+- XBMC Community Forum (http://forum.xbmc.org)
+-- Forum: Announcements, Info, and General Discussion (/forumdisplay.php?fid=85)
+--- Forum: Tips, tricks, and step by step guides (/forumdisplay.php?fid=110)
+--- Thread: [XBOX] HOW-TO encode videos in H.264 to be able to achieve playback on the Xbox (/showthread.php?tid=33429)
- jarod71 - 2009-03-26 13:45
JPSiemer Wrote:Agreed that XviD compression is better than DVD's MPEG2, but I disagree that XviD looks "great". In fact, although the compression may be better, the overall fidelity of XviD encoded video is actually much worse. That is why the BluRay/HDDVD standard uses MPEG2 and H.264/VC-1 and not XviD/DivX.
All this is true what you have said, however, xvid 720p will play with no dropped frames on Original xbox whereas h.264 will not. Or it (h264) will at a much lower bit rate. the point is, it is not as great as blueray or as nice as h.264 mkv dl from the web, but it is way better than dvd and I want to keep my original xbox and this is as good as it gets, I say try it and see if you like it. Your mileage may very, but I am very satisfied with the quality. Pixilation is minimal, and nothing like a 700mb divx movie, my movies clock in close to the original reencode 3-5gb and avarage bitrate of 4500. they look and sound great. I keep the 5.1 soundtrack at 640kbs ac3. I love it. I primarily use xvid2psp now, but still use visualhub on mac for the ocassional movie that has issues in xvid4psp. I am having some issues with ff and rw on certain mkv's but not all, and If under 4gb I usally stick with avi as a wrapper as it seems more compatible with xbmc/xbox. all and all, it is great.
- sion28 - 2009-03-28 00:49
Jarod71,
Thanks for the info about XviD4PSP. I'll have to give that a try when I have time. What profile do you use to encode an xbox compatible 720p XviD movie?
Have you tried megui with the method outlined in this thread? If so do you feel that your 720p xvid encodes are better than a 480p x.264 encode as described here?
Maybe I've misunderstood you, but I find it hard to believe that the xbox can handle a 720p video at a bitrate of 4500 bps. Is this really true?
Thanks!
- JPSiemer - 2009-03-29 01:48
sion28 Wrote:Jarod71,
Thanks for the info about XviD4PSP. I'll have to give that a try when I have time. What profile do you use to encode an xbox compatible 720p XviD movie?
Have you tried megui with the method outlined in this thread? If so do you feel that your 720p xvid encodes are better than a 480p x.264 encode as described here?
Maybe I've misunderstood you, but I find it hard to believe that the xbox can handle a 720p video at a bitrate of 4500 bps. Is this really true?
It's been no mystery that the Xbox can handle 720P XviD movies at reasonable bitrates with minimal skip. It also does even better with HRHD XviD's (960x540 pixels) with zero skip. The most recent topic and profile settings/information about encoding 720P video is: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=46732
- jarod71 - 2009-03-29 02:39
JPSiemer Wrote:It's been no mystery that the Xbox can handle 720P XviD movies at reasonable bitrates with minimal skip. It also does even better with HRHD XviD's (960x540 pixels) with zero skip. The most recent topic and profile settings/information about encoding 720P video is: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=46732
There's no doubt that a 720P XviD will be crisper over a 480P H264, but I wonder how much color information and contrast is lost, and how much pixelation occurs. Jarod71, if you could, post us some screenshots comparing one over the other.
I don't have any 480p h.264 available. But as soon as I have time, I will post screen shot from original 720p h.264 which is not playable on xbox and my reencode of the same file to 720p xvid that is playable. average bit rate of 4500 is for real. It can go higher than that, xvid2psp uses vbr 2 pass, and there is much less pixelization than you would think. It is beautiful video and probably the best the xbox is capable of rendering from 733mhz cpu.
- JPSiemer - 2009-03-29 03:16
After playing around with some encodes, I realized that 720P XviD's may be a viable option after all. In terms of overall visual quality, here's how various settings stacked up...
