Using the Xbox Video App

If you’ve used the Xbox Music app described earlier in this chapter or are familiar with the video playback capabilities of the Xbox 360 video game console, the Xbox Video app will be immediately familiar. As you can see in Figure 9‑39, this app is a typical, Metro‑style full‑screen experience that extends horizontally and looks and works much like the Xbox Music app.

Figure 9‑39: The new Xbox Video app

And like the Xbox Music app, the Xbox Video app pushes Microsoft’s online store experiences over your own local video collection, offering Spotlight, Movies Store, and Television Store groups up front, somewhat obscuring your own media.

Frankly, with the prevalence and usefulness of online video stores like Microsoft’s, and the fact that most people simply don’t have massive collections of TV shows and movies as they do music, this isn’t as bothersome as it may be with the Xbox Music app.

Navigating Your Own Videos

You can find Handbrake at handbrake.fr.

If you do have a PC‑based video collection for some reason–perhaps you’ve ripped DVDs to the PC’s hard drive using Handbrake or similar tools–or you’ve rented or purchased TV shows or movies from Microsoft–which we describe a bit later–this content will be found by navigating left to the My Videos group on the Xbox Video home screen. This group, shown in Figure 9‑40, will show a selection of videos found in your Videos library.

You can click the My Videos title to view your own video collection in a full‑screen view like that in Figure 9‑41. Here, your collection is divided into All, Movies, TV, and Other categories, and you can sort the view in various ways.

Figure 9‑40: The My Videos group is a front end to your own collection.

Figure 9‑41: My Videos displays all of the videos found in your Videos library.

As you dive into your collection, by selecting a category and then an actual video, the Xbox Video app will display a pop‑up for selected video, as shown in Figure 9‑42, that offers a variety of options which includes some combination of the choices Play, Play on Xbox 360, Explore movie/series, Play trailer, and more.