XBOX One will learn to play media from USB and DLNA sources Microsoft has announced that its XBOX One will soon gain the power to play media stored on USB devices and gadgets compatible with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard. Redmond isn't saying just when this will come about, offering only the promise that “A new app will be available soon”. USB support will be …
But surely nobody is able to utilise such torrent sites now that they have been so very comprehensively blocked by a tech-savvy court. The only MKV files out there must now surely be home-made videos compressed with DivX to save space. So I applaud Microsoft for allowing me to watch such home-made video classics.
This post has been deleted by its author
Exactly! MKV is great but I also hope it can play MP4's over DLNA, most of my personal video is in that format (i prefer to keep it in the original format&container rather than compress it again).
I regularly use DLNA to share videos from my phone to my TV, especially when getting back from holidays, best way to show people holiday snaps.
but I don't get why we can't be allowed to buy non DRM'd digital movies, this move towards cloud storage worries me, I like my media stored in my own cupboards and on my own servers.
If you've got the new Xbox you will probably have a fairly new telly, which would be a 'Smart TV'
They are usually DNLA compliant themselves, so running a media server on your home computer will allow you to play those files directly through the telly.
No need to bother with the Xbox.
Just one problem with this, as I have found out myself, on my Philips 8007 LED TV, namely if you try and connect the Xbox via HDMI to your TV and then playback 5.1 Audio - which the Xbox One is supposed to support, you have no audio - not too sure if this is a Philips or Xbox issue.
Suffice to say, instead of utilising all HDMI connections on my TV for ease of use, I now have to direct the Xbox HDMI to my sound bar and then connect the sound bar to the TV for it all to work. Also, being in Hong Kong in a country not presently supporting the Xbox One, video streaming is a no go, which is strange given my AV LG system and Philips TV support DNLA, although Philips have an issue with CODECs, whilst LG will play anything thrown at it.
Basically, for me at least, being an early adopter was a waste of time, I purchased into the MS bumph that the Xbox One would be the centre of my home entertainment system, only to find out it was useless.
My daughter still prefers the Xbox 360, which itself is cripple when you reformat a HDD to enable playback of DL'ed, recorded material, basically you are stuck with files being no larger than 4.4G, which means 720p playback, rather than 1080p.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth, however said improvements will be welcome, just a shame they are 12 months late, as is the inclusion of iPlayer I may add.
actually...
i bought a 55" last year specifically knowing i would buy the xbox one... i opted to skip the "SmartTV" because they only came with LED back lights... i would have preferred to not power up the xbox just for netflix or hulu, but i'll do it to avoid uneven lighting (cheap things are cheap).
$600 (before tax) got me a 120hz 55" LCD screen. if i wasn't buying the xbox one, i could have spent twice as much and got a better tv however...
Desperate times calls for desperate measures, even if it means alienating Hollywood.
Guess this is driven by the PS4 outseling the Xbox One 8:1 last week in Europe and 3:1 on home turf.
http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3712/gr2kgckg_png
I see Sony have already SOLD 10m to real CONSUMERS,
My PS3 already does this. I still can't see the point of the XBONE
Really, you could have fooled me. Considering all the "corrupted file(s)" My NAS was spitting out. Before I took the time, and effort to hack it, to install the latest CFW on to it, and then install the Showtime Media Player on it. Then yeah it started playing only some of those Formats...
Most People with a newer-type PS3 from ca.~ 2011 to date, though are screwed if they wish to try this though. As those Systems will almost never be cracked.
"My PS3 already does this. I still can't see the point of the XBONE"
As the Xbox One has a seperate BluRay player application that can be uninstalled, presumably it's not permanently Cinavia infected like the PoS3 and PoS4....
Funny my PS3 also lacks Cinavia... (Now that its running CFW). But even then, it would allow you to watch the first 20 or so Minutes of said Film before kicking off. Not that I had ever tested this myself. Like I said 99% of all the *.mkv stuff I had always came up as corrupted on the PS3.
But, now I can enjoy things such as PS2 & PSP Soft Emu (Using S0NYs own Emus!), as well as being able to watch most of my stuff now. Sans the stuff that was encoded in Hi10p that is.
"As the Xbox One has a seperate BluRay player application that can be uninstalled, presumably it's not permanently Cinavia infected like the PoS3 and PoS4...."
That only applies if you're watching a pirate BluRay disc tho, not if you're streaming it over a network or something.
