Video formats on XBMC
#1
My brother and I are independently putting together our video collections right now so our home theaters will rock in the coming years.

I should mention first that I've attempted to use Boxee and Plex. My attempts to use those forks ended shortly after they began simply because I couldn't seem to get past scraping. I finally tried out XBMC a couple weeks ago and I think I'm in love. The documentation is far better and the release is more stable and fully-featured than the others. I just wanted to say that it's amazing work all around.

I need help on video formats though. I'm converting my library using Handbrake from Video_TS folders into H.264 .MP4s encoded at 1000 kbps (High quality iPod compatible).

The issue for me is that I want a video library that will play on my Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and on my Mac. It appears that my best solution is the MP4s, although it disappoints me to lose the 5.1 audio and I feel like I could push the video quality a little bit further. I'd forgo support for my iPod/iPhone if I could get a single video file that contained 5.1 audio and works on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Does anybody have any suggestions on a video quality/format to use?

So that's me. My brother, on the other hand, is dead-set on not doing any re-encoding so there's no video quality loss at all and he can keep the 5.1 audio. To do this, he's stripping out the VOBs from his DVDs without doing any re-encoding. I'm not sure what software he's using for this, but the resulting files are original VOBs but don't reside in Video_TS folders.
I doubt anybody else out there is formatting their stuff this way, but it's working for him.

I trying to get him on the XBMC bandwagon and helped him scrape a test video yesterday. It was as follows:

Folder: Apollo 13 (2005)
Inside: Apollo 13 (2005) Part 1.vob, Apollo 13 (2005) Part 2.vob

This didn't work. It scraped the files, but he got the Mac OX X beach ball of death when he tried to play it.

Will there be support for VOBs in this way?
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#2
please post a Debug Log of what is happening..

for supported formats see http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Feature...ats/Codecs
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#3
In my experience, since XBMC is able to play a DVD from ISO form, it's easier and more organized to keep the DVDs in ISO form.
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#4
If you want h.264 .mp4 format you should read the thread in the handbrake forum for "best settings." The "universal" preset sounds like just what you are looking for. There are some tweaks in the best settings thread to further improve upon the universal setting. That preset should make .mp4s that are playable with iphone/touch, 360, PS3, AppleTV, and XMBC and at much better quality than the 1000kbps setting you are currently using.
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#5
Stealle - thanks much for the "universal" preset suggestion. I hit update presets in Handbrake and found it. I see that it includes two audio tracks on the resulting MP4, one of them 5.1 passthru! I did a test encode and it worked on my PS3. I haven't tried the 360 yet. I don't have a surroud sound system at the moment so I can't check to see if the surround sound track worked. I'll keep playing with it, but I think this may be the one - THANKS!

Maxim - ISO is a good idea, I'll talk to him about it. He's able to stream his VOB files through an Archos player somehow. That, as well as VLC, is at least a workable media center solution (though nothing even close to XBMC). I'm not sure if an ISO would work on his Archos though. Thanks for the suggestion.

Blittan - will do.
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Video formats on XBMC0