Admitting Defeat...
Okay, that's it... I've gotta say I'm giving up.
I bought an XBox 360 around the same time as Mabster, and although I don't have Media Center, I tried connecting up with the Media Connector.
The thing is, I've got a Maxtor USB Hard Drive connected to my network via a Linksys Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, through my Linksys Router.
I have UPnP on all these devices and I opened up the "guest" account on the NAS device to full access, and made sure that anyone can connect ("everyone" is the permissions on the device).
This is a big no, no for me... even though I have all my firewall stuff set up on my router - it's only NAT and I'm kinda concerned about people getting onto my NAS and leaving something for me when I connect with my computer - or using it for storage themselves.
But I thought this might solve my problem.
What's the problem? I cannot connect Windows Media Connector to a Network Share.
I've read many items on websites about this, mostly from a Microsoft Rep, Alan Ludwig, and I haven't been able to solve my problem.
Now, strangely, Alan's website is the last one I came across - and I searched Google, Windows Live Search, and Google Groups, the XBox forums and many other sites.
He has a solution - which is basically open up all your permissions on the share.
The thing is - he says this about a Windows 2K share. I'd assume it would work for any Microsoft Windows share - and for the most part a whole lot of devices... but even after multiple reboots of my Xbox, my Linksys NAS Device, and my Windows XP laptop - it still wont connect to any of my music.
Now, I have a fairly extensive music collection I believe - about 250 cds when I last actually counted - and I have ripped them all and stored the originals away for safe keeping. I have an mp3 player in the car, and I mostly just burn mix cds and use them (and can't wait for the day I can have an mp3 dvd in the car - it would be endless music!).
If anyone is looking for troubleshooting a network share with Windows Media Connector and the Xbox I recommend reading Alan's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/alan_ludwig/archive/2006/02/02/523185.aspx#comments
However, this still doesn't fix my problem.
I'm going to give it up for now, and maybe try again at a later time - but this really annoys me because I would have thought the Linksys would work as well as any other device. That said, they do make me reformat it into what I believe is a proprietry format... because I sure as hell couldn't use it formatted NTFS when I connected my USB drive to my NAS.
I can share from my laptop - but the reason I have the share is because I don't like storing that much on my laptop.
Love my Xbox, love the games, the interface, the visualisation on the music player is enough to keep me entranced for hours - and I don't want people to take this as a bitch about the product - I just know there's a solution, and I gotta find it! :)
But hey, if anyone comes across this, XBox team - I'd love to get streaming videos through Media Connect (pretty please?). At the moment, waiting for Vista, it's not worth me upgrading my old laptop with MCE (even if I could buy it, but I can't because it's OEM and I am not buying a new PC with Vista on the horizon).
If anyone was basing their Vista purchase solely on media features - they're underestimating the product... and I doubt anyone would purchase Media Center solely to play video to their Xbox - it doesn't take that long to burn a dvd, and to be frank there is so many more features that Mabster has talked about before - like the tv guides, automated recording, and a great user interface.
I'm just arguing it, and I'm being cheap I guess, but I'd still love to see some Video in Media Connect! :)
Comments
http on on 3.27.2006 at 12:00 AM
I never thought of having NAS at home. I always thought it was overkill. But since I started storing my DVDs like CD's to MP3s, I can now appreciate the idea of NAS.
Especially since I like to rebuild my PC often because windows can slowly age and get slower and slower. So yeah having just your OS on your PC makes it a lot easier. Gives you piece of mind that your photos, music and movies etc are in one place.
The xbox is almost sounding like a good idea. I am running media centre straight to my plasma at the moment. But... If I could just use the xbox straight to a NAS that would be easier.
mabster on on 3.27.2006 at 12:00 AM
Xbox directly to NAS is a cool idea, IF they get video streaming working without the need for Media Center.
Mu - I would compare the Xbox 360's noise level to your PC's if I were you. If the 360 is quieter, then yeah, it's probably worth a purchase (I know you're a keen gamer - I'm not just telling you you should fork out $650 for the same Media Center functionality you already have).
I'll be keen to hear if anyone has sorted out the NAS UPnP thing, Crucible. If you let me know the exact model of your NAS device, I'll give you some link-love from my site and post the model there for more Google-juice.
crucible on on 3.27.2006 at 12:00 AM
The NAS is a little slow, but usable... and you know, between all the tv, all the music, and any little apps I want to make sure I've still got on hand when my computer eventually ruins another hard drive and I have to rebuild... it's pretty handy.
I'm using the Linksys NSLU2 http://www-au.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=AU%2FLayout&cid=1130279402337&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper
Unfortunately, even though that device has UPnP built-in to it, the Xbox seems to try and find a "Windows Based PC" to connect to and finds my Windows Media Connect.
So yeah, although I can use the NAS to set up a share - and then connect it to WMC via the UNC path (\\NAS\Share), the Xbox wont connect straight to the NAS.
I guess it would be pretty sweet to be able to connect straight to the NAS, but apparently not feasible. Although if you use another UPnP server such as Twonky, you can apparently share to it.
Now, keep in mind Euan, apparently you can't stream video unless you use Media Center... no matter what.
So, that might be no good for you anyway. But like Mabs said, if you can live with some of the noise out of the Xbox, then setting your media center up somewhere else and either using wireless or wiring up like Mabs has got, would be an okay solution.
Actually one thing I've found funny is they didn't include a gigabit network connector on the xbox.
