Encoding Blu-ray to play through Xbox extender

[exodus454]

So I've been taking on the task lately of trying to get my blurays into media browser and playable through my extender. I'm ripping DVDs to mkv and they've been working without issue, but blurays have been being quite a bit more difficult.

I tried ripping them to mkv and they wouldn't play. Now I'm taking the ripped mkvs and encoding them to mp4/h264 via handbrake. I'm using the high profile with a few changes. The idea with ripping the blurays is to have them look as close as possible to the real thing. File size is not a concern but what the extender can handle seems to be the limiting factor.

First try -
25mbps
Constant frame rate
2 pass/turbo first pass
DTS pass through

Looked great, skipped once every 5 minutes or so. Plays flawlessly on a PC.

Second try -
22mbps
Constant frame rate
2 pass/turbo
DTS pass through

Looks a little less great, still skipping occasionally. PC plays flawlessly

Third try -
20mbps
Constant frame rate
2 pass/turbo
DTS pass through

Looks a like its losing its edge a little more, still not completely fluid. Plays fine via PC.

Fourth try -
20mbps
Constant
2 pass/turbo
Mp3 pro logic ii

Looks good, no stuttering, sounds awful.


Anyone have anything to try or know the limits of what the extender can stream? I'm starting to get sick of the trial and error with this. I just want the blurays as high quality as possible On the extender, keeping as much of the original sound quality as possible. I've been doing test files for the past two days and not making a whole lot of headway.


Computer specs -
Host computer has 7.5tb of storage available.
Its running windows 8, dual core 3.6ghz athlon A6, whole Ethernet is gigabit wired other than the Xbox. Processor utilization when playing through the extender is negligible.

Encoding is being done on a windows 7 desktop with an 8 core AMD FX processor with a solid state as the OS drive.

Anyone have any pointers??

[lithium630]

If it works great but 20mbps is pushing the limit of what the Xbox can do with MKV. I convert the audio to AC3 320kbps.

[skwayb]

First off remember MKVs are just a container for a codec. So you can have just about any format in it. Also, make sure you don't have too many reference frames. Or it will not play smoothly on the Xbox. Make sure you don't go more than the 4.1 Profile for encoding. Use mediainfo and see how many reference frames the MKV has. If it is more than 4, it will run poorly on the Xbox.

I reencode all of my Blu-Rays to h.264 1080p with a combined total bitrate (audio and video) of 15 Mbps using a 4.1 Profile. Plays smooth 99% of the time. (unless temp. network issue). The official H.264 Bitrate is 10 Mbps on the Xbox but I find that 15 Mbps works fine. I use RipBot264 to reencode the Blu-Ray to an H.264 MKV and encoding the Video at 14336 kbps and encode/convert the Audio to Dolby Digital at 640K since Extenders don't support DTS (Passthru usually is too high bitrate and puts you over 15 Mbps) That will get you an MKV at 15 Mbps. Since I am playing these on Extenders, I usually then convert them to the WTV container format using DVRMS Toolbox. They play a lot better on the Extender and have better ff/rew plus Thumbnails for seeing different sections of the video when you are ff/rew. But you can leave them as a MKV if you don't care about that.

Here are the official list of supported Codecs and bitrates.
AVI support
◦The Xbox 360 console supports the following for AVI:
◦File extensions: .avi, .divx
◦Containers: AVI
◦Video profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2 (Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile)
◦Video bit rate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 × 720 at 30 fps
◦Audio profiles: Dolby® Digital (2 channel and 5.1 channel), MP3
◦Audio max bit rate: No restrictions

H.264 support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for H.264:
◦File extensions: .mp4, .m4v, mp4v, .mov, .avi
◦Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
◦Video profiles: Baseline, main and high (up to level 4.1)
◦Video bit rate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps.
◦Audio profiles: AAC, 2-channel, Low Complexity
◦Audio max bit rate: No restrictions.

MPEG-4 Part 2 support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for MPEG-4:
◦File extensions: .mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .mov, .avi
◦Containers: MPEG-4, QuickTime
◦Video profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2 (Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile)
◦Video bit rate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 × 720 at 30 fps.
◦Audio profiles: AAC, 2-channel, Low Complexity
◦Audio max bit rate: No restrictions.

WMV (VC-1) support

The Xbox 360 console supports the following for WMV:
◦File extensions: .wmv
◦Containers: ASF
◦Video profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main and advanced up to level 3
◦Video bit rate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps.
◦Audio profiles: WMA7/8, WMA9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA Lossless
◦Audio max bit rate: No restrictions.

[exodus454]

What do reference frames do?

Handbrake defaults to 3 reference frames I believe. Ill try redoing it with 1, but if I'm gunna go through all this headache I also want to retain compatibility with other devices as well.

Thanks for the tips though, I'm going to try some more test files later tonight.

[skwayb]

From wikipedia - Reference frames are frames of a compressed video that are used to define future frames. The more reference frames the harder the Xbox has to work to decode it, that is why when more then 1 it starts to get choppy. More reference frames the higher the quality the video is. But everything looks good to me at 1080p still.

This has a pretty good description of reference frames.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_frame_(video)

[staknhalo]

Here are 2 helpful resources on Handbrake settings and what max settings different levels of h.264 allow :

http://mattgadient.com/2012/06/25/a-run ... ngs-0-9-6/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels - the numbers you see in parenthesis next to resolutions are the max number of ref frames supported for that resolution at that h.264 level

[hakras]

I use HandBrake for all of my encoding and have no issues with playback. I'm use the Shark007 codecs. My settings in HB are simple and playback is great IMO. I use HandBrake 0.9.5 (2011010300). I never updated beyond because version 0.9.6 took away the AC3 Passthru Audio Codec. Here are my settings:

Container: MKV File

Picture
Width: 1920
Anamorphic: Loose
Modulus: 16
Cropping: Automatic

Video Filters
Everything Off

Video
Video Codec: H.264 (x264)
Framerate (FPS): Same as source
Constant Quality: RF:20.5

Audio
Audio Codec: AC3 Passthru

Advanced - I think these were the default settings
Reference Frames: Default(3)
Maximum B-Frames: Default(3)
CABAC Entropy Coding: Checked
8x8 Transform: Checked
Weighted P-Frames: Checked
Pyramidal B-Frames: Default (Normal)
No DCT-Decimate: Not Checked
Adaptive B-Frames: Optimal
Adaptive Direct Mode: Default (Spatial)
Motion Estimation Method: Default (Hexagon)
Subpixel ME & Mode Decision: Default (7)
Adaptive Quantization Strength: Middle Position
Psychovisual Rate Distortion: Middle Position
Psychovisual Trellis: Far Left Position
Bottom options field: b-adapt=2:rc-lookahead=50

I hope this helps.

[skwayb]

After re-reading my post, I realized I made a mistake on the reference frames. The Xbox will support a maximum of 4 refrences frames. I didn't realize I accidentally typed 1 on the 10 key and not 4.

[TheOsburnFamil]

FYI--- I just loaded the latest 9.9.1 and AC3Passthru is there.

[Z3R0]

Just to post some help on this topic, I've actually been using Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 to convert all of my movies over for the WMC on Xbox.

My largest movie is 17Mbps and plays flawlessly and looks crisp and clear on my 60".

WMV VC-1 Advanced 14.5 Mbps with WMA Lossless 6ch audio.