I am also have problems with DLNA on my xbox 360. Even just a 480p MKV file will start fine and then after like a minute buffer over and over and then I will get the "this format not supported..." message.
This. OMG this. It also tends to speed up/loop randomly. So frustrating. Were it not for this issue, Plex could be my one and only solution to all my transcoding woes.
I have the same issue. Would be such a great solution if it worked reliably.
Exactly the same issue on PS3 which is wired. I am also using PS3 MediaServer and that can stream all my files perfectly to the PS3 so it can't be an issue withe the computer itself.
Very frustrating, though at least is not just me having this issue!
Also seeing this, definitely not an issue of CPU power.
I am having the same problem
+1
Same problem here as well. Does anyone actually have this working well on an xbox 360 without having the video encoded to xbox friendly formats to begin with?
Have also experienced the same problem on a wired connection to the XBox, however I have second XBox in the bedroom and this is running over Wi-Fi (g) and playing a 2.2GB MKV file was not an issue, no buffering, no looping. However the same file on the wired connection was all over the place!
I'm finding this with most formats that the XBox does not utilise as standard, (FLV, MP4, MKV etc), so am currently encoding everything into AVI format (Xvid codec) and appears to be working perfectly.
PlexServer is installed on Windows 7 machine, with 2GB of RAM and a Intel processor, looked at the CPU utilisation when the file was being played and there was very little activity!
Well I was hoping that the latest release (v0.9.7.17) would fix this but it is still completely unusable on the PS3.
Unfortunately, the buffer controls are all in the Xbox. I'm not aware of anything we can do to improve that.
I suspect the core problem is that wmv2 (the transcode target) just isn't designed for 1080p content. Lowering quality settings substantially might help. And of course transcoding/remuxing to directly-playable video is the ultimate solution.
Well I was hoping that the latest release (v0.9.7.17) would fix this but it is still completely unusable on the PS3.
If the buffer issue exists on PS3 to then it is not just a Xbox problem.
I think its a plex problem to be honest and Its not just 1080p content either.
I can stream all my movies to my ps3 using ps3mediaserver flawlessly, whilst I can't get anything to work with plex without constant (every 5 seconds) buffering/stuttering.
I am having the same problem.
It occurs on some films that range from SD to 1080 so it is very annoying
The latest PMS has not corrected this issue.
As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, the only ffmpeg-supported codec for streaming video we've managed to find that works with the 360 is wmv2.
This means:
1) It's wmv2, so high resolutions will suffer.
2) It's ffmpeg's implementation of wmv2, which means (IIRC) maxing out a single core during encodes.
You should feel free to experiment with altering the Xbox 360 profile to see whether you can do better than we can. In particular, we've tried streaming mpegts, but the 360 doesn't want to even display the files. The only thing I can really think of doing is to use the Windows native vc1 encoder, and that would only work for Windows PMS users. I'd be thrilled if there were a way to improve on this scenario, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can do. The intersection of the 360's limits and ffmpeg's limits isn't a good one.
OTOH, once you get past all that, the Xbox does DirectPlay files fairly decently. So there's that.
Does web optimized mp4 not work? (Don’t think it would have ac3 5.1 but AAC 5.1 might work)
Also
Windows media center can do something, if the right codec options in shark are enabled that allows it to stream m2ts with ac3 audio to the xbox360 running as an extender. I’m not sure what options are required or what they’re doing but it doesn’t work by default so there might be a trick to how they do it that might be copy able if you can catch the data stream and see what they’re doing. Unfortunately the only way to test is to setup wmc and an Xbox 360 extender and mess with options in shark until it starts working…
Dlna is a transport protocol, nothing more. The device still has to be able to play the file as if it was Local (its worse than that but…). The Xbox doesn’t read many formats and is highly restrained in what and how it will do so. (Ie no mp4s over 4 gb and no ac3 t.1), m2ts only sort of works, mkv doesn’t at all, mpeg 4 is flaky at best. Only wmv actually works well and only 5.1 sound with wma pro audio
As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, the only ffmpeg-supported codec for streaming video we've managed to find that works with the 360 is wmv2.
This means:
1) It's wmv2, so high resolutions will suffer.
2) It's ffmpeg's implementation of wmv2, which means (IIRC) maxing out a single core during encodes.
You should feel free to experiment with altering the Xbox 360 profile to see whether you can do better than we can. In particular, we've tried streaming mpegts, but the 360 doesn't want to even display the files. The only thing I can really think of doing is to use the Windows native vc1 encoder, and that would only work for Windows PMS users. I'd be thrilled if there were a way to improve on this scenario, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can do. The intersection of the 360's limits and ffmpeg's limits isn't a good one.
OTOH, once you get past all that, the Xbox does DirectPlay files fairly decently. So there's that.
How can I enable the native VC1 encoder? I tried adding "VC1" and then "WVC1" as the codec in the dlna profile but neither worked. Thanks!
There's no way to do that today. It would require a fairly massive infrastructure change on our part.
I have the same issue. The only way I can watch 720p GoT on my 360 is to use serviio; it works flawlessly. Still no subs though.
As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, the only ffmpeg-supported codec for streaming video we've managed to find that works with the 360 is wmv2.
This means:
1) It's wmv2, so high resolutions will suffer.
2) It's ffmpeg's implementation of wmv2, which means (IIRC) maxing out a single core during encodes.
You should feel free to experiment with altering the Xbox 360 profile to see whether you can do better than we can. In particular, we've tried streaming mpegts, but the 360 doesn't want to even display the files. The only thing I can really think of doing is to use the Windows native vc1 encoder, and that would only work for Windows PMS users. I'd be thrilled if there were a way to improve on this scenario, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can do. The intersection of the 360's limits and ffmpeg's limits isn't a good one.
OTOH, once you get past all that, the Xbox does DirectPlay files fairly decently. So there's that.
I just wanted to let you know that I am having this issue not just with high resolution films but will all films SD --> 1080. I have attached the log files from when I tried to play an SD film. It did everything people are saying here in this post then it terminated with a can't play this content message after a couple of minutes.
I was wondering if the xbox is still supported with the new transcoder?
I am running PMS v0.9.7.22
Any help would be appreciated since this is the major way that I am viewing films.
Thanks,
In my opinion I think the encoder isn't encoding fast enough because it thinks it's pre-encoding far enough.
When streaming I've never seen any core rise up hardly at all, other devices included, so I figure it's pacing itself to match the needs of my device. If the buffer runs dry on the server of course the xbox has to wait for it to fill up. I'm going to test with a higher "Default Throttle Buffer" value. I'll probably set it to a ridiculous 1 hour or so to start out with.
