Post-release review
Published by runtime 360 February 11th, 2006 in TranscodingWith the weekend almost over I wanted to wrap up a few odds and ends. Since the release of Transcode 360 (T360), there’s been a lot of great feedback from the community and so a word of thanks must go to those of you guys hanging out in the Xbox Scene forums helping other folk get their configurations straight, its appreciated.
Note: If you haven’t already, make sure you read my last post that delves into codec configuration issues.
Rest assured I’m reading all your comments, seeing where things can be improved and the next build I put out will try to address some of these initial difficulties. Along the way there’ll be more features, I can’t say much more than that right now as there are a couple of things I need to investigate.
In related news, I’m thrilled to hear from a number of Media Center Extender owners who’ve confirmed T360 is working just great for them. Thanks to Ron G. for the following tip: “…its necessary for Extender owners to download the Xbox 360 Media Center update beforehand; cancelling out of the installation process once all of the necessary files have been installed.”
Thanks also to Ashley who wrote in to confirm that both Quicktime and Real Media video formats are working over T360, including those using the h.264 codec. The relevant codecs are available here (RM) and here (QT). Note: some registry tweaks are required to setup the codecs on your Media Center PC. More information here.
I have one comment about this great app. Would it be possible to transcode to MPEG2 instead of WMV? MPEG2 encoding is much lighter on CPU and would provide greater quality for streaming.
That was one of my first thoughts but unfortunately MPEG2 is not supported over an MMS stream. There are one or two work arounds but they require a fair amount more effort… we’ll see
I am wondering if it would be possible to start transcoding a file to MPEG2 on the HD and then start playing it right away on MCE/360. Like playing an MS-DVR file being recorded to in real time…
Maybe transcoding directly to MS-DVR mpeg2 and tricking MCE into playing the file as it write to it… just like live TV…
Its an interesting idea, it should be possible if the file is opened with ’shared’ (i.e. not mutually exclusive) access. Although my earlier tests show that most encoders do not do this it should be quite easy to modify ffmpeg to test this.
I have just done a quick test with Videora 360 converter and it does not produce a “locked” file when converting avi to mpeg2… So here is one idea, If there could be an easy way of kickstarting transcoding using Videora from MCE gui on the 360 we could then start playing the file. In theory pause, jump forward/backward should work just like on any mpeg video file.
This would be awsome!
Mind you, I have not played the test file as of yet through MCE/360 since my girlfreing/son are both tying the MCE machine and 360 console… So this was done on my office PC.
I will do a live test as soon as I have a chance… unless someone else test it before me.
OK, seem like ffmpeg (what is used by videora) is locking the file. VLC can play it but MCE complain about it… so unless there is a way to make the file readable by MCE this might not work.
ffmpeg conversion are really fast and look superb at 4mbps. It would still be neat to be able to use MCE gui to kickstart a conversion, wait 15 minutes for it to complete then come back and playback the file…
Better than nothing I guess.
Another idea since ffmpeg seem to lock the file: What about recompiling ffmpeg under windows with the file creation mode allowing “read” of the file being created. I can only speculate right now that the version of ffmpeg use by videora create files that are not readable while it writes to it…
Thanks for looking into this. I’ll run some tests and generally have a hack about with ffmpeg over the weekend.
OK, I manage to use e different method to stream xvid to the 360. It involves using VLC as the transcoder. I thing this is much easier than the WMV Encoder method.
Simply install VLC player (latest is currently 0.8.4a).
The tricky part is to properly configure the audio stream output in VLC.
1. Go under “Settings -> Preferences…”
2. Select “Stream Output -> Sout Stream -> Transcode”
3. Type “wma” without the quotes in “Destination audio codec”
4. Type “160000″ in “Audio bitrate”
5. Click the “Save” button and close Preference window.
Rest of how to in next post…
To manually stream a file do the following:
1. “File -> Open file…”
2. Click “Browse…” button and pick the file to transcode/stream
3. Check the “Stream Output” check box
4. Click on “Settings…” button
5. Check “MMSH” check box
6. Click on “ASF” radio button in “Encapsulation method”
7. Check the “Video codec” check box
8. Pick WMV2 as the video codec
9. Pick desired video Bitrate
10. DO NOT check the Audio codec check box!!!
11. Click the OK button
12. Click the other OK button
13. Go on you xbox 360 and pick the asx file previously created as per the WMV Encoder method… (note that VLC use 1234 as the default port and not 8080)
14. Watch the stream!
To start a stream via CMD simply issue something like:
“C:Program FilesVideoLANvlcvlc” -vvv e:videotesttest.avi –sout “#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=4096,scale=1}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=:1234}}”
and you will get the same result as in the previous post!!!
This should allow for some neat automation in MCE I home!
OK, I came across something else that is quite interesting:
If you select a file as the stream destination instead as MMSH VLC will start transcoding to the filename specified in the location specified. Let say you specify that it should be saved somewhere MCE can have access too… the file produced by MCE can then be read immediatly by MCE/360 in real time. It can also be paused and restarted at will.
This is a big adventage over the stream since it could not be easilly paused or restarted.
Another benefit is that when the transcode is completed the file can be fully controlled with skip functions.
Just make sure you name the file something.wmv and enjoy the realtime transcoded file!
Now if MCE could control the creation of this file…
Excellent! You seem to have gotten much further than I did last time I played with VLC. And it makes most of the work I’ve been doing to make the existing install easier a little bit redundant but never mind!
)
Guess I’m going to be pretty busy this weekend!!
Can you do explain how to get a .mov file to transcode properly?
I installed the codec you linked to and I didn’t need to make any registry changes (the perceived type value was already there and set to video).
My problem is that I’m getting a timeout error, and despite changing the default value for the timeout to 300 seconds it wont work.
Jeremy,
Use the VLC approach! It will sure transcode mov files! And you have the choice of doing it as a real time disk transcode vs an MMS stream.
OK, you could most likelly do a real time disk transcode using the WM Encoder solution but I find VLC to be much easier… especially regarding codecs like quicktime, h264, etc!
Cool, installed it in MCE Spanish version, Xbox PAL, and in 5 minutes it was working. Great job!
Hey Runtime are you still alive or are you very busy with an new release
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Are you going to use/support VLC? And how are the developements going with the creator of My Movies?
Thnx and keep up the great job you’re doing.
Still alive; I’ve been hanging onto the next release until there are some features that people would benefit from; at the moment its mainly stuff to smoothen the install process and help folks with codec problems etc. I’ve updated my blog with more info.