Playing BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 On Demand content on your xbox 360
Jun/082
If like me you miss a lot of TV and make extensive use of the ‘watch again’ services from BBC and Channel 4 you’ll know that watching those shows on your PC monitor / PC desk isn’t ideal. Yeh sure you can attach your TV to your PC and do it that way but that’s not practical for all of us.
There is an alternatve that makes use of the Xbox 360’s ability to play videos over your home network and the media sharing function of Media Player 11. It does require you to download the shows however, not stream them direct.
Within Media Player 11, go to tools > options > library and click on monitor folders. You need to ensure that the download locations for the ‘on demand’ services are included in Media Player’s list to monitor as shown here.
At this point it may be worth mentioning that i have changed the default locations on both these services to somewhere more convenient.
To change the location in iPlayer you can use the standard GUI by right clicking the system tray icon and choosing settings shown here.
Changing the download location on 4OD is a little trickier.
If you are not familiar with REGEDIT or are unsure in any way then do not proceed with this 4od step.
You need to open the Windows Registry Editor by clicking start > run and typing REGEDIT. You should now navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Kontiki\4od1 by using the twisties on the left, and look for a value on the right hand side called downloadDir shown here change this value to your desired download location. Now restart the 4OD service by clicking start > control panel > administrative tools > services and find the service named KService then right click and restart.
Once you have told Media Player where all your content is you need to tell it that its ok for your Xbox 360 to use it. Do this inside Media Player by clicking tools > options > library tab > configure sharing button as shown here. You should see your Xbox 360 in there, simply highlight your Xbox click allow and choose what media types you wish to make available, shown here.
You should now be in a position to go to your Xbox 360 and choose the media blade and open video, select video source as your PC and browse to your content.
Note – you must be signed into the relevant services on your PC to make this work, because Media Player 11 verifies the DRM rights before it will let the Xbox 360 play it.
