Xbox 360 formatting for MP4 h.264?

Question

For the life of me, I can't get the Xbox 360 to recognize anything other than a WMV. It's full updated with Xbox Live and I even added all the Video apps (Zune, Netflix, etc) just to see if it would force some sort of codec update.

I'm using handbrake, at the moment, to try and convert an mkv with subtitles. Handbrake burns the subtitles into the video for me, which is important. I can't figure out what is missing though, as the Xbox refuses to acknowledge my MP4s. Here's the VLC codec info output:

As far as I can tell, this is EXACTLY what the xbox supports. I don't want to convert every video twice by throwing it through Windows Movie Maker just to get it to WMV. None of the converters mentions above output to WMV and I don't like WMV since it's not as universal as MP4.

I've tried changing the container name manually to M4V, MOV, and AVI to see if I can trick the Xbox... no beans. The video displays perfectly in WMP, of course.

If I convert it to WMV, suddenly it works fine. But I don't find this acceptable, as I know the Xbox is supposed to support other filetypes.

If anyone knows why my Xbox won't play anything but WMVs, I would be very appreciative to know why! It's driving me nuts.

The only other information I can think to include is that it's about 3 years old and of the cheapest variety (Xbox Arcade). I've added a hard drive, xbox live, and have thoroughly updated it.

Maybe there's a specific video update I'm unaware of??

Answer 1

This is old but I had the same problem. I noticed that while using handbrake, the Xbox would not play any mp4s I created that had more than 1 reference frame. By setting it to only have 1 reference frame, the files played without a problem. Hopefully this will help anyone who finds this thread like I did.

Answer 2

Actually there is one update you may have missed, the "Optional Media Update". This is needed to play some kind of media. Microsoft's short description says: "Lets you play unprotected music (AAC format) on your console from Zune or iPod. Lets you play MPEG4 movies on your console."

Answer 3

It's possible that the problem here is free software converters simply not being predictable. It seems that, at least with my xbox 360, it is very very particular about the videos. I recently started doing some video work and picked up Sony Vegas. Using the professional software to render out compatible videos seems to work, even though all the free converters I used did not output acceptable videos.

Of course I realize that it's unrealistic for people to buy professional video software just to please their Xbox... but maybe it will lead to a better solution for someone.