Almost 9TB of WHS goodness

[Lord Orwell]

Not one byte of porn on it.

how many bytes are there then?

The square root of 01000101 is 00001000 something...

that was too high brow. I don't think anyone else got it.

I am a little disappointed, that it doesn't appear they will include Media Center functionality directly in the home server build, which means I still have to use both my home server AND my Win7 box to use my xbox 360 as a media extender on my big screen.

can't you use WHS as a dlna server? Xbox 360 can connect to those. If it doesn't include the functionality natively, you can install ps3server or something similar. If you were insisting on the media center interface you are out of luck, but don't forget that isn't the only method of connecting to a pc. Media player 12 is dlna compliant, and media player 11 is most likely since i can use it to stream on my own network.

Just out of interest, what are the copyright implications of ripping your DVDs? I was under the impression that it's illegal, even if they're only for your own personal use.

It might only be the case here in the UK, I guess.

it's not legal, unless you (and i'm not kidding) leave the dvd in the drive. There is actually a disk carousel you can buy for a network setup, and it isn't cheap.

[kleinma]

xbox 360 supports windows media connect directly from the WHS, so I can access MOST content without the need for media center itself. This is the same technology that would allow one to connect to a windows XP or higher PC from xbox via Windows Media Player sharing.

However, it doesn't support the nice graphical interface that media center does, with cover art and pretty listing of the media. It just gives ugly long lists of your media data. Also media connect doesn't support MPG2 streaming, which is what my ripped dvds are at the moment. I am looking at transcoding them to MP4 possibly.

[FireXtol]

Ripping a DVD defeats DRM, thus expressly violating the DMCA. It's also a felony, as I recall. Though, there are obvious common sense considerations, and this is a murky area of law.

For transcoding you may want to look into PowerDirector, with an appropriate GPU you can transcode up to 20x faster than a dual core CPU.

[baja_yu]

Well, not every DVD is copy protected. As for software to do it, take a look at AutoGK.

[Lord Orwell]

xbox 360 supports windows media connect directly from the WHS, so I can access MOST content without the need for media center itself. This is the same technology that would allow one to connect to a windows XP or higher PC from xbox via Windows Media Player sharing.

However, it doesn't support the nice graphical interface that media center does, with cover art and pretty listing of the media. It just gives ugly long lists of your media data. Also media connect doesn't support MPG2 streaming, which is what my ripped dvds are at the moment. I am looking at transcoding them to MP4 possibly.

you should install the poorly named ps3 media server then. It will transcode on the fly movies you watch on your xbox 360. the program was designed for the ps3, but it creates a dlna server which works on the 360 as well. I have used it and had good luck with it, and i actually had a tutorial video on using orb this way, but youtube blocked it due to the fox logo appearing in it on screen.
http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/

[kleinma]

transcode = looks like crap

streaming the MPG2 files to the xbox actually look really good.

[Lord Orwell]

transcode = looks like crap

streaming the MPG2 files to the xbox actually look really good.

that depends on your transcoding settings. If you are downsampling to a lower bitrate then yeah, it will look messed up, but i've had good luck with the ps3 program because it uses ffmpeg to do the conversions. But then again i had one of the older 360s that maxed out at 720p, so your mileage may vary at 1080p. Plus in some cases it's not even the video that is the issue in the stream, it is the audio.

[kleinma]

I think the reason MPG2 looks good on the 360, is because the 360 was designed to play DVDs and I think it upsamples the video output. I am not positive on this (playing MPG2 files through media center extender isn't even a documented feature) but that seems to be the case.

[Lord Orwell]

I think the reason MPG2 looks good on the 360, is because the 360 was designed to play DVDs and I think it upsamples the video output. I am not positive on this (playing MPG2 files through media center extender isn't even a documented feature) but that seems to be the case.

there was a system update a long time ago that gave it support for more formats, but it originally only played mpeg2, if i remember correctly. As for streaming as a media center extender, this is actually a different method of streaming than the dlna one where you share files with it. The dlna method depends on the xbox to be compatible with the file, whereas the media center depends on the pc being able to play it. Mpeg2 is the default format of media center and it is not processed when you are sending it to a media extender. http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/12...x-360-FAQs/p1/

[kleinma]

No it actually never played MPG2. In fact if you have an MPG2 file on something like a USB drive you plug in, xbox won't even see it as a valid video file to play.

Originally it only played WMV formats, (and maybe raw AVI) but yes that has been expanded to play formats like MP4 and DIVX/XVID avi files.

To this day, xbox still will not play MPG2 files, with the exception that it can through media center extender. Although I have to admit, I haven't tried again since they integrated the (non media center) video stuff with zune app on the xbox. I don't see them adding support for a codec that is technically depreciated and there are better ones out there with better quality and smaller file sizes.

It just happens that in the case of DVDs, MPG2 was the standard.