Not that I'd know, or anything.................Piracy is wrong mmmkay.
> How come it didn't come with DNLA built-in? File formats aside that seems like a glaring omission from something that only works when connected to the telly.
2 words. Microsoft arrogance.
When they did the big announcement for the xbone the entire presentation was on how it was a "media centre" and a "social networking hub" with a VERY small section of the presentation showcasing games (you know, it's actual function). Anybody with a brain knew from this presentation that the xbone was going to fail.
Basically they restricted the ability to get video from anywhere but the paid marketplace in the assumption that it would force lots of music and video purchases from the store.
Months later they realise that this hasn't happened and they have basically lost the next-gen console war so now they are scrabbling to add features to help boost sales. First Kinect went from "always on" to "can be switched off" as "always on" was universally slammed, then it became an optional addon and now they are scraping the barrel. Expect more free game deals soon.
Xbox one had the ability to connect to DLNA out of the box, however it did not have the ability or software to detect the connections. I was using ArkMC which is an app for the iPhone and iPad to detect my HDhomerun prime which is a DLNA cable tv tuner to connect to the xbox. Once i told the Xbox to connect to that DLNA server (a specific channel) i could even turn off my phone. The main problem i have and still have is that channels that are DRM protected by time warner to include C-span2,3,4 are DRM locked which means i cannot view them on xbox1 which is techniquely illegal sense these channels and many more are public access channels and should be viewed without limitations let alone i cannot tune to cartoon network or my favorite channel BBC america. I really dislike the cisco cable box's we pay for by time warner, they are out of date only 2 tuners at max and cost between 26-35 dollars a month with all the unadvertised cost TWC charges. on top of that they frequently crash and are poorly designed. But the HDhomerun prime works great it has 3 tuners and over a few months period it pays for it self. Also you can have multiple of these devices on your network. I watch all channels on ps3 which is getting slow it was one of the first PS3 and traveled with me as i moved in the Military but i believe water may have damaged it when the Military transported it back to the states. I can play all non-drm channels on mac, and all channels on my windows pc. but i do not want to waste all that power by having to keep the PC on let alone the fact that windows Operating system is glitchy and i would like to get rid of the need of using it completely. A feature that the xbox dose not have as well is recording DLNA channels from the HDhome run as well, let alone setting up the TV to use the DLNA server as the TV source.
--How come it didn't come with DNLA built-in?
>Implying that DLNA has ever been remotely useful to anyone.... Case in point I give you any Number of "Smart TVs", or even Samsungs Phablet to TV service "All Share". Which had about as much chance to work as a Stock XBOne, or a PS3/4. (i.e. It didn't!)...
Other less restrictive Software like Skifta manages to do a better job of it. But I think it still relies mostly on the fact that XBMC (Kodi), just doesn't enforce this sh-- DRM on us, and so... Just works.
Still limited and most importantly missing mkv etc.. so essentially there is no difference to the 360..
The best thing I ever did was ditch my PS3 and 360 in favour of a gaming PC and Couch Master for the lounge.. Its not for everybody, but its worked out a dam site cheaper on Games and I'm able to watch anything I like :)
"It's getting MKV support with the update mentioned in the article."
Wow - will now have to go buy one just as a fuck you to the copyright cartels.
I'd rather just get a small Android Box to host XBMC, myself... Much cheaper, and way more gratifying for the cost then a Failbox One!
@AC -
I had to hear someone mention Matryoshka (Russian Dolls) on the radio this morning before I finally twigged that MKV is named after them... d'oh! :)
I hadn't realised it until I read your comment and I also now realise why from the comment above about it being only a container format. That's my idiotic eureka moment of the day - uberd'oh!
That's what I was thinking.
A year ago I ran a pretty decent spec pc in the evening and weekends. It did everything. Download legally purchased movies as well as run XBMC.
Since then I've switched to a HP N54L always on NAS, 2 raspberry PI's and an Intel NUC.
My electricity bill has gone down.
I remember the first gen XBOX and PS3 were power hungry monsters, I can assume the Xbox One and PS4 dim the lights a little? So why on earth would anyone want to run their media ctr through a power hungry beast when as someone has already said, most TV's these days will play any file you throw at it at no extra cost?
Clue? Does MS have one?
Thanks to all the ever so helpful folk on here informing us that you can use a PS3 or Linux server or many other devices to stream video to a TV. I had no idea.... There was me thinking this was a story for XBox One owners (or potential owners) when in fact it was a story where the more intelligent and educated folk out there can inform us what we SHOULD be doing rather than making our own minds up.
