Newbie here... How to play .AVI files via USB?

[DeltaSVO]

Hi everyone!

Glad to join the Roku club. Just received a Roku XDS box for Christmas and have been in love ever since.

While I've gotten everything relatively set-up (Netflix, Hulu, Pandora)... I'm trying to fiddle with the USB port. Digging up some forum info, it seems the USB Media Channel won't be available until later this month. However, I have a huge collection of movies that are all in .AVI format - and my understanding is that even once available, USN Media Channel won't support that file type.

I'm trying to scope out the world of private channels, as it seems that they are my only solution to this. But so far, I've had no luck regarding gaining insight into playing/streaming/converting .AVI files to work on the Roku. I'd really like to get the movies to play on the big screen, so have turned to you guys for help.

Does anyone know any workarounds/methods for getting .AVI files to play on the Roku? Any first hand experience?

Any help or input would be greatly appreciated by my entire family.

Thanks,
DeltaSVO

[stratcat96]

re-encoding them to either mp4 or WMV9 is the only thing you can do my friend... Perhaps when Roku releases their official channels there will be support for other codecs, but for now thats it

[jemjaguar]

Download Handbrake and encode using the AppleTV preset. It will convert your avi to play on the usb media browser private channel. I'm really hoping the the official usb channel will support other codecs. I currently use a refurbished WD media player in tandem with my Roku box and it plays practically any media file without the need for converting. I had considered just switching to a WD Live box, but they don't have nearly the amount of channels roku has, on the flip side roku can only play files in mp4 format. It'd be nice if I could own one system that does both. Keeping my fingers crossed that the official usb channel will do just that.