MKV video on the 360

[leowyatt]

I have stumbled upon a great solution to getting MKV files to play on my 360.

I'll get the disadvantages out of the way now, there is no support for 5.1 sound. If you have a surround system you're probably best sticking to transcoding.

However if you can live with stereo sound then the following utility converted a 200Mb mkv file into a 200Mb mp4 file in around 60 seconds as opposed to the transcode which took around 25 minutes :D

Now admitedly I'm at work and can't check the file but will try it tonight on the 360 when I get home. So without further ado I give you XenonMKV (http://mkv.jakebillo.com/).

[Feek]

If it's that quick then it sounds as though it's just converting the wrapper, but as long as it works then it's certainly good news. I only have a stereo telly with no surround at the moment so it'd be no loss for me.

[leowyatt]

It doesn't convert the wrapper it actually converts the audio but keeps the video the same :) It uses some Nero thing to change the audio and makes it 2 channel from say 5.1.

[Davey_Pitch]

I'll try that later, it'll be much quicker than transcoding them as that often takes 6+ hours for a HD video file.

[leowyatt]

Well I tried it with a binty spears video and it worked ok. Just downloading destination calabria now which is around 120meg so will let you know when that is done.

EDIT: I'm looking forward to seeing what Blade Runner Final Edit looks like when it's been done. Tried watching a small transcoded sample over the weekend and it kept stopping and stuttering. This should hopefully look better.

[leowyatt]

Blade Runner Final Edit looks great and the conversion took around 5-10 minutes :) Video is still the same with no stuttering.

[Davey_Pitch]

Excellent, I'll give that a whirl later I think :)

[leowyatt]

Right a word of warning MP4 files have a max 4Gb limit and any files over that size will not play. The program will split them but if you know your movie will come in under the 4Gb you can turn it off and not have to change files half-way through watching.

I'm looking into other solutions at the minute to see if there is anything else available which will not transcode the video which I don't want to do. If anyone knows of a solution I'd be grateful. I'm trying to find out the file limits for various files so I can use one particular container and keep the video the same. For the time being I'm not too fussed about 5.1 sound.

[Daz]

Think you might struggle dude:

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx
13. What is the maximum video file size that is supported?

The maximum file size for an AVI, MPEG-4 Part 2, and H.264 file that can be played is 4 GB. 4GB is also the maximum size of any single file that you can store on a FAT32 USB hard drive. However, Windows Media Player 11 and the Zune software do support streaming WMV files greater than 4GB.
WMV isnt a container :(

[leowyatt]

I don't use FAT32 as my file system Daz I use HFS+ so not fussed about that.

I just need to try and work out what is the max size of video files the 360 will load :) I just found some software which will do a straight copy without encoding the video to MOV so I'll see what size that comes out.

[Daz]

Ignore the FAT limit, they just put that in for ****s and giggles (4GB is also the maximum size). The maximum size of a non WMV file, streamed or local, is 4GB - just an artificial limit. The max WMV size is probably only limited by the file system it sits on.

[leowyatt]

Ah I see what you mean, thanks for that :)

I'll see what I can do about WMV then as that is MS I'll no doubt be unlimited.

[leowyatt]

Hmmm I think I'll just have to stick with split files if they are over 4Gb :( oh well.

[leowyatt]

After seeing how the videos look I'm more than happy to have them split into 2 chunks :) Most movies will stay as one but the ones which need splitting I can live with.

I'm just happy the content can be changed to a format the 360 likes and that it doesn't take a stupid amount of time to get it done.

[Feek]

Leo, I've not tried it yet but will VisualHub (http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/) convert mkv files so that the 360 plays them?

[Davey_Pitch]

I'm currently using OJOSoft Total Video Converter to transcode a MKV file to a WMV file. It looks like it'll be a little over 2 hours for a 8GB HD MKV file. I can live with speeds like that :)

[Davey_Pitch]

Not worth the 2 hours :/ Crap quality and the audio was out of sync. I guess if I want to transcode a large MKV file I'll have to do it the long way.

[leowyatt]

Davey give xenon a go it's great :) if you are streaming too MP4 file does not matter :)

[Davey_Pitch]

Most of the MKV files I get are larger than 4GB and I don't fancy splitting them up if I can help it, which is why I was looking for something else. :)

[leowyatt]

Well if are you are streaming them keep them at their converted size :) streaming a file size is umlimited :)

[Davey_Pitch]

Streaming a WMV file size is unlimited, but I believe MP4's are still restricted to 4GB in size :)

[Feek]

XenonMKV seems to work well, not that I can persuade it to convert a folder - I assume I should just be able to dump a few mkv files into a folder and hit convert. It tells me to select a valid folder when I do that though.

[leowyatt]

ah there is a trick to that Feek :) you have to select the folder with the folder radio button being selected then change back to a single video button and click the folder radio button and you can then start :)

[Nismo]

Edit - ignore :/

[Feek]

I shall try that next time I have a batch, ta :)

[leowyatt]

no worries it took me a few goes to work it out but it was ok once I sorted it.

Have a file which won't play because it's over 4gig and will try streaming it later.

[Feek]

I downloaded an HD file, pre converted for the 360 but it's an 8Gb .wmv file. I don't know if that's going to play or not.

Everything I've converted myself I've left the 4Gb split box checked but not sure what to do if this one won't play.

[leowyatt]

Just tried the file and it won't work :( I'm going have to decide whether I want to split the files or spend longer getting them done.

I'm going to try and mkv to wmv software and see how that goes. It's some software I used a while ago but seems there is a newer version out. Ideally all I want to go is take the video and audio out of a mkv container and put it in a wmv one, why is this so hard?

[Daz]

Because wmv isnt a container - it's a format. Unless the codec used in the MKV is wmv (if that's even possible for starters), you're talking transcoding to do that.

[edit]Wiki page says you can put wmv in mkv:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Video

Wouldnt make sense to do it though - proprietary codec in an open source container kinda defeats the point. Doubt you'll find many in the newsgroups/torrents.