Ok, I now that I have a 360 with 120 gig of space, I have a question.

How do I copy movies to the 360? I have a bunch of DVD's I want to rip (I know how to do that), but I want to put them on the 360. How do I copy them there?

Please don't say I have to use Media Center. (I have Vista Ultimate, but I would prefer to keep my PC off as much as possible)

Sorry mate... I don't think you can copy ripped movies directly onto the HDD. I looked it up at about 5 different websites and they all said the same thing.

No.

Can 360 play them from external HD ? I know you can stream movie from your PC and play music off ipod/Zune but can you play music / movie store on external HD?

You can't. I tried when I had a 360. Don't work.

What? You cannot do that? Wow but I thought the 360 could play divx movies like the Ps3 how do you get them over then? Do you have to use Streaming? This would be pretty stupid wouldn't it. One of the most-used features I use in my PS3 is to watch my divx collection which I have on an external hard-disc.

 I know I was dissapointed too.

I just did some google and apparently you could play music / movies off your external USB hard drive

http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_xbox_360_and_usb_hard_drives_are_the_best_thing_together_since_peanut_butter_and_chocolate.php

However the large size drive has to be format in Fat32 which doesn't support large file size.

I was thiking about getting a small drive and load up some musics, movies so I can play them on my TV, so I guess that will work.

Here is another article on it but it seems the limitation would be the drive has to be in FAT32.

http://marketingasolicitor.com/?p=121

So, bobo your drive probably wasn't format as Fat32 that's why 360 didn't recognize it.

I could have sworn I was able to access my external HDD media when attached to the 360. I'll have to try it again when I get back.

Haven't had any real reason to play video through the 360 since the PS3 does a much better job of it.

I'm probably just thinking of the file streaming access that's enabled when the PC is running, which, IMO is kind of pointless unless your PC is located far away from your big screen but you either keep a long ethernet cable connecting it to your Xbox or you're using a wireless hub and adapter.

Since my PC is typically off, I'm not about to boot it up just to access media files from an external drive via Windows Media Center so I can play the videos through my Xbox.