Take advantage of Xbox 360 media on Windows 8

If we are Xbox 360 users, it is most likely that we have a PC when we are older, either for work or for leisure. And it can also be the case that we have the new Microsoft Operating System installed on it, Windows 8 Another possible scenario is that we have the console on the living room, and the PC in our room, and that we would like to be able to access the videos stored on our PC from the living room to enjoy a movie or a series more comfortably.

With Windows 8 and Xbox 360 this is easier than ever, thanks to the fact that we can share content from one system to another by following a few simple steps.Tap take advantage of Xbox 360 media on Windows 8 to enjoy a movie or TV show with your controller.

Which video formats and codecs are supported by Xbox 360

First of all we must bear in mind that Xbox 360 is not compatible with all current video formats. For example, it is not compatible with the increasingly popular MKV. From Microsoft technical support, all the formats, codecs and others supported by your console are extensively detailed, but we will summarize it below with the most important:

• File Extensions: AVI, DIVX, MP4, M4V, MP4V, MOV and WMV
• Containers: AVI, MPEG-4, QuickTime and ASF

Taking this into account, and seeing in more detail from the Microsoft page what video profiles there are for each extension, the bit rate or the audio profile, we can consider in some cases converting some video from Windows 8 so that it can be seen without problems from the Xbox 360.And if we are fans of the series in VO, also the possibility of embedding sub titles.

Set up a network and enable sharing in Windows 8

Another important aspect when taking advantage of Xbox 360 media in Windows 8 is that both systems must be on the same network. A few weeks ago we saw how to create a network in Windows 8 in simple steps, also verifying how essential (and easy) it is to activate the share in Windows 8. Once this is done, and having configured the Xbox 360 well so that it can access the Internet through Through Xbox Live, we should be able to automatically see the Xbox 360 itself within the Control Panel, in the “Devices and Printers” section, under “Hardware and Sound ”, in the more specific section of “Multimedia devices”.And with its own image and everything, even if it does not correspond to the original design of the console.

This does not mean that everything is solved, since technically we have not done anything special. Now comes the part in which we will have to tinker slightly with the console and our PC, and we are going to give the example of how to access the multimedia content that we have in Windows 8 from Xbox 360 without depending on Windows Media Center, as it doesn't come standard in all Windows 8 packages. Let's do it through Windows Media Player , which is not exactly the same, but for practical purposes it works perfectly just as well.

Configure Windows Media Player in Windows 8 to play video from Xbox 360

The steps we must take to configure Windows Media Player in Windows 8 in order to play videos from Windows 8 will be few. After opening the program (if we don't have its direct access to the view, we perform a search for “Windows Media”), the first thing to do is go to the Transmitr tab to select the first option, the one that says “Allow access to multimedia on home computers via the Internet”. In this example, we already anticipated it, we have made the configuration through an Ethernet cable connection on Xbox 360, but this also works for a WiFi connection. Here our next stop will be to configure the next field that we have unlocked, the one that says “More streaming options”

We will be shown the default name of the multimedia library (in Windows 8 it will be our email; we can change it), and the devices that are in our local network.Being able to see among them the one that interests us in this case, the Xbox 360 console, since from here we must activate the box that says "Allowed" It would be as shown in the image.

After allowing Xbox 360 access, and clicking the "Next" button, we will be asked what type of multimedia files we want to share: images, videos, music... And since what interests us here are the videos, we will put as “Shared” the video library. But we will be missing something.

We will need to take one last step, and it is none other than copying or moving by hand, unless by default we save everything in the video library , the videos that we want to see from Xbox 360. It will be as simple as passing what we want to that folder (we can create subfolders if we want to have it more organized, that Xbox 360 will detect), and the console will recognize it automatically.

And how will we access those videos from our Xbox 360? Easy. After configuring everything from our PC, in this case with Windows 8, we must go to the console menu, to the “TV and movies” section, to go to the icon where it says “My video applications ” From there we will click on “Video player”, and among the options that are displayed, it should appear under “Portable device” our team, with its name and the name of the multimedia library Click on it, and enjoy the videos comfortably.

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