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Forums - Gaming - PS3 and 360 multimedia capabilities - What files can they play?

Lone_Canis_Lupus on 23 March 2008
akuma587 said:
Did they change the 360's ability to use external HDD's, because I swore I read in many different places that it couldn't use them? It is a good thing if it can, since that is the easiest way for most people to watch their stuff. Can it copy files directly from an external drive to the internal drive?

I have encountered some Divx files that the PS3 couldn't play.

 Most likley from an unsupported audio codec in the file. Those are the only files that the PS3 won't even try to play that I've encountered. Even then, the PS3 recognizes that there is a DivX format in the file. It's DivX certified, so the codec is fully supported. Doesn't mean that all DivX files will be supported as there are factors like the audio or a badly encoded file.



PSN: Lone_Canis_Lupus

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akuma587 on 23 March 2008

Alright, I see what I misunderstood. You can connect an external drive to the 360 but you cannot copy files from it onto your 360, which kind of defeats the purpose unless you don't mind keeping the drive hooked up 24/7. I know I need it for my PC very often so I wouldn't want to have to keep it downstairs anytime I wanted to watch something.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/mods/USB%20Hard%20Drive%20Mod.htm



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

Lone_Canis_Lupus on 23 March 2008
DOATS1 said:
Lone_Canis_Lupus said:

Jeez, no need to get your panties in a wad. I said I didn't own a 360 and that I was sorry if I had some misinformation about it. Not like I said you were stupid or anything. Just said I was googling it out and all I found was on how to stream the damn things, not how to play them directly. As for the PS3 supporting DivX, it supports the format fully. I have yet to see my PS3 not recognize a DivX file.

I've gotten files that wouldn't play, but if you go to information, the PS3 recognizes that it's a DivX file. More often than not, DivX files that won't play on the PS3 are from unsupported audio formats (since the avi format is pretty much a container) or different lengths in the audio and video. That's pretty much the only problem I've had with DivX files on my PS3, some are encoded to where the audio length is longer than the video length so the video only plays for a short time on the PS3.

Not something VirtualDub can't fix though, just put a direct stream copy for the video and audio and change it so the frame rate matches the audio length, and the process is done in like 10 seconds. Pretty easy fix. The DivX format itself is fully supported by the PS3, just can't really handle some weirdly encoded files.


i didn't appreciate the fact that you said i was making stuff up, when you had no proof that i was, and i had clear proof that i wasn't. i apologise for the way i reacted, but not for what i said. the ps3 may recognise it but the fact that it doesn't play it is a pain, where as the 360 will play it regardless. all my divx files actually PLAY on my 360, some of the same files don't on my ps3, even though it is recognised as a divx file. i can understand that the audio codec in the file container is the problem, but that's why i said divx is hit and miss with ps3.


 Not the DivX codec itself...just the encoded file. DivX isn't hit or miss, the Video+Audio together is. I'm sorry I said you didn't know what you were talking about, I just wasn't aware of any DivX support other than for streaming from your computer



PSN: Lone_Canis_Lupus

DOATS1 on 23 March 2008

ok, playing AVI files are hit and miss with ps3




akuma587 on 23 March 2008
DOATS1 said:
ok, playing AVI files are hit and miss with ps3

 Unless you stream them.  Doesn't that avoid the problem?



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

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DOATS1 on 23 March 2008

if you use a program that converts on the fly (like tversity), then yes. but if you use windows media player 11 (like me), it doesn't. all it does is stream the file as it is.

i prefer using my ps3 for media as it stores them on my hdd, so i use that much more often than the 360, which i only use for media when a select few media files won't work on my ps3. in my opinion, ps3 is a better media center, as files are allowed to be stored locally, and supports a couple more formats, but avi files are a pain.




Reasonable on 23 March 2008

Having played around I'd say:

a) PS3 is better media centre if you're storing the media on it, but is slightly weaker than 360 (only slightly) if you want to stream from a PC or other media server

b) PS3 offers slightly better quality for media playback (depending on source) than 360

c) PS3 has BR and DVD playback while 360 only has DVD

Depending on what you want though you might want to check Ebay for Xbox's modded as media centres with large HDD - I suspect that option still outshines all else - assuming you don't want BR player as well in which case it kind of has to be the PS3.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Mistershine on 23 March 2008

Just to confirm I have connected a 160gb NTFS HDD to my 360 and it worked fine.
The best media centre for streaming is XBMC360 on the original Xbox. You can pick one up for the cheap and softmod it for free. It will then play every video file known to man AND upscale them all to 1080i(inc DVD movies), either from your network, a DVD or a