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Xbox 360 - MBS transcodes all MKV files


Bear on the job

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Bear on the job

Hoping someone has experience with this...I've got Shark007's codec pack installed (v4.6.8), using the SUGGESTED settings for Xbox 360 extenders. Using MBC on the 360, I can play MP4 files fine, and all of the chapter/skipping functions work with the new player. But whenever I try to play any MKV files, MBS always transcodes them instead of playing them natively. All the MKV files have no subtitles embedded in them, and I've tried this with both AC3 2.0 audio and AC3 5.1 audio tracks.

 

All of the MKV files are on a local hard drive on the PC where MBS is running, and it's the same PC running Media Center. And the MP4s are playing natively, so I know it's not a UNC path issue. Does anyone have suggestions? Is there some specific options in Shark007 I need to change?

 

Pastebin of a transcode log here

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Sounds like an access issue.

 

Please post the MBC log from when you play one of these (and tell me what it is).

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Bear on the job

Hmm...you may be right. Here is the pastebin for the MBC log. Somehow I had the "Warn if streaming" option turned off too, so I didn't notice this. 

 

What's even stranger, when I try to play a MP4 file, the MBC log also shows that it can't access the file, and attempts to stream it. But if I watch the process list on my server, ffmpeg is not active, so there is no transcoding going on. For the MKV file though, ffmpeg uses 50%+ CPU.

 

I've actual had the streaming problem for a while though with my Xbox 360 extenders. No matter how I configure my UNC paths or substitutions in MBS, it will always stream when playing from the 360. Is that just the nature of the Extenders? 

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You have to have permissions setup properly in addition to the access path.  My guess is the hidden user account used by the extender doesn't have proper permissions.  Search out here for extender permissions.

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Bear on the job

Ah, finally got it to work. I had already given the hidden MCX accounts full access permissions on those shared directories, but that didn't work. I also tried giving the "Everyone" and "ANONYMOUS" groups full access to the directories as well, but that didn't work either. The only thing that worked was creating a logon script for the MCX accounts, and mapping the directories as network drives using Administrator credentials. All of that was made easy by the tool here.

 

Everything is playing without streaming now. I have some other issues with some MKV files stuttering...but that's something different (think the bitrate is too high, or they have embedded subs). Do you know, in general, the max video bitrate an Xbox 360 can handle? (I heard it was around 4Mbps). Also, can the 360 handle a MKV with h.264 and AC3 5.1 audio? Or can it only do AC3 2 channel? 

 

Thanks for the help.

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ab123ga

@ Bear. 

 

I mainly use extenders and the setup I have found that is about perfect me for is a average bitrate of 6.2M/sec. I reconverted all my movies above that rate to that level.  I also converted all of my files to MP4 and have my audio set to AAC. I did quite a bit of testing and scenarios and this is the one that works the best. Not say this is the perfect answer but this is what worked for me. I have no stuttering or poor quality. 

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Bear on the job

Since I resolved the permissions issue for the UNC path, the MKV files have been playing natively. And the stuttering I'm seeing with some of the files is because they include embedded subtitles. I'm using mkvmerge from mkvtoolnix now to remove subs when I can. I don't mind keeping the files in MKV containers, and I don't have many bitrates above 5Mbps, so they are playing smoothly onces the subs are removed.

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Unless you disable it, there will be a big warning message when you play something.

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