Need Someone to Verify - No bitrate restrictions on Extender

[TheOsburnFamil]

Okay-- I need someone else to check my results with their own testing to make sure I'm not crazy.

Windows 8.1 - XBOX360 Extenders - Bluray Rip to M2TS (AC3 Audio) == No stuttering at ANY bitrate.

Here's what I did & I'm hoping someone else can verify before I go and re-rip a bunch of discs.

1) Windows 8.1 HTPC MediaCenter server with Bluray Drive
2) Install Haali MKV Splitter & VSFilter - Configure to force subtitles only
3) Using MakeMKV, rip Star Trek Generations Bluray disc & select main-movie & forced subtitles only (results in a 22.GB MKV file with H264 and AC3)
4) Using tsMuxeR, convert .MKV file to .M2TS (Straight direct-copy, no conversions)
5) Play back StarTrekGenerations.m2ts in Windows MediaCenter Extender on XBox360 = No stuttering, perfect playback.

WTH? I think I may finally be done re-encoding my BD rips!

I should add that all of this took less than one hour with the largest amount of time spent actually ripping the main movie off the disc and onto the HD. I'm going to retry this same test using a VC1 BD original as well as an MPEG2 BD original. If all three yield the same results then I think I'm totally convinced.

[TheOsburnFamil]

Okay-- so here's the results of testing VC1 & MPEG2 BDs...

VC1 - No go with any container (MP4, AVI, TS, M2TS, WTV). Need to rip to either *MPEG2 or H264.
MPEG2 - No go with straight rip to M2TS (removing HD Audio down to AC3 6ch). However, using WTV, I don't seem to have any restrictions in bitrate with the MPEG2 codec in a WTV container.
H264 - Good to go with straight BD to .M2TS (removing HD audio down to AC3 6ch).

*MPEG2 needs WTV container or I get stuttering.

This being said-- any BD that's H264 can be ripped for full xbox360 support on a Win8.1 HTPC in less than an hour.
MPEG2 BDs can be done in less than two hours.
VC1 BDs will take some additional steps to rip the main movie, then reencode to H264.

[glugglug]

Possibly related to these video transcoding and streaming improvements? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 82883.aspx

Very surprising if they included media center in anything anymore though.

Also, most (all?) of the containers you listed aren't really compatible with VC-1. Try an MKV container. Officially, the XBOX supports a 50% higher bitrate for VC-1 than it does for H.264.

If they are redoing transcoding logic for Play-to streaming (seems far more likely than a direct extender enhancement), it would probably now use higher bitrates in the transcodes on a QuickSync capable machine. If it is transcoding to make high bitrates XBOX playable, this should be obvious if you can disable QuickSync somehow, as it would end up much lower quality and use a ton of CPU.

[TheOsburnFamil]

In a perfect world, I'm trying to stay within native container support (native to MCX, not just the XBOX Dashboard Video Player). As .m2ts container spec support h264, vc1, & mpeg2-- I was hoping to go that route; however, it seems I only get good results with h264/ac3 & .m2ts.

That may be the winner at the end of the day as it appears any bitrate level that can be played back in Windows 8.1 XBOX360 Extenders using the h264/ac3/m2ts design.

I would just prefer not to have to re-encode my blurays that aren't already h264. Would be nice to just rip, strip hd audio, and specify the forced only subtitles.

I'm attempting to use DVDFab's HD Decrypter right now to rip a Band of Brother bluray disc from my box set. It is vc1/hd audio. I'm going to try to see if DVDFab's HD Decrypter will strip the HD audio & convert to AC3, while leaving the video intact as VC1. I'll see that if that plays back (not expecting it to) and will then remux to a MKV and try again.

[cncb]

I don't suppose we can ever hope for DTS support on the XBOX 360. What's the best way to convert DTS to AC3 in already ripped MKV or M2TS?

[cncb]

I'm curious if you are still seeing no bitrate restrictions now that the official 8.1 is released? If so, then it seems like DTS audio will be the only thing that needs to be converted which might not be so bad.

[cncb]

I picked up an XBOX 360 E to try this out on my own and the results are not great. I am using the LAV splitter and filters on the "server" PC. When playing an MKV with H264 & AC3, playback is smooth but it puts a serious load on my server CPU (~80%). Most of this is in the "Media Foundation Protected Path EXE" process. When playing an MKV with VC1 & AC3 (The Bourne Identity), playback is very jerky even while the CPU load on the server stays very low (~14%)? Strange and disappointing.

[Socketman]

I recently built a Windows 7 server explicitly for streaming my mkv's/ac3 ripped blurays. On my windows 8 machine I could serve all 3 Xbox's with out a problem. On the new build, serving just one extender maxed my 3 core processor, the resource monitor revealed that media foundation was the culprit. My usual install is just the Divx Plus splitter but in an attempt to solve the high cpu usage I added shark007 codecs which I have also used with great success. Even with shark installed it was high cpu usage. I then did some reading on his site and realize that my turning off UAC was the possible reason I was experiencing problems. I uninstalled all divx codecs, reset shark and uninstalled it as well. I then restored UAC to default rebooted then reinstalled shark007 and divx and cpu usage is now back to normal. It seems turning off UAC restricts access to parts of windows when installing codecs which makes them not function correctly. I am not sure if this is helpful or relevant as you may know this already but I thought I would share my experience. Normally I don't disable UAC until the machine is fully functional but I got in a hurry and ended up shootin myself in the foot.

Richard

[Shark007]

I then restored UAC to default rebooted then reinstalled shark007 and divx

There is no need to install anything from Divx when using my software.
It is well known to be the cause of issues rather than fix or make anything work properly.
After uninstalling Divx, you will need to press {Reset All] in my application GUI.

You should choose one or the other (Shark or Divx), but never install both simultaneously.