It’s perfectly OK to be a PC enthusiast and own an Xbox. These days even Maximum PC editors have been known to enjoy the gaming pleasures that the console offers (in between our enjoyment of far superior PC games, natch). And now that we can use the Microsoft Xbox 360 as a full-fledged media streamer.The Xbox 360 has always been capable of streaming some popular video formats via Microsoft Windows Media Connect.Xbox Dashboard Update has added full support for native DivX and Xvid streaming, but a freeware called TVersity opens the console to every video format.Not only every video format but also opens live Internet streams, making it a truly desirable option for even staunch PC purists.

TVersity is a stand-alone media streaming freeware utility designed to stream content to network-connected devices of various differing protocols. The program automatically converts your content into the proper format for easy streaming on the fly.Follow along as we show you how to get TVersity working with your Xbox 360.

What You Need:

• A PC

• AN XBOX 360

• TVERSITY – www.tversity.com – Free

• FFDSHOW TRYOUTS – http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net -Free

OR CCCP – www.cccp-project.net – Free

• CODEC SNIPER – http://tinyurl.com/2e674c – Free

1)Remove Your Old Codecs.

The No. 1 problem for users of TVersity is the presence of incompatible or con?icting codecs – usually the result of having installed an “every codec you need” pack such as K-Lite. Regardless, you’ll save your-self a lot of hassle if you just clean up your codecs before you start.

First, go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel and uninstall any codec packs , as well as utilities such as AC3Filter, Xvid, and DivX. Additionally, some video playback applications, such as Nero, also include codecs. Uninstall them as well (for the time being)—you can safely reinstall them when every-thing’s working. Now reboot your PC and try to view a movie using a missing codec; if Windows Media Player complains that the codec is missing, you’re on the right track and can continue to the next step.If your video plays, you’ll need to run Codec Sniper and manually delete the offending codecs from your system.To remove a codec, simply click it and select Delete. Delete only the codecs af?liated with your codec packs and codecs you manually installed. Deleting the wrong things here can really break your system, so be careful.You’ll need to reboot for any changes made here to take effect. Once your codecs are clean and your videos cease to play, you can move to the next step.Note: If you can’t get rid of all the codecs using Codec Sniper, you may needto back up your important data and reinstall Windows.

2)Install New Codec Pack.

If you primarily want to stream MPEG-4-based media – DivX, Xvid.The ffdshow is the best codec option. (If you want to stream more advanced H.264-based codecs, you’ll need to use a more comprehensive codec pack. For that, we recommend CCCP. If you install CCCP, you don’t need ffdshow and vice versa.)

Ffdshow is a kind of universal codec; it works with most MPEG-4–based media and also lets you decode Dolby Digital and DTS audio streams. Install the software, selecting the default options for everything, including the audio (2.0 stereo), regardless of your actual speaker confg. TVersity doesn’t seem to work well with the other options.After you’ve installed ffdshow, you should be able to once again view yourMPEG-4 (DivX and Xvid, mostly) videos in Windows Media Player.When using ffdshow, stick with the Stereo default—other audio options don’t seem to work with TVersity.

3)Install TVersity.

When you install TVersity you can use most of the installer’s default options, except for the TVersity Codec Pack, which you do NOT want to install. When asked if you want to install the codec pack, uncheck that box. You’ve already installed all the codecs you need. Vista users will see an error that the TVersity service didn’t start properly, so you’ll need to manually start it using the shortcut in the TVersity Start Menu folder.If you want to stream media that’s stored on a network share another machine, a Windows Home Server – you need to confgure the TVersity service(a service is an application that runs even when no one’s logged in to the machine) to run as a user that has permission to access the network share. You’ll need to do that even if your network share is confgured to allow everyone access services that log in to the local system account are denied access to the network. To change the login information, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and then scroll down to the TVersity Media Server. Right-click it and go to the Log On tab. Click the This Account button and set it to use a username/password that has permission to access that network share. You’ll need to restart the service after you’ve changed the login info; to do that, go to the General tab and click Stop and then Start.

4)Add Media To TVersity.

