WVC1 Encoding for XBOX 360

[Bathrone]

So with media centre extender under Vista RC1, I see the xbox likes mpeg1/2 and WMV. There is no native mpeg4asp or AVC support. You also cant stream ripped dvds. Some tools exist such as transcode360 and vlc360 to transcode the footage in real time, they remain a workaround at best and currently subject to a few bugs as well on Vista.

I want to be able to watch my media easily. I was thinking the HD challenge is going pretty well for WVC1 against X264. All fanboisms aside for open source if I did WVC1 encoded stuff that would be better than mpeg2 and it would be natively supported.

Q1. I assume I should be using Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition beta for the transcode?

Q2. What support does the WMV container have for things like chapters, audio types, subs and so forth?

Q3. What would be an efficient codec to use for the audio?

Thanks

[benwaggoner]

Q1. I assume I should be using Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition beta for the transcode?

You can use it if you want, but it's probably overkill. Studio Edition is really for when you want either the advanced preprocessing features, or segment reencoding. If you're just looking for transcoding, WME or many other tools can use the new codec (via installing WMP11 or the beta codec download).

[Bathrone]

Thanks, though I may have assumed too much. The 360 wont playback WMV9 AP footage or I have stuffed up the encode. Think it's unsupported currently.

[zambelli]

Thanks, though I may have assumed too much. The 360 wont playback WMV9 AP footage or I have stuffed up the encode. Think it's unsupported currently.
As quite possibly the only MS employee in North America who does NOT own an Xbox :), I can't verify it myself, but I think Xbox 360 shipped without a WVC1 decoder - it probably wasn't ready at the time.
I imagine that this "minor issue" will be rectified later this year when the HD-DVD extension hits the market.

[Bathrone]

Thanks. Appreciate your advice :)

Guys can I provide some feedback to Microsoft please. I'm not sure how to contact MS XBOX 360 people and I would like to think I have some useful feedback to provide.

The 360 is a great gaming platform, and the live experience really pulls in the whole community of it. Microsoft are building on a home enternatinment theme which embeds it presence in my house even more, and I know the PS3 is also positioning itself for a home entertainment theme. I want to use it for gaming, but also for media streaming.

1. Poor Vista performance. When a user sets up an XBOX 360 as a media centre extender on Vista, in cases of having large video libraries say over 100-300gig the caching doesnt seem to remember pevious thumbnailling work. All in all its a performance hog and useability greatly suffers.

2. Lack of common format supports. So far it seems the xbox 360 supports mpeg1 and mpeg2, dvd playback via the disc drive only and WMV9 but not WVC1. Granted, the upcoming HD-DVD release should add:

* WVC1 and
* AVC / H.264

But, there still seems to be no support for:

* MPEG4-ASP (this is killing me)
* Theora / Ogg
* Flac
* Matroska

Some of these are free and open licence like Flac and Matroska.

3. MS Not Helping Community. Transcode360 suffers from a range of Vista bugs and despite having reported it on connect there has not been any response from Microsoft. Considering how effective Transcode360 would otherwise be in atleast providing some sort of more flexible media support, it's strange to recgnoise no action from Microsoft.

As well, they have not been very clear about the XNA beta opportunity for homebrew 360 development. They use the word game when discussing development and xbox releases of hobbyist XNA 360 development - why can't utilities be written for decoding mpeg4-asp using open source projects and then released on xbox live like all the other XNA homebrew games?

4. Customers would pay for optional mpeg4-asp support. I really do think people would use their microsoft points on xbox live to pay for a per install licence of a mpeg4-asp decoder.

[Taxidermista]

I've played successfully a 720p VC-1 trailer in XBOX 360, try it: Trailer Alan Wake (http://download.remedygames.com/movies/alanwake_720p60_51_15mbps.wmv) (117 MB)

[Bathrone]

Downloaded that file, on Vista RC1 with media centre extender onto my 360, the playback results in the standard no codec or corrupted file error message. It doesnt support VC-1.

[Taxidermista]

Well, this trailer works nice here, a MCE 2005 pc connected to the 360. It's from a friend of mine, I'll ask him if there's something "odd" in his xbox.

Today I did a little VC-1 30 sec. sample from The Elephants Dream (http://www.elephantsdream.org/) with Media Encoder 9 at 1920x1080p@10Mbps and it plays fine too on the 360.

EDIT:
Nothing weird in his rig, a PC with Windows MCE 2005 and the WMP11 beta 2 update connected to his standard XBOX 360. You can download my 30 sec. Elephants Dream clip here (http://www.sendspace.com/file/e2fsgk) in Sendspace.