I mean, maybe the average joe's lan wouldn't be set up for that, but if you connected it to a Media Center PC using a cross-over, or had a gigabit network your video would positively fly... it'd be just up to hard drive reads to restrict it... but alas, only 100 Mb.
Now I just have to be more jealous of you... Mabs was bad enough with his Media Center PC, but a plasma as well? I need to be getting some of this "cash" stuff you guys talk about.
crucible on on 3.27.2006 at 12:00 AM
Also... is it just me, or have you guys noticed that when you go to a department store and they're demo'ing the xbox, it's in a plexiglass box?
I haven't really checked, but you'd hope they ventilated that thing well! :)
Although I guess the power brick is somewhere seperate and open... but still... with the heat problems that were reported! :)
Albert on on 4.14.2006 at 12:00 AM
Crucible: what is the very latest on the NAS share through WMC? I am pretty damn confused after reading all this stuff (including Alan Ludwig's postings). It's possible... it's not possible...you need to specify UNC...you need to give broad permissions... you can't get it to work.. but then you recently seem to have gotten it to work.
I have a buffalo LS, NTFS format. I have XP Pro and Xbox 360. Just like everyone else who has tried this exercise, I can get HDD stuff streamed no problem. WMC recognizes my LS folders (in the sense that I can add them in WMC folders) but the 360 doesn't see them.
Now, one artifact is that I need to drill down to the actual source folder. For example, for HDD shared folders, I need to drill down to the My documents/all users folder and add it to WMC. Only then can it recognize it in the 360.
I've tried adding the LS folders through network places, through My computer, using mapped drive letters, using \\name\folder... etc.
Nothing works. Is there truly no solution? What was your bottom line? (your later comments seem to indicate that you got it working eventually)
crucible on on 4.24.2006 at 12:00 AM
Hey Albert,
Apologies for not getting back promptly mate - I know you've probably been tearing your hair out by now - but I've been busy at work and my blogs been getting all neglected.
I know what you mean about getting confused! Alan Ludwig never got back to me from replying on his blog or anything, so I have no idea what there is available for the NAS! It's really been a frustrating process for me too.
I tried shared drives, mapped drives, the works - and even though Alan Ludwig said it worked, in a few places too, I could not get it to for the life of me.
I ended up going with another solution Twonky Media Server.
For my NAS device I could flash the firmware with a Linux operating system and use Twonky off that.
It's not the easiest solution - but Twonky was cheap and the best news is, you don't need to have you computer on to share from the NAS storage - it just serves it up direct.
You can grab Twonky from here: http://www.twonkyvision.de/
And there is a Buffalo version information here:
http://www.twonkyvision.de/UPnP/nas.html
Good luck buddy, and let me know how you go! :)
albert on on 4.26.2006 at 12:00 AM
thanks very much crucible. I was hoping for a no fiddling with the NAS but it looks like that won't be the case. thanks... ak
clintus on on 5.02.2007 at 12:00 AM
I read this on another site, maybe it could be of some help?
Update:
To stand any chance of getting Media Sharing to work with remote/network drives you have to do this:
1.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2.
In the registry tree (on the left), expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, MediaPlayer, and Preferences.
3.
Right-click HME, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4.
Type EnableRemoteContentSharing, and then press ENTER.
5.
Right-click EnableRemoteContentSharing, and then click Modify.
6.
In the Value data text box, type 1, and then click OK. If you later decide to disable remote content sharing, you can repeat this procedure and change the value to 0.
I can now connect to the Vista machine directly from the Xbox 360 so I am now back to where I was with XP. Media Center also worked once perfectly.... then it "added media" and the next time I went in, nothing worked again. Grrrrr
Liam Fogarty on on 5.13.2007 at 12:00 AM
Hey clintus,
Thanks for the regedit fix, that worked to get a list of media on my NAS share.
I am using a Bufallo Terrastation shared out over wireless using a linksys router.
The media appeared on the Xbox but would have a red cross (or 'stop sign') next to it, I got error 19-04-80004005 when trying to play any song.
Whereas local (c:\) media played no problem.
Problem was that the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Serice didn't have the correct log on information and hence wasn't able to log on correctly to the share. I changed this to use my username/password and all works perfectly.;-)
Noting like sharing music from NAS wirelessly to Xbox.... ;-)
Thanks for the above posts - they helped a LOT..
Abby on on 5.26.2007 at 12:00 AM
Hi Liam,
I'm having the same problems here. It took me ages to get to the regedit fix. Then I finally could see my mp3's on my NAS.
Couldn't play them though, because of error 19-04-80004005 (red cross / stopsign). Google on "19-04-80004005" shows a lot of hairpulling .. but no answers
You can imagine my happyness when I read your:
"Problem was that the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Serice didn't have the correct log on information and hence wasn't able to log on correctly to the share. I changed this to use my username/password and all works perfectly"
But now I'm wondering ..
How ?
How dit you change the log-on information?
Hi there on on 5.29.2007 at 12:00 AM
if you right click My Computer, click manage, go to services and find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Serice. Right click on this and select properties, then log on.
Hope this works, if not - liam@esnconsultants.com
best of luck
Liam
David on on 1.31.2009 at 4:18 PM
Go in the services (services.msc)
START > Execute > services.msc
Then, restart you Windows Media Player Sharing service with a right click on it.
If it doesn't work, look at your Sharing parameters in the Windows Media Player library... you also refresh it...it worked for me
19-04-80004005 (Unplayable Content)
I hope it will work for you.
Sorry for my english and good luck.