looking to transcode some HD videos from .avi to an xbox360 friendly format (wmv-hd i think).

also i have a mac

trying to figure out the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to do this

1/14/2007 4:33:29 PM

bttt

1/14/2007 7:23:22 PM

ffmpegx can do this, i'm pretty sure, and you could purchase Flip4Mac Pro which will also let you do it.

VLC can transcode to WMV but NOT WMA, which means no sound will play.

1/14/2007 8:16:54 PM

TRANSCODE 360

I guess you probably already found it, so I'm not sure if it works with Macs


I LOVE THIS THOUGHT!!! JUST GOT IT TONIGHT!!!!


Oh and anyone that could help with getting good HD downloads PM me... any kind of HD videos to play would be great! I don't have an HD DVD player and I'm wanting to watch more than the 6 regular HD channels. So streaming to my 360 is my only option right now (and I'm having too much fun doing it)

2/25/2007 11:25:59 PM

^checkout yahoo movies. they have a buuunch of trailers out at 1080p, they look amazing

but if you dont have a card with hardware x264 playback, forget about it.

And yes, Transcode 360 is exactly the solution. You can either run it via windows via BootCamp, or run it via Parallels

2/26/2007 12:14:43 AM

well here is the thing.. If I have an HD vid and stream it through the xbox..it uses the xbox's vid card not my computers right???

I downloaded a trailer for an imax movie in 1080p and it looked pretty damn good on the xbox & pc... not sure what card I have though. Just a Dell w/ windows xp media center edition thing

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 12:18 AM. Reason : t]

2/26/2007 12:18:38 AM

^^ a 2ghz Core Duo should be able to play that back.

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 12:22 AM. Reason : ]

2/26/2007 12:22:22 AM

From Apple:

Quote :

"QuickTime 7 for Windows: 3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium D (dual-core) or faster processor At least 1GB of RAM 64MB or greater video card Windows 2000 or XP "

But from my experience, if you dont have hardware GPU support, it's going to stutter, no matter the cpu speed.

2/26/2007 12:51:59 AM

Quote :

"For 1920x1080 (1080p) video at 24 frames per second: QuickTime 7 for Mac OS X: Dual 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 or faster Macintosh computer; 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo or faster At least 512MB of RAM 128MB or greater video card"

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/recommendations.html (this page was actually the basis for my initial statement btw).

And the Core Duo 2Ghz is at least as fast, if not faster, than the dual core Pentium D.

And afaik, Macs with the exception of the Intel Integrated Graphics (oddly) don't use HW HD video acceleration for h.264.

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 1:21 AM. Reason : ]

2/26/2007 1:20:45 AM

ah, I was assuming PC's, not Mac's.

And yes, every Macbook Pro, Mac Pro and iMac has hardware accelerated x264

2/26/2007 1:25:01 AM

Quote :

"And yes, every Macbook Pro, Mac Pro and iMac has hardware accelerated x264 "

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I follow Apple developments pretty closely, and I haven't heard of this. I know it uses the generic video acceleration pathways, but not the specific h.264 video accelerators a lot of new GPUs have. How do you know this?

This is old but it says they don't use the chips (and that a core duo 1.83 handles the 1080p well): http://everythingapple.blogspot.com/2006/01/quicktime-h264-decoding-is-very-fast.html

Based off a post by Anand of AnandTech here: http://www.anandtech.com/talkarticle.aspx?frmResourceID=2685

Quote :

"I just confirmed with ATI, the X1600's H.264 decode acceleration is currently not supported under OS X. ATI is working with Apple on trying to get the support built in, but currently it isn't there. Take care, Anand"

2/26/2007 2:08:49 AM

ah, my comment was that the video cards themselves all have support. That is really interesting that OSX doesn't make use of them at all, since Windows pretty much relies on it for decent playback.

AFAIK every ATI x1300 and up being made supports it in hardware and literally every non-integrated nVidia card does as well.

2/26/2007 6:33:44 AM

Wow, you were basically wrong about everything you said in this thread... that must be a first

2/26/2007 11:22:45 AM