Simple MKV to MP4 Conversion Guide (Xbox360)

[Cloud101]

This guide will focus on converting those pesky MKV files to the proper streamable format for the Xbox360, MP4 files. The main program that we will be using is GOTSent. GOTSent creates playable MP4 files from MKVs at a relatively fast speed in a simple ,easy to use package. The reason being is that it does not transcode the file, unlike many other programs. The downside though is that you won't be able to create WMV files, which I'm fine with :P

You will be able to:
- Stream MP4, AVI, MPG files
- Stream files encoded with DivX version 5 or higher, as well as Xvid

You will not be able to:
- Stream MP4 files with 5.1 audio, unless the file is encoded to WMV with WMAPro 5.1 audio
- Stream MP4 files that are over 4 Gb
- Stream MKV files nor OGG files

Tools Used:
- GOTSent

http://rapidshare.com/files/102390184/GOTSent.rar.html

- AC3Filter

http://rapidshare.com/files/102390068/ac3filter_1_46.exe.html

- Haali Media Splitter

http://rapidshare.com/files/102390841/MatroskaSplitter.exe.html

- Nero Digital Audio (optional, Improves audio) *Place files into GOTSent directory!*

http://rapidshare.com/files/102400431/NeroDigitalAudio.zip.html

- YAMB (optional, Editing .MP4 files)

http://rapidshare.com/files/102400436/Yamb-2.0.0.8.zip.html

- MKVMerge (optional, Editing .MKV files)

http://rapidshare.com/files/102402205/mkvtoolnix-unicode-2.2.0-setup.exe.html

Guide:

1) First thing first. Install all the required programs which I have linked to above. If you won't be needing the optional programs then that's fine, but I recommend installing all of them We need to gather some info about the file(s) we are about to convert. Actually, the only thing we need to check out is the file size. Anything greater than 4 Gb will have to be split into multiple files, or edited to reduce the size. As long as the File size shown in the 'Details' window is below 4 Gb, the file will be playable on your Xbox360. If the file is greater than 4 GB check out step 4.



2) Fire up GOTSent. Get acquainted with all the available features, although the more important features are automated. Check out the following picture:



I would like to point out that I have had weird results with GOTSent's splitter. I have ended up with 3 files at ~2 GB each instead of 2 files at 3 GB, which is why I prefer to use MKVMerge(has more options too).

3) Next we need to configure AC3Filter correctly. Click the 'AC3Filter Options' button in GOTSent and just set it up as shown in the picture below.



That's it! Now just load up your file MKV file in GOTSent, select the Output folder, and select any other settings that you may need. Hit Convert and wait for your file to be created

4) If your file is too large it won't be playable. There are a couple of options available to you. Use GOTSent to split the file, use MKVMerge to split the files, use MKVMerge to cut out uneeded portions(what I usually do), use YAMB to split the resulting MP4 file. For this guide we're going to use MKVMerge.

This is what it should look like. You can do many things from here on such as disabling/enabling subtitles and additional audio streams. If you just want to split your file(s) then hit 'Global' at the top.



In the 'Global' section click 'Enable Splitting' and then take it from there. When you are done with making adjustments hit 'Start Muxing' and you're good to go.



Common Errors:

- Status code: 69-C00D10E0 results when the file you are trying to play is too large
- Status code: 69-C00D002F regards an audio issue with the file(I believe). Pertaining to this guide you may have improperly set up AC3Filter.
- Status code: 53-C00DF238 results when the connection to the computer is lost either because there is too much network traffic(RS/MU) or the PC is handling CPU intensive programs(such as encoding).

Important:
If your MP4 files aren't showing up on your Xbox360, your Windows Media Player 11 may not recognize them. Check out the following link to fix this problem:
http://owlet.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D48B90C1DDF5D401!297.entry


Thanks for checking out my guide. I apologize to the mods if I put this guide in the wrong section. Thanks and happy movie watching!

[videohelpkg]

I tried this and converted a file with no errors but the mp4 file doesn't stream to my Xbox 360 using Media Player on XP

Any Suggestions?

[Baldrick]

videohelpkg: PLEASE give us more information about your mp4, what video and audio codecs. Identify with mediainfo.

[videohelpkg]

Actually, all I had to do is rename the file to .avi and it played perfectly on the XBox 360.

Thanks for trying to help.

