2006-10-01, 16:12
720p Xvid and DivX conent works just fine 99% of the time!
WMV, H.264 just doesn't...
WMV, H.264 just doesn't...
2006-10-03, 04:45
Doing a little math for a 2 hour movie
2 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 172,800 frames
So at your '99% just fine' level, 1% or 1,728 frames will get dropped.
Or on average, about 1 every four seconds
I don't think so... I want
99.99% = 17 dropped, maaybee
99.999% = 1-2 dropped, yesss!
2 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 172,800 frames
So at your '99% just fine' level, 1% or 1,728 frames will get dropped.
Or on average, about 1 every four seconds
I don't think so... I want
99.99% = 17 dropped, maaybee
99.999% = 1-2 dropped, yesss!
2006-10-03, 09:01
I had the same exact question! Just got a 32" HDTV display...
I downloaded an episode of a show (XviD format) in both 960x528 and HDTV res (both had AC3 i believe) and the HDTV res file did not play smoothly. The 960x528 played okay. This over my wired network, so i transfered both to the XBOX hard drive and the HD file played better but still not smooth and I got 30 dropped frames within 37 secs.
Then I tried playing these files and more shows/files through my wannabe htpc with meedio and windows media center 2005 through HDMI/DVI... and i was floored by the quality (MC2005 played better). though the 960 and HD file didn't really play (via networked, haven't tried off the hard drive yet), just the playback quality of the regular file (624x352) was far superior than the xbox. plus I know when I put in a better vid card (using fx 5900) and faster cpu+mobo (using 1.5 P4), it'll play HD (720p) content very smoothly...
...so what I'm saying is; if you're really gonna get a HDTV display, do it some justice and let a well drive it. xbox is great for SD content and SDTV displays, but HD content well be choppy and either format content will look like S-VHS at best on ya HDTV display anyway. go the HTPC/HDMI/DVI route, it'll even play ya standard content (both 4:3 and 16:9) much better than xbox over component.
hope that was helpful
(i was playing Prison Break s02e02 on XBOX v1 with current XBMC 2.0 point release, played over a 100 Mb network and played off a 20 GB ATA66 hard drive)
I downloaded an episode of a show (XviD format) in both 960x528 and HDTV res (both had AC3 i believe) and the HDTV res file did not play smoothly. The 960x528 played okay. This over my wired network, so i transfered both to the XBOX hard drive and the HD file played better but still not smooth and I got 30 dropped frames within 37 secs.
Then I tried playing these files and more shows/files through my wannabe htpc with meedio and windows media center 2005 through HDMI/DVI... and i was floored by the quality (MC2005 played better). though the 960 and HD file didn't really play (via networked, haven't tried off the hard drive yet), just the playback quality of the regular file (624x352) was far superior than the xbox. plus I know when I put in a better vid card (using fx 5900) and faster cpu+mobo (using 1.5 P4), it'll play HD (720p) content very smoothly...
...so what I'm saying is; if you're really gonna get a HDTV display, do it some justice and let a well drive it. xbox is great for SD content and SDTV displays, but HD content well be choppy and either format content will look like S-VHS at best on ya HDTV display anyway. go the HTPC/HDMI/DVI route, it'll even play ya standard content (both 4:3 and 16:9) much better than xbox over component.
hope that was helpful
(i was playing Prison Break s02e02 on XBOX v1 with current XBMC 2.0 point release, played over a 100 Mb network and played off a 20 GB ATA66 hard drive)
2006-10-03, 09:13
Whoa, no putting down the almighty xbox on this forum...
Seriously, most people are here because they can buy a ~100.00 peice of hardware which can playback media content at better than DVD resolutions.
Plugh, thanks for the VERY informative top post, its this type of information that makes this all worthwhile. Have you heard much about getting CoreAVC to integrate with mplayer? or getting the GPU to assist in video processing?
I also discovered that xvids encoded at HR.HDTV (960-540) @ 30fps/24fps are some of the best looking and most reliable content possible. I most convert captured 1280x720p content using Theeo, which works really good. I would really like to know of any other tools that can be used to convert content reliably with settings optimized for xbox playback...
Thanks again for the post.
Seriously, most people are here because they can buy a ~100.00 peice of hardware which can playback media content at better than DVD resolutions.
Plugh, thanks for the VERY informative top post, its this type of information that makes this all worthwhile. Have you heard much about getting CoreAVC to integrate with mplayer? or getting the GPU to assist in video processing?
I also discovered that xvids encoded at HR.HDTV (960-540) @ 30fps/24fps are some of the best looking and most reliable content possible. I most convert captured 1280x720p content using Theeo, which works really good. I would really like to know of any other tools that can be used to convert content reliably with settings optimized for xbox playback...
Thanks again for the post.