[Bathrone]

Same result, wont play.

[Bathrone]

Thinking this through the only two potential differences I can come up with is:

1. Im on Vista RC1
2. Im in the Australian / New Zealand region of XBOX sales

Being on live means I have the dashboard fully patched.

[Taxidermista]

If you didn't miss the online dash updates then I don't know what's going on here. :confused:

[Bathrone]

Round two :)

Problems with the traditional mpeg1/2 transcoding solutions provided (1) higher storage needs (2) greater network bandwidth required (3) doesnt look as good as better codecs (4) the 360's media centre extender support is best on WMV and dvr-ms files - it's only these two that behave nicely with cueing and skipping on media centre extender.

I started off messing about with mencoder, but then progressed to ffmpeg. I found this better as it allowed me to use WMV2 into an ASF container, but it wasnt as good as the wmv container functionality offered with the 360.

So I eventually got windows media encoder 9 working on Vista RC1. I tried a WMA10P / WMV9AP encode but the 360 didnt like it. Then I went WMA10p / WMV9 and it played awesome! Quality was transparent, nice file size, nice low network bandwidth and the best skipping / cueing support. Kewl!!

So, I want to use the VBS script to get more automation into the transcode.

What do the boffins suggest the configuration be to optimise the transcoding?

Generally the sources are mpeg4-asp encoded video ~850-1000kbps in mp3 vbr 128kb stereo audio in an avi container.

I want to best balance the speed of the encode to the quality of the encode.

I'm pretty much settled on audio with windows media 10 professional 128kbps 2ch 48khz 24bit. I didnt see a 16bit option at this level.

With the video I did not want to resize or do framerate conversion. I just want to keep the footage as it, but transcode it.

I would really appreciate a hot setup with fast encoding but good quality.

[Bathrone]

Expirements:

Windows Media Audio 10 Professional - Quality VBR mode - VBR Quality 98, 48khz, 2 chan, 24bit. Slightly above file size from MP3 2 chan VBR source. Audio quality subjectively good.

Using Windows Media Video 9 - Quality VBS mode - help lists the valid quality ranges. Tried 90 with 5 second keyframe interval. 7.66MB file for 60seconds, though it took 124 seconds to encode so not good for realtime. This is all one pass encoding.

With Windows Media 8 - quality 90, only took 39 seconds and filesize 5.3mb. V8 needs higher bitrate than V9.

Went to quality 97 on V8, saved 1 second of encode time by disabling preview window. File size ballooned to 11.1mb with an average bitrate of 1414kbps. Source average is 800 kbps encoded in xvid.

Went to quality 93 on V8, same 38second encode time. Avg bit rate 835kbps and filesize 7mb. Major difference between quality 93 and 97.

So it looks like WMV8 quality based 1 pass 93 quality, WMA10P quality based 1 pass 98 quality.

This gives better than real time.

I am guessing at the right keyframe interval.

And what does the encoder complexity options do for WMV9 encoding?

How do I normalise the sound - the volume is too low. I have my sound card set to 100 max.

[Bathrone]

Subjective quality v9 far ahead of v8. Even quality 97 on v8 isnt as good as v9 with 90 quality. Might use q 100 and live with extra size given the main thing is better than real time encoding and the file will be deleted after I've watched it, I'll only keep the source.

[Bathrone]

Ive found a bug. The 360 always freezes a few seconds before the end of the footage. If the user pauses and then plays, playback will resume. Tested with no audio, bug still there. Tested across both wmv9 and wmv8 and the bug is there.

Can someone with a 360 on mce 2005 give it a try to see if its a vista bug.

Hosted sample:

http://www.mytempdir.com/920825

[easy2Bcheesy]

There's more to the 360 Media Extender than meets the eye.

Just after the 360 launch I ran some tests.

I have several WM9 720p clips that run at 59.94fps. If I play them back natively on the Xbox 360 devkit they only playback at 29.97fps - literally the clip ran at half speed, audio at full speed. If I run the clips on the Xbox 360 via Media Centre, they playback at 59.94fps - and with some aplomb too.

Either the Media Extender has a better WMV decoder than the game developers (unlikely) or some level of decoding is being done on the Media Centre PC before it hits the Xbox. This would most likely explain your issues with Vista.


I too am hoping that Microsoft open up the media playback facilities of the 360 - particularly with PS3 touting media player credentials. The HD-DVD add-on dashboard upgrade is going to mean VC1 and h.264 decoders - question is, will we be able to use them?

