Features and supported formats

Xbox Media Center (latest CVS) supports the following:

Supported hardware platforms and Xbox options

• Compatible with modded retail Xbox™, Debug/Development-Xbox and DreamX
• Fully control XboxMediaCenter and its features via a Xbox™ IR DVD-Remote
• Fully control XboxMediaCenter and its features via a Xbox™ game controller
• Controllable via USB (HID) Mouse (Left/Right/Middle buttons and Wheel supported) #1
• Controllable via USB (HID) Keyboard (ASCI-keys only, not any multimedia-keys) #1

Supported output media formats and devices:

• TV-output: 50hz/60Hz NTSC-M/J (America/Asia) and PAL (Europe/Africa)
• Widescreen (16:9) and normal-TV (4:3) aspect ratio video output support
• RCA, SCART, RF Coaxial, S-video, Component/RGB (adapter available)
• VGA-output is also possible via third-party adapters or VGA-hacked BIOS
• NTSC playback on PAL Xbox/TV and PAL playback on NTSC Xbox/TV
• HDTV support, multiple resolutions 480p/720p/1080i (adapter required)
• LCD-display output support to view status and control XBMC with TV OFF #8
• Analog audio-out (stereo/mono) via phono-connection or scart-adapter
• Digital audio-out (stereo/mono/surround) SPDIF (adapter required)

Supported input media formats and devices:

• Play media-files directly from a CD, VCD or DVD media in the Xbox's DVD-ROM drive #2
  • (Supported CD/DVD formats: ISO 9660 Mode1/2/XA, UDF 1.02 and XDVDFS/CDX)
• Play media-files directly from Xbox built-in hard drive or a network) #4
• Stream media-files from a computer over a network via UPnP XBMS, or SMB/SAMBA/CIFS
  • Including all NAS (Network Attached Storage) that support UPnP or SMB/SAMBA/CIFS
• iTunes Music Shares via DAAP (network stream from Apple iTunes 6.x on Mac or PC) #5/#11
• Stream supported media-files from the internet (if the stream-format is supported too) #5/#11
• Stream media STORED, (NOT COMPRESSED), directly from RAR and ZIP archives
• Xbox Memory Cards (FATX) and USB Mass Storage Devices (FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 formated)
  • Including most USB Mass Storage Devices (like memory-keys/sticks) smaller than 4GB

Supported file/container formats:

• Audio-CD (CDDA) playback for normal audio CD's (including CD-TEXT support #7)
• SVCD and VCD (Video CD) video, (SVCD/VCD menus are not supported yet)
• DVD-Video directly from Xbox DVD-ROM drive, Harddisk-drive or network
• MPEG, MPG, M2V formats (inc. VCD's .dat and .bin and DVD's .vob)
• MPEG-TS (TY/TS/DV) DVB transport stream format
• MP4 (MPEG-4 video) container
• RIFF AVI (AVI 1.0) container
• OpenDML AVI (AVI 2.0) container #1
• BivX (AVI with several audio streams) container
• Microsoft ASF/ASX/WMV/WMA containers #5
• Microsoft DVR-MS (Windows Media Center) containers #5
• QuickTime QT/MOV containers #5
• Nullsoft Steaming Video (NSV) containers #1
• Nullsoft Steaming Audio (NSA) containers
• MPA, MP2, MP3 and WAV containers #5
• AAC, M4A, MP4 (MPEG-4 audio) audio containers #5
• RealMedia (Real Video/Audio) RM/RAM/RA/RV/RMVB containers #1
• OGG and OGM containers
• Matroska (матрёшка) MKV containers #1
• VIVO (VIV) containers
• PVA containers
• NuppelVideo containers
• FLI and FLC containers
• Tracker Mods (18 formats supported) audio
• M3U, PLS, CUE and STRM audio/video playlists #1

Supported video codecs:

• MPEG-1 (VCD/MPG) and MPEG-2 (MPEG/SVCD/DVD/VOB/DV/TY) video
• MPEG-4 ASP: DivX;-) 3.11, OpenDivX 4.0, DivX 5.x/6.x (Pro), XviD 1.x and Nero Digital ASP
• MPEG-4 AVC - Advanced Video Coding (H.264); Nero Digital AVC and x264 video codec #1
• Microsoft's Windows Media Video v7, v8 and v9 (MSMpeg4/WMV v1, v2, and v3)
• RealVideo codecs: 1.0, 2.0 (RealPlayer G2), 3.0 (RealPlayer 8) and 4.0 (RealPlayer 9)
• QuickTime 5.0, 6.0, 6.3 video and audio codecs (QDMC / QDM2) #1
• 3ivx D4 / 3vi1 MPEG-4 video (inc. MSZH/ZLIB Compressed-Header containers) #1
• Sorenson v1/v3 (SVQ1/SVQ3) QuickTime video
• Apple Graphics (SMC) video
• On2 Technologies VP3 (VP3.x), VP4 (VP4.x), VP5 (VP5.x), and VP6 (VP6.2)
• Intel Indeo 3.1/3.2 (Indeo3)
• NuppelVideo (NUV)
• VIVO 1.0 and 2.0 (VIV)
• ITU H.261 video
• Creative Labs YUV (CYUV) video
• Supermac Cinepak (CVID) video
• ASUS V1 (ASV1) and ASUS V2 (ASV2) video
• Autodesk FLI and FLC Animation