2006-10-03, 10:03
DiGiTYZED
Regarding the quality difference you see when playing xvid. (PC vs xbox)
Have you tryed the settings in this post..(for xvid)
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=17836
Regarding the quality difference you see when playing xvid. (PC vs xbox)
Have you tryed the settings in this post..(for xvid)
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=17836
2006-10-03, 21:24
k-pax Wrote:DiGiTYZED
Regarding the quality difference you see when playing xvid. (PC vs xbox)
Have you tryed the settings in this post..(for xvid)
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=17836
no i haven't but I will now.
and i wasn't putting down the xbox. i've been rocking it and xbmc for over 4 years now.
2006-10-04, 03:33
Well, did some more conversions and could almost get 720p rez to play smooth... but it seems there's always a high movement scene that drops frames. I've gone as low as 2000kbps in my XVids, not sure if it's worth going lower...
What about doing a non-standard size between HR.HDTV and 720p, like 1120x597? XBMC shouldn't have an issue with that rez...
What about doing a non-standard size between HR.HDTV and 720p, like 1120x597? XBMC shouldn't have an issue with that rez...
2006-10-04, 04:38
Are you trying to do full frame 1280x720? Or is it 2.35:1 material?
If full frame, you're better off resizing to anamorphic 960x720.
If 2.35:1 film, crop and resize to 1280x544.
Don't forget to apply inverse telecine, to get down to the original film frame rate.
Recall the calc I showed? Take the dimensions of your encode, times the frame rate of your encode, divided by 256 - you need to keep that result under ~66000.
Oh, and re: 1120x597 - dimensions should be a multiple of (evenly divisible by) 16.
If full frame, you're better off resizing to anamorphic 960x720.
If 2.35:1 film, crop and resize to 1280x544.
Don't forget to apply inverse telecine, to get down to the original film frame rate.
Recall the calc I showed? Take the dimensions of your encode, times the frame rate of your encode, divided by 256 - you need to keep that result under ~66000.
Oh, and re: 1120x597 - dimensions should be a multiple of (evenly divisible by) 16.
2006-10-04, 12:17
Yup, it's 1280x720. Oh, and that was a typo, I meant 1120x624. I'll try your calc next!
2006-10-04, 18:05
1120/624=1.79 ok
1120/16=70 624/16=39 ok
1120*624*24/256 = 65520 MB/S ok
In conjunction with those encoder settings, yeah, that might just fly...
(Don't forget to do inverse telecine or frame rate will be to high)
You might want to get a copy of DRFanalyzer
http://www.geocities.com/analyzerDRF/
1120/16=70 624/16=39 ok
1120*624*24/256 = 65520 MB/S ok
In conjunction with those encoder settings, yeah, that might just fly...
(Don't forget to do inverse telecine or frame rate will be to high)
You might want to get a copy of DRFanalyzer
http://www.geocities.com/analyzerDRF/
2006-10-04, 22:38
Yup, seems like that did it - plays smoothly, no dropped frames that I notice! Thanks for the help!
One question though, any idea why my final 2.2GB file would show up as something like 173000GB in XBMC and not play? If I click on it nothing happens... I took the same file to cut out a sample (direct stream copy for audio and video) in virtualdub and that plays fine... I thought maybe there was a strange header or something, so I tried the same in virtualdub again, this time from the first frame to almost the end, and same thing, XBMC reported it as a huge file and it wouldn't play...
One question though, any idea why my final 2.2GB file would show up as something like 173000GB in XBMC and not play? If I click on it nothing happens... I took the same file to cut out a sample (direct stream copy for audio and video) in virtualdub and that plays fine... I thought maybe there was a strange header or something, so I tried the same in virtualdub again, this time from the first frame to almost the end, and same thing, XBMC reported it as a huge file and it wouldn't play...
2006-10-24, 17:05
Great info here. I want to try it but I have not idea what software you're using. I've tried divx convertor and a lot of the open source tools but I cannot find how to use those profiles/setting in any of them. What are you using to encode?
2006-10-24, 22:30
I just tried MeGUI and it seems to work quite well, it's free, and you can get it and a TON of info, etc, at vcdhelp.com.
2006-10-25, 19:40
Thanks, meGUI does seem to work well. I'm currently 15 hours into an encode to change Matrix 1080i to Xbox compatible 720p. When it's finished how will I know if it's 720p or 720i? I have looked at vcdhelp but the only guide I found relative was HDTV to Xvid and was very complicated. We'll see how this goes.
2006-10-25, 22:38
hmmm so the end result (after ~20 hrs) is an 800MB mp4 which does not play in WMP or Divx players and crashes QT. When encoding I used the "PD-Xbox_HiRes" profile (hoping it was plugh's). I guess I'll try again but this time sticking closer to plugh's suggestions. I still cant find an "DXN HDTV profile" anywhere in meGUI or Xvid codec config options...
