H264 on 360 media center

[FantaXP7]

Anyone figure this out? I have been downloading regular .ts files and streaming them fine...i convert them to dvr-ms and its working perfectly, BUT lately i've been getting these h264 ts's and have no idea how to view them via the 360...anyone help would be appreciated

[protovision]

I'm in the same boat.

From what I've read so far, you have to recode, to either Mpeg2 or WMV.

The good news is that there are free utils for this:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120320 (haven't tried yet, might only support .avi's)

transcode360 (on the fly/realtime conversion):
http://runtime360.com/projects/

VLC360... (google)

For the realtime/on-the-fly transcoders you will need a very powerful pc. Also, look for TSConverter, it will demux .TS streams for you (Crypto is da man!).

p.

[FantaXP7]

Thanks for the reply. Have you used any of the on-the-fly transcoders? What sort of power are we talking here?

Also, any new news, please inform me because I've been puzzled for weeks...Looks like my best bet is re-encoding

[protovision]

My first HD convert from H.264 .ts to VC-1 worked in WMEncoder, and took 24 hrs @ 92 quality setting (using 2-pass always crashes on 2nd pass). I was also able to get a graphedit chain working where I could get 18fps:

Haali Media Splitter video-->
MainConcept AVC decode -->
MainConcept Mpeg2 enc Pro (variable, 18000-10000-2499)-->
Mainconcept Muxer-->dump

Haali Media Splitter audio-->MainConcept Muxer(above)

Mainconcept filters are all avail in their demo packages, but has logo in final image. Using the CoreAVC h.264 decoder I got about 22fps on my core2duo 1.8, very close to a realtime solution :) if it could be wrapped up in a 'mega source-filter' for the x360. The quality was about 8.5/10, very watchable for the small tests I ran with high action.

A more recent file is a h.264 .ts thats been package as 'mpeg2-video' (SkyHD I think) is giving me problems. I can build a graph to play it, but apps I've found can't work with it, including WMEncoder, TSConverter, etc. HDTVPump passes the ac3, but gets confused by the 'mpeg2' h.264 inside. Haali media splitter can open it, and CoreAVC can decode it.

If I could find a way to encode VC-1 in graphedit, I might be ok.

p.

[FantaXP7]

That process doesn't sound like something i would want to go through for every video...as I am lazy. Looks like im gonna have to wait for someone to make a program like TSconverter to do this or for there to be XBMC for the 360 because I'm sure the 360 can process these videos if microsoft would allow it to...but hey thanks again

[protovision]

no problem, let me know if you find a solution for converting these difficult h.264 .ts' to WMV or something that the 360 can play.

p.

[protovision]

turns out my h.254 streams were not that unusual, just had garbage at the beginning that I cut out with TS Packet editor.

my offline conversion to WMV vc1 (xbox360) goes like:

1. convert .ts to .mkv (graphedit haali splitter --> haali muxer, repacks, same quality)
2. open mkv and convert to WMV in WMEncoder
3. VBR Q92, wait 24 hours ....

still can't do 2-pass VBR peak encoding in WMEncoder, does first pass, but gets to 2nd pass, processes 0 frames, and happily says 'done! 0 frames, 0 data', and leaves a 6kb wmv.

haven't bothered with that pseudo realtime solution of converting to mpg2, my cpu isn't up to it, but if someone out there was able to take advantage of AVIVO in a ds filter, that could be interesting to pump stuff to an xbox360.

p.

[FantaXP7]

hmm...thanks for the update...so how long does it take to convert to .mkv? Also, how powerful of a pc is needed to convert to mpg2? im looking to upgrade my cpu soon.

[protovision]

hey,
converting to mkv is very quick, about 5-10 mins, depending on drives,etc.

what I'm doing now thats working well, is converting to 25+mbps mpeg2 .ts, and keep the ac3, passed right along, muxed in. Turns out the way I was doing it before in my almost realtime solution just needed a lot more bps, so I bumped the mainconcept mpeg2 encoder up to 32000/28000/14000 (based on first selecting 'mpeg2-atsc' profile).

This gives me 20+fps, which means about 2-3 hours convert, and about 9/10 in quality, maybe better. This is based on my core2duo E6300, and fast drives.

The files are pretty big, 13GB h264 --> 20GB mpeg2, so I don't leave them around for long. I'll keep the master H264 .ts for when I can decode it on the xbox itself, or when I can burn it to a hd-dvd9, which is in dev somewhere in these forums.

for 9.5/10 quality, go the WMV Encoder route I mentioned, and wait 20+ hours. Great quality, but takes a long time, and since I can't get 2-pass to work, I can't estimate the final filesize.

p.

[FantaXP7]

hmm, thanks for that news, I guess I should just stick to the wmv encode route