Submission + - Play non-MS format media on Xbox 360
jollyreaper writes: This is for all of the Xbox 360 owners out there who want to use the device as a true media center. Microsoft, being the douches they are, give you a perfectly fine piece of hardware but lock it down so you can't view anything but approved videos on it. They put in the really cool feature of streaming off of your PC but again, the PC needs XP, has to be running Media Player 11, and using proprietary MS formats. Sucks, right? But no longer.
Using this neat little program, you can host videos on your PC and use it for the share connection rather than mediaplayer. Videos are transcoded to an acceptable MS format on the fly. The only drawback is that transcoded files have to be completed before search features will work — no fast-forward or rewind. You can work around that by force-starting the encode cycle and then renaming the resulting cache file and playing it directly.
An installation guide can be found here, complete with pretty pictures. Informative and only spreads the article across 8 pages instead of the usual 40.
The TVersity software that makes it all happen can be found here. The site also has FAQ's and forums if you don't want to use the first guide listed.