transcode to WMV for 360 - problems

[damocles]

I'm trying to use VLC to transcode various format videos to WMV for playback via the 360. Following an article on joystiq, I have this batch file:

"c:\vlc\vlc" -vvv %1 --sout-ffmpeg-qscale 1 :sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,scale=1,acodec=wma,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=asf,dst=%1.wmv}}

However, using this results in some pretty major corruption in the resulting wmv files. If I play them back through vlc they playback fine, but if I try and watch them in windows media player 11, the sound is missing and the video stops and stutters a LOT. If I stream them to the 360 the sound is fine, but there is frequent corruption of the image (sections of the screen not updating, flashes of garbage, etc)

I figure that because they play back in vlc fine, that there is some codec setting somewhere that vlc is happy with but WMP11 and the 360 are not. Can anyone shed any light on what the problem is?

[chriswilsonuk]

Windows media player 11 does not like 48000 sample rate audio produced by vlc. Add samplerate=44100 after channels=2 but don;t forget the comma. I added this to the script this morning and it works in media player. Don't know if it works on my 360 yest cause at work.

Played a movie using this script last night no problems on the 360. Streamed through WMP11 and off USB stick.

Check the bitrate of the video file. To change it add vb=1500 (produces 1.5mpbs bitrate file). see if that helps.

[damocles]

The audio sample rate fix helped with the no sound problem in WMP11 (thanks), but the video is still stuttering and jumping, and when streaming to the 360 it still has garbage. I'm assuming the garbage on the 360 is the same as the stuttering in WMP, just manifesting itself differently.

Interestingly, the stutters/garbage show up in exactly the same place every time I transcode the file, regardless of the video bitrate I use, so at this stage I'm thinking it might be a corrupt decoder/encoder. I tried uninstalling divx/xvid codecs and then installing ffdshow and letting that control dec/enc of divx, xvid and wmvs. I still get the exact same garbage/stutters though.

This is a very weird problem. The garbage has appeared on every video I have tried encoding this way so far. Admittedly that's only 5 videos, but I think that rules out a corrupt source video.

[angrypanda]

I wonder how sensitive the transcoding process is to the the codec packs you have installed. I am a complete novice at this, and am having similar problems with AVI -> WMV conversion for streaming to my Xbox 360. The AVIs look great, the WMVs are total crap. Is this problem related to using WMV3 rather than WMV1/2 encoding? Do you know what the Xbox 360 is expecting to receive?

Hope we can get this fixed, or M$ introduce AVI support for the Xbox (?)

Cheers, Jon

[Zoiks]

Man, I'm glad I found this thread. I am having the exact same problem.

I have a 700 Widescreen format AVI file that has the following info in the info fields:

---------------------------------

Image:
Width 640 pixels
Height 368 pixels

Audio:
Duration 1:37:26
Bit Rate 111kps
Audio Format MPEG Layer-3

Video:
Frame rate 23 frames/second
Data rate 122kps
Video sample size 12 bit
Video compression XVID

------------------------------------------------

I use VLC to transcode the AVI file into a WMV file using the following batch file:

"c:\vlc\vlc" -vvv %1 --sout-ffmpeg-qscale 1 :sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,width=640,height=368,acodec=wma,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=asf,dst=%1-hq-169.wmv}}

------------------------------------------------

The results I get are an WMV file with the following info:

Image:
Width: 640 pixels
Height: 360 pixels

Description:
Title (not going to say, but it's a cool doc on UFOs)
Comments

Origin:
Protected No

Audio:
Duration 1:37:22
Bit Rate 896kbps
Audio sample size 16 bit
Channels 2 (stereo)
Audio sample rate 48 kHz

Video:
Data rate 768kbps
Video sample size 24 bit
Stream name video 2

--------------------------------------------

I want to transcode this film into WMV so that I can use it to watch on my Xbox. I have tried D/L and transcoding the file twice now. Both times, the AVI file looks great, sounds great but the resulting transcoded WMV file

1. Works fine playing in VLC (video great, audio great)
2. Does not work in Windows Media Player 11 (video a bit choppy, no audio)
3. Does not work well piped to Xbox 360 (Audio fine, Video -Jpeg compression issues - absent at times, unwatchable at others)

As mentioned, I have downloaded and transcoded this avi file to wmv twice, and got the exact same results both times. The Jpeg corruption errors occurred at the exact same spots.

Any help with this issue would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Kenshin]

I'm having a similar problem, but the odd thing is that it only manifests for certain source files.

If I transcode from Xvix/DivX -> WMV it works perfectly. Plays perfectly on all y players & y 360.

However, if I attempt to transcode from MKV (video inside is h.264), the output video has no sound and is all grey and stuttery--it looks like it's only transcoding the keyframes (this occurs in all plays including VLC).

However, VLC plays the source file perfectly, as does WMP and MPC.

Is there something strange going on with the way VLC is trying to transcode h.264? (I suppose the audio ay be a seperate issue)

Keep in mind I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 so my issue might be completely different from the rest in this thread.

[tipok]

I found this problem in M$ ZUNE.
After 5-10 sec. my device reboot.

[angrypanda]

Hi,

After much playing around this is the script file that works for me:
C:\>type VLC.bat
"C:\VLC\vlc.exe" -vvv %1 :sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV1,vb=1500,scale=1,acodec=wma,ab=96,channels=2,samplerate=44100,deinterlace}:std{access=file,mux=asf,dst=%1.wmv} vlc:quit

Okay so here's the walk through. Create a file called <something>.bat in notepad (in my example this is called VLC.bat). Copy and paste the next line(s) above into notepad (note this is a single line with a space between %1 and :sout.......).

Save the batch file to the root directory of your hard disk i.e. in c:\. Then in the windows command window (start->run->cmd [press return]) type in VLC.bat , then drag the .avi file you want to convert into the command window, windows will automagically complete the entire path to your .avi file.

Click in the command window and press return.

Note that before converting the whole movie, you should probably test the transcoding of your .avi by adding --stop-time=30 after the %1 and before the :sout (don't forget the spaces). Open the resultant .wmv file in WMP - if it plays okay then remove the --stop-time command and let VLC convert the lot by running the command again. I'd say that these default settings work in about 80% of cases for me. I'm having problems with converting H.264 though....

Any probs, just post here and I'll try to help out.

Best wishes,

Jon.