WMV coming to 360, can TVersity support it and transcode?

[ronenmiz]

bmaltais, this is theoretically correct but we never tested it. Some tried and had issues, some were successful so not sure about this.
Thanks for the link.

[bmaltais]

I applied the profiles.xml changes listed in this thread and now most of my WMV files will stream to the 360.

One of them won't unless I completelly turn off the Transcoding completelly. I suspect that there us a mime type issue. How can I find out what mime type this one file is served as? This way I could add a rename option for it.

Any idea?

[ronenmiz]

Is it big? How about sending it to us somehow for testing?

[bmaltais]

Is it big? How about sending it to us somehow for testing?

I am not at home right now but the file is probably less than a 100MB in size. Just let me know where I can put it an I will upload it!

[ronenmiz]

Try tversity@gmail.com

[bmaltais]

Try tversity@gmail.com

Check you email,

I sent you a link to a web site where you can get the file. The file is 44MB and would not send properly via gmail...

Cheers

P.S.: Any update worth sharing regarding WMV transcdoding? Any timeframes expected for a possible beta?

[ronenmiz]

We just tested the file and it seems to work fine. No transcoding is done on it even when it is set to "only when needed".
My guess is that you either sent us the wrong file or you did not apply all the changes I mentioned above.

P.S.: Any update worth sharing regarding WMV transcdoding? Any timeframes expected for a possible beta?

Days or weeks not months for sure, so please be a little more patient, we are getting there.

[bmaltais]

Well I will be damned! After you told me it was working I went and tried it. Did work! I really don't know what was wrong. Only thing I did yesterday was to re-install the Windows Media Encoder 9. Maybe I had some issue with DirectShow Filters. I don't know.

[ronenmiz]

Here is an early preview for the on the fly WMV transcoding feature for the 360. Since we have other stuff that needs to make it into the next release and since this is not yet ready we are releasing a patch. Please try it and let us know what you think.

The patch available at:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/download.tversi ... _9_8_4.zip

Installing the Patch:
- Stop Tversity
- Extract the content of the patch zip file into the installation folder of TVersity (by default it is \Program Files\TVersity\Media Server)
- Start TVersity, go to the 360 and browse your computer for videos. You should now see all the videos shared via TVersity plus all the online video URLs and assuming your directshow has the filters needed to decode these videos they should all play on the 360.

Some additional notes:
- Videos may take from 10 seconds to a minute to start. It depends on the bitrate of the video. The 360 requires 2 Megabyte of data to be provided before it starts playback. For low bitrate content (like the stuff coming from the Net) it can take a minute to get to 2 Mbyte. For hi-def content it happens very fast.
- Transcoding in real time of high resolution material requires a very fast computer
- The quality of the result of the transcoding, can be controlled via the TVersity GUIl. Increasing the resolution will improve the quality but will require a faster machine. You can also experiment with the compression ratios and bitrates, these all affect the WMV transcoding just like they affect the MPEG transcoding that TVersity has been traditionally doing.
- You can even upconvert videos to HD if you wish and if you have a fast machine by tweaking the minVideoInfo in config.xml.
- If your computer is not fast enough, you can decrease the resolution and then try again or wait till the transcoding is done and then play it.
- Transcoded videos cannot be FF/Rewind during the transcoding (this is a 360 limitation) however after transcoding is done if you play some other video and then go back to the transcoded one, you will be able to seek in the file.

This is it, enjoy and be sure to send us your feedback!

UPDATE:
It is highly recommended to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11 as it includes more recent and more stable encoders.

[bmaltais]

ronenmiz,

Excellent work! I am installing the release as we speak. Once my son get off the xbox 360 I will give it a spin. Can't wait to see the result!

Cheers!

[bmaltais]

Super, IT WORKS! Thank you!

One question. How do I get rid of all the Internet based streams... I now have a list of 1143 video items and scrolling through it take forever

There is probably a file I can edit, right?

[ronenmiz]

We will make it configurable so that usets can decide if to display just files or files and URLs in the menus. Until that time simply remove from the GUI all the video feeds that you do not wish to see there.

[homez99]

I couldn't launch the program after extracting the files, it said "this application has failed to start because "taglib.dll was not found, re-installing the application may fix the problem.

[bmaltais]

ronenmiz,

Thank you for the tip. I was able to delete the tversity video feed URL and all is working great.

Once in a while I will get an error but it is related to a file that won't play in WMP... so naturally it won't convert via TVersity either.

This will really be a huge time saver.

One thing I wish I could do would be to force per Aspect Ratio resizing. Let me explain:

If TVersity detect a resolution that is in the range of 1.33 to 1.45 then it consider AR to be 4:3 and will apply, as per my settings, a resize of 640x480 to the transcoded video. If it detect an AR of 1.46 to 2 then it will consider it will consider it 16:9 and will resize the output to 640x360 (my settings). If the AR is greather than 2 then video is anamorphic widescreen and resulting output should be 640x(640 divided by source file AR).

Not sure if you know but the 360 only handle square pixels... so to have proper aspect ratio on screen you need to feed the 360 with video dimention that conform to 4:3, 16:9 or 2.35:1 ratio. Otherwise the displayed video look odd.

For odd ball video that won't fit those rules users could add a text flag to the title (like myvid_16:9.avi) that could be detected by TVersity to properly resize the material based on the user specified AR.

What do you think?

Keep up the amazing work!

[ronenmiz]

I was not aware it only handles square pixel, I mean it has to do some adjustment since TVs do not have square pixels right? Or are you saying that it does no adjustment so if TVersity did it that would have been good?

Anyway, assuming all your videos are 4:3 or 16:9 or anamorphic you can already use TVersity to force a specific aspect ratio by modifying the minVideoInfo in config.xml. Of-course most people have mixed aspect ratio movie collection so we will look further into that.

We will be very much interested in your feedback so please keep testing and let us know. Be sure to also test Internet content.

Regarding videos that do not work, you can probably install some directshow filters that will fix that. ffdshow is really a must and I suggest using it to decode mpeg2 as well, this way you can play VOBs.

Out of curiosity how fast is the machine on which TVersity is running? What is the maximum target resolution you find working in real-time?