Windows 7 - Windows 7 Media Center / VMWare Server 2.0 / Xbox 360

I am not sure where to post this. I have valid licenses for everything I am running. I currently have a server (Windows Server 2008), 2 client PCs (Windows 7 Professional), and a machine running Media Center (Windows 7 Professional) at the house. So, I am trying to reduce the number of hardware that I need to keep upgrading. I stream movies (.mpg and .m2ts), music, and pictures from my Media Center PC to two XBox 360s. I don't watch or record TV on the Media Center PC.


So, I loaded up Windows 7 Professional into a VM and configured Media Center. I then connect my XBox 360s to that VM. I can stream DVD movies (.mpg), music, and the pictures from the VM just fine. I even get the DD audio in the movies to play. What I cannot get to work is .m2ts files. They will not stream from the VM (nothing gets displayed on the screen). They work just fine if I play them from the Media Center PC though. Does anyone know why I cannot play these files from the VM?


P.S. My VM is using 2GB of System Memory and is using 1 CPU core.



Thanks,

Frank

It should be working fine, as Windows 7 has native support for that format. I wonder if it has to do with how the VM is streaming it. Maybe it doesn't have enough ram/processing power. Try increasing those and check to see if it works.

You could also create a complete system backup/image of your media center pc and then install it onto your VM. If it doesn't work that way then you know it's something to do with the VM software itself.

I went to the VMWare console to see how much of the assigned resources it was using and it and it was basically nothing.

I know it is, I just don't know what.

Where does the video decoding happen? On the Media Center PC or the XBox 360 Extender? Is it different for a .m2ts file as opposed to a .mpg file?

Yes! I got it working. I only had 1-CPU Core assigned to my VM. Once I changed it to 2 it works just fine. I am now streaming movies, music, and pictures from a VM.