Tearing my hair out trying to convert HD movies for Xbox 360

[gers1978]

I've tried all sorts of video convert tools for Mac and Windows 7 to convert some 1080p mkv files I have so they can play on my 360.

I finally found this web site and followed the guides, but got the same results, i.e. most stuff I convert will either not play on the Xbox (the dreaded "stop/no entry" sign, or plays VERY stuttery and horrible framerate.

Thing is, I converted a 1080p version of The Expendables a while ago and it plays perfectly on the 360 and for the life of me I can't remember which program/settings I used!

I followed the guide from here last night to convert Dirty Dancing from 1080p mkv file using Xvid4PSP, but it won't play on the 360 at all.

I don't think any problems I'm having are due to files being over 4GB, as my USB drive is formatted as HFS and I already have some WMV HD movies on there that are 7-8GB and play just fine on the 360.

Here's my MediaInfo file for The Expendables, which works fine:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2213114/The%20Expendables.txt

And here's the MediaInfo file for Dirty Dancing, which doesn't work:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2213114/Dirty%20Dancing%20XviD4PSP.txt

Thanks a lot!

[Baldrick]

rebox.net or gotsent might work better.

[gers1978]

Thanks, I tried Gotsent, because from what I could see on the Dirty Dancing mkv, there was no need to convert the video (it was high@4.1 and 4 ref frames), but it crashed at the MP4Box stage (Windows said MP4Box.exe crashed and had to stop).

[jman98]

gers1978 - You're not going to like my suggestion most likely, but I'm going to say it anyway because sometimes when I say it a light goes on in the heads of the recipient and they realize that I'm right.

The reality is that the Xbox and PS3 have both LONG since been surpassed as video playback devices. I'd even go so far as to say that they didn't last even a year before they were surpassed. I value my spare time and I've got better things to do than spend hours converting videos so some fussy player can play them. Buy yourself a Western Digital or similar media streaming device and play your MKVs as they are without converting them. I bought a first generation Western Digital player some years ago and I still use it. It's some of the best money I ever spent.

Trying to deal with the peculiarities of an Xbox or PS3 is no way to live your life.

[chicken264]

now a days we can get old versions of wdtv for 50-60$

[gers1978]

I tried using rebox, but on the Dirty Dancing mkv file it showed two tick boxes, 1 for the video stream (ticked) and 1 for the audio 5.1 stream (unpicked). It wouldn't let me tick/untick either box. When I chose a file output name and click Go, it said it couldn't convert because no compatible audio track was found. But isn't the the whole point of Rebox? To convert the auto track to a format that IS compatible?

I also tried putting a new version of MP4Box.exe in my GOTSent folder and tried again. It didn't crash this time, but the resulting mp4 was only 240MB and consisted only of the audio of the movie!