NAS and media server

[Richard Pieri]

On Mar 5, 2011, at 6:46 PM, Rob Hasselbaum wrote:
> 
> I have used TwonkyMedia Server on Linux in the past to serve music to the
> Xbox 360. (They've since changed the name.) It's proprietary, though. I was
> also under the impression that other UPnP media servers like XBMC could do
> it, no?

Xbox 360's streaming playback is designed to be used exclusively as a Windows Media Extender.  As such it only handles MP3 and WMA for audio, plus unprotected AAC if you download the iPod Support package from the marketplace.  Video must be a WMV codec or limited h.264.  I suppose that you could have XMBC feed a '360 a properly (for '360's definition of "properly") formatted MPEG-4 stream but at that point you'd have a more enjoyable experience by copying the file to a USB flash drive and playing from it.  At least then the basic playback controls will work correctly.  Been there, done that, wasn't impressed.

--Rich P.