This is the easy part. Open the TVersity client on the host media-streaming PC, click the big, green plus sign in the upper-left corner, and then add the folders that contain your media. It’s really important to tell TVersity what types of content to search for in each folder. Your music directory, for example, likely contains tons of album art that will all be funneled to TVersity’s photo section unless you uncheck the Photo box.After you’ve added your media, it will take TVersity a while to search all your fold-
ers and add everything to its library. Take a 10-minute break. It’s best not to use TVersity while it’s performing a scan.

5)Stream To Your XBOX 360.

The ?rst thing you should do is test video playback on your 360 using its default settings. Fire up your Xbox and go to the Media blade. Select the Videos option, then press X to select your source. Now select the option
labeled “TVersity on <your PC’s name>:1.” If you don’t see that option, you need to open a port on your ?rewall, or possibly disable Windows Media Connect on your server PC. Windows Media Connect, the default streaming utility for Xbox, serves a function similar to TVersity’s, which can cause con? icts.To disable Connect, open up Windows Media Player on your PC and press Alt to open the menus. Go to Tools, then Options, and click the Library tab. Click Con? gure Sharing and then uncheck Share My Media. You may have to restart your PC to see a change. Once your Xbox is connected to your PC, you can go to the Media/Videos section and browse to a video. Assuming that works, move on to the next step. If it doesn’t, you probably need to go back and take another look at the installed codecs.If there’s nothing obviously wrong on the codec front, skip ahead to Step 7 for troubleshooting instructions.

6)Improve Your Visual Quality.

Two factors will determine the visual quality of your streamed media: the speed of your PC and the quality of the network connection between your PC and the Xbox. Transcoding video is tough CPU work and streaming media is network intensive. TVersity’s default settings work reasonably well on an 802.11g network, but the resulting video looks terrible. You’ll be hard-pressed to stream even DVD-quality video across wireless—at least until there’s an 802.11n-based solution for streaming video.To make quality adjustments, open the TVersity client and click the Settings tab. Then go to the Transcoder page. We recommend that you adjust these options one at a time, then save your settings, restart the service (Advanced menu, Restart Sharing), and test playback to ensure that one change doesn’t bork your setup.First, adjust the maximum video resolution so TVersity doesn’t automatically down-convert your ripped DVDs to a lower resolution. If you’re on a wired network, we recommend using the native resolution of your set. Typical resolutions are 1280×720 (720p) and 1920×1080 1080p). If you’re streaming to a standard-def set, leave TVersity at its default setting. By using the native resolution of your TV set, you’ll get the best possible image quality, without forcing TVersity to resize your video on the ?y. If you experience network performance problems, it’s a good idea to adjust this setting to 640×480 or lower.Now, adjust the other settings. If you’re on a wireless network or have a slow CPU, your performance will suffer if you enable these settings. First, make sure the box labeled “Use DirectShow for Windows Media Encoding” is checked and the codec is set to Windows Media Video 9. This will improve performance and the quality of the video the system outputs. Next, set Optimization to Quality; set your Connection Speed to Wired (100Mbps), with the quality set to Excellent; and change the Compression setting to Minimum. Remember, your changes won’t take effect until you click Save at the bottom of the page and then restart the TVersity service by going to the Advanced menu and clicking Restart Sharing.Now go back to the Xbox Media/Videos section and enjoy the results!

7)Troubleshoot.

If you’re having trouble getting streaming to work, there are three likely culprits: codec issues, bandwidth problems, or PC-performance problems. If Codec Sniper and Add/Remove programs didn’t ?x the ?rst issue, back up your rig and reinstall Windows. Reinstalling Windows sucks, but troubleshooting codec problems is even worse.Unfortunately for Xbox users with crappy networks, there isn’t an easy way to copy an already converted movie to your hard drive. Microsoft simply doesn’t allow this. On theother hand, if your CPU isn’t up to the task of encoding in real time, you can help that by increasing the hard drive space available to cache already-converted movies. To do that, go to Settings in TVersity and increase theamount of disk space to give more space to converted ? les. Then start viewing a movie. It may fail at ?rst, but if you give it time to build up a buffer, the video should play.