My checklist of desirable features would be:


Support for WMVs, AVIs and MP4s using the new codecs
Support for media playback from the DVD drive
Support for HD-DVD titlesets recorded onto DVD media to be played back without the HD-DVD add-on (go on - do it, surprise us Microsoft! Give people a taste of HD and they'll want more!)
For god's sake, please add MPEG4 ASP support
Ability to playback all accepted video files from external USB storage devices


It would be so easy to make the Xbox 360 the ultimate media player. Right now it smacks of being deliberately crippled.

[Taxidermista]

The HD-DVD add-on dashboard upgrade is going to mean VC1 and h.264 decoders - question is, will we be able to use them?

As I told before we play VC-1 clips without problems right now. About decoding on the PC, can a 100 mbps lan connection support a 1080p raw video signal?

[Bathrone]

Are any of you able to playback the hosted sample I provided on your 360 through media centre extender? If so what OS are your running media centre on?

[easy2Bcheesy]

As I told before we play VC-1 clips without problems right now.

I have no doubt, but it's very weird that the MCE Extender can play clips that the game developer libraries cannot. Perhaps it's a completely standalone piece of code? I am also coming around to your point of view that the 360 *is* doing all the decoding - I ran a VC1 clip when my MCE2005 PC didn't even have the codec installed!

My point remains about the VC1/h.264 decoders - to make the 360 truly live up to its media player potential, it should work as a standalone player in addition to its role as a mere Extender for a Media PC.

Are any of you able to playback the hosted sample I provided on your 360 through media centre extender? If so what OS are your running media centre on?

Your clip works just fine on MCE2005. A VC1 file I encoded at 720p/60 doesn't work so well though - the playback is incredibly jerky. Not sure if that's down to my WLAN or what... also the picture quality of the clip is far, far worse than it is running it from my media PC.

[bkman]

Either the Media Extender has a better WMV decoder than the game developers (unlikely) or some level of decoding is being done on the Media Centre PC before it hits the Xbox. This would most likely explain your issues with Vista.

IIRC the Media Center PC does ALL of the decoding, and then sends the output to the 360.

[Taxidermista]

IIRC the Media Center PC does ALL of the decoding, and then sends the output to the 360.
I must be missing something because of my poor english skills. A 1920x1080 video decompressed is something like 1200 Mbps, isn't it? How do you stream that through a LAN connection?

[easy2Bcheesy]

IIRC the Media Center PC does ALL of the decoding, and then sends the output to the 360.

Up until today I would have believed you, but as I said, I played back a VC1 clip hosted on my MCE2005 PC on the Xbox without actually installing the VC1 codec. That only installed afterwards when I compared the (terrible) picture quality with the same video on PC.

Perhaps the media extender is just running the base WMV9 vid without the VC1 extensions, hence the jerky playback and awful picture quality?

[Taxidermista]

Up until today I would have believed you,...

Excuse me, I repeat the question. Is it possible to send a full res HD video *decoded* from the PC to the 360 over a 100 Mbps LAN connection?

[zambelli]

Perhaps the media extender is just running the base WMV9 vid without the VC1 extensions, hence the jerky playback and awful picture quality?
There is no such thing as VC-1 extensions. VC-1 is a codec standard. WMV9 (WMV3) is the implementation of VC-1 Simple & Main Profile, and WVC1 is the implementation of VC-1 Advanced Profile. On a WMP11 system (XP or Vista), both codecs are handled by the same decoder DLL (wmvdecod.dll).

[easy2Bcheesy]

Excuse me, I repeat the question. Is it possible to send a full res HD video *decoded* from the PC to the 360 over a 100 Mbps LAN connection?

It would depend on what it is decoded into, wouldn't it? We have zero information on how the 360 and Media Centre PC talk to each other.

As I said, I am inclined to believe that the 360 decodes by itself by virtue of the fact that I ran a VC1 file on the 360 without having the VC1 codec even installed on the host computer. I also noted that as I ran my VC1 file, the host PC had very little CPU usage.

That said, I noticed that the 360 noticed my weak WLAN connection and there was a setting to optimise the Extender to work with this weak connection. This would indicate that it does *something* to the connection - perhaps a lower picture quality, which would indicate some kind of transcoding is going on?

[easy2Bcheesy]

There is no such thing as VC-1 extensions. VC-1 is a codec standard. WMV9 (WMV3) is the implementation of VC-1 Simple & Main Profile, and WVC1 is the implementation of VC-1 Advanced Profile. On a WMP11 system (XP or Vista), both codecs are handled by the same decoder DLL (wmvdecod.dll).

Thanks for the clarification.