Articles - > Xbox 360 H.264 Conversion Guide

Title:	Xbox 360 H.264 Conversion Guide
Description:	This guide shows you how to convert DVD/AVI/DivX/XviD/MOV files to H.264 video for Xbox 360 compatibility
Author/Publisher:	DVDGuy
Ease of use:	Intermediate
Latest Version:	1.4 (details)
OS Support:
Software Used:	MeGUI, Nero Digital Audio Decoder/Encoder, TVersity
Date Added:	May 11, 2007
Last Updated:	Nov 27, 2007
Page Viewed:	274993 times

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karto: Great guide! I've been trying to...
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Categories:

Main Categories: AVI (DivX, XviD ...), MPEG-4 (ASF/WMV, QuickTime, Real, H.264 ...), DVD Conversion, Gaming
Sub Categories:
AVI To Other Format Conversion -> AVI to MPEG-4 (AVC, H.264) Conversion
DVD Conversion -> DVD To MPEG-4 (AVC/H.264) Conversion
MPEG-4 (ASF, WMV, QuickTime, AVC, H.264 ...) -> QuickTime (Mov) to Other Format Conversion
Video Encoding -> MPEG-4 (DivX, XviD, WMV, QuickTime, AVC, H.264 ...) Encoding
Video Game Consoles -> Xbox 360

Page 1 of 8: Introduction + Installation

The Spring 2007 Dashboard update for the Xbox 360 adds H.264 playback support. H.264 is a very advanced video codec used in Blu-ray/HD DVD, and offers better quality and smaller file sizes than DivX/XviD, at the cost of slightly more processing power (and encoding time). Processing power becomes less of an issue with the powerful Xbox 360, and since the Xbox 360 does not support DivX/XviD (and is unlikely to do so), H.264 then becomes an ideal format for those that don't want to use WMV. Please note that some people have had success with playing back standard resolution MOV (QuickTime) and certain high resolution MOV (QuickTime HD) files directly without further re-encoding, so you might want to try this first. QuickTime HD files are already encoded using H.264, but some are encoded using settings which are incompatible with the Xbox 360's H.264 support. The PS3 also supports H.264 playback, and you can view the PS3 version of this guide here - the PS3 has an advantage over the Xbox 360 in that it supports AAC 5.1 channel audio (although with limited decoding support).

Make sure you are able to playback H.264 clips on your computer first. Consult our H.264 Playback Guide if you are unsure.

This guide uses MeGUI to provide the H.264 conversion from a DVD source or from other file formats (AVI/DivX/XviD/MOV/HDMOV - many other formats, such as MPG, are also supported). MeGUI is one of the newer tools that's been designed with H.264 encoding in mind. This guide is very similar to the MeGUI H.264 Conversion Guide, except it simplifies a few things and the H.264/MP4 file produced has Xbox 360 compatibility in mind. It also covers how to playback the MP4 file on your Xbox 360 using the TVersity or Zune software.

This guide is aimed at intermediate users that already have some knowledge in regards to video conversion. As such, basic knowledge of things such as framerate and resolution is recommended (and since you are here to experiment with H.264, this assumption is not all that unrealistic). You will also need to know some network basics for Xbox 360 to Zune software connection, such as knowing what your network IP address is, configuring your firewall or port forwarding if your computer is not on the same LAN as your Xbox 360.

Software you'll need (all freeware):

Hardware you'll need:

Xbox 360

Step 1: Installation

The first thing you need to do before you can even install MeGUI is to download and install Microsoft's .NET Framework version 2.0. It's a fairly large file and installation could take more than half an hour.

The next thing you need to download and install is AviSynth.

You can now go on and download MeGUI.

Install MeGUI. Start it up and most likely, it will prompt you to update the software used by MeGUI - click "Yes" to launch the update Manager.

Press the "Update" button to start the update process - MeGUI will automatically download and launch the install for the required software. You will most likely get a "1 file had problems" error, this is because the "neroaacenc" software cannot be downloaded automatically from MeGUI due to copyright reasons (it is freeware, but you need to go through Nero's software agreement first before you can download it). Go to this page, select "Agree" to download the ZIP archive. There are several files in the ZIP archive, but the files we need are NeroAacEnc.exe or NeroAacEnc_SSE.exe. As the name suggest, the "SSE" version is optimized for processors that support SSE instructions (which is most of them, including all Intel Pentium III or newer CPUs and AMD Athlon XPs or newer). Extract one of these .exe files to your "megui\tools\neroaacenc" folder (eg. "c:\program files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\win32\neroaacenc.exe").

