Articles - > AVI to (Xbox 360 compatible) WMV Conversion Guide

Title:	AVI to (Xbox 360 compatible) WMV Conversion Guide
Description:	This guides shows you how to convert your AVI/DivX/XviD file to a WMV file, with emphasis on Xbox 360 compatibility
Author/Publisher:	DVDGuy
Ease of use:	Beginners
Software Used:	K-Lite Codec Pack, Windows Media Encoder
Page Viewed:	209354 times

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Page 4 of 4: Windows Media Encoder - Encoder Setup

Step 3: Windows Media Encoder - Encoder Setup

Click on the "Properties" button at the top. This opens the "Session Properties" window.

In the "Sources" section, you can find information about the source file. The "Mark In/Out" function is useful for selecting only part of the source to encode.

Skip to the "Compression" tab and click on the "Edit" button. This should open the "Custom Encoding Settings" window. Here, change both the audio and video mode settings from "CBR" to "Bit rate VBR" - using VBR encoding will greatly improve quality and selecting the "Bit rate VBR" option will allow us to specify the output file size.

Windows Media Encoder: Custom Encoding Settings

Click on the "xxxx Kbps" tab (where "xxxx" is a number - the bit rate, actually). This is where you configure the audio and video bit rate, and hence, determine the quality and file size of the output file. I am going to recommend some settings that will produce WMV files of good quality (equivalent to the quality of TV episode downloads, 350 MB per 42 minutes @ 640x*** resolution).

Set the "Audio Format" tp something lower, "96 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo VBR" should do (you can probably get away with "64 kbps").

Select the "Same as video input" option next to the "Vide size" input boxes to make the output file use the same resolution as the input.

Change the framerate to match the framerate of your source video (usually 23.976, 25 or 29.97 FPS).

Change "Key frame interval" to "10" seconds.

The "Video bit rate" option will require a bit of calculation. If you have a bit rate calculator, now would be a good time to use it, but as a general rule, here's the equation to use: Video bit rate in Kbps = (8 * (Output file size in MB * 1024) / (Length of movie in seconds)) - Audio bit rate

For example (taking your average 350 MB, 42 minute TV episode download):

Video bit rate = ((8 * 350 * 1024) / (42 * 60)) - 96 = 1041 Kbps

So enter in "1041K" for example into the "Video bit rate" input box.

Windows Media Encoder: Custom Encoding Settings - Bit rate

You can return to the "General" tag and export this encoding profile, so you can re-use it later on for encoding the same types of files. Otherwise, click "OK" to close the "Custom Encoding Settings" window.

There are other settings here, but we don't really need to change them, so click on "Apply" to apply the changes to the session.

All that is left to do now is to press the "Start Encoding" button and encoding should start.

After the encoding is finished, you should have a new WMV file and you should test this file in Windows Media Player. After you have confirmed it works, you can then copy the file onto CD/DVD/USB, and play this file back on your Xbox 360.

We're done

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Article Navigation:

Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Installation
Page 3: Windows Media Encoder - New Session Wizard
Page 4: Windows Media Encoder - Encoder Setup <--

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i have followed the process, although on my klite mega codec pack, i dont have the "Decode the following video formats with ffdshow" option? continued with the process and once the file has been encoded, the new .wmv file is only 2 seconds long? have i missed something? and has anyone else had this problem? thanks

I was using Blaze Media Pro to convert avi files to wmv so I could stream them to my Xbox 360 but found that on most output files there was a two second audio/video sync problem. Very frustrating!.. This has solved the issue completely so I am delighted! Many thanks indeed!

This is Great, I knew nothing about decoding and haven't had any recent experience with video files. However, with this document, that I find my self refering to alot now, is a great, quick tourial for doing just that. Thank you to whom took the time to put this up. - Burnt Network Engineer kaorking

Great post, I have recently bought XBOX 360 and in the middle of giving it a try. I also played a little with the windows media encoder and found out that they have a command line tool, so if you have the entire season of let's say friends or 24, and you would like to convert it to wmv, you can do it in a batch mode. After you have exported your profile you should do something like: 1. open cmd.exe 2. Go to %programfiles%\Windows Media Components\Encoder 3. type 'cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs –input c:\friends_season1folderAVI -output c:\friends_season1folderWMV -loadprofile myprofile

I have followed this to the bone. However I keep getting an AUDIO CODEC error. what may I do to precent this?

faibs: You need to use gspot or mediainfo on your input file to see what kind of audio codec it uses, and then search google to download/install the audio codec

i have a movie in 2 parts ie 2 avi files, there are also 2 .srt files with the english subtitles. can i still use this method?

i was able to get this to work about 3 weeks ago. i reinstalled windows xp though and now there is a syncing problem with the audio and video after the second pass. with the final wmv file, the audio will start playing from the beginning, but the first 8 minutes of the video doesn't show up. my wmv file ends up 8 minutes shorter than what it should be. does anyone know how i might be able to fix this?