Windows 7 to natively support DivX and transcoding?

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Nov 5th 2008 at 5:20PM

Currently getting 3rd party codecs like DivX and Xvid working within Windows Media Center has worked well enough with 3rd party solutions, but the next best thing is native support. We'd already gotten the official word that H.264 support was included in Windows 7, but a tipster has lead us to believe that the pre-beta version of Windows 7 also includes native support for DivX. In addition, MKV is also expected to be supported; but that isn't the best part. Because although we've always been able to add these codecs to Media Center anyways, the real crux has been when you try to watch the very same content on an extender -- like the Xbox 360. So in an attempt to bring the entire Media Center experience to the extenders it appears Microsoft has added native transcoding. So now if Media Center can play the file, it can also convert it on the fly to a format that your extender supports. Of course like all betas, there's no guarantee these features will make it into the final build, but we sure hope they do.

Filed under: Media PCs

Tags: 7MC, DivX, Media Center, MediaCenter, MKV, Windows Media Center, WindowsMediaCenter, WMC, Xvid

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highly Ranked

Jon @ Nov 5th 2008 5:26PM

i just got a tech boner

Neutral

Sean @ Nov 5th 2008 5:37PM

This is good.

Neutral

Jonathan @ Nov 5th 2008 6:00PM

That sounds incredible!! I'm stoked!!

Ben- Have you the latest Windows 7 build (6801) on your Media Center? Would it even work with CableCards? I just installed the build on my laptop and VMC seems to be working and ready to go but i'm afraid to test it out on my Dell.

Along the same line, what program do you use to make an image of your hard drive?
Thanks, -Jonathan

Neutral

Jonathan @ Nov 5th 2008 6:54PM

Nevermind.. I just got done listening to the latest podcast. All of my questions are answered.

Neutral

honkimon @ Nov 5th 2008 6:15PM

Transcoding MKV 1080p on the fly is pretty much pointless

Neutral

CubeGuy @ Nov 5th 2008 6:21PM

That is quite possibly one of the most unintentionally disturbing images ever.

Neutral

Ryan @ Nov 5th 2008 6:27PM

Transcoding to an Extender doesn't make much sense. Why not just add the proper codecs to the Extender instead of mucking about with transcoding BS? Give us native MKV at least MS!

Neutral

Brent @ Nov 5th 2008 6:51PM

Glad to see MC users have something to look forward to, but I can't help but wonder - why did it take Microsoft so long to deliver format compatibility and transcoding to its customers? SageTV, BeyondTV, MediaPortal, Meedio, XBMC etc etc have all had this ability for years.

And an even better question is this: Why can't the extenders handle these formats without transcoding in the first place? The SageTV extender handles all of these with ease (no transcoding required) and does ripped DVD's all out of the box.

Neutral

casey chesnut @ Nov 5th 2008 10:54PM

transcoding gets old real quick.
i'd rather they invest there time to get more native codecs on the 360.

Neutral

palehorse @ Nov 6th 2008 12:58AM

Exactly! Transcoding is yesterday's tech... I want native support on my extenders damnit!

Neutral

Jeff @ Nov 6th 2008 12:57AM

xvids, and divx both work on the 360 out of the box with windows 7. I'm getting a lot of use out of it already. I have video on my mkvs after installing coreavc, etc but no audio. I have a feeling I'll get the audio working some way soon...

Windows 7 looks like a pretty big upgrade over vista so far.

Neutral

Darmok @ Nov 11th 2008 7:52AM

Jeff let me know if you do get full mkv playback happening on Win7 and retain full TV operation. I can get mkv playback but the codec screws up the TV operation.

Neutral

Craig WB @ Nov 6th 2008 6:29AM

Do people even still use Divx? Most of the video out there has moved onto xvid.

Neutral

ArcticFox @ Nov 6th 2008 5:25AM

They are both similar codecs, if you add XviD support then by default DivX is also supported, and vice versa.

Neutral

Mark @ Nov 6th 2008 7:45AM

Xvid and divx are both implementations of mpeg pt 2 advanced simple profile. The xvid folks use the same data structures as divx meaning a high level of compatibility between the formats. You can get playback right now with ffmpeg or using vlc.

Neutral

JerkfacedFed @ Nov 10th 2008 11:11AM

yea there is no difference. supporting the MPEG-4 ASP profile means divx and xvid are supported because they are implementaitons of MP4 ASP.

Neutral

Mike B. @ Nov 6th 2008 9:47AM

Steven Sinofsky said it himself at the WinHEC keynote yesterday. I just finished watching it. DivX and XviD codecs already installed, and native transcoding. What is MS telling you guys no for?

Neutral

Chris C. @ Nov 6th 2008 10:08AM

I just want to get my hands on a copy of the Beta so I can test it myself! I'm tired of this back and forth between Microsoft and others saying this won't be supported and this will! It sucks big time for those of us who bought Vista off the bat for these features and now Microsoft decides to put it in the next OS. Looks like a bunch of us wasted $250. Now here's the question of the hour! Is H.264 and native transcoding going to be for OEM versions, like TV Pack, or is it going to be included in all versions. Also, will Windows 7 support the addition of HD cable cards or is that going to remain in the OEM market?

Neutral

Chris @ Nov 6th 2008 11:18AM

I have tried playng Xvid/Divx with the M3 build and it does indeed play. Unfortunatly it plays horribly. This is probably
because of early drivers and beta code but I guess its a step in the right direction. I will see what happens when
I stream it to the 360 and report back.

Neutral

Chris C. @ Nov 6th 2008 12:26PM

Hey Chris, can you see if you can stream .vob / vts files to the Xbox360 media extender? I am really curious to see if this works because no extender can do this right now unless you use all the third party apps out their which are crap. I know there are several workarounds but I want to be able to FF, RR, skip, pause stop and restart my movies like I can in Media Center.

Neutral

Jeff G @ Nov 7th 2008 1:55PM

Transcoding is just a mask to the real problem. People have been transcoding VMC for almost a year now, and although it is nice it still does not give us the features that we want....i.e. chapter skip, ff, rew, etc.

I know there are legal issues involved in the whole process of allowing native streaming, but it does not make sense to me how you can transcode and stream a movie any more legally than just doing native streaming.

Neutral

elverdaderochelin @ Jan 22nd 2009 12:03AM

I installed Windows 7 Beta and it can play Xvid very smoothly. In Windows 7 I converted a section of a xvid video into wmv using Windows Live Movie Maker. But the best feature so far is I streamed xvid and mp3 audio from my Windows 7 machine to a XP machine using Windows Media Encoder, my WiFi network is 54MB/s and I could stream video with almost DVD quality without issues.

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