AVC Playback on Xbox 360

[pspvideo9]

Looks like the Xbox 360 will finally playback more than WMV files. The Spring Dashboard update which will drop the week of May 7 includes the following codec support:


- H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
- Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.


Would have been nice if they actually supported Level 4.1 properly and allowed for max 50 Mbps bitrate. Discrete 5.1 would have been nice too.

None the less it is a very welcomed update.

More Info:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/news/2007/0408-im.htm

[Sulimo]

Yeah. Now I have one less reason not to buy a 360. Hopefully those will be solved too in the not too distant future.

An interesting play against the AppleTV. Seemingly better support for AVC than the Apple device has.

Hopefully it'll be possible to craft an AVC file that'll play in either AppleTV, 360 or PS3.

[HookedOnTV]

What are the odds it will play multi-channel audio as 2 channel?

[deets]

is this as cool as i think it is?? basically is it now up there with the ps3 for media?

[jolson]

Slightly better than PS3.

[deets]

Slightly better than PS3.

yeah? i dont know much about it all to be honest, just a psp monkey :)

but now i have a HD TV I would love the ability to play stuff on it through a media player.

im assuming this would play 720p etc?

[Sulimo]

Slightly better than PS3.

I wonder about that. I still find the PS3's support of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 handy.

As for AVC support...the 360 supports (or will) AVC High Profile up to 15 Mb, whilst the PS3 supports Main Profile but at much higher bitrates (at least 32Mb).

How much difference are those things going to make on video quality (or potential video quality)?

[kamikaZi_blitz]

I bricked my 360 awhile back and have been trying to find a reason to get one again. I think I just found my reason.

[deets]

hmm i wonder what container support it will include.

i would guess mkv would be out of the question :D

probably just mp4 with aac 5.1 which will be totally useless!

[toytown]

hmm i wonder what container support it will include.

There is a bigger thread on about it here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=118403

From what i understand the new patch allows MP4 containers to be supported with H264/AVC content, although its limited to 2channel audio only.

No MKV support, no AC3 support.

[deets]

i was just reading that, thanks :)

yeah its a step in the right direction, but still sadly not the whole package which would make it a fantastic media player.

[kamikaZi_blitz]

Well with those codecs supported, the transcoding programs that we are all using will not have to transcode the video anymore and maybe there will be a transcoding workaround for the ac3? Dear god I hope so. It's hard for them to push the HD factor if we cant even use 5.1

[DaveTinNY]

Well yesterday I bought Nero 7 Ultimate Enhanced... Took it home, called their Tech Support and told them I've got the Sony HDR SR1 camera with generates the AVCHD files (.m2ts)... the guy on the other end told me not to install the software off the CDROM but to go to the Nero Home Page and download the latest version 7.8.5.0 (I believe that's the version off the top of my head here at work).
I took a few of my HD .m2ts files and burned them with the Nero software, popped it into my XBOX 360 and it actually played the movies! I was so happy. A great 16:9 picture with surround sound.
What I'm not 100% sure of is whether it's true high definition or not. I'm thinking no because I'm not playing the disc on the HD player. Regardless, the picture quality is fantastic if you ask me and I'm rather picky with my HD quality. If it gets better than this, then I will be doubly happy.