How do I get Vista and XBOX360 to work over ethernet?

December 25, 2007 3:50 PM

Can I connect a Windows Vista Media Server directly to an XBOX360 to serve media content? I only have a PC, an Ethernet cable and an XBOX 360.

Microsoft's site says you should be able to if you wanted to use the PC to bridge two connections together. But that assumes a router exists on the other end of the second connection. I want to try to do this without any additional equipment (router, switch, hub).

I assume the problem comes from there being no DHCP server (as the XBOX 360 defaults to an internal IP address). It does show up as wired, so the XBOX 360 and the PC see a wired connection.

Is there a way around this? I am trying to stream content to the 360, not get online. I do not have a USB cable long enough, but I assumed there must be some way to do this without getting too complicated.

posted by geoff. to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Fixed it. Two important things:

(1) Permissions are nowhere near global for media sharing, and just because it works in MCE does not mean it will show up in the video sharing.

(2) XBOX360, if not connected to the Internet, has all kinds of warnings, every step of the way, and pretends as if nothing is working at all.
posted by geoff. at 5:29 PM on December 25, 2007

I know that there is Connect 360 for the Mac that pretty much does the same thing. Maybe there is something similar for the PC/Win
posted by Gungho at 8:13 PM on December 25, 2007

You will need a crossover cable if there is no hub/switch between them.

If you want to serve content only and not live TV/recorded TV, you can use Windows Media Player, which is a bit easier to setup.

Also be aware that you cannot watch DivX/XviD through the MCE extender, and only through WMP sharing.
posted by mphuie at 10:54 PM on December 25, 2007

You will need a crossover cable if there is no hub/switch between them.

No, actually I used a straight through cable. Both my on-motherboard ethernet card and the XBOX360 support the switching.

The key was connecting online to view a DivX file to download the "optional media update." So I burnt a divx file to CD and connected the 360 to the Internet for the update. After that I didn't need to be online.

It works okay, lack of HD support is a big disappointment. Transcoding HD to the Microsoft fromat is probably too much for my PC to do.
posted by geoff. at 11:49 AM on December 26, 2007