Converting x264 mkv to wmv-vc1 without loosing quality

[ricflairandy]

Is this possible? Ive been doing it with tmpgenc at the momnet, can anyone reccomened any other tools?

Basicly trying to keep the qauality as perfect as possible for plaback on a 360

[zambelli]

There's no way to do this without losing at least some quality - both codecs are lossy codecs.

The best way would be to encode in 2-pass peak VBR at an average bitrate higher than the H.264 source bitrate but within the safe bitrate of Xbox 360 capabilities.

[bond]

does the xbox 360 support avc streams?

[ricflairandy]

what would be the best software to use to convert it then?

[zambelli]

does the xbox 360 support avc streams?
It does. The Spring 2007 flash update adds support for H.264 in MP4, though the decoder is currently limited to AVC Level4.1 and only stereo AAC audio. I'm not sure what the empirical bitrate cap is (Xbox team originally said 10 Mbps but they might've just been erring on the safe side).

[aqualung99]

FYI I've definitely gotten bitrates in the 11-12 Mbps range to work ok on the 360. So I think you'd be safe starting in that range (and then trying to go up from there if you're brave :) )