Xbox One to Support USB Multimedia Including .MKV, DLNA Streaming Coming Soon

[DinohScene]

As for now, I got me PS3 which plays MKV files lovely.

Once I get a XBone, I guess it's time to say goodbye to me PS3 n shelf it.

 

[Subtle Demise]

Huh...I thought both the 360 and PS3 had these features at launch (except for the .mkv of course).

 

[Idaho]

Could do with a bit more detail on mkv, rather than just, it plays mkv.

What formats does it support being contained in it? Is it going to support 10bit h264, what sub formats etc.

Just saying .mkv is a bit useless. 360 played .mp4 for example, but was limited to what could be in there (h264 & AAC only).

I hope for a full mkv support, we're not at the 360's time when media support wasn't a real matter, so I'm expecting them to do it well...

 

[GBA rocks]

WDTV Live (3rd gen) or WDTV (2014) is nearly invisible (could be hung behind the tv and controlled via smartphone app), sips power (compared to an xbox) and plays 50GB uncompressed BR rips in mkv container like a charm.

In this day and age perfect h264 hardware support in MKV container is a 79€ box feature.

The brave new world will be h265 hardware decoding.

Anyway, if this was the ps4, it would be cool every now and then to watch MKVs with wireless headphone audio through the DS4 headphone jack. Even on multiple DS4s. A whole family or group of friends could watch MKVs silently late in the evening.

On the x1, I guess it doesn't hurt. Probably "XBOX, OPEN TORRENTED MOVIES FOLDER" won't end up in a MS tv commercial though.

 

[Gahars]

Xbox: 1
Playstation: 0

Ball's in your court, Sony.

 

[Foxi4]

I don't get why people take this news negatively - if I spend $400 on a more-or-less powerful set-top box to play video games on, it has more than enough firepower to cover my multimedia needs as well. If there's an option for me to have just one box next to my TV instead of a stack of boxes each doing its own thing, I'm going to go for the one box, thank you very much. I hate clutter, I really do.

 

[Steena]

I don't get why people take this news negatively - if I spend $400 on a more-or-less powerful set-top box to play video games on, it has more than enough firepower to cover my multimedia needs as well. If there's an option for me to have just one box next to my TV instead of a stack of boxes each doing its own thing, I'm going to go for the one box, thank you very much. I hate clutter, I really do.

I'm assuming it's because those people already know it will not be good enough to actually replace everything into one box like its marketing is desperately trying to convince them, so they are pre-emptively mad about it.

 

[GBA rocks]

Xbox: 1
Playstation: 0

Ball's in your court, Sony.

Fact is, Sony Pictures (member of MPAA) makes movies and blurays.

While MKVs have some legitimate uses, overall they make Jesus cry, I guess.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm assuming it's because those people already know it will not be good enough to actually replace everything into one box like its marketing is desperately trying to convince them, so they are pre-emptively mad about it.

Nobody's going to convince me that an x86_64 octacore with 8GB RAM and a more-or-less mid-range GPU is somehow less capable than your average Android shitbox. Unless you have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, you don't have a better AIO box, and if you do have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, why would you even buy a console? Of course everything depends on how well the software will work, but it's a bit premature to assume that it'll be shit.

 

[emigre]

I don't get why people take this news negatively - if I spend $400 on a more-or-less powerful set-top box to play video games on, it has more than enough firepower to cover my multimedia needs as well. If there's an option for me to have just one box next to my TV instead of a stack of boxes each doing its own thing, I'm going to go for the one box, thank you very much. I hate clutter, I really do.

Cos GBAtemp like to bitch about things regarding consoles not from Nintendo.

Remember with Youtube, does the Wii U even need Blu Ray support?

 

[trumpet-205]

Could do with a bit more detail on mkv, rather than just, it plays mkv.

What formats does it support being contained in it? Is it going to support 10bit h264, what sub formats etc.

Just saying .mkv is a bit useless. 360 played .mp4 for example, but was limited to what could be in there (h264 & AAC only).

10 bit H264 will never be possible with hardware player. Even on PC it is pure CPU decoding.

Most likely it is your typical 8 bit Level 4.1 or below H264. As for audio maybe AC3/MP3/AAC.

 

[jonthedit]

Am I the only person who hates DNLA streaming?
It's fucking awful: you have to trash the fuppes.db whenever you want to update the available list of files. A basic collection of 50 movies takes about 10 minutes to generate.

 

[Arras]

Nobody's going to convince me that an x86_64 octacore with 8GB RAM and a more-or-less mid-range GPU somehow less capable than your average Android shitbox. Unless you have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, you don't have a better AIO box, and if you do have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, why would you even buy a console? Of course everything depends on how well the software will work, but it's a bit premature to assume that it'll be shit.

The average Android shitbox can play obscure formats too though. Whether this can remains to be seen (and it would be a first for a console).

 

[Foxi4]

The average Android shitbox can play obscure formats too though. Whether this can remains to be seen (and it would be a first for a console).

The only reason why Android shitboxes can do that is because the CPU and GPU have on-board decoders as a standard and here the Xbox One is no exception. In addition to that, it has far more CPU firepower for all the software codecs, so it's win-win no matter how you look at it. Now everything depends on the quality of software, not the hardware.

 

[FAST6191]

Am I the only person who hates DNLA streaming?
It's fucking awful: you have to trash the fuppes.db whenever you want to update the available list of files. A basic collection of 50 movies takes about 10 minutes to generate.

Anybody that has had to seriously use DNLA and knows anything about networks, file shares, databases or what was previously considered logic in this universe should probably hate DNLA.

