Xbox 360 gets H.264, MPEG-4, PlaysForSure in Spring update

by Christopher Grant { Apr 10th 2007 at 10:09AM }

We're the first to admit that we're not experts when it comes to things like video codecs -- we leave that job up to our friends at Engadget. Don't get us wrong, we know a little something about codecs (see above!), but eych-dot-two-sixty-four? Em-peg-four? Dubbya-em-dee-are-em? Yeah, these are all codecs that the Xbox 360 will support when the Spring Dashboard update rolls around next month but what do they all mean?

Lucky for us, the folks at Red Kawa -- makers of video conversion utilities like Videora Xbox 360, PSP Video 9, PS3 Video 9, and Wii Video 9 -- are experts in all things video conversion and they break the announcement down like this: "This puts Microsoft at the head of the pack in the Apple TV vs PS3 vs Xbox 360 video battle royale." Oh SNAP! They break down the details so we don't have to ... c'mon PS3, H.264 Main Profile only? All the kids want H.264 High Profile support nowadays!

Actually, the kids really want Xvid and DivX support so they can watch their torrents of bits, which Red Kawa reminds us this isn't. First, it doens't support the AVI container (so there!) and the 360 only supports MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Profile while Xvid videos are encoded as MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile. Any questions?

Tags: codec, h.264, MPEG-4, multimedia, PlaysForSure, video

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JodyAnthony @ Apr 10th 2007 10:23AM

"Any questions?"

Yes: wha?
I know nothing about video codecs except that I need divx and xvid for my porn torrents. mmm, porn.

Todd @ Apr 10th 2007 10:30AM

Hah hah hah, the post pic is hilarious. A shame MGS isn't for the Xbox.

Noshino @ Apr 10th 2007 10:37AM

sigh...

"... c'mon PS3, H.264 Main Profile only? All the kids want H.264 High Profile support nowadays!"

by nowadays I suppose you mean now that the 360 is getting the update right? wonder why you didn't say anything about that before...ah the good ol' "OMGARHZZ $ONY FTL! MS FTW!" right? or the "360 has flaws? which flaws?"?

How long did it take MS for such update....ahh, right :)

Andy @ Apr 10th 2007 10:37AM

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/751/751496p1.html

but will it?

-Andy

AirIntake @ Apr 10th 2007 10:39AM

Transcode 360 will continue to work fine until they get DivX support.

JodyAnthony @ Apr 10th 2007 10:48AM

Noshino, it was a joke, calm the hell down.

Yoshi Likes Boys @ Apr 10th 2007 10:55AM

Everyone knows that WMV is the porn transmission codec of choice.

sheppy @ Apr 10th 2007 10:57AM

It simply has to be said...

Thanks, PS3. Without you, majority of these considerations wouldn't have been considerations at all. Please survive in the marketplace to continue driving this full blown feature war.

Crono @ Apr 10th 2007 11:00AM

I've had a PC hooked up to my LCD for quite some time, but it was really hard to WoW with my wife and be in different rooms (her PC is in the office).

I picked up a used 360 off Ebay, and in one night had figured out how to get all my torrented anime to play on it using some other transcoding program (can't remember the name right now).

Tonight, I'll setup all my video on playlists (because its kinda a mess to navigate on the 360 right now) and then move the PC into the office, where there will be much rejoicing.

yea...

dvdguy @ Apr 10th 2007 11:04AM

"I've had a PC hooked up to my LCD for quite some time, but it was really hard to WoW with my wife and be in different rooms (her PC is in the office)."

You should really try WoWing your wife when you're both in the same room. Works much better that way.

CaptNink @ Apr 10th 2007 11:21AM

I WoWed his wife last night. He was busy in the other room.

ssuk @ Apr 10th 2007 11:21AM

@2: Uh, actually MGS2:S is on Xbox. *legs it*

But yeah, XVid is a kind of MPEG4 encoded video, but there are all kinds of MPEG4 video codecs out there. Don't expect XVid to work when this update rolls around.
Never heard of H.264 before though, which is kind of odd, I'm usually quite up with video encoding stuff. Suppose I've been slipping. =P

copa @ Apr 10th 2007 11:24AM

"It simply has to be said...

Thanks, PS3. Without you, majority of these considerations wouldn't have been considerations at all. Please survive in the marketplace to continue driving this full blown feature war."