When all the updates are completed, you can now close the MeGUI updater.

If you've extracted neroaacenc, you might need to access the "Settings" option from the "Tools" menu, and go to the "Program Paths" section. For "NeroAacEnc", use the browse button to locate where you extracted the neroaacenc executable file (eg. "c:\program files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\win32\neroaacenc.exe"). Press "Save" to close the settings window.

Also, MeGUI often doesn't update to the latest x264 version, so you will have to do this manually. First, from within MeGUI, go to the "Tools" menu and select "Settings". Go to the "Program Paths" section and see where MeGUI accesses the x264.exe file.

Then go to our x264 software page and check the latest version - if it is newer than the version listed in MeGUI, download and save the x264.exe to where MeGUI accesses the x264.exe file to replace the old file (usually c:\program files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe).

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Article Navigation:

Page 1: Introduction + Installation <--
Page 2: DVD/MPEG-2 Conversion
Page 3: MeGUI: AviSynth Script Creator
Page 4: MeGUI: Video Encoding Options
Page 5: MeGUI: Audio Encoding Options
Page 6: MeGUI: Cutting, Bitrate Calculator and AutoEncode
Page 7: TVersity: Playing the MP4 file on your Xbox 360
Page 8: Zune: Playing the MP4 file on your Xbox 360

Revision History:

Version 1.4:

Date Updated: Nov 27, 2007
Updated instructions for latest version of MeGUI, which includes new Xbox 360 compatible profiles
Minor corrections

Version 1.3:

Date Updated: Oct 9, 2007
Updated instructions for MeGUI 0.2.6, for parallel execution using multiple workers

Version 1.2:

Date Updated: May 16, 2007
1.2: Added instructions for using TVersity instead of Zune
1.1: Refined x264 encoding profiles, allowing 1080p Main/High profile encodes to be Xbox 360 compatible
1.1: Added AVS cutting instructions
1.1: Added bitrate calculator instructions

Version 1.0:

Date Updated: May 11, 2007
First public version

User Rating:

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User Comments:

Great guide! I've been trying to convert some Xvid to h264 without luck - this guide worked the first time :) I only have one problem - the audio on my converted file is out of sync (<1 sec early). Any ideas what I can do? The source was an avi (Xvid / AC3) in case that matters.

Thank You! I don't like the Zune software as it is way to much bloat and the install is ridiculous when all I want is a streaming program. I recommend giving Tversity a try as I got it streaming the h264 file to the 360 without transcoding to wmv.

Yes, TVersity was updated just shortly after I had finishing writing the guide with a patch that fixed incompatibility problems with the new Spring update. The next version of the guide might use TVersity, although it is slightly troublesome to setup as it requires a port to be opened in your firewall

Also, with Tversity, I was able to stream High Profile without a problem.

Until I update the guide for TVersity, for those that want to use it but don't know where to begin, have a look at our earlier Xbox 360 DivX/XviD playback guide, which has TVersity and connecting it to Xbox 360 instructions: http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Xbox_360_DivX_XviD_Playback_Guide_page3.html

Actually it looks like TVersity is still a bit fiddly when it comes to MP4/H.264 support - it does support MP4, but it will transcode the video to WMV and then stream to the Xbox 360 - huge CPU requirements and defeats the purpose of using H.264 in the first place (poor quality). You can probably modify the profiles and tell TVersity that the Xbox 360 now supports MP4/H.264 files natively, but it's a bit fiddly (see this thread: http://forums.tversity.com/viewtopic.php?t=5138). The next release should hopefully fix all these problems, or until someone comes up with an updated profile. So for now, it's Zune.

Yes, I did the bit of fiddling with the profiles.xml and then made sure to tell it to never transcode and that's how I got the streaming to work.

