.mkv converted for xbox?

[pianoman0723]

I have a problem. I want to get HD videos on my 360, but I am stuck on the formats. Obviously, I have a Mac, so I inherently have problems getting anything on my Xbox. Fortunately, I found a nice little program called Connect360 (www.nullriver.com/products/connect360) which can stream just about anything the Xbox supports from my Mac to the 360.

The problem is that I really want to take advantage of my totally sick 1080p Bravia by streaming HD stuff to it; unfortunately for me, the most common format for HD trailers, etc. I've found is Mastroka (.mkv). Unsurprisingly, my 360 does NOT support that. So I downloaded a 720p HD trailer for Quantum of Solace in .mkv format, and I was like "Hm. I bet there's an encoder online for this." Lo and behold, there is. FFmpegx (http://homepage.mac.com/major4/). It works spectacularly. Here is where I run into difficulty. I convert my trailer to I think... MPEG-4. Wrong settings. The video is barely a video. I try again. This time I use settings I get from the Xbox 360 Video Playback Page (http://www.xbox.com/en-us/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/videoplaybackfaq.htm). I hit encode, and I get another .mp4. This one shows up on the Xbox. However, it's choppy and the audio is totally out of sync.

At this point, I'm getting frustrated. So I go to a different source. I find some HD movie trailers and download a 1080p .wmv of the upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I throw it in my Movies folder (sans-converting) and check my Xbox. There it is, clear as day. It looks fan-freakin-tastic. My problem is that HD .wmv's are few and far between. I need to know how to correctly convert my .mkv files into .wmv files. FfmpegX doesn't include .wmv's in the mix (it, ironically, has just about everything else), and I can't find any other converters that can handle Matroska files.

I figured this was the right place to come. You fellows seem to know what you're doing.

Thanks so much, in advance!

[pianoman0723]

bump...

Anyone? Please?

[FulciLives]

I could tell you a number of ways to do it on a Microsoft Windows based machine but a Mac ... no clue.

Good luck though

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[mdisbrow]

won't HandBrake convert it? http://handbrake.fr/

I'm currently trying to find a way to convert 60FPS .TS files to a playable format on the 360, as it only supports up to 30FPS.

[FulciLives]

The Sony PS3 does 60fps at 720p or under.

In another recent thread we took some DV camcorder footage (true interlaced 29.970fps) and converted it to MP4 at progressive 59.940fps and it played back on a PS3 and XboX 360 but it was only 720x480 resolution.

So I know the XboX 360 can do 59.940fps (60fps) at SDTV resolutions.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[pianoman0723]

Could I maybe just get some settings?

My problem is that, with certain files, the audio is off with some files (although i tried recently and it was fine), and the aspect ratio is all wrong. I try to make it 1280*720 HD, but that's not wide enough, so I make it 1280*544, but that doesn't look good either...

[Case]

To get a very wide movie in a 16:9 frame, you may have to add black padding above and below to the video (letterboxing).

[pianoman0723]

That's too advanced for me haha. and I tried handbrake but it can ONLY handle DVDs (with titles etc)

[Xeryus75]

To get a very wide movie in a 16:9 frame, you may have to add black padding above and below to the video (letterboxing).

Hi,

I am currently trying to convert mkv/h264 720p files to avi/xvid 720p. It's not for use with a Xbox (it's for a TVoADSL STB... Sigma Design video chipset inside), but I thought more clever not to open a new thread for my question (if not, please tell me and I would open a new one...).

I have no problem with 1.85 aspect ratio movies, but with 2.35 movies, there is an issue: if I create a 1280x544 movie, my plasma TV dont add padding black bars and I have a strenched visual! So I need to add those back bars, but I can't find how to do it.

I read here, on the forum, about the "letterbox" option of ffmpegX, but it seems to be only for "DVD" creation files.

How to do it ?

Thanks in advance for your reply....

Regards,

[Case]

I read here about the "letterbox" option of ffmpegX, but it seems to be only for "DVD" creation files.

In ffmpegX, use the Target preset XviD ffmpeg, that allows custom letterboxing using the Filters tab. [88,88,0,0] should make 1280x544 into 1280x720. Keep the video size to 1280x544, as any scaling is done before applying the letterbox filter. Double-check the framerate, as Matroska files can sometimes be misread on certain parameters. You could set the audio encoding to Pass-through to avoid re-encoding, if so wanted.

[pianoman0723]

The letterboxing worked. The audio problem was specific to that file. Thanks a ton!

[Xeryus75]

Case : seems OK so far. The avi includes padding black bars. Thanks

[beric3236]

For movie trailers you might try:

http://www.movie-list.com/

Lotsa good stuff