Again, thanks folks.
Thanks to all the ever so helpful folk on here informing us that you can use a PS3 or Linux server or many other devices to stream video to a TV. I had no idea.... There was me thinking this was a story for XBox One owners (or potential owners) when in fact it was a story where the more intelligent and educated folk out there can inform us what we SHOULD be doing rather than making our own minds up.
Again, thanks folks.
CITATION NEEDED: The Post where anyone's holding a Gun to your head saying not to buy a XBOne? Just that there are better, and cheaper alternatives out there, that'll probably spare you endless hours of ballache, in having to reconvert your "Library" into something useable by the XBOne.
I just plug a PC into the back of my telly and I can do absolutely everything, despite not knowing what the hell your talking about. Just get the latest codec.
I point to a media file of any format , local or on the NAS and say "Play that" , and it does.
It also goes on the internet using a browser of my choice not some soon-to-be-out of date bollocks you find in a game console which is navigated using a on screen keyboard with a brain and thumb crippling left-or-right A2z character selection system.
so Microsoft can stay out of my living room! oh , wait , i do all this in win7
but i can also do all of the above in ubunto if im in the garden
PS3. People said that it was expensive. People said it was hard to code games for it. So I bought mine for the blu-ray player, because I read everywhere that best blu-ray player was... the PS3.
I didn't even know it played my mp3s and movies until I tinkered around with Windows Media Player in my W7 PC and the PS3 came to life showing all my stuff. That was the most happy WTF moment I had for several years. Hell, I can even outright copy my songs into the PS3 and play them on Gran Turismo background, which very few, if any other consoles, can do.
Except for the Halo franchise, I see no point in owning a X thing, and even worse, it should recognize their OWN WINDOWS SERVERS, playing THEIR OWN codecs from the get go. Isn't that exactly what the article is saying, that they needed a whole new generation of consoles to play stuff they should be playing for EONS?
Hell, I can even outright copy my songs into the PS3 and play them on Gran Turismo background, which very few, if any other consoles, can do.
Hell at the risk of being accessed of being in league with the MDF (MicroSoft Defense Force), I'd just like to point out that MicroSoft were doing this a long time ago with the XBOX. Now granted it was, and is more uptight and inconvenient about it then S0NY had made it with the PS3. (e.g. Coping *.mp3 Files). On the XBOX, as well as on the Failbox360... You had to first import such stuff as you wanted off an Audio CD. But a few Games that I can recall did allow you to play your own Music In-Game.
Sadly I never had a working 360 long enough to find a game that would allow it. It seems (using some Google-Fu), that the FailBox One... Would rather you pay them an additional $10.00(USD) a Month to stream such content to your Console...
To be fair though... AFAIK not even the PS4 currently supports *.mp3's Kinda begs the question whats so next-gen about a Console that only does about a Third of what the Last Gen., did. But, this is me hardly picking on S0NY. 'Cause MicroSoft are just as guilty in this respect.
I'll be interested to know what file system formats it will read. On the 360, if you have a file bigger than 4GB, it won't fit on a FAT32 formatted drive, so your only option is to copy it to an HFS+ formatted drive. For some reason the 360 doesn't support exFAT or NTFS (or EXT, but that's kind of understandable, not many people format their USB stick ext4).
Yes, the only solution for a 4GB+ file on the Microsoft XBox 360 is to use an Apple file system.
As for a curiosity trivia, PS3 lets you backup the console to a pendrive, and will gladly cut the backup file in 2GB chunks, aptly named backup##.file or such.
But it sadly didn't read my Samsung S2 or my Iomega portable HDDs as valid medium (media?), only being able to read a 32GB sandisk pendrive, perhaps exactly because of that.
Yeah enjoy that PC thing for another cycle or Two... While I'm not as entirely aboard the whole "Death of the PC" thing... Its quickly becoming more, and more apparent that MicroSofts Era is at an end. And, this will catch up to you sooner or latter... Though I suspect that transitioning to Linux may still be cheaper then buying a PS5 or XBTwo....
If they don't let you play the files, then they can't log that you played them. And when you go online they wouldn't have this data, like the filenames, checksum of the files and when you played/paused/rewind/fast-forward/stopped playback, for feedback to the media companies. This data generates money.
Read your EULA and T&C's, you did agreed to provide automatic feedback to help improve the service.
Always remember you are the product.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