[Baldrick]

[Cloud101]

I think the problem is that your Windows Media Player doesn't recognize the MP4 file extension. Check out this link:

http://owlet.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D48B90C1DDF5D401!297.entry

Run the custom script and WMP11 should recognize MP4s from there on

[Dreemer]

Hi all.
I try to make the mkv conversion to mp4 and it sucessfull, but i don´t have subtitles in movies
Anyone can help.me have subtitles in mp4 files converted plz.
Thx all

Ps. - Sorry my english

[phidjit]

Is there any way to keep the original audio track, or at least re-encode to 5.1 instead of stereo?

I'm looking for a good way of burning MKV files to DVD's (HD-DVD format) - this is the closet I've come so far.

Everything seems to be able to deal with the MP4 file, I just wish the audio wasn't stereo.

Otherwise great tutorial!

[Cloud101]

Dreemer - I have never tried to use GOTSent with subtitles, so I'm not too experienced in that area. I believe if the MKV contains a subtitle stream, it will show up in GOTSent and from there you can select wether you want it in the final MP4 or not. And your english is fine ^^

phidjit - Err I think if you configure it in AC3Filter, instead of selecting 2-0 stereo try one of the other options. Altough the file won't be playable on your Xbox360 since it doesn't support 5.1 MP4 files. There are other programs that have better options as far as audio is conerned (Videora) but those take a long time because they encode the whole video.

Thanks

[phidjit]

Thanks Cloud101, but I already tried that. I assumed that the setting of "AS IS (no change)" would not re-encode the audio, but it almost seems like AC3Filter is for decoding the audio stream, and then it re-encodes it back to stereo with something else.

Of course it makes sense that you want AC3filter to decode it to stereo in that case (don't want to lose the other channels!)

I'll keep playing with it, thanks for your help!

[dts1]

i used the above program to convert to mp4 but i cant stream it to the xbox 360, so i renamed it to avi but it still shows as a mp4 file and still cant stream iam using xp for my pc what iam i doing wrong
thanks

[t0nee1]

Did you read this part in the guide?
http://owlet.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D48B90C1DDF5D401!297.entry

[dts1]

yea i did i running xp not vista thanks

[Cloud101]

It should work with XP too. Good luck

[neomaine]

What's wrong with keeping the AC3 5.1 audio for streaming to the 360. Works fine for me. I think all you need is the spring update.

[poisondeathray]

What's wrong with keeping the AC3 5.1 audio for streaming to the 360. Works fine for me. I think all you need is the spring update.

AC3 is incompatible in .mp4 container

You could keep 5.1 AC3 for an .avi, but then h.264 is not completely compatible in .avi container

[neomaine]

Didn't realize you couldn't do that in a .mp4 container. I've only used divx/xvid so far though I've got a itch to take a look at h.264 and see what I can get out of it.

So, if you can't use AC3 in a .mp4, what do people use instead and keep 5.1?

[poisondeathray]

Didn't realize you couldn't do that in a .mp4 container. I've only used divx/xvid so far though I've got a itch to take a look at h.264 and see what I can get out of it.

So, if you can't use AC3 in a .mp4, what do people use instead and keep 5.1?

Usually re-encode to AAC 5.1 (for PC), but Xbox360 doesn't support 5.1 AAC - You can't have 5.1 audio with h.264 video on the Xbox

So some people convert to WMV and WMV pro audio 5.1 (but use VC-1 instead of h.264)

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx

[craig198]

im so confused with video encoding. I must of downloaded 50 tools from the web and my head is spinning lol.

after all day Im still left with an h.264 file(720p) and a ac3 file from a full length movie that was mkv format. ive managed to use the mkvextract gui to get those.

now all I want to do is get these files playable on xbox 360 and not reencode video as xbox360 already supports the h.264 right?

all I need to do is encode the ac3 to aac lc and get them back together somehow in an mp4 container right?

I just can get it to work

[Baldrick]

Have you tried gotsent?

[craig198]

hi thanks for the quick response! yes Im running gotsent latest beta3 is it? on my laptop and its been doing its thing all day long. surely there is a more passive way to do this? mind you not to reencode the h.264 unless im missing a setting in gotsent. thanks again for help.

do I need to put a checkmark next to the mpeg2/h264/xvid box in gotsent .24 B3? I think I did put a check there on my laptop and its been running all day. will no check there keep video the same with no reencoding?

ah I think that was the problem. I checked the box am retrying now without the checkmark. am I right?

just to clarify I am back to using my mkv file not the 2 files I stated earlier.

