Let me start by saying two things:
1) I'm a complete videophile and video specialist with lots of video specific knowledge -- more than willing to share
2) I'm a newbie to xbox mods (so be kind)

I'm running xbmp 2.4 and have moved a test video file that was encoded at a very high quality CBR (constant bit rate) of 5,800kbps. This video plays beautifully in windows media player on my PC and also when I burn it to xSVCD (non-standard spec SVCD). This does *not* look good from the xbmp however. Any one else having quality issues with MPEG2's? How do I solve this?

The nature of the issue is how these files are rendered during high action scenes. There is an odd horizontal blind like effect that I can't figure out (as I said, these appear beautifully in other players). Is this a codec issue (my gut). How do I solve it? I've heard suggestions of using xbmp 2.3 instead also something about changing the "codec filters" settings -- which I could not find in the config file.

HELP! I'd love to use xbmp as a media center but the quality is just not good enough yet.

Sounds like your file is progressive (updates the whole frame every 1/60th of a second), but your xbox is displaying the output interlaced (updates each field every 1/60th of a second). The artifacts you see (looks like every other scanline is being shifted to the side briefly?) are a result of the interlacing.

This is all conjecture of course since I haven't seen the playback, but it sounds similar to the problems you get in reverse (playing back an interlaced source on a progressive display), which I've had a bit of experience with.

Solutions:
- If you have a progressive-scan capable TV, change the video settings in the XBOX dashboard to use one of the progressive modes (e.g. 480P / 720P).
- Convert your file to interlaced


tellure

I am having the same problems and was wondering if anyone else had found a fix for this problem. I have tried to tweak all the settings within xbmp 2.4 but this problem still persists. most of my videos are also mpeg 2 high quality but with a lot of action since most of them are sports.