Tutorial: How to Convert MKV (x264) to 360 Ready WMV-HD Options

[noremacyug]

You can burn it to single/dual layer media, depending on which respective output size you've selected.

well i would want to retain the high def qualities as good as is possible. most of the .mkv files i have are ~4.5gb with the exception of a couple that are ~8.5gb.

[mnale]

DirectShowSource: could not open as video or audio.

Video Returned: 'direcctshowsource: couldn't open file.
Cannot playback the file. The Format is not supported

I am having the same problem. Although I can play my x264 .mkv file perfectly in Media Player 11, I can't get TMPGenc Express nor an avs reader like VirtualDub to recognize the x264 file type.

You apparently have installed additional codecs the are not outlined and may be necessary. What do I need to install? I tried ffdshow and that had no effect.

This post has been edited by mnale: Jul 24 2007, 11:13 PM

[noremacyug]

what is the purpose of avisynth? i can open up the .mkv files no problem, could i not get the video from the .mkv by simply doing that? i'm not trying to question your methods, but rather to learn a little. i know nothing about this and am just curious.

also, i have a few audio tracks that are dts tracks and they don't want to load up. how would i go about getting them to work.

thanks


This post has been edited by noremacyug: Jul 25 2007, 03:10 AM

[impimpin206]

DirectShowSource: could not open as video or audio.

Video Returned: 'direcctshowsource: couldn't open file.
Cannot playback the file. The Format is not supported

I am having the same problem. Although I can play my x264 .mkv file perfectly in Media Player 11, I can't get TMPGenc Express nor an avs reader like VirtualDub to recognize the x264 file type.

You apparently have installed additional codecs the are not outlined and may be necessary. What do I need to install? I tried ffdshow and that had no effect.

This tutorial assumes you've got codecs installed correctly. I use Haali Media Splitter and ffdshow on Windows Vista. I recommend you uninstall of your codecs and use a codec pack. Other than that advice, this goes beyond the scope of this tutorial. I didn't have to do anything special to make this tutorial possible.

what is the purpose of avisynth? i can open up the .mkv files no problem, could i not get the video from the .mkv by simply doing that? i'm not trying to question your methods, but rather to learn a little. i know nothing about this and am just curious.

also, i have a few audio tracks that are dts tracks and they don't want to load up. how would i go about getting them to work.

thanks

When I loaded my MKV files directly the output was choppy, so I tried Avisynth as a frame buffer and started to see success. You may be able to load the files directly into the encoder, but I just stick to Avisynth. It's possible that it was other settings, though.

[jubei5537]

Compared to this procedure the following link seems a lot easier to me if it works.

or am I wrong?

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=614135

has anyone tried Encode360 is it any good?

[noremacyug]

TWhen I loaded my MKV files directly the output was choppy, so I tried Avisynth as a frame buffer and started to see success. You may be able to load the files directly into the encoder, but I just stick to Avisynth. It's possible that it was other settings, though.

makes sense. i attempted doing a small test section going directly from the .mkv file and i got the same non fluid results you mentioned. next question is what about the .dts soundtracks? they don't seem to be compatible with TMPG. can avisynth also be used to "extract" the audio or am i going to have to go about this a different way?

thanks again.

[impimpin206]

Compared to this procedure the following link seems a lot easier to me if it works.

or am I wrong?

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=614135

has anyone tried Encode360 is it any good?

I've encoded the exact same source files with both methods, and found my guide to give a much sharper, clearer picture. Then, I couldn't even encode some other files without Encode360 crashing... so I couldn't even test those. Beyond that, my guide uses a multi-threaded encoder that will take advantage of dual/quad core processors. So is it easier? Yeah, a little bit. But that comes at a cost. The choice is yours, but this thread is for this method.

makes sense. i attempted doing a small test section going directly from the .mkv file and i got the same non fluid results you mentioned. next question is what about the .dts soundtracks? they don't seem to be compatible with TMPG. can avisynth also be used to "extract" the audio or am i going to have to go about this a different way?

thanks again.

I'm not really familiar with using DTS tracks, but I'll look into that and report back. May have to do some sort of conversion.

[HydrogenCyanide]

I am getting very jerky playback but have been using the MKV file as the source.

My issue is with the AVS file. Everytime I try to load it into TMPG Xpress I get a windows error saying TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress has stopped working.