[craig198]

is there a delete post button?

[craig198]

frickn a man it still wont play on xbox even though its an mp4 now. what the heck? why is xbox360 so picky? here is the specs of the output file from gotsent.

SUPER © - Multimedia Analysis Box (by http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net )
Analyzing the source file TheIllusionist2006720pBluRay.mp4

General #0
Complete name : F:\0fvideo\TheIllusionist2006720pBluRay.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 version 2
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 4.09 GiB
PlayTime : 1h 48mn
Bit rate : 5374 Kbps
StreamSize/String : 2.98 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-08-06 23:45:40
Tagged date : UTC 2008-08-06 23:50:13
Encoded_application : Nero AAC codec / Aug 6 2007

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec profile : High@L4.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
Codec_Settings_RefFrames : 8
PlayTime : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 5102 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 25.1 Mbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 688 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 1.860
Frame rate mode : CFR
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.242
StreamSize/String : 3.88 GiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-08-06 00:15:56
Tagged date : UTC 2008-08-06 00:20:20

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 264.6 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 455 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize/String : 209 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-08-06 23:45:40
Tagged date : UTC 2008-08-06 00:20:20

Chapters #0
1 : 00:00:00.054 -

[poisondeathray]

Some guesses as to why it's not working:

1) Your video has 8 reference frames, I think Xbox360 only supports 3

2) While average bitrate is ~5100kbps, you have a peak at 25.1Mbps. Xbox360 craps out at 10Mbps. Some people have limited their encodes, or encoded in zones to fix this

[craig198]

I used gotsent with xbox360 profile. i chose to leave h264 intact to retain quality.. so basically I have to reencode my video no matter what? xbox refused to even play the file and gave a bad codec screen. thats what I dont get.

I read the xbox360 can support h.264 level 4.1 and that is 50Mbit/sec

this from xbox.com
Q: What are the "real" max bit rate, resolution, and frames per second that the Xbox 360 console supports for all the different formats?

A: The Xbox 360 console does not block video from playing based on a maximum bit rate, resolution, or frames per second. Each codec's maximum has been tested using various video playback sources. Content with a higher bit rate is not blocked, but playback quality may be less than optimal. Use higher bit rates at your own risk.

[moedanger]

I have been trying to find a quick way to accomplish this feet for a year now. Every so often I will search the web to find out if a tool has been made to help me in my quest.

http://xenonmkv.ev98.net/

Rename the files to avi and voila wmp11 find the files and works great.

Hope I helped someone.

Thanks

Moe

[ttomeek]

Hello!
There is solution to splitt files bigger then 4GB with MP4BOX. To splitt files bigger then 4GB for XBOX360 you can use MP4BOX, but the audio from first part of the splitted file must be reencoded. For the second file there is no need to do this, works always. I fight about week to find this solution. Best regards

[FulciLives]

My Sony PS3 doesn't have any of these issues.

The PS3 can do H.264 with 5.1 AAC or 2.0 AAC in the MP4 file format. If your surround sound receiver can handle 5.1 PCM via optical (common apparently on more recent models of surround sound receivers) then you will get 5.1 from the 5.1 AAC otherwise it will downmix to 2.0 audio.

The PS3 can do H.264 with 5.1 AC-3 or 2.0 AC-3 in the M2TS file format. This is great for DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray back-up as you can re-encode the video using the superior H.264 codec (x264) yet use the original AC-3 audio with no updated surround sound receiver needed.

Either way there is no resolution limit (the XboX 360 only does 720p or less with H.264 video) nor any bitrate limits (at least nothing to really worry about whereas the XBoX 360 does have some constrictive bitrates limits with H.264 encoding that can be problematic on playback).

Slow wireless network? No problem! With the PS3 you can copy the video file to the PS3's built-in HDD as a file copy then play it back from the built-in HDD so there is no lag on playback due to streaming bandwidth issues. Sorry can't do that with the XboX 360!

In short the XboX 360 can barely play games right little alone anything else :P

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[elgholm]

Posted this in another forum, but it's as valid here as there...

This is how I did it:
http://www.elgholm.se/utils/mkv2mp4/

Mine had video in MPEG4/AVC/h.264 format and audio in DTS format.
You can of course change the batch-file to suite your own needs.

Keep it simple!
/Charlie

[DmC10]

thnx man ur great! if i can work the subs too... it'll be great! saves almost 90% of the time converting would take!