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
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:
H.264 support
The Xbox 360 console supports the following for H.264:
MPEG-4 Part 2 support
The Xbox 360 console supports the following for MPEG-4:
WMV (VC-1) support
The Xbox 360 console supports the following for WMV:
Supported disc types
Type |
Description |
Game discs |
Xbox game disc
|
DVD discs |
DVD–video
|
CD discs |
CD-DA (Red Book)
|
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.
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
|
Skip forward one chapter |
RB
|
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 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 |
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. |
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