How To: Stream Any Video to Your Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii
Getting TVersity Installed and Working
Before you can stream your first video, you need to get TVersity working properly. All the software you need is free, and it's fairly easy to use. Before we begin, you should download the software you need: Tversity, ffdshow tryout, and (maybe) the Codec Sniper. Download them, and then come back.
1. Clean out your old codecs
The number one problem for users of TVersity is incompatible or conflicting codecs installed. Usually, these are a result of people installing software that includes “every codec you need”, such as the K-Lite codec pack. While you can try Tversity, and it may work, you'll save yourself a lot of hassle if you just clean up your codecs before you start.
First, go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel, and uninstall any codec packs you find in there, as well as utilities like AC3Filter, Xvid, and Divx. Additionally, some apps, such as Nero, also include codecs. You'll need to uninstall them as well (for the time being) you can safely reinstall them when everything's working. When you've uninstalled everything, reboot the PC and then try to view a movie using the missing codecs, if Windows Media Player complains that the codec is missing, you're on the right track and can continue to the next step.
If your video plays, you'll need to run the Codec Sniper, and manually delete the offending codecs from your system. To remove a codec, simply click on it, and select delete. Only delete codecs affiliated with your codec packs and other codecs you manually installed. Deleting the wrong things here can really break your system so be careful. You'll need to reboot for any changes made here to take effect as well. Once your codecs are clean, and your videos won't play anymore, you can move to the next step.
If you can't get rid of all the codecs using Codec Sniper, you may need to back up your important data and reinstall Windows. While we had good luck cleaning out the codec cruft on several machines, we had one test rig that just wouldn't work with TVersity at all.
2. Install ffdshow
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When using ffdshow, stick with the Stereo default—other audio options don’t seem to work with TVersity. |
There are a couple of different codec options you can use. If you primarily want to stream MPEG4-based media, Divx, Xvid, and the like, ffdshow is the best option. (If you want to stream more advanced H.264-based codecs, you'll need to use a more comprehensive codec pack though. For that, we recommend the CCCP. If you install CCCP, you don't need ffdshow and vice versa.)
The secret weapon that will let TVersity transcode all your video is ffdshow. Ffdshow is a kind of universal codec, it works with most of the MPEG4-based codecs, and also lets you decode Dolby Digital and DTS audio streams. Install the software, selecting the default options for everything. Make sure you choose the default audio option for ffdshow (Stereo - 2 speakers), regardless of your actual speaker config. TVersity doesn't seem to work well with the other options.
After you've installed ffdshow, you should be able to once again view your MPEG4 (Divx and Xvid, mostly) videos in Windows Media Player.