WMV/VCF1 - what is a good transcoder?

[Kotatsu Neko]

Hi all, I do a lot of transcoding to WMV so I can play video files on my X360 but have yet to come across a transcoder which adequately meets my requirements.

I need subtitle support, as I transcode a lot of anime fansubs. That immediately rules out most of the WMV encoders out there. I also need it to handle H.264/AVC in MKV enclosures, which again seems to rule out a bunch more.

At this point I'm pretty much left with WinAVI, and Encode360, although I'm finding Encode360 to be phenomenally picky about which files it likes, and which files it immediately crashes on. Unfortunately it seems to choose the latter option almost every time.

WinAVI then, is what I have been using a lot. Sadly though, it has a couple of problems, namely it crunches 5.1 audio into 2 channel stereo, and it also likes to crash when it finds embedded subtitles. I can work around this by demuxing the MKV, stripping the subs and remuxing back into an MP4 and giving WinAVI a seperate .srt file (the only sub format it supports), but that's a real pain to do.

Is there anything better out there? Something which will handle subtitles, likes MKV files, and does 5.1 WMV audio? Preferably something which will encode VC1 too, as WinAVI seems to use some ancient flavor of WMV which isn't the best quality.

Thanks in advance!

[Dark Shikari]

Hi all, I do a lot of transcoding to WMV so I can play video files on my X360 but have yet to come across a transcoder which adequately meets my requirements.

I need subtitle support, as I transcode a lot of anime fansubs. That immediately rules out most of the WMV encoders out there. I also need it to handle H.264/AVC in MKV enclosures, which again seems to rule out a bunch more.

At this point I'm pretty much left with WinAVI, and Encode360, although I'm finding Encode360 to be phenomenally picky about which files it likes, and which files it immediately crashes on. Unfortunately it seems to choose the latter option almost every time.

WinAVI then, is what I have been using a lot. Sadly though, it has a couple of problems, namely it crunches 5.1 audio into 2 channel stereo, and it also likes to crash when it finds embedded subtitles. I can work around this by demuxing the MKV, stripping the subs and remuxing back into an MP4 and giving WinAVI a seperate .srt file (the only sub format it supports), but that's a real pain to do.

Is there anything better out there? Something which will handle subtitles, likes MKV files, and does 5.1 WMV audio? Preferably something which will encode VC1 too, as WinAVI seems to use some ancient flavor of WMV which isn't the best quality.

Thanks in advance!Your post will probably be struck for Rule 6.

Anyways, all you need is AviSynth + DirectShowSource + TextSub (for the subtitles) + any of the various VC1 encoder frontends that accept AviSynth input. Doesn't matter what the input is; as long as you can DirectShowSource() it, you can transcode it.

[mrcorbo]

Give AutoMKV (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=113811) a try. Despite the name it has pretty comprehensive codec and container support, including WMV, with specific profile support for the 360 and the Zune. Under the advanced settings tab there's a setting for "burning" subtitles into the final movie, which was one of your requirements.

[ACrowley]

When you want the best Quality , dont use these "Realtime one Clikc Transcoder" like Transcode360 etc

Make a complete reencode to WVC1 with WMCMD.vbs

Use one of the prestes like -v_preset Better to make sure you have important encoding Options enabled ...like Bframs,inloop

[Dark Shikari]

When you want the best Quality , dont use these "Realtime one Clikc Transcoder" like Transcode360 etc

Make a complete reencode to WVC1 with WMCMD.vbs

Use one of the prestes like -v_preset Better to make sure you have important encoding Options enabled ...like Bframs,inloop
Yeah, just a warning though when using the higher presets... VC-1 is possibly the slowest encoder I've ever used.

x264, on 1080p source with 16 reference frames never goes below 0.7 FPS on my system, and with sane settings that are within 2% of the best in terms of SSIM, it usually goes at least 3-4 FPS.

VC-1, by comparison, goes about 0.7 FPS... on "better." Best goes about 3-4 times slower. And don't even talk about insane. :eek: