Play DVDs on your Xbox 360 console

Solutions

You don’t need any special software or hardware to play DVDs on your Xbox 360 console.

To start: Insert a DVD into the disc drive of the Xbox 360 console and turn on the console. The console automatically starts to play the DVD.

If you have problems playing a disc, please see Troubleshoot DVDs and movies on your console.

Bookmarking: If you stop a DVD and eject it before the feature ends, the Xbox 360 console remembers, or bookmarks, the point where you stopped. When you reinsert the DVD, the DVD continues from that point.

Note You cannot turn off the bookmark feature.

Supported regions, formats and discs

Supported regions

Each Xbox 360 console is manufactured for a specific DVD and game region, following international standards. The Xbox 360 console can only play discs that are sold in the same region as the console.

Supported DVD regions

Find the region code represented as a number between 1 and 8 on the packaging, and verify that it matches your region.

Region	Geographic regions/countries
1	United States, Canada, Bermuda, U.S. territories
2	Europe (except Russia, Ukraine and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Greenland
3	Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau
4	Mexico, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania
5	India, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Africa, Central and South Asia, North Korea
6	People's Republic of China, Hong Kong
7	Reserved
8	Special international venues, such as airplanes and cruise ships

Supported game regions

Region	Geographic regions/countries
GR1 : NTSC	North America and South America (United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Brazil)
GR2 : NTSC-J	Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan)
GR3 : PAL	Europe, South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand

Supported formats

The Xbox 360 console supports most movie formats. Refer to the lists below for details about supported formats.

AVI support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for AVI:

File extensions: .avi, .divx
Containers: AVI
Video profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2 (Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile)
Video bit rate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 × 720 at 30 fps
Audio profiles: Dolby® Digital (2 channel and 5.1 channel), MP3
Audio max bit rate: No restrictions

H.264 support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for H.264:

File extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov, .avi
Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
Video profiles: Baseline, main and high (up to level 4.1)
Video bit rate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps
Audio profiles: AAC, 2-channel, Low Complexity
Audio max bit rate: No restrictions

MPEG-4 Part 2 support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for MPEG-4:

File extensions: .mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .mov, .avi
Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
Video profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2 (Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile)
Video bit rate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 × 720 at 30 fps
Audio profiles: AAC, 2-channel, Low Complexity
Audio max bit rate: No restrictions

WMV (VC-1) support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for WMV:

File extensions: .wmv
Containers: ASF
Video profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main and advanced up to level 3
Video bit rate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps
Audio profiles: WMA7/8, WMA9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA Lossless
Audio max bit rate: No restrictions

Supported disc types

Type	Description
Game discs	Xbox game disc Original Xbox game disc
DVD discs	DVD–video DVD–audio DVD–ROM DVD-R/RW (read only) DVD+R/RW (read only) Dual layer DVD+R9
CD discs	CD-DA (Red Book) CD-ROM (Yellow Book, Modes 1 and 2) CD-ROM XA (Yellow Book, Extended Mode 2, form 1 and 2) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-Extra WMA CD MP3 CD JPEG photo CD

Supported disc drive speeds

Media type	Speed
CD defaults:
Playback: Low CD-speed	3-7.13x
Copy: Medium CD-speed	6.4-14.8x
DVD defaults:
Movie DVDs: Medium DVD-speed	2-5x
Original Xbox game discs: Medium DVD-speed	2-5x
Xbox 360 game discs: High DVD-speed	5-12x

Supported bit rate and resolution

Maximum bit rate and resolution

The Xbox 360 console does not block video from playing based on a maximum bit rate, resolution or frames per second (fps). Although content with a higher bit rate is not blocked, playback quality may be less than optimal. Use higher bit rates at your own risk.

Maximum supported video file size

The maximum file size for an MPEG-4 Part 2 or H.264 file is 4 GB. However, Windows Media Player 11 and the Zune software support streaming WMV files larger than 4 GB.

Use an Xbox controller for playback

To control playback, use the following controller shortcuts:

To...	Press...
Play or pause Note If the DVD is bookmarked, it will start playing automatically where it was stopped the last time you viewed it.	START
Skip back one chapter	LB or A, then select skip back
Skip forward one chapter	RB or A, then select skip forward
Fast forward	RT
Rewind	LT
Page up through a list of items.	RT
Page down through a list of items.	LT
Open the on-screen display for more advanced playback controls.	X, Y

Basic and advanced playback menu options

Basic on-screen menu	Advanced on-screen menu
Stop or pause DVD playback	Enable subtitles
Fast-forward or rewind the DVD	Change camera angle
Move to the previous or next chapter on the DVD	Change the audio channel
Move to the main menu for the DVD	Zoom the picture
Move to the title menu for the DVD	Set an A-B looping repeating point
	Display an on-screen information pane

Display modes

The display mode specifies the size, or aspect ratio, that the content is displayed at.

To access different display modes while watching a DVD, press A on your controller and then select Display.

If you are watching a DVD for the first time, the display mode defaults to Auto. If you change the display mode, the next time that you watch the same DVD, the console uses the new setting.

Display mode	Description
Auto	Automatically determines the optimal viewing experience of a DVD. The aspect ratio (for example, 4 × 3 or 16 × 9) of the original content is retained.
Letterbox	Displays the image full screen while retaining the aspect ratio of the original DVD.
Full-screen	Displays the image full screen with a 4 × 3 aspect ratio. This can be helpful for older content that may have an aspect ratio of 4 × 3 with black bars encoded into the image.
Stretch	Displays the image full screen and stretches content with a 4 × 3 aspect ratio horizontally to fill a 16 × 9 TV screen.
Native	Displays content at its original resolution. Use this to view content that has extremely low resolution or features a low bit rate.

Related Issues

Troubleshoot DVDs and movies on your console
Status code errors when playing videos or movies

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