HomeCompared to Xbox One, one of the most important feature of Xbox One S is its perfect support for 4K video playback from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and it also has a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray built-in. What hasn't changed is the limited playback compatiblity for local media files, you may find it difficult to play even one of the most common MP4 files stored on USB drive on Xbox One S.
Xbox One S supported file formats
Like the previous Xbox One, Xbox One S offers a built-in Media Player app for you to play local video by plugging in a USB drive. The Media Player app isn't installed by default, you'll need to install it yourself from the Xbox Store. To launch the Xbox Store, head to My Games & Apps > Apps > Find more in the Xbox Store. Search for "media player" and install the Media Player app.
The play local video on Xbox One S, make sure that the video files are included in Xbox One S Media Player app supported file formats listed below:
Video formats: 3GP video, 3GP2, AVI DivX, DV AVI, AVI uncompressed, asf, AVI Xvid, H.264 AVCHD, M-JPEG, .mkv, .mov, MPEG-PS, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 HD, MPEG-2 TS, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 SP, WMV, WMV HD
Audio formats: 3GP audio, AAC, ADTS, MP3, WAV, WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA Pro, WMA Voice
From above listes, we can see that Xbox One S has native support for some MP4 file types with specific codec.
Why Xbox One S Won't play some MP4 files?
The multimedia container MP4 file format can hold various different video and audio codecs, if the MP4 doesn't use the above listed video or audio codec, you will fail to open MP4 in Xbox One S or receive only video but no audio when playing the MP4 video with Xbox One S Media Player app. To fix this codec incompatible issue, you can download this powerful yet simple to use MP4 Video Converter - Pavtube Video Converter to convert unsupported MP4 files to any of Xbox One S playable file formats such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 SP, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 HD, etc listed above.
To get the output playback quality, you can flexibly adjust output profile parameters such as video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate and audio codec, bit rate, sample rate and channels to make them fit with Xbox One S.
Besides MP4, the program can also faciliate you to convert other unsupported file formats such as AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, FLV, H.265, etc into Xbox One S Media Player app compatible file formats.
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For Mac users, please turn to download Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to convert MP4 to Xbox One S on Mac OS X El Capitan or macOS Sierra.
How to Convert MP4 to Xbox One S Playing from USB Drive?
Step 1: Load mp4 files into the program.
After the successful installation, click "File" > "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from Folder" to load unsupported mp4 files into the program.
Step 2: Set output file format.
Click "Format" bar, from its drop-down options, select one of Xbox One S supported file formats such as "H.264 HD Video(*mp4)" frop "HD Video" main category.
Tips: You can get better output quality by flexibly tweaking the output video codec, resolution, frame rate, bit rate, audio codec, bit rate, sample rate or channels.
Step 3: Start MP4 to Xbox One S conversion.
Tap the "Convert" button in the right-bottom to begin the conversion from MP4 file to Xbox One S media player app readable formats conversion process.
After the conversion is completed, you can stream video to Xbox One S via USB drive, DLNA Server or Plex Media Server.
USB requirements of Xbox One S
A proper file format won't ensure your a successful video playback on Xbox One S from USB, Xbox One S also has its own strict limitations on USB drive that plug to it. The Xbox One S supports USB 1, USB 2, and USB 3 drives. The drive must be formatted in FAT16, FAT32, exFAT or NTFS. If you have a Windows PC, your USB drive will work on your Xbox One as long as your Windows PC can read it. If you have a Mac, be sure to format the drive as exFAT and not with a Mac-only file system like HFS+.
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