So, a while back, when the spring 07 update was annoucned for the 360, one of the things i was more interested in was the update for video. Well, the xbox team have an FAQ showing you what is supported here. some of the more interesting things:

1.    What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for H.264?

Xbox 360 supports the following for H.264:

·         File Extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov

·         Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime

·         Video Profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to Level 4.1) profiles.

·         Video Bitrate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30fps. See question number 6 for more information.

·         Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)

·         Audio Max Bitrate: No restrictions. See question number 6 for more information.

 

2.    What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for MPEG-4 Part 2?

Xbox 360 supports the following for MPEG-4:

·         File Extensions: .mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .mov

·         Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime

·         Video Profiles: Simple (including Simple profile content mislabeled as Advanced Simple)

·         Video Bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps. See question number 6 for more information.

·         Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)

·         Audio Max Bitrate: No restrictions. See question number 6 for more information.

 

3.    What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for WMV (VC-1)?

Xbox 360 supports the following for WMV:

·         File Extensions: .wmv

·         Container: asf

·         Video Profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main, and advanced up to Level 3

·         Video Bitrate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30fps. See question number 6 for more information.

·         Audio Profiles: WMA7/8, WMA 9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA lossless

·         Audio Max Bitrate: No restrictions. See question number 6 for more information.

 

So, thats cool! now, my only problem i have is machine support. My Media Center is my only Windows PC working. I have Windows servers (well, server, as my opteron died…), but its my only workstation running a non server OS. My Mac is currently running Vista x64, but due to driver issues, looks bad. I have just ordered an extra 4Gb of ram for it, so hopefully that will solve the problem (its not drivers as such, more resources, and i think the extra ram should, hopefully, solve the issue). the MCE is having problems with hardware. I dont know exactly what is wrong with it, but i will hopefully figure it out soon.

 Anyway, Nullriver has just released a new, updated version of Connect360. It now supports streaming of the new formats. I have updated to the latest version, and found out most of my videos are encoded slightly wrong. I’m using Handbrake to rip DVDs and stream them over the network (makes my life easer so i don’t have to look for the discs) but it seems the default Apple TV option is too high…  something i will defiantly have to look into…