I have tried many time. Uninstalled AVS, TMPG and codecs several times with the same result. Not sure what is going on but I cannot get this AVS file to load.

Any help would be appreciated. I have been at this for days now

Edit. I just tried opening the AVS file in Media player and it crashed in the exact same manner. Any advise??

This post has been edited by HydrogenCyanide: Jul 25 2007, 09:30 PM

[St4vr0s]

Great guide!

Been looking for something to edit mkv's so I can stream from the MCE to my Xbox360.

Managed to get the guide working apart form a couple of things.

As mentioned earlier I am also unable to load the .AVS file into TMPGENC even after editing the location where it looks for the movie. ( I was under the impression that its not possible to frameserve to the TMPGENC Express 4?? )

I had to load the .MKV as source file and AC3 as audio. However doing this game me jittery video as if its missing frames and very odd....when I fast forward the output file in MCE or Windows Media Player It looses the Audio but its fine in Nero Show Time

Any ideas?

[HydrogenCyanide]

I now have the AVS file playing in media player classic without a problem. However every time I attempt to get the file loaded in TMPG it crashes. All other file types load fun. Am I missing something?

[impimpin206]

I now have the AVS file playing in media player classic without a problem. However every time I attempt to get the file loaded in TMPG it crashes. All other file types load fun. Am I missing something?

If it plays in MPC, it really should load in TMPGEnc. Open the AVS in VirtualDubMod (available at this link) and if there's something wrong, it should spit out an error message to help pinpoint the error.

Great guide!

Been looking for something to edit mkv's so I can stream from the MCE to my Xbox360.

Managed to get the guide working apart form a couple of things.

As mentioned earlier I am also unable to load the .AVS file into TMPGENC even after editing the location where it looks for the movie. ( I was under the impression that its not possible to frameserve to the TMPGENC Express 4?? )

I had to load the .MKV as source file and AC3 as audio. However doing this game me jittery video as if its missing frames and very odd....when I fast forward the output file in MCE or Windows Media Player It looses the Audio but its fine in Nero Show Time

Any ideas?

Are you using ffdshow or CoreAVC ?

[passanger57]

is there any away to add subtitle to the wmv ????
mybe athoer software ( i on newzbin the the release wmv-hd with nl sub how do they do that ??? )

[St4vr0s]

Are you using ffdshow or CoreAVC ?

tbh think both are installed however since last night I have made progress.....I uninstalled avisynth and re-installed. I can now load avs files in tmpgenc. As it runs it loads haai splitter. This unfortunately still doesn't run properly. I have tested it twice with reboots in between. the problem is that tmpgenc crashes everytime at 49% could this be where it starts the second pass? any other suggestions? thanks for the support!

[tjaccola]

this method worked wonderfully, even on my slow-ass p4 2.4 with only 512 mb ram, except for one hitch: the audio is off. it starts out just slightly out of sync, and by the end of the wmv file is very noticeably out of sync. any suggestions?

[impimpin206]

makes sense. i attempted doing a small test section going directly from the .mkv file and i got the same non fluid results you mentioned. next question is what about the .dts soundtracks? they don't seem to be compatible with TMPG. can avisynth also be used to "extract" the audio or am i going to have to go about this a different way?

thanks again.

Okay, for DTS sources you just load the AVS script. That's it. You don't even need to extract & load the audio separately. In fact, TMPGEnc won't even recognize a .DTS file- but when you load an AVS script and your source file is DTS, the 5.1 audio is retained just by using the AVS as the default audio source. You can actually skip the audio extract & load step for most sources, even AC3... but there a few out there that will read as 2 channel when they're really 5.1 tracks. This is when it's necessary to load the file separately to retain the 5.1, but I've noticed many source files will load the 5.1 natively through the AVS file. Anyway, I loaded up my source with DTS and left the audio alone, came out 5.1 with no required steps.

this method worked wonderfully, even on my slow-ass p4 2.4 with only 512 mb ram, except for one hitch: the audio is off. it starts out just slightly out of sync, and by the end of the wmv file is very noticeably out of sync. any suggestions?

You didn't happen to perform some ring of death fix maneuver did you? There was another thread where a user did a 3 red light fix, but now his videos play out of sync. I wouldn't know how to correct that type of sync issue... if you want to encode a sample I can play it on my 360 and tell you if it stays in sync or not. Then you'll at least know whether it's a hardware problem or a problem with the file. Does it go out of sync when you play it with WMP?