XNA Video Playback on XBOX “Invalid operation exception”

Question

I am able to play a video in windows in my project, but the same code fails on the XBOX at the _player.Play(_logo) line. The error message is:

"An unhandled exception of type 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in Microsoft.Xna.Framework.dll"

Relevant code:

    public LogoScreen()
    {
        TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.Zero;
        TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.Zero;

        _content = new ContentManager(Game3.Instance.Services, "Content");

        _player = new VideoPlayer();
        _player.IsLooped = false;

        _sb = new SpriteBatch(Game3.GDM.GraphicsDevice);
    }

    public override void LoadContent()
    {
        _logo = _content.Load<Video>("Video/intro_logo");
    }

    private bool _started = false;
    public override void Update(bool otherScreenHasFocus, 
        bool coveredByOtherScreen, bool coveredByPopup)
    {
        if(_started == false)
        {
            _player.Play(_logo);
            _started = true;
        }

        if (_player.State == MediaState.Stopped)
        {
            Exit();
        }
    }

Here is the random test video that I'm using: http://olhovsky.com/xna/intro_logo.wmv

Any ideas why this might be failing?

Answer 1

The XBOX is very picky about which WMVs it will play. The fix is to encode a WMV with Windows Movie Maker -- encoding in After Effects creates WMVs that the XBOX 360 will not play.

Edit: I believe the problem more specifically, is that the bitrate must be 12000kbps or less, for XBOX 360 playback.