Supported video formats and resolutions

This is a comparison table of common video-codecs to show what the Xbox CPU/Processor can handle:

Codec / Resolution	352x288	480x576	720x576	960x540	1280x720	1920x1080
MPEG-1/MPEG-2	1	2	3		?	4
MPEG-4 ASP (XviD, DivX)				5	?
MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) without Cabac & Deblocking			?
MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) with Cabac & Deblocking					6	7
WMV9 (Windows Media Video v3)			?

? = Undetermined (the Xbox-hardware may or may not be to slow to decode at an acceptable frame-rate)

1. aka PAL VCD - More Info
2. aka PAL SVCD - More Info
3. aka PAL DVD
4. aka TS (Transport Stream MPEG-2 Video Stream) - More Info
5. aka HRHD (Half Resolution High Definition) - More Info
6. aka Quicktime 720P HD
7. aka Quicktime 1080P HD

Supported audio codecs:

• CDDA (Audio-CD) playback
• WAV/WAVE (WAVEform) and PCM audio format
• AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) audio
• MPEG layer I, II, and III (inluding MP2 and MP3) audio #5
• OGG (Ogg Vorbis audio codec)
• WMA - Windows Media Audio v1 and v2 (WMA1/2 / DivX Audio v1/v2) #5
• WMA - Windows Media Audio v9 (WMA9) (via WMA9 DLL's) #5
• RealNetworks RealAudio codecs: 1.0 (14.4), 2.0 (28.8), SIPRO, COOK, DNET and ATRAC3
• AC3 2.0 or 5.1 and Dolby Digital EX 6.1 or 7.1 audio in video (AC3 digital cable S/PDIF 48Khz pass-through)
• Dolby Digital AC3 and AC3-WAV/AC3-CDDA 2.0 and 5.1 audio in video software decoded to stereo analog-out
• DTS (Digital Theater System) 5.1 and DTS-ES 6.1 audio in DVD-Video (DTS digital cable S/PDIF 48Khz pass-through)
• DTS (DTS and DTS-WAV/DTS-CDDA) 44.1Khz/48Khz audio in DVD-Video (software decoded)
• AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) profiles: Main, LC, HE, LTP, LD, ER, and aacPlus v1/v2 (AAC+SBR/PS) audio #5
• M4A and MP4 (MPEG-4 Audio) (including Nero Digital MP4) #5
• FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio
• WavPack audio
• MPC (Musepack, a.k.a. Mpeg+ audio) #6
• APE (Monkey's Audio ) audio
• SHN (Shorten) audio
• ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) audio #6
• Tracker Mod's audio, see list bellow:
  • Adlib (AdLib and Sound Blaster OPL2/OPL3 and Dual OPL2/OPL3) FM audio
  • SID (Commodore 64 tunes) audio
  • YM (ATARI ST) audio
  • NSF (Nintendo NES Sound Format) audio
  • SPC (SPC700) audio
  • GYM (SEGA Genesis) audio
  • ADX/AST/ADP/DSP/YMF/HPS CRI MiddleWare and Gamecube ADPCM) audio
  • (MOD/AMF/669/DMF/DSM/FAR/GDM/IMF/IT/M15/MED/OKT/S3M/STM/SFX/ULT/UNI/XM)

Supported picture/image formats:

• BMP picture/image
• JPG/JPEG picture/image
• GIF picture/image
• PNG picture/image
• TIF/TIFF picture/image
• TGA picture/image
• PCX picture/image
• ICO picture/image
• CBR/CBZ comic books

Features available for video playback:

