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[THDVL]

QUOTE(M@verick @ May 9 2007, 04:52 PM)

Sounds like even if we didn't get out of the box Xvid/Divx playback with the new update, its now easier to convert them to a playable format than it was before.

Is this correct?

What would be the simple layman steps to convert an Xvid to a format playable with the spring update?

QUOTE(THDVL @ May 9 2007, 03:25 PM)

AVI to (Xbox 360 compatible) WMV Conversion Guide

[gurry]

how do I rename in xp sp2?
the old rename and type /mp4 etc isnt working

[pointguard1122]

What is the point of adding these great codecs if they ONLY support 2 channel audio?  Who wants to watch 1080p HD movies with a great video codec in stereo?  What is the point of this?  I have been waiting for a great easy way to stream movies to the 360 from my MCE computer since day 1.  After a year and a half, this is the best Microsoft can do?  I am insulted by this update.  I have 3 360s that I use for all of my TV watching, but it frustrats me that I still cannot stream my movie collection to them.

[fahrenheit]

QUOTE

3.    What exactly does the Xbox 360 support for WMV (VC-1)?

Xbox 360 supports the following for WMV:

·         File Extensions: .wmv

·         Container: asf

·         Video Profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main, and advanced up to Level 3

·         Video Bitrate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30fps. See question number 6 for more information.

QUOTE

6.   What is the "real" max bit rate, resolution, and frames per second that you support for all the different formats?

Xbox 360 does not specifically block video from playing based on a maximum bit rate, resolution, or frames per second. The maximums listed above for each codec are what we have tested for various video playback sources. Higher rated content will not be blocked, but playback may be less then optimal. Use higher bitrates at your own risk.

Now this I find very interesting. Why are they recommending a bitrate that is bellow half of what VC-1 playback via the HD DVD drive is supposedly capable of? They have added the disclaimer that higher bitrates won't be stopped from playing, but they may be less than optimum?

HD DVDs can have VC-1 encodes at up to 32Mbps and we expect that the software playback of those encodes on the 360 to be absolutely flawless. This possess the question now, is the 360 capable of playing back the video on HD DVD discs at its peak bandwidth? I would like to do some testing with some high bandwidth VC-1 encodes, because if the 360 is infact downgrading HD DVD playback to ensure smooth playback,  then we've all had the wool pulled over our eyes.

[cavemonkey50]

I suspect they mention the 15MB/s limit due to streaming support.

[legoalert33]

I got the update today and guess what, after 1 hours of gears i come back 2 hours later to have it give me three red lights of death.
gj ms

[Dauddy]

QUOTE(THDVL @ May 9 2007, 03:45 PM)

So, lets say I have an H264 file that has a ts extension. If I simply rename the file changing the extension to something the 360 will accept (.mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov), will my file play? Doubt it will be that simple, but figured I'd ask anyway.

 

I wish. The computer won't even read the video files if that is done so even less your Xbox 360. I don't know about this update and videos but before the update I remember I had converted all my videos to .wmv (vlc program) and sometimes some videos gave me no sound & others just cut me off giving me an error. The video streaming is the Xbox 360 flaw. Thats my reason for buying a regular xbox (for xbmc).

[Chigawaa]

Well this is a start but not where we really want to be.  I was really wanting them to remove the Fat32 format restriction on USB 2.0 drives.  This would allow me to avoid streaming my movies from the PC and just grab my 500 GB Maxtor drive and plug it into the 360.  However becasue of the file size restrictions on Fat32 reformating my drive is not an option.  Maybe this along with the extremely annoying 2.0 audio will be corrected in the future.

[Darkgamer]

I have a question for those using XBMC on the original xbox. Can you play x264 format ? Do they run well ? Is the xbox capable of giving a hd image (720p, 1080i or 1080p) ?

[bchmo]

QUOTE(Darkgamer @ May 9 2007, 03:56 PM)

I have a question for those using XBMC on the original xbox. Can you play x264 format ? Do they run well ? Is the xbox capable of giving a hd image (720p, 1080i or 1080p) ?

Yes XBMC can play the x264 format however it has to have all the fancy options turned off and the resolution has to be pretty low 480P >. I wish it could play real HD (720p, 1080i, and 1080p) but the fact is that the processor isn't powerful enough in the xbox 1. I have a whole bunch of HD anime in mkv format I've been waiting to play on the 360 and I thought this upate would answer my wishes but so far all my attempts to play x264 have failed except for one or two files. The files that I remuxed to mp4 with reconverted 2 channel aac audio didn't work either. The vids that did work were part of a series of releases of a particular show from the same encoding group, so I'd assume that they used the same encoding and muxing techniques. It's weird that only a few of the episodes worked and the rest didn't. Vids that I've encoded myself haven't worked either and I suspect that it has something to do with what encoding options are used with the x264 codec. However, all the files I've converted to wmv-hd with the VC-1 codec have worked flawlessly, but that should be a given since it IS a Microsoft format. The fact is though, that it's a pain in the ass having to reconvert everything and it saves a lot of time to just remux files to a new container.

[Altima NEO]

XBMC has trouble playing x/h264. Even with the recently updated decoder for it. It will start off fine, but then start to crap out and lose sync with the audio.

Ive got Vista now with Media Center and Ive installed codecs+registry hacks so I can play MKV, OGM and all that other good stuff, but the 360 will see the videos + thumbnails but give an error when I try to play it.

cest la vie

[C_Ripper]

QUOTE(Altima NEO @ May 10 2007, 12:57 AM)

XBMC has trouble playing x/h264. Even with the recently updated decoder for it. It will start off fine, but then start to crap out and lose sync with the audio.

Ive got Vista now with Media Center and Ive installed codecs+registry hacks so I can play MKV, OGM and all that other good stuff, but the 360 will see the videos + thumbnails but give an error when I try to play it.

cest la vie

I convert all my stuff to x/h264 and play it back in XBMC. I've been doing so for about 3 months now (probably 60 vids) and none of them have had any trouble playing. I love x264 and will continue to stream it to my Xboxes running XBMC.

[cavemonkey50]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ May 9 2007, 07:04 PM)

Streaming from what? A USB 2.0 device? That wouldn't be any different than the HD DVD drive surely?

No, streaming over a networked PC. Most people only have 802.11G which caps out around 12MBps. Yeah, I know they claim 54MBps, but true transfer speed is more like 12MBps.

[ze_olc]

i have tried the h.264 codec, i used a .mp4 file, encoded from dvd with handbrake with default settings + 1500 avg bitrate, anamorphic par. it doesnt play over network (wireless ot wired) via wmp11. it plays very well on external device such as usb key or usb hdd. playback is great and some of the options remind me of xbmc (fast forward/'chapter' skip, view options).

i advice everyone to try handbrake since it seems the best tool to rip a dvd to h.264. quality is great, better than xvid. we should tweak and create our own x360 preset for handbrake... so far i find that 1500 avg bitrate does a good job. target of 1gb is also pretty good.

[OhioSavage]

I installed the Spring Update a couple hours ago and about a half hour ago tried to stream a movie through Orb (as I've been doing for well over a month now). For some reason my 360 no longer sees any videos through Orb.

I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this problem, or is there a different way that I need to reestablish the Orb connection?

(btw: pc definately able to support the streaming, been streaming even HD movies through pc over Wireless N to the 360's Wireless G connection for several months without issue)