Xbox One Media Player Preview

Latest update to the Xbox One that is rolling out for Preview users includes a new Media Player that will a play a wide range of video formats. Currently it only plays content stored on a USB drive but in the future it will play from DLNA/UPnP servers.

I tested out the player by connecting my USB 3 drive and when I tried to access a folder containing a movie I got the message “No access to this location”, there was no other information or help available and nothing would play from the folder. After a bit of digging around I found that the error was caused by NTFS folder permissions on the USB drive.

When I plugged the drive into a PC, right clicked on the folder and looked the security properties I could see only a few users accounts had access to the data. So I clicked on the Add button, added the “everyone” group and gave it full control over the folder (you probably don’t need full control you could just give the group read access). Once the “everyone” group has read access to the folder it can read by the Xbox One and it will play the content. I suspect there is a more secure way than using the everyone group but as it is just a ripped DVD I copied off my server I don’t really have any security worries. Once the access was changed the Xbox One would play a ripped DVD or Bluray from an external USB drive using the new Media Player Preview app.

Video playback seems very good and the 5.1 audio seem to pass through to my receiver ok. In this video I walk though how to set it up.

3 thoughts on “How to fix a “No access to this location” message on the new Xbox One Media Player”
  1. Hi Ian – thanks for that. It’s good to see that it handles 5.1 correctly. Does it also auto switch frame rate properly (e.g. 50Hz video files)? Also, does this so give access to audio stands within the file at this point?
    Cheers.

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