Hello all, My question today mainly concerns how video content is streamed to an extender device from a Vista Media Center PC. I am considering purchasing a network media player later in the year to save hassle of running video cables all around my apartment.However, many of the specifications of the network players list only certain supported formats of video files and containers. My video library covers a wide variety of specialized codecs and containers, and I am concerned that such a device may not be able to decode all of them. Basically, the question comes down to where the file is decoded. My Vista Ultimate x64 PC already has all of the needed codecs and filters in place, and can play the files easily in WMC. If it is used asthe streaming source, is the file decoded and then broadcasted over the network to the network player, or is the file sent to the player and decoded by the device? If the case is the former, am I correct in thinking thatanyfilter can be easily handled so long as the computer can produce playback? In the case of the latter, is there any other way to go about this so that I can play nearly all files without re-encoding them to a different format? Thanks for any help you can give.

Files are streamed directly (as-is.) If the Extender in question doesn't support the particular format, it'll throw an error when you try to play it.And, as you've learned, every Extender manufacturer does video support a little differently (FWIW, even the Xbox 360 has two different codec lists - one for the media blade, and another for the Extender interface. )If the file(s) that you have aren't supported, give Transcode360 a look.