Best All Around Codec for Xbox 360 Media Center Extender

[dohclude]

Hello all, I've been using mediacoder for quite some time now, that's what I use for all of my video conversions. I am using an xbox 360 as a media center extender for my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine. I have been trying to find the optimal format for my videos so that they will be of a good quality as well fully functional on the 360 while maintaining an acceptable file size. At first I was using h.264 video, aac audio in a MP4 container. It gave excellent results as far as file size to picture quality ratio, but the xbox could not fast forward or rewind the videos, which made it a real pain when the power goes out (happens a lot where I live) and I need to start the movie back where I left off, I'd always have to watch the entire video over again from the beginning. I found that xvid videos with an AVI container would fast forward just fine on the xbox, but to achieve anywhere near the same picture quality as the h.264 videos I would have to use "quality based" mode cranked up to at least 95% which would give me a considerable increase in file size.

What I am looking for is the perfect format that will give me the best of both worlds. The excellent picture quality and smaller file size of h.264 MP4 videos with the ability to fast forward and rewind. I posted this on the mediacoder forums and was completely ignored so I hope I get some sort of reply here. Thanks!

[mh2360]

H.264/AAC is still your best bet.

I'm not sure why your MP4 files don't FF or RW for you, but mine are fine. FF/RW works OK, as does skip Forward/Back.

It must have something to do with your encoding settings, can you post your settings here?

[dohclude]

sure, I'm using verson 0.7.2.4526 32-bit

Video Tab:

Format: H.264
Mode: 2-pass
Bitrate: 2000 Kpbs
Source: Autoselect
Encoder: Autoselect


x264 Tab:

Profile: Main
Level: 5.0
B-Frames: 3
Predictor: 1
Subpel Refinement: 6
Motion Est. Range: 16




Audio Tab:

Source: Autoselect
Encoder: Nero Encoder (Also tried FAAC)
Resample: Original

Nero Encoder Tab:

Profile: Auto
Rate Mode: CBR
Bitrate: 128 Kbps




Container Tab:

Container: MP4
Multiplexer: Autoselect




Everything else is left at default settings. FF/RW works fine on my PC in both Media Center and Media Player, but when playing back on the 360 through the Media Center extender there is no FF/RW whatsoever. It just shows the timeline and doesn't fast forward.

[mh2360]

The Xbox 360 expects H.264 video to be no higher than level 4.1, you seem to have it set to level 5.0, though I'm not sure this will solve your problem.

You might want to give Handbrake a try, it has an Xbox 360 preset which works fine for me.

[dohclude]

well, I tried changing the levels to 4.1, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0 still the same problem. I'll give handbrake a try, does it support mkv and subtitles (that's what a lot of my videos that I download are, which is actually why have to convert a lot of stuff for the xbox)?

[dohclude]

I installed handbrake and tried to convert an mkv video, but it would not see the embedded .srt subtitles. I also tried an mkv with .ass subtitles still doesn't recognise them, the options are "None" and "Autoselect" (which isn't working either.) arg.



I tried converting several different files despite the fact that it won't see any of my subtitles. I've tried converting mkv, mp4, and avi using the xbox 360 preset, whenever I click "start" a console window opens for a few seconds and then closes and then it says "Encoding Finished" but there is only a 24 byte file instead of the newly encoded video. So I guess Handbrake is out, any other suggestions??? this is driving me nuts!

[hawk16zz]

Hey I'm kinda having the same issues with converting videos with subtitles for my 360, and the best solution I've found thus far is...

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic375624.html

I hope that works for ya, and if anyone can give point out a way to do this automatically in a batch I'm sure dohclude and myself would be much appreciative.

[deltaboy]

i dont think an H.264/AAC compatible file for the Xbox 360 can have a subtitle track (soft subs)