The 60 frame 720P XviD (4400 Kbps) came in first place. It had some minor pixelation, and was way more crisp in sharpness over both H264 videos. It weighed in at 1.24MB
The 60 frame 480P H264 (1300 Kbps w/ Deblocking) came in second place. It had some minor pixelation, and was slightly less crisp than the H264 w/ CABAC. It weighed in at 471KB
The 60 frame 480P H264 (1300 Kbps w/ CABAC) came in third place. It had some major pixelation, and was slightly more crisp than the H264 w/ Deblocking. It weighed in at 473KB
The 60 frame 720P XviD (2200 Kbps) came in last place. It had some unbearable pixelation, and was a little less crisp in sharpness over the XviD (4400 Kbps). It weighed in at 595KB
In these tests, I disregarded size when rating. Instead, I based these results on visual pixelation and sharpness (I was going to do color and contrast as well, but all came out the same in those areas). In my opinion, the amount pixelation is the most important and sharpness is next in line.
So the only disadvantage is: while the 720P XviD @ 4400 Kbps looked the best, it was 2.7x larger than the best looking H264.
I am going to do a couple more tests, such as 720P and HRHD H264's at very low bitrates, 480P XviD's at high and low bitrates, etc... and rate them from first to last place.
- jarod71 - 2009-03-29 16:11
JPSiemer Wrote:After playing around with some encodes, I realized that 720P XviD's may be a viable option after all. In terms of overall visual quality, here's how various settings stacked up...
The 60 frame 720P XviD (4400 Kbps) came in first place. It had some minor pixelation, and was way more crisp in sharpness over both H264 videos. It weighed in at 1.24MB
The 60 frame 480P H264 (1300 Kbps w/ Deblocking) came in second place. It had some minor pixelation, and was slightly less crisp than the H264 w/ CABAC. It weighed in at 471KB
The 60 frame 480P H264 (1300 Kbps w/ CABAC) came in third place. It had some major pixelation, and was slightly more crisp than the H264 w/ Deblocking. It weighed in at 473KB
The 60 frame 720P XviD (2200 Kbps) came in last place. It had some unbearable pixelation, and was a little less crisp in sharpness over the XviD (4400 Kbps). It weighed in at 595KB
In these tests, I disregarded size when rating. Instead, I based these results on visual pixelation and sharpness (I was going to do color and contrast as well, but all came out the same in those areas). In my opinion, the amount pixelation is the most important and sharpness is next in line.
So the only disadvantage is: while the 720P XviD @ 4400 Kbps looked the best, it was 2.7x larger than the best looking H264.
I am going to do a couple more tests, such as 720P and HRHD H264's at very low bitrates, 480P XviD's at high and low bitrates, etc... and rate them from first to last place.
if size is not a concern, it is the way to go...
- sion28 - 2009-03-30 01:19
JPSiemer Wrote:I am going to do a couple more tests, such as 720P and HRHD H264's at very low bitrates, 480P XviD's at high and low bitrates, etc... and rate them from first to last place.I'm very interested in what the best compression method is for 480p (DVD) as I don't have much of a collection of HD material, so while cool to know about, the 720p encodes aren't going to be something I'd use very often. (I have loads of DVDs in my collection waiting to be ripped for use on my xbox!) I'm not a fan of downloading such big files... too impatient! :-)
So please let us know if you feel you've found anything better for 480p dvd encoding than the current thread's how-to.
- sion28 - 2009-03-30 01:36
JPSiemer Wrote:After playing around with some encodes, I realized that 720P XviD's may be a viable option after all. In terms of overall visual quality, here's how various settings stacked up...
What tool(s) did you use for this comparison? megui? XviD4PSP?
- JPSiemer - 2009-03-30 02:39
sion28 Wrote:I'm very interested in what the best compression method is for 480p (DVD) as I don't have much of a collection of HD material, so while cool to know about, the 720p encodes aren't going to be something I'd use very often. (I have loads of DVDs in my collection waiting to be ripped for use on my xbox!) I'm not a fan of downloading such big files... too impatient! :-)
The best codec for 480P on the Xbox is H.264 if you are concerned with good quality video at a small file size.
If you are not concerned with file size, it is possible to get a better looking XviD at a little more than triple the bitrate.
- JPSiemer - 2009-03-30 02:40
sion28 Wrote:What tool(s) did you use for this comparison? megui? XviD4PSP?
MeGUI for H.264 - XviD4PSP for XviD
For H.264, I was using my profiles.
For XviD, I used Jarod71's settings.