Xbox – How to play the video files on the Xbox One

xbox-one

It appears that the Xbox One has no out-of-the-box support to play one's own video files, for example by sticking them on a USB. This is in stark contrast the Xbox 360, which has an inbuilt media player app that plays a limited range of video formats.

What is the most convenient way to play video files on the Xbox one?

For example,

  • Obtaining a PC or tablet running Windows 8 and use the "Stream to Xbox" function touted in reviews?
  • Would you upload your files to a SkyDrive account and use the SkyDrive app on your Xbox?
  • Would you use some other app?

Or is there some other clever backdoor method?

Best Answer

From what I've gathered after doing a bit of research, the Xbox One supports DLNA but only as a receiver. It won't actively search and find source files, but will happily play anything that is pushed to it via the DLNA protocol.

However, as I don't have an Xbox One I can't physically verify this but a quick Google search for Xbox One DLNA should net you a few solutions that night work for you.

Update to describe example test usage:

  1. Placed own media files on a device capable of decoding and rendering them into video (or still image or audio only). In DLNA speak this was the server. For testing I used an MP4 file on an Android tablet.
  2. Used a product supporting DLNA (for example a DLNA-certified controller device, a mobile device with DLNA software installed or even your PC) as the DLNA controller. This might be the same device as the server. In my test case it was. I used the same Android tablet to both serve and control the media content (mainly to ameliorate local network performance issues). I had to install a free app called Skifta to do the DLNA controlling magic.
  3. In DLNA speak, the Xbox One was the renderer. The controller device's DLNA software identified the Xbox OS as a potential renderer in a list of output devices. My Android tablet was also listed as a possible output device.
  4. Using the DLNA software on the controller device, selected the server as the media source and a list or tree of possible media files appeared. In testing I was able to select and play an MP4 video, scroll through a folder of JPEG images like a manual slide show and also able to play an MP3 audio file.
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