The one major let down of the XBOX 360’s media capabilities is the lack of DivX / Xvid support.  I’ve read articles explaining the reasons for it, copyright materials, unlicensed codecs etc etc, but the fact is that the 360 just cannot be an all in one device without this ability.

Enter Runtime’s Transcode 360.  Runtime is a hero as far as XBOX and media goes.  He is one of the original founders of the XBOX Media Center project, which is probably the best application ever made for XBOX, even better than all the games!

But, this article is about the XBOX 360.  Transcode 360 is a very simple little program, that just seems to work.  It must be installed on your Media Center machine.  Upon installation, you will be prompted to download and install Windows Media Encoder 9 if it isn’t already installed.  Install this and Transcode 360 installs without issue.  You need to specify streaming ports, but I left mine at default.  You also need to create an account on the machine to run the service, or just use the local administrator account like I did.  That is all there is to it.

The next step is to fire up your XBOX 360 Media Center Extender, browse in My Videos and find your files.  If you click OK, or Play on the videos, you will get an error.  You need to click More Info, then choose Transcode.  You may have to select More, then Transcode.  Wait a second or two, and your video will start playing.

Transcode 360 uses Windows Media Encoder to encode your DivX or Xvid file to Windows Media Video format, then stream it to your Extender.  It does put a bit of load on your Media Center machine, but everything else still has plenty of CPU cycles to do whatever it needs.  Because it transcodes, the file obviously needs to be playable by your MCE machine.  If your MCE can’t play it, it won’t be able to transcode it either.  I have found the best codec to be the DivX 6.1 Play bundle (obviously without all the other Google Toolbar rubbish!).  You will also need to run the DivX Toolbar Toggle tool (attached to this post) to stop the DivX toolbar from popping up on your MCE machine everytime you want to play a DivX file.

The good news, is that it actually works on any extender, not just the XBOX 360 version.  It works just as well on the original Xbox version too.  I don’t have a standard extender for testing, but I assume it will work in the same way.

The only down side (and this is not a problem with Transcode 360) is that because it is streaming the video live to your extender, you can’t rewind and fast forward.  You can pause, but that is as much as you get.

All in all, this is a GREAT program from one of the legends of XBOX Media and is highly recommended if you find yourself in a position with an XBOX 360 and loads of DivX files.  The FAR better solution for DivX playback is still an original XBOX with the latest version of XBOX Media Center.

Enjoy!

Thanks to Duncan for submitting this article.