21 October 2008 13 Comments

EncodeHD Progress (or How the hell is this coming together so quickly?!)

It’s been less than 5 days since I started any sort of work on EncodeHD, and somehow between working, maintaining a steady social life (hangover much?) and catching up on Heroes and 30 Rock, I’ve already got some structure on a new encoding app. Pleased with myself? You better believe it.

So consider this a ground-up rewrite of Encode360 with some advantages, and some disadvantages. I’ll go through them quickly so you can either gain or lose interest in the project from the outset. Okay, so…

  • The initial aim is to output video for X360, Zune, PS3, AppleTV, iPhone and iPod – at a variety of quality levels (time vs speed)
  • It’s bloody fast. As much as FFmpeg scares me, I just watched it re-encode a 30 minute MKV to H.264 MPEG4 in less than 6 minutes… On a ThinkPad T61 laptop.
  • More input formats and active development of the core engine. Again, FFmpeg scares me, but you have to love open-source developers.
  • Video stitching. It’s possible. I haven’t yet figured out all the logistics, but I think it’s important to be able to string a bunch of files together into one video.
  • I’ve learned from all my previous mistakes with Enc360. I’m bound to make new ones, but by starting from the ground up, I’ve already tackled some of the big issues.
  • I’ve implemented a proper bug-tracking system, and, the ability to automatically submit bug-reports with all the details I need included. Posting massive logs in the forums just didn’t make any sense, and I kept losing track of everything.
  • EncodeHD will still be donationware. If it works for you, feel free to contribute.

Now. Bad news time…

  • FFmpeg doesn’t support WMA Pro. Some people counted on Encode360′s ability to create 1080p WMV video with 5.1 audio with WMA Pro, which was a HD format for the X360. This isn’t going to be possible right now (maybe eventually). It’s still possible to achieve 5.1 audio, but only at 720p (as far as I can see). Maybe the next X360 update will support 5.1 AAC?
  • FFmpeg won’t hardcode subtitles into a video file. This would have to be done prior to encoding. An alternative would be to have an intermediate stage where the subs are hardcoded. I’m not going to look into that just yet though.
  • I’m initially going to keep some of the more advanced functionality that was in Enc360 out of it. The idea is to keep it simple – just drag and drop your files and start. We’ll come to the more advanced stuff later.

So to give an idea of where I’m at with it right now, here’s the obligatory screenshot:

Right now, I could really do with some help in beating this thing to death. Any volunteers? :)

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13 Responses to “EncodeHD Progress (or How the hell is this coming together so quickly?!)”

  1. Francois 21 October 2008 at 10:05 pm #
    Can I try it?
    Reply
  2. Dan 21 October 2008 at 10:08 pm #
    Well, I’ll need a few more days at the least. Could you give me some info about your setup? Drop me an email at dan at dcunningham.net
    Reply
  3. Marc 22 October 2008 at 7:03 am #
    I am very impressed about what your are doing here! – I might be wrong here to paste comments about Blackberry because it is already a bit “old fashioned”?. But, it would be cool not only to support those nice i’xyz mobile devices. There are many BB out there as you now (ok, it’s not yet supporting h.264 – is this the issue?) – Anyway, I will keep an eye to your blog and the cool work you do! Cheers, Marc
    Reply
  4. Dave Schlick 22 October 2008 at 6:44 pm #
    Testing going well. Hang on, there’s Blue Dragon! Whoop! Whoop!
    Reply
  5. Dave Schlick 22 October 2008 at 7:13 pm #
    I’m assuming then, as FFmpeg doesn’t use Codecs, extracting the subs prior to encoding will work this time round.
    Reply
  6. kwanbis 22 October 2008 at 9:12 pm #
    Cool. But, whatever you do, make sure it can hard code subtitles … those sony/microsoft suckers won’t read SRTs :(
    Reply
  7. Dan 23 October 2008 at 8:52 am #
    As I said, it’s not something that FFmpeg supports. I’ll be looking into some sort of workaround though after I get the basics finished.
    Reply
  8. Hyperal 23 October 2008 at 3:37 pm #
    Great to see you are putting out another great app. I use encode360 constantly and look forward to getting my hands on this one. Thanks for the hard work!
    Reply
  9. Guy 1 November 2008 at 8:13 am #
    If you present the user with a simple drag and drop solution, please, please implement a .mkv splitter that actually works. MP4′s have a 32bit (4gig) limit and the mkv’s have to be split prior to converting.

    If you can split the .mkv’s properly, then you’ll be up on all the other solutions I’ve seen…

    Reply
  10. Bryan Jackson 17 November 2008 at 6:32 pm #
    I would like to test this new product.
    Reply
  11. jeszay 20 November 2008 at 12:36 pm #
    i am looking forward to streaming mkv. Have been since hd and bluray started getting ripped. got vista 64 and it is finicky about shit. having difficulties with encode360. the first 2.0 release gives me error when i try to start encode. the latest release wont even startup. please in future if at all possible lookout for those who have vist64.
    Reply
  12. Peter Terstall 21 December 2008 at 2:31 pm #
    I love the idea what you have, to finaly make a program that does it all. I’m tired off downloading tools that wont do the job like i would.

    I have one little question. I want to use it vor mkv and m2ts or ts files. How can i hardcode the subs before using your program.

    Are you going to add this option ?

    Great work

    Reply
    • Schlicky 22 December 2008 at 4:22 pm #
      Hi Peter,

      I am currently looking in to this aspect of EHD and hope to have something fairly soonish, I too can then re-encode the subs for my MKV Anime.

      Reply

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