Just so you know, You also need to have Avisynth 2.5 installed before you can install and update MeGUI. You can grab a copy here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/avisynth2/

I've updated the guide to add in the AviSynth install

I'm converting from Xvix/DivX AVIs to H.264 MP4s, but I keep getting an error after autoencoding saying that I have an incorrect colorspace and it needs to be converted to YV12. I clicked "Yes" and continued, but the MP4 file that is outputted looks washed out when compared to the colors of the original Xvid file. Is this normal and is there a way to fix this? Also, how do I find the bitrate of my original Xvid file so I can set the bitrate in the "bitrate calculator" to 80%-90% of it's original value as you suggest? I would also like to say great guide, it's been very helpful and I would have been completely stuck without it. Now I just how MS update WMP11 to work with MP4s so I can stop using the Zune software.

rapidgame: The "incorrect colorspace" error is normal, just click yes and that should be fine. The washed out colors may be due to your encoding settings, or even your decoder (h.264 codec, player) setting. As for bit-rate, just use 80 to 90% of the original file size of the AVI file.

Thanks for the quick reply DVDGuy :-) I still can't figure out why the colors don't look the same on H.264, but the movies seem to look fine on my TV when I stream them from the Zune software. I'll try looking at the settings in my players to see if there's something I could change. I'm using FFDShow so I don't know if that might be where the problem is. When you say use 80-90% of the original AVI, is that when in the AutoEncode dialog? If I only use 80-90% of the original filesize in the bitrate calculator, that won't take into account the size required for the audio as well, would it? Thanks again for the great guide, I've been looking through Digital Digest and there's some really helpful stuff, definitely going into my bookmarks. I wish I could paragraph my comments, lol. ;-)

rapidgame: Try using Windows Media Player and then using the contrast/brightness/saturation, or just click on the ffdshow-video tray icon and configure the "picture properties" to your liking. When you specify an encoding file size in AutoEncode or the BItrate calculator, both takes into account the audio. If you keep the average bitrate as shown in the bitrate caculator between 800 and 900, quality should be pretty good (for DVD resolution video, 720x***).

Anyone know why I get the following error at the AAC Nero stage. Looking for job processor for job... Processor found! Starting job job1-1 at 11:53:10 PM Starting preprocessing of job... Preprocessing finished! encoder commandline: successfully started encoding Processing ended at 11:53:11 PM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Log for job job1-1 Channels=2, BitsPerSample=16, SampleRate=48000Hz C:\Program Files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\neroAacEnc.exe -ignorelength -lc -br 96000 -if - -of "D:\Rips\TENEN\VTS_01_1 T01 2_0ch 192Kbps DELAY 0ms.mp4"Error: MeGUI.AviSynthException: m2AudioAC3Source: error in file "D:\Rips\TENEN\VTS_01_1 T01 2_0ch 192Kbps DELAY 0ms.ac3" at MeGUI.AviSynthAudioEncoder.encode() ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The current job contains errors. Skipping chained jobs

I've followed this guide to convert from MKV files. Each source is fine but each output has gray flashes every second or so for the first 5 seconds to 3 minutes of the video. Check out the example here: http://www.echostring.com/videos/dd.avi I've been looking around for advice but so far have struck out. I'm following the tutorial completely and I've tried it on 3 different computers, all with the same results.

I've followed this guide and it works perfectly, as long as I play the files back on the PC. When I stream the files to the 360 though I tend to get audio sync problems which don't exist on the PC. Is there some setting here that can be tweaked for greater 360 compatibility?

I'm now also getting the audio sync problems (lags 1 sec) that karto reported.

rapidgame: Please post your question in our forum. In the meantime, you might have to try and demux the AVI using AviDemux, and then load in the video and audio portions separately into MeGUI

Just a tip that might be worth adding to the guide, you can embed an image in the MP4 file and it will display like album/cover art on the Xbox 360 if using the Zune software as the media server. This would be handy for DVD covers etc and I have tested it and works fine. The easy way to do this is with the freeware http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ which supports embedding JPG into MP4 files. Alternatively the manual way it to use MP4Box as MeGUI does not have any UI for this functionality. mp4box.exe -add "video.264" -add "audio.aac" -itags cover="cover.jpg" "out.mp4"

That's a great tip A8T8, in fact I'm already using mp3tag to embed cover art into our H.264 MP4 trailers. I will add additional instructions to the next version of the guide

I keep getting an mp4box.exe error during the mux mode at 98% anyway to fix this?

That is great, and I always use Moyea SWF to Video Converter to convert swf file to Xbox360