Weird. I agree 100% with sheppy.

Extinction @ Apr 10th 2007 11:38AM

""It simply has to be said...

Thanks, PS3. Without you, majority of these considerations wouldn't have been considerations at all. Please survive in the marketplace to continue driving this full blown feature war."

Weird. I agree 100% with sheppy"

I agree with both of you, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that. Next up, Divx/Xvid support.

jaysins @ Apr 10th 2007 11:38AM

If you want to get xvid and divx on your 360 orb, tversity, transcode 360 as well as many more are available. I personally use orb as I can browse youtube and google videos on it as well as broadcast all the media on my computer to my phone... which I don't own yet :), but I could if I had one that supported it. All are good programs. At this point Apple Tv isn't even in the running as it's codecs are even more limited than either console (basically itunes which anandtech said doesn't always play perfect) and isn't of the best quality from what I've seen (something like only 5Mb/S bitrate maximum. Between the PS3 and 360, the winner of the best media extender will be the one the home brew community cracks wide open first. Look at a modded xbox, it's awesome for at it's job but is lacking needed muscle for a lot of todays codecs. I think in a year or two we'll have something truly great in either the PS3 or 360.

ncxcstud @ Apr 10th 2007 11:39AM

ssuk -

If I'm not mistaken h.264 is the Apple Quicktime format that they use for their high definition movie trailers and such.

Game Artist @ Apr 10th 2007 11:45AM

@12 h.264 is big news in HD video. SD video not as much.

Crono @ Apr 10th 2007 11:46AM

yeah, I've been wowing with my wife in the office using a 4 year old laptop. Got to turn all the details down. The PC, however, is a powerhouse (Dual Core Athlon 64 4200 w/ Nvidia 7600GT). I use Tversity, but I just installed it and tested it last night at 1 am, so I have to tweak it to make it practical.

Oh, and sometimes, she WoWs me while I'm WoWing.

My wife is awesome.

ShaleX @ Apr 10th 2007 11:49AM

It's funny... the pirateing community can pioneer some formats.. like MP3, and DivX.... but when a better, newer legit format comes along.. they are to stuck in old ways to support it.

DivX and XviD are old and busted, Get into the present with Mpeg 4 and h.264... Hell VC-1 in the WMV container is better.

JodyAnthony @ Apr 10th 2007 11:53AM

"""It simply has to be said...

Thanks, PS3. Without you, majority of these considerations wouldn't have been considerations at all. Please survive in the marketplace to continue driving this full blown feature war."

Weird. I agree 100% with sheppy"

I agree with both of you, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that. Next up, Divx/Xvid support."

I agree with all three of you. Competition is awesome.

billychaos @ Apr 10th 2007 11:54AM

can someone please tell my why zune is NOT plays4sure????

jaysins @ Apr 10th 2007 11:57AM

@shalex
Please do some research before you start speaking nonsense. http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/07/05/hd_encoding_face_off_uk/page6.html.
Also, Divx and Divx-HD are very well supported and constantly being improved upon. They encourage, if not force big companies like MS and such to put out better software because if they don't they will be right there with a better alternative. For viewing it on a computer I'd go with Divx-HD but if I didn't care about file size and was going to watch it on my tv I'd probably choose WMV-HD. Point being I have an option and each can do something better than the other giving me more freedom and choice with my media.

sparrow @ Apr 10th 2007 12:01PM

"If I'm not mistaken h.264 is the Apple Quicktime format that they use for their high definition movie trailers and such."

Apple does use it for movie trailers, but it's not something that belongs to them. (Okay, the underlying design of MPEG-4 was based upon QuickTime, but that doesn't make MPEG-4 an Apple thing.)

H.264 is MPEG-4 Part 10 is AVC. The ITU calls it H.264 (as in the successor to H.263, the old video conferencing codec that now enjoys new life as Sorenson Spark), and the Moving Picture Experts Group calls it MPEG-4 Part 10 (or AVC), but they developed it together to have one standard video codec that scales to a wide range of uses and works across scads of hardware and software products.

JodyAnthony @ Apr 10th 2007 12:10PM

"H.264 is MPEG-4 Part 10 is AVC. The ITU calls it H.264 (as in the successor to H.263, the old video conferencing codec that now enjoys new life as Sorenson Spark), and the Moving Picture Experts Group calls it MPEG-4 Part 10 (or AVC)"

my head a splode

C. Baines @ Apr 10th 2007 12:34PM

PlayForSure? Like totally! /I got nothin'

Kizzle @ Apr 10th 2007 12:39PM

I already get those codecs and more just fine. TVersity wins.

