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Using the XBox360 Preset to Encode HD Content

To allow the encoded files to playback seamlessly in most environments, including when streamed on a wireless network, the XBox 360 preset uses a bandwidth of 4Mbps while preserving the video frame size of the original file. This is fine for standard definition content however will produce mediocre output for 720p sources and will be even worse for 1080p content. Because of that, I would advise tweaking the video bitrate to your specific needs. So, if network speed isn't an issue, I would personally recommend changing the video bitrate to something like 6-7Mbps for 720p content or 8-10Mbps for 1080p content, which is still within the Xbox360 supported limits for VC-1 decoding.

 

Finally, it's important to note that the Advanced VC-1 video profile is not supported by the Xbox360 (nor the PS3 through Media Connect), so it's probably best to leave it as "VC-1 Main", like the XBox 360 Preset does.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2009
    Why not provide a downloadable preset configuration as an example of a good starting point?

  • Anonymous
    November 19, 2009
    Hi have encoded to vc-1 advanced and it plays on the xbox 360 flawlessly

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2009
    When encoding for xbox playback to a 1080i television, is there any advantage to encoding interlaced 1080?  Or does the xbox handle the interlacing to provide 1080i? Is it even possible for the Expression Encoder to produce interlaced content from progressive content?  If so, where is the setting?

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2009
    The Xbox will handle the output format.  You can adjust this in your system settings (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, or 1080p)...more options if using a VGA connection.

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2010
    When encoding for Xbox playback from a HD recording WTV file in 1080i or 720i, sometimes the playback is sluggish is fast moving scenes.  I'm using the free edition of Expression Encoder and the Xbox is using cabled networking. I've tried several settings, among them the proposed 8-10Mbps setting using VC1-Main, even at 8Mbps average/15Mbps Max (the official Xbox support page states a maximum bitrate supported at 15Mbps for WMV HD <http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/gamesandmedia/movies/videofaq/viewvideoplaybackfaq.aspx>). Could this sluggish-occasionally playback occur because of the interlace to progressive conversion applied by Expression ?  Even using the Hadamar Motion Search fails to smoothly playback the video. After a quick test, it does the same thing when played from the Xbox or the PC.  My goal is to re-encode all of my ATSC HD recordings to best quality possible WMV-HD files, keeping the 5.1 audio when present.

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    If it can help anybody else, it doesn't looks like it's an Xbox as an extender related problem.  You have sometimes to manually force a particular deinterlacing method. It is particularly true when your recording starts few minutes before the main show.  At that time, the main program setup might be different from the pre-recording which is usually commercials (sound, relative displayed/actual video size, interlace mode, etc.). Expression, in my case, was detecting stereo channel output while the main movie was 5.1 (I was able to see that by using the 4-1-1 Info (Ctrl+D) detailed view).  And I had to force inverse telecine deinterlacing mode to get smooth playback of the problematic video (was a 3:2 movie).