trouble converting/xb360 essential settings needed

[Captain Slow]

as you may have guessed, I'm new here.

I'm trying to convert my collection of MKV's to play on an xb360 here and i'm using the x264 codec (mp4) as the codec and the program that i'm using is xvid4PSP

I've read most of the guides on the internet, but they're pretty useless because either they're loaded with irrelevant information, loaded with too much information and has information built around a tool that i'm not using.

So what i'm looking for is a real meat-and-potatoes, essential list of settings I need to have enabled or selected in the x264 portion of Xvid4PSP. The rest I can figure out in my own time, but I need to know the essentials so I can start enjoying them on the 360.

[Baldrick]

You might not need to convert at all, but just "remux" with rebox.net, gotsent, etc. See https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/all-in-one-mkv-to-mp4-avchd-ts

[Captain Slow]

You might not need to convert at all, but just "remux" with rebox.net, gotsent, etc. See https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/all-in-one-mkv-to-mp4-avchd-ts

none of that helps.

[Baldrick]

So you have tried it already?

[Captain Slow]

yeah i have. what i'm asking is what settings in the x264 codec ITSELF (you know, the settings dialog that appears when you want to configure how it encodes) are needed to ensure compatibility... IE should I have B-weighted frames enabled, what level it needs to be, etc. the meat and potatoes settings.

[mh2360]

There are only a few x264 settings which might cause problems with the Xbox 360.

"Reference frames" should not exceed 3.
"Level" should not be higher than 4.1.
"B-Pyramid" should be off (I have read about problems with this, but not experienced any myself. It wouldn't hurt to turn it off just in case).

I have had problems with x264's deblocking, which sometimes seems to cause corrupted playback on the 360. Since I always use moderate bitrates, I always turn it off.

[Captain Slow]

There are only a few x264 settings which might cause problems with the Xbox 360.

"Reference frames" should not exceed 3.
"Level" should not be higher than 4.1.
"B-Pyramid" should be off (I have read about problems with this, but not experienced any myself. It wouldn't hurt to turn it off just in case).

I have had problems with x264's deblocking, which sometimes seems to cause corrupted playback on the 360. Since I always use moderate bitrates, I always turn it off.

That's what i was looking for. thank you.

Is there any other settings I should watch out for?

[mh2360]

I have had no trouble with any other settings, the only thing to avoid is the temptation to use the "Ultra " or "Insane" presets as they wont make much difference to the output and it will slow down your encoding quite a bit.

As Baldrick was saying, if the MKV files you are converting have H.264 video, then there's a good chance you could convert them to Xbox 360 friendly MP4 files without recoding the video. Programs like rebox.net, gotsent and XenonMKV use the original video and only convert the audio, creating a MP4 file the Xbox 360 can play. This is MUCH quicker than recoding HD video files.

[Captain Slow]

I have had no trouble with any other settings, the only thing to avoid is the temptation to use the "Ultra " or "Insane" presets as they wont make much difference to the output and it will slow down your encoding quite a bit.

As Baldrick was saying, if the MKV files you are converting have H.264 video, then there's a good chance you could convert them to Xbox 360 friendly MP4 files without recoding the video. Programs like rebox.net, gotsent and XenonMKV use the original video and only convert the audio, creating a MP4 file the Xbox 360 can play. This is MUCH quicker than recoding HD video files.

I had a look at xenon and rebox, and tried gotsent. none met my needs because they lacked the ability to change the resolution