inserts a NEW icon in MCE, worth useing this from now one and not the defualt microsoft Video Library or Videos section.

Shark007: This is the Codec that will allow you to play NOT JUST MKV formats but Others as well.

Yammmconfig: This is an application that AUTO updates your METADATA of you file. Please make sure the FILE NAME and FOLDER NAME is the name of the MOVIE !!!! the rest will auto populate, this works hand in hand with MCE when you use MediaBrowser. In order for it to work your MCE machine with Yammmconfig must be on....anything added to your videos folder it will ALWAYS auto UPDATE !! (I love it)

Below is MediaBrowser Plug in with the AID of Yammconfig....there is actual information about the Film, Actors etc.



Below is the MediaBrowser Coverflow as defualt



Let me know if you get stuck and ENJOY.

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EX470

Is it transcoding on the desktop?

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

Hi yakuza, it does the transcoding, however it does not output a file. So the processing happens on the desktop and not the mediaserver

I havent had time to play with it, as I'm over the moon that it works. I know some people will look into it further, however I will report back if no one does it

_________________
EX470

My WHS server is named MEDIA
My Win7 x64 Media Center is named HTPC

When I fire up the XBOX and use the dashboard video, I see both MEDIA, MEDIA TMS, and HTPC.
I can connect to both MEDIA and MEDIA TMS, and most AVI files play
If I try to connect to HTPC, I get "Can't Connect. Make sure you have activated this console on your computer"

What needs to be done to activate?

The regular Media Center Extender piece is working fine from HTPC to XBOX, but I'm trying to get the native xbox dashboard videos to connect. What piece is needed to get that going?

I'm assuming I need to do something in the Win7 HTPC Media Player settings itself so I'll poke around. I thought I'd ask for details though and post a follow-up later.

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WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM

I googled up an answer. (see below) This cleared up my activate problem, but now it says "No Videos Found" Do I need to share them through Media Player some how? I'll keep google'n.

EDIT, After varifying the following, and waiting a bit, everything shows up! (plays great)
Windows Media Player, Videos (right click Videos, Manage Videos library) \\media\videos

Cool !!!!!

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w ... 5583ca5c70

If your library won't connect Xbox might state: "Can't Connect. Make sure you have activated this console on your computer" . FIRST THING: Turn on your computer and XBOX, make sure they are plugged into your network. You might want to start by connecting your computer with Media Center Extender just to ensure that your systems are connected seamlessly. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this. Next, click the network icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen and select "Open Network and Sharing Center ". This will open your Network and SHARING Center. Now, look for the link "Choose homegroup and sharing options ", click it. You are now in a window with plenty of useful options for sharing to your XBOX360. You can select which types of libraries you would like to share as well as your printers. Make sure "Video" is checked and look for the next option "Choose media streaming options..." . Open it up and you should see your XBOX360 in the available devices. If your XBOX360 shows a 'Blocked' preference selected, this is most likely your issue. Drop-down the menu where it states that your device is blocked and select 'Allowed'. This should now fix your connection issue.

_________________
WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM

I'm happy you go it working.....very simple app a !

I was looking for something like this for a good couple of days and knew that you do not need to convert ANY files on your server...haha.

and

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EX470

Thanks for sharing. I believe is it DIVX7 (which I think Sharks codecs installs) which allows for W7 to transcode mkvs over to the Xbox. Of course the downside is that you need to keep a PC on to do this (if only MS would integrate WMC into WHS!!!)

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

What do we do if the .MKV files don't even show up on the list of videos on the XBOX 360 Dashboard-Videos? When I pick my Windows 7 machine "HTPC" I can see all the videos shared except for the one .MKV test file. This test file plays ok on the Windows 7 machine, but it doesnt even show up on the list of files on the xbox. (so can't even test/play it) I'm happy with everything else. I don't really play many MKV files but they are more popular these days so I'm sure I'll want to soon. IDeas?

I googled around and a few sites said to check registry keys, but my .MKV stuff seems to be in order.

_________________
WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM

I wouldnt know on that....that is odd though to just not see the one file

_________________
EX470

....

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EX470

Anyone have a link on Vista sharing? I am stuck in this loop of can't share it's "Public" then can't share it's "Private" I have looked at the MS forums and don't see it. I am running Vista Ultimate 32 bit on this machine.

Hi,

is this realted to the above posts ? confused

_________________
EX470

I'm not able to get this to work. I think my problem is mapping shares to the whs. I put in my user name and password to map the manual share, however it keeps telling me my username or password is wrong. Is there something special you have to do to map shares from the xbox?

I have never been able to get any file names to display other than .AVI so I use DVDFab to convert my MKV files into a DIXV format and then chnage the extension to .AVI and they show up in the list and play great!

Hope that helps!

Hi,
I downloaded and installed the Shark 007 codecs on my Windows 7 (X64) machine. I opened up the codecs settings and selected 'Shark 007 suggested settings'. Now, when I try to playback a .mkv file from my Windows Media center app on my Windows 7 Machine, it works fine. But when I try to play back the same video from the Media Center app on the XBOX 360 as an extender, I get the following error message

"Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or Restart the computer"

Do I need to be running something on the desktop, when I am trying to playback these files on my XBOX 360. I hear that the transcoding is being done by the Desktop, but not sure if I need to start something in the background or run some service for me to be able to play these back in the Media Center window on my XBOX 360.

Also, right now, I have not yet moved my MKV files to my WHS. I still have them on my desktop to which, I can browse from the Video library option in Windows Media Center.