19 October 2008 15 Comments

Encode360 might not quite be so dead :)

So at this point, there’s oodles of encoding projects around, riddled with features and options to muck around with – most of which are a bit daunting to the majority of people who want to just convert stuff for their media device in a fairly one-click solution. The best app I’ve used for this would have to be VisualHub, which was unfortunately recently discontinued, and was also OSX only.

Encode360 was somewhat based around VisualHub’s simplicity, but used an entirely different backend – Windows Media Encoder – which was itself riddled with problems and depreciated, so there was never any chance of bugfixes or feature additions from Microsoft. VisualHub on the other hand, used ffmpeg, which is VERY actively developed, self-contained (no need for external codecs), and multi-core enabled.

The only issue with ffmpeg is that it can’t output high-quality WMVs using WMA Pro audio (so essentially no 5.1 with VC1). ffmpeg does however, use x264, which can produce MPEG4 H.264 video. Now, the really nice thing here is that H.264 is supported on virtually every media device at the moment: Apple TV, iPhone, iPod, PS3, X360 and Zune. It’s a helluvah lot more space-saving than WMV8/9, and with AAC audio, can be 5.1 too. Granted encoding H.264 is slow, ffmpeg IS multi-core and will still encode a video faster than Encode360 at VC1 using the same bit-rates.

So I’ve starting throwing something together. It’s very very much in it’s infancy, has an extremely minimal UI and should be thought of as completely separate to Encode360. But is it of interest? Comments please…

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15 Responses to “Encode360 might not quite be so dead :)”

  1. crasher 19 October 2008 at 3:02 pm #
    I suggested this way back when. Great idea.
    Reply
  2. Dave Schlick 19 October 2008 at 3:10 pm #
    Yay – you is the man Dan…

    Can’t wait to test my friend… Hmmm MKV’s, here we go again !

    Reply
  3. Dan 19 October 2008 at 3:13 pm #
    Agreed. I had it on my mind for ages, but it necessitated a full rewrite, and poeple seemed relatively happy with WMV. It’s just proved to be more hassle than it’s worth and I’m hoping this can be solved by using ffmpeg instead.

    It’s going to start off very minimal and grow as the requirements change, much the same way Enc360 did.

    Reply
  4. Dan 19 October 2008 at 3:18 pm #
    Dave, we’re going to have to go through the subtitles stuff alllll over again… :)
    Reply
  5. Dave Schlick 19 October 2008 at 3:28 pm #
    No biggie – bet we have a much better solution anyhow.
    Reply
  6. Schreibi 13 December 2008 at 10:58 am #
    Would be great if you make it possible again to convert MKV to WMV without losing quality!
    Reply
  7. Sancho Panzer 29 December 2008 at 5:30 pm #
    I’ve encoded a lot of videos with Encode360 into .wmv format to be able to watch them on the Xbox. The ffdshow video decoder allowed me to upscale the videos to 720p for subtitles to fit. As I watch the movies on 37″ FullHD television this was the best option for me on the Xbox360. If with the new application you can make movies look/sound better and/or compress faster I’m looking forward to it.

    As Schreibi wrote: mkv2wmv application would be great as there are lots of videos in this format around.

    Reply
  8. nruk 27 January 2009 at 6:48 pm #
    Great idea, cant wait, maybe now there will be a speedier way to encode my mkv’s and keep the 5.1 sound
    Reply
  9. Gord 29 January 2009 at 6:55 pm #
    Looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for all of your hard work.
    Reply
  10. notreallymyname 2 February 2009 at 12:41 am #
    Will there still be a way to make vc-1 / wvc1 videos in a newer release. Vc-1 looks amazing compared to h.264 when using a big screen. Thanks for these great programs, and I hope you keep up the great work!
    Reply
  11. notreallymyname 2 February 2009 at 1:31 am #
    Guess I got to go get back to using encode360 for vc-1. hope encodehd ends up kicking more ass than encode360!
    Reply
  12. Deron 12 February 2009 at 3:04 pm #
    Just caught up with this news…

    I use encode360 a lot because I use a 360 to as a media streamer…

    A new version that could use multi-core and encode quicker would be great.

    Reply
  13. Paul 21 June 2009 at 7:04 pm #
    The PS3 community benefits greatly from the mkv2vob tool. Perhaps a new Encode360-ish app that only transcodes the video if necessary, and has some (if not all) of the same options, would be super. I’m giving EncodeHD a whirl right now converting an MKV to MP4 for my Xbox 360. It appears to be transcoding the video (I left the H.264 Encoding checkbox checked), which is a bummer. Tools like XenonMKV and GOTSent don’t transcode unless necessary, but they crap out all the time.

    -Paul

    Reply
  14. Anthony 14 October 2009 at 6:31 pm #
    PLEASE!!! I’d love something to do MKV and OGG I have SO MANY video about 1TB of MKV video and 1TB of Anime. Simple UI would be best too. i can’t get my 360 to see the videos i do with EncodeHD in XBOX360 format i check it and it should see them but nothing ever comes up. I hope this new encoder comes out soon.
    Thanks Dan!!!!!!!
    Reply
  15. Anthony 14 October 2009 at 6:33 pm #
    I think the best thing about the new encoder might have to be the space. If i could keep the quality and have everything at around the same or less would be great!!!
    Reply

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