Purchased movies downloaded from MS Store onto USB won't play on XBox One X

BSG70 · Apr 18, 2019

Hi

I have spent thousands of $$ on movies and TV shows purchased from the Microsoft Store and have downloaded them all onto an external Seagate USB hard drive from my PC.

My issue is that only my PC will recognise the movies from the USB and play them. My Xbox One X does not recognise the contents of the USB and won't play the movies even though the MS accounts are the same and both devices have the MS Films & TV app. The
Films & TV app on both devices shows all my purchases (across both devices) and will stream them, but I want to play the downloaded movies from my USB on the XBox One X to avoid the continual HD/SD drop-outs and picture jumping while streaming.

Since it appears you cannot download movies straight from the XBox One X to a USB, you can only do it from a PC. If the movies will only play from my USB onto the PC I downloaded them from, what happens when I get a new PC?? Is there some reason why they
won't play on the XBox from the USB??

Any help appreciated.

Brett.

:)

BSG70

Thanks for the reply Diego. Much appreciated.

XBF Diego M

Hi BSG70,

Unfortunately I don't think the Movies and TV app is programmed in the same way that it is on the PC in that you can only stream your purchased content from the Microsoft Store onto the Xbox. The movies and tv app on the Xbox One doesn't function like a
media player but rather like a streaming service. A USB flash drive is only really used on the Xbox One to transfer offline system updates in the event of a system error during start up and it needs to be formatted to NTFS.

The Xbox is becoming more like a PC everyday and even runs a simplified version of Windows 10 so I wouldn't be surprised that the Movies and TV app get's updated to allow this in the near future. There is a built-in app called File Explorer on the Xbox One
that lets you view your files from a USB drive but I haven't played around with it much so I don't know if potentially you can still play those files using another media player like

VLC for example.

I hope that explains why you can't view those videos from a flash drive on the Xbox One but I know the console can be capable of it, it's just something that would take some time to implement. I recommend suggesting this idea over at
Xbox Ideas so it can be seen by the right people.

BSG70

Thanks Joel, but it doesn’t work here. I should have mentioned that I am in Australia and Movies Anywhere is for the US only.

Brett.

airmattdog

Just to add on, when downloading a title to your PC the license you receive with that download is specific to that device you used to download it onto. As Diego noted above, it's a good idea to get your feedback on the Xbox ideas site.

JoelHansen

Hello,

Please check this information as it might be helpful :

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/apps/watch-movies-anywhere-purchases-in-movies-and-tv

Purchased movies downloaded from MS Store onto USB won't play on XBox One X