• Full-screen playback display of all supported video formats/containers via a TV
• Auto PAL50/PAL60-switching support and auto 4:3/16:9-switching support
• Framerate Conversion (23.98<->25fps), another NTSC <-> PAL workaround solution
• SQL database with view by file/genre/actor/year/title and sort by year/name/rating
• Selectable options from OSD (On Screen Display) Control Panel during playback
• FFWD (fast-forward) and RWD (rewind #1), and PAUSE in AVI/OGM/MKV/MPEG/MPG media
• MPlayer time-based (30sec/5min) or procent-based (2%/10%) seeking forward and backward
• Video-Autorun, auto-plays VCD/SVCD/DVD/CD's with video file(s) upon insert
• DVD-video playback with menus (from DVD, harddrive, network, as IFO/VOB or ISO/IMG DVD-images) #12
• Play supported video files directly from ISO, BIN, IMG, NRG and BIN CD/DVD-images
• Subtitle support (MicroDVD, srt, smi, vplayer, rt, ssa, aqt, sub, jss, mpl & VobSub) #11
• Play internet files/streams from HTTP and MMS (Microsoft Media Streaming Protocol) #1/#11
• Play RealMedia internet steams of HTTP + RTSP/RDT (Real Data Transport Protocol) #1/#11
• Nullsoft Streaming Video (NSV) internet-streams (only if VP3+MP3), (Nullsoft TV a.k.a. NTV) #1/#11
• Streaming video from a TiVo DVR box over network (requires hacked TiVo running ccXStream) #1
• Streaming video from a ReplayTV (4500, 5000 or 5500 series) DVR box over network #1
• IMDb (Internet Movie Database) information lookup for movie-info and thumbnails
  • Can also extract specific IMDb URL a .nfo file with same file-name as the movie
• Optional media file and/or folder thumbnails for easy localization (see thumbnail options)
• Stack multi-file videos option, show/play files with 90% name similarity as one
• Switch between multiple audio streams/tracks in DVD-Video, AVI, OGM and MKV/Matroska
  • Left, Right Mono and Stereo channel selection available for all two channel audio-streams
• Multiple video-rendering options to optimize playback of your video-formats
• Different Post-Processing filters for better video quality #11
• Flicker-filter (optional video flicker-filter with five levels, disabled by default)
• Soften-filter (optional filter to decrease video sharpness and thus artifacts)
• De-interlace filter (for interlaced video) implementation option
• Brightness/Contrast/Gamma controls (only for HighQuality Pixelshader)
• Video resizing/scaling and zooming functions
• Screenshot capture function (including video overlay support and OSD)
• AC3 (Dolby Digital EAX) 2.0, 5.1 and 7.1 pass-through from video to SP/DIF AC3 output
• AC3 (Dolby Digital) 5.1 -> 2.0 software-decoding to PCM stereo or mono out
• DTS (Digital Theatre Sound ES) pass-through from video to S/PDIF DTS output
• Option to output mono or stereo to all speakers (for 5.1 surround speakers)

Features available for audio playback:

• Playback of all supported audio-formats via a TV or external audio-receiver/amplifier
• SQL database with view music by Top100/Albums/Tracks/Artists/Filenames or Recent Albums
  • Also option to sort by Track/Filename/Date or Size and search functions
• Karaoke CDG-file display for music files with audio-visualization overlay support
• CDDB album lookup support when playing Audio-CD's (done via freedb.org)
• Gapless and Crossfade playback support options
• ReplayGain "MetaData" applification/normalization (loudness control) support
• Thumbnail and album information lookup for Audio-CD's (done via AMG/Allmusic.com)
• Display embedded tumbnails/icons (album artwork) if integrated into a MP3 or AAC file
• Optional custom file and/or folder thumbnails for easy localization (see thumbnail options)
• Audio-Autorun, auto-plays CDDA and music DVD/CD's with audio file(s) upon insert
• Play internet-files/streams from HTTP and MMS (Microsoft Media Streaming Protocol) #1/#11
• Play RealMedia internet steams of HTTP + RTSP/RDT (Real Data Transport Protocol) #1/#11
• Play soundtracks ripped by/in Xbox dashboard (add path "soundtrack://" to XML)
• Play supported audio files directly from BIN, IMG, NRG and ISO CD/DVD-images
• Reads ID3v1/ID3v2/ID666/APEv1/APEv2 info-tags from audio/music-files
• M3U and PLS audio playlists (inc. option to create/save M3U audio-playlists)
• SHOUTcast Internet Radio (MP3 .pls playlists) playback support
• Local/native SHOUTcast recording (to MP3) onto the Xbox harddrive
• last.fm (AudioScrobbler) online-radio submission and playback/streaming support
• Audio Visualizations (several visual generators and a spectrum analyser)
• FF (fast-forward) and RW (rewind), and PAUSE during audio playback/visualization
• Option to output mono or stereo to all speakers (for 5.1 surround speakers)

Features available for picture/image viewing:

• Full-screen display of all supported picture and image formats via a TV
• Picture slideshow, including option for adding recursive to slideshows
• Picture thumbnails (automatically generated on demand)
• Folder thumbnails (automatically generated after entered that folder)
• View pictures directly from ISO, IMG, NRG and BIN CD/DVD-images
• Picture Zooming, rotate, move around, info, pause, next/previous picture
• Kodak PictureCD compatible (auto-launches slideshow on CD insert) #2
• Auto-launches picture CD/DVD on insert if images in root directory