Nice to have them "built in," but for those who want it now, it's already possible.

Hikaru @ Apr 10th 2007 1:48PM

It doesn't mean anything, I'll still have to convert my anime for it to work on the 360, even when almost all the anime this season uses H.264, different fansub groups use different containers (AVI, MP4, MKV, OGM, etc.), and that's without counting on subtitle formats... If you want to use the 360 to view everything without using your PC you're still screwed.

Sol.. @ Apr 10th 2007 1:49PM

Wow yall are missing the REAL story

Microsoft CREATED playforsure and even partnered up with many vendors who support it and STILL neglected to have the 360 support it in a shitty attempt to make people want a Zune more.

It was one of the original fuck ups in the portable player game for microsoft.

Yar @ Apr 10th 2007 2:19PM

@12: "@2: Uh, actually MGS2:S is on Xbox. *legs it*"

Too bad it doesn't work on the 360. :P

THH @ Apr 10th 2007 2:56PM

It will be a long time before I need my 360 to stream videos. XBMC still works phenomenally well.

Uchendu Nwachukwu @ Apr 10th 2007 3:42PM

@28:

Xbox 360 supports PlaysForSure Music. I play songs from my MTV URGE library all the time with no problems. However, Xbox 360 does not support PlaysForSure WMV video at this time; if you try to play a protected WMV video, it will give you an error message. They will be adding the support for protected WMV videos in this update.

Otis Whitaker @ Apr 10th 2007 3:54PM

h.264 >>>>>>>> Divx and Xvid.

Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream stuff is still widely encoded in Divx and Xvid, because it's quicker and easier. Because release groups TYPICALLY don't care about quality, and only care about who can get it out the fastest... this is why I hate the community for mainstream pirating.

The anime scene.. well, at least half of it, is much, much, greater in this respect. They typically encode things in h.264, and the video uses either AC3 or ACC audio, and has selectable subtitles, in an OGM or MKV container.

ShaleX @ Apr 10th 2007 4:40PM

wow, Jaysons, dude.. thanks fo rlinking me to an article i read over a year ago... and even then it says VC-1, or WMV-HD is supirior to DIVx, All I'm really saying is h.264 is great legit technology... much like the .AAC codec for audio. But because of the codecs the piracy community pioneered 5-10 years ago.... they have too hard of a time letting go.

jaysins @ Apr 10th 2007 10:43PM

@Shalex
There's a difference between just reading and reading well. Look at your spelling, "supirior" what grade are you in? That article was posted in July of 2006 so I doubt you read it a year ago there smarty pants. See you ability to remember and retain things, much less apply them towards anything useful, is obviously very limited so let me help you.

First off, he doesn't state a clear winner. WMV-HD has better quality but it over twice the file size and takes much longer to encode. Divx-hd obviously has it's benefits especially when you have lots of media. Where did I stay the other codecs weren't good? I just said each has it place and it's a good thing we do have formats like DivX and such to force the bigger companies to do better. Of course you would have know this already if you could read at a middle school level.

Also, Divx has been around a while but it has changed and evolved as codecs seem to do. It is on it's 6th major iteration and the most recent update to it was earlier this year. Where do you get your dates from? 5-10 years is way off and it would have only have taken you a minute to find that out for yourself. Seriously, are you to lazy to do a little research or just to ignorant? Why should they let go of a format that better suites there needs as well as the needs of others. I use Divx on my laptop because the hard drive space is certianly an issue and the Divx codec much better suites my particular needs on that machine. It's better for transferring data over the internet, but if you could read decently you would have already known that. Divx puts pressure on MS and others to make better products. Just because you can't understand this doesn't make it any less true. And not once did I attack the codecs just said that each had something to offer. There is no be all end all way to store media right now. Even h.264 has it's issues. It takes a beast of a machine to decode it at a really high bit rates, like conroe processor with a gpu that supports acceleration of the content. That isn't practical for many people now is it. I am for competing formats. I know I'm being rude towards you but to post information that is wrong and then misconstrue what I said is rude as well and you would do well to respond more accurately.