 

[GBA rocks]

Nobody's going to convince me that an x86_64 octacore with 8GB RAM and a more-or-less mid-range GPU somehow less capable than your average Android shitbox. Unless you have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, you don't have a better AIO box, and if you do have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, why would you even buy a console? Of course everything depends on how well the software will work, but it's a bit premature to assume that it'll be shit.

Both the x1 and the average 99$ shitbox use dedicated hardware acceleration to decode h.264 (the AMD gpu in the case of the x1).
That's how the x1 plays BR today. They're just adding support to the mkv CONTAINER, as far as we know.
So having an x86 8-core and 8gb of ram may be not particularly important in the comparison.

Overall, doing 1080p h.264 at BR bitrates is pretty much a walk in the park these days.
Playing 4K files in h.264 or h.265 (via sw), now that would be impressive. Gotta buy a new shitbox for that, whereas the x1 could somehow pull it off in the future.

 

[Steena]

Nobody's going to convince me that an x86_64 octacore with 8GB RAM and a more-or-less mid-range GPU somehow less capable than your average Android shitbox. Unless you have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, you don't have a better AIO box, and if you do have a $500 UMPC next to your TV, why would you even buy a console? Of course everything depends on how well the software will work, but it's a bit premature to assume that it'll be shit.

First off let me say that I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable/experienced as you are on the topic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason media station features on previous consoles have been horrible in the past was partly to be attributed to videogame anti-piracy, it was not that much a matter of hardware. Infact, some cool features were unlocked thanks to CFW/modding as far as I remember. Like increased support for watching movies on PS3. Or neat file browsers/FTP apps in general.

I just don't think console manufacturers are going all out in delivering everything the machine can do if that can potentially lead to exploits/piracy. That's why I always just assume that media features on consoles will always be more limited by comparison, on that basis.

Of course, unless something has dramatically changed this time around that makes my argument invalid. I admittedly am not well informed/updated.

 

[Arras]

The only reason why Android shitboxes can do that is because the CPU and GPU have on-board decoders as a standard and here the Xbox One is no exception. In addition to that, it has far more CPU firepower for all the software codecs, so it's win-win no matter how you look at it. Now everything depends on the quality of software, not the hardware.

Of course. That's exactly the issue here though - if the Xbox One media player doesn't play some weird file format, then that's it, end of the line (unless it gets added later, of course, but if it's not a common format chances are that won't happen). If a homebrewed machine or an android box doesn't play something, you can usually install something on it that does play it as long as the device is strong enough. Software held/is holding back media players on pretty much all other consoles.

 

[FAST6191]

There may have been a certain anti piracy element to it (the legitimate uses of MPEG4 decoders not being so many in years past) but more would probably have been certain countries (mainly places with software patents, so the US and variously in Japan) would require licenses to use the decoders. This is what led to things like needing a DVD remote to play DVDs on the xbox. Move into the more open source things like MKV and it only gets worse -- a certain technique that is used in the decoding may well infringe upon a patent and it goes downhill from there.

Edit and as for odd formats... does it really matter any more? If you are not using MP4, AVI, MKV, WMV, one of the DVD/blu ray container formats and, in a pinch, quicktime, FLV and webm for general playback use then you have probably screwed up.
Back when there were legit uses for real, ogg, legit uses for all the hackjobs on the avi format and all the others.

Oh and it occurs I have not laughed at 10bit H264 yet in this thread, allow me to correct that.

 

[Foxi4]

First off let me say that I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable/experienced as you are on the topic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason media station features on previous consoles have been horrible in the past was partly to be attributed to videogame anti-piracy, it was not that much a matter of hardware. Infact, some cool features were unlocked thanks to CFW/modding as far as I remember. Like increased support for watching movies on PS3. Or neat file browsers/FTP apps in general.

I just don't think console manufacturers are going all out in delivering everything the machine can do if that can potentially lead to exploits/piracy. That's why I always just assume that media features on consoles will always be more limited by comparison, on that basis.

Of course, unless something has dramatically changed this time around that makes my argument invalid. I admittedly am not well informed/updated.

The reason why consoles in the past had issues with utilizing multimedia formats is that most consoles have a cut-down feature set, not to mention that most multimedia formats are created with ARM and x86 in mind wheras the entire previous generation was based on PowerPC (yes, including the PS3's CELL, which is based on PowerPC). The generation before that was PowerPC on the Gamecube and MIPS on the PS2... and then there was the Xbox which was x86 and just so happened to have the excellent XBMC which is very much usable to this day, although not perfect - coincidence? I don't think so.

x86 simply has a lot of "legacy stuff" embedded into it at this point and often times various codecs use said "stuff". If the "stuff" is missing then you have to look for alternatives when porting and this causes some hit and miss results. This makes me pretty convinced that both the PS4 and the Xbox One can be about as capable at multimedia as your average PC - they're simply based on a very much "all in one" architecture.

This was hardly a matter of Anti-Piracy, really. Nowadays it can be though, as Sony has their own media distribution service and Microsoft is affiliated with services that do the same thing, so they'll probably want your media to be legit.

Of course. That's exactly the issue here though - if the Xbox One media player doesn't play some weird file format, then that's it, end of the line (unless it gets added later, of course, but if it's not a common format chances are that won't happen). If a homebrewed machine or an android box doesn't play something, you can usually install something on it that does play it as long as the device is strong enough. Software held/is holding back media players on pretty much all other consoles.

I don't think it will use "weird formats" since the quoted release states that it will use "popular formats". I guess we'll see.