Features available for launching games and applications (dashboard):

My Programs interface features:

• Dashboard replacement mode, launch other Xbox software applications ("XBE" executables)
  • (including Xbox games, console-emulators, applications and other dashboards, etc.)
• Optional custom thumbnails for folders and the executable, (see thumbnail options for info)
• Display embedded tumbnails/icons that are integrated into most Xbox executables for Xbox games
• Video Mode Switching to force launching a game a specific video-mode (PAL, PAL60, NTSC, etc.)
• Flicker-Filter settings for Xbox games, (creates a patched copy of all default.xbe with new setting)

XLink Kai (online gaming) front-end features:

• Kai connection/cummunity front-end #9
• Kai hosting options #9
• Kai text-chat #9
• Kai Voice-chat (using SPEEX) #9
• Kai Toast - pop up notifications for XLink Kai #9

Xored Trainer Engine (gaming cheats):

• Xored ETM/XBTF Trainer Engine enable "training" of games to cheat and/or add new functions to Xbox games #10
• Xored ETM/XBTF Trainer Engine cannot be used to cheat on XLink Kai (as disabled when logged on to XLink Kai)

Other and generic Graphical User Interface (GUI) features:

• Controllable via the DVD Remote, a game-pad, USB keyboard and/or USB mouse
• Virtual-Keyboard for manual video/music database searches and settings configurations
• Flexible XML based skinning-engine with GUI skin-switching (and many skins available)
• Context Menu feature (mapped by default to the TITLE button on the remote)
• View file media listing By List, By Small Icons or By Large Icons option
• "My Files" file-manager, move/copy/delete local and copy from network
• "My Weather" weather forecast feature (done via The Weather Channel)
• Several screensavers on configurable timer in GUI to choose from
• RSS feed in main menu (you can manually disable or change feed in RssFeeds.xml)
• Python Script Interpreter Engine (execute/run Python scripts from within XBMC)
• Idle shutdown-timer, which shutsdown XBMC when idle, configurable timer through GUI
• Non-ilde shutdown-timer, shutsdown XBMC even if not idle after specific set manually
• Flicker-filter (optional GUI flicker-filter with five levels, high enabled by default)
• Language (XML) files for translated GUI (over 30+ languages so far), switch from GUI
• International-language fonts for the GUI (via TTF-Fonts, configurable in UI-Settings)
• GUI and video calibration (including storing calibration settings per resolution)
• Displays system info under Settings (Build date, free space, IP, temperature)
• Screenshot capture function, to snap shots of GUI (inc. video overlay support)
• Configurable memory cache buffer for video/audio playback, configured in GUI

Other non-GUI features, functions and options:

• Fully re-mappable keys for DVD Remote and the controller/game-pad (via Keymap.xml)
  • Including the possibility to map and use all RCA-5 IR codes from a universal remote
• Auto-detection of UDF 1.02, XDVDFS/CDX and ISO9660 - mode1/mode2/XA #1
• Auto-launch Xbox game-disc on insert with enable/disable optional from within GUI
• Advanced and expert options available via an optional AdvancedSettings.xml file
• Built-in Web-Server for remote control of XBMC (http//:xboxIPaddressHere.asp)
• Built-in HTTP API interface so you can build custom remote control applications
• Built-in FTP-Server, connect to it via an FTP client to copy files to/from Xbox harddrive
• Supports Static-IP/Subnetmask/DNS/WINS and alternative DHCP-client for auto config
• Clock/date synchronization from a (NT SNTP) Time Server on the network/internet
• Harddrive (HDD) spindown on idle (spin-down disks when XBMC is idle in menu) #1
• Emergency Recovery Console (enables the FTP-server if get corrupt XBMC system-files)

Notes

1. Experimental, unfinished, unstable, buggy and/or limited
   
2. Most Xbox DVD-ROM drives are very picky with CD/DVD media disks, see FAQ
   
3. XBMC currently only have DVD VOB and IFO parsing support, (no menu support)
   
4. Xbox's FATX harddrive file-system has file & folder name/character limitations, see FAQ
   
5. DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected files are not yet supported by XBMC
   
6. Exclusive to our integrated audio/music-player (PAPlayer)
7. Samsung DVD-ROM drive only (and maybe some PC DVD-ROM drives)
8. For LCD-display add-on mods compatible with XBMC see here
9. Xlink Kai tunneling-engine running on networked computer with internet-access is required.
10. Xored ETM/XBTF Trainer Engine is only developed/maintained/supported by Team Xored.
11. Exclusive to our MPlayer-based media-player.
12. Exclusive to our DVDPlayer DVD-Video player.