Today I set up my Xbox 360 as a media extender to Media Center running on a Windows 7 PC.

Whenever I attempt to play any live or recorded TV through the media extender on the Xbox, I receive the following error:

VIDEO ERROR - Files needed to display video are not installed or not working correctly. Please restart Media Center and/or restart the computer.

I have read through countless posts here and elsewhere about this error and it seems to be affecting/have affected a very significant number of people. I have tried various suggested fixes such as uninstalling video drivers, TV tuner drivers, modifying the registry, running command line fixes, searching for non-existent hotfixes and KB articles, swapping routers and switches, making sure no CODEC packs are installed, etc., and nothing works.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There are lots of reasons for this message and it's different if you are on the home computer or an extender. First when using an extender, your computer video card driver, etc are not involved at all.

One reason you can get this message is if a source (either computer or NAS) is not available or the shares are wrong.

The first thing I would check is that your extender is set-up with proper authorization. When you set -up the extender did MC make all the changes to your computer that are necessary in sharing and firewalls?

Are you running any third party anti-virus protection, spyware protection, etc? The easiest solution is to take out anything from a third party and run MS Security Essentials which will operate without conflict with extenders.

What kind of tuners are your running, and can you play any files on the extender and just not live tv and recorded tv?

In the case of an extender you shouldn't have trouble with codecs on the main PC since those wouldn't be used by the extender anyway.

John

Thanks very much for the detailed reply.

Regarding proper authorization, Media Center Extenders are allowed access to both public and private networks, as are the TV tuner apps (but those don't seem relevant to the issue). Streaming options are allowed to stream all media to the Xbox.

I am not running any third party security at all. Never have on my Win7 machine; just MSE.

The TV Tuner is an HDHomeRun dual tuner (newest version).

I can play video files through the media extender without any problems. The only thing that won't work is Live and recorded TV.

In this process, however, a new error occurred when I tried to play recorded TV:

APPLICATION FAILURE A critical Windows Media Center process has failed. Please restart the computer and try again. If the problem persists, contact your hardware manufacturer for assistance.

That has never happened before.

I know you said you have the latest HD HomeRun drivers, but if you didn't know, they released a new driver on 8/1/2011. Could there be any network issues? Bandwidth, bad cable, ??

The extenders, as far as I recall, run on a MS secure RD. Can you play live TV if you go to the guide and click on a program rather than the Live TV icon? I just wonder if there might be some corruption to that file. And I would guess you have no problem playing live tv on the MC box itself.

Thanks again for your information.

I am not having any other network related problems. I don't think it is bandwidth; everything is Cat5e on gigabit switches.

Yes, in fact, I only got the HDHomeRun yesterday and since it doesn't come with any software, I downloaded the 1 August drivers directly from the website. That is the only version I have.

I cannot play live TV either from the guide, the icon or the button on my Xbox remote.

Yes, I have no problem playing live TV on the Media Center computer.

I don't have a Xbox (just an assortment of 7 from Linksys and HP) so I don't know the ins and outs with that device. You might also post the problem on the SD Forum for Windows/Media Center. The only other issue I can think of is if there is a problem with the guide---but then I don't see why it'll play on the MC Box and not the extender.

Perhaps others have solved this issue.

John

Thanks, I do appreciate all your efforts. I'll post over there now.

Has anyone found a fix for this? I just installed SP1 a few days ago, and now my extenders don’t work. I have 1 Linksys 2200 and 1 Xbox 360. They will play music, pictures, videos, but no Recorded TV or Live TV (WTV format?)

I lost the System Restore point in making changes to try to fix this. I’m down to two options: restore from a backup or reload. I’ve spent an unbelievable amount of time pouring through blogs, forums, wikis, etc…but no one seems to have resolved this yet.

My setup: Ceton, Hauppauge 2250, 32-bit Windows 7, nVidia GeForce 9400, Intel processor.

WAF not good.

I am having the same issue with no solution yet.  I installed a new Unraid media server. Moved some media files to the server, rebuilt the wmp 12 library and all was good on the HTPC.  However the Xbox extender now shows the "video error" message.  Given that this is my MIL's tv and MILAF is >>>> than WAF it is a big problem.  I solved this short term by removing the recorded tv shared library on the server (I still have the main library on my HTPC, music from the unraid server works on the Xbox) ) and then installing Win 7 Media Center on another workstation.  Connected with the Xbox and now she has her TV back (via shared recorded TV library on the HTPC).  Needless to say this is a very inelegant solution and defeats my "conserve power" initiative.  I'll be testing again soon to try and get it up and running connected to my main HTPC.  BTW, I'm also using the 2 HD homeruns (4 total tuners).  I believe I'm going to erase the WMP library and then rebuild and see if that does anything (read somewhere that MKV's cause the "video error" behavior so I removed them).  Reading this post also seems to point to a permissions problem which I'll explore.  I believe I'm NOT using SP1 (auto updates are disabled and haven't done an update since February 2011).  Again this was working fine just last week so somehow I screwed it up by adding the server and tweaking the WMP libraries.

Are your xboxes connected via HDMI? If so, try watching TV using analog audio connections. Worked for my remote PC but it's worth a shot on the xbox. Thanks.

I have same issue with Linksys 2200 Extender.  "Files needed to display video are not installed"............... Win Vista 32 bit.  No XBOX.  Sudden occurance after not having a problem.  Perhaps a note displayed in effect "Missing FLASH.OCX which is no longer included in this version of windows is a hint of what this problem is.  Then why was this working?  I dont have another vista OS running on another PC so I can't do a search to see if this file exists there.  Was this deleted during a MS update?

Thanks for any help!

Check your event logs - extenders are basically RDP sessions, so any errors would be logged there

I've seen this error at times when the path to the server with the movies might be wrong (off line, permissions error). If you've moved any files to a new server that might be a problem. Vista had an issue with an extender trying to sign onto a PW required server. This is solve din Win7 where you can enter a path and pw for a server.

Also the embedded program in the extender may sometimes become corrupt (it happened to me this morning on a HP 280n). In that case you will have to exit media center on the extender and then power cycle the extender and then start the program again. The video error "files" are not on the computer but part of the extender program. I've also had Linksys extenders disappear from media devices on reboot at times and this also takes a power cycle to return.

I have just set up the xbox and have no problem playing tv or recorded materials, how ever all the videos show up in the media browser window on the xbox but will not play "file need to play not installed"  I went to the xbox site looking for the add-in but don't know what it is looking for.

Please advise