I'm using TwonkyMedia 4.4 (NAS) on a Maxtor Shared Storage II connecting to an Xbox 360 with the spring AV Patch. I have several movies that are encoded to the AppleTV standard using H.264 and the .mp4 extension.
Some of these movies are visible and work correctly on the Xbox if I change the file extension to .mov, but that change makes them stop working in iTunes. None of these movies have been purchased from the iTunes Store so there is no copy protection on them.
My question is why won't .mp4 files show up in my movie list on the Xbox? I have tired another UPnP client for the Mac (Connect360) and it works with all of these files with no issues. TwonkyMedia will play some of these files if the extension is changed to .mov, but others don't play.
The encoding specs are the same on all of them, is there something that I'm missing? I really like your product, and I don't want to keep my Mac up and running all the time just to serve media.
.mp4 on Xbox 360
A little more experimenting
I tried editing the client db file to force a transition for the .mp4's and had no luck.
However, I tried changing the file extension on my files to .m4v and so far they seem to be working. This raises the question, what is different about the designation .m4v in TwonkyMedia that limits an H.264 video from being identified correctly?
Here is the post that gave me the idea:
http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/ ... k-faq.aspx
However, I tried changing the file extension on my files to .m4v and so far they seem to be working. This raises the question, what is different about the designation .m4v in TwonkyMedia that limits an H.264 video from being identified correctly?
Here is the post that gave me the idea:
http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/ ... k-faq.aspx
Just thought I would follow up. The change of extension (to m4v) seems to have done the trick. All of the video's are playing perfectly.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to tag the files correctly to get the Title to display instead of the file name. Then the big challenge, getting an image to display in the menu with the movie. I would call it cover art but since these are home movies, it is really just an image.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to tag the files correctly to get the Title to display instead of the file name. Then the big challenge, getting an image to display in the menu with the movie. I would call it cover art but since these are home movies, it is really just an image.
I have also been trying to figure this one out without success, but your post hit the nail on the head!
The Xbox understands the MP4 container, but it appears that Twonky doesn't know what to do with it - possibly because the MP4 format could contain video, audio and text.
Changing MP4 files encoded using Nero Recode's standard AVC profile from an MP4 extension to an M4V extension has fixed this and they now play successfully.
Good find BoraSport - you just earned Twonky a new license holder!
The Xbox understands the MP4 container, but it appears that Twonky doesn't know what to do with it - possibly because the MP4 format could contain video, audio and text.
Changing MP4 files encoded using Nero Recode's standard AVC profile from an MP4 extension to an M4V extension has fixed this and they now play successfully.
Good find BoraSport - you just earned Twonky a new license holder!
Another useful tool for folks... If you're using OSX and need to change a large group of files in a single directory from .mp4 to .m4v here is a terminal command you can run in that directory.
This is much faster than trying to do this through Finder.
Code: Select all
for i in *.mp4; do mv $i ${i%%.mp4}.m4v; doneI don't think that Twonkyvision is to blame. If you run Cidero, a Java based UPNP-app, your MP4 files on your TwonkyMedia show up alright. But Xbox360 pretends not to see them.My question is why won't .mp4 files show up in my movie list on the Xbox? I have tired another UPnP client for the Mac (Connect360) and it works with all of these files with no issues. TwonkyMedia will play some of these files if the extension is changed to .mov, but others don't play.
I think that Windows Media Center Edition might be able to serve files with MP4 as file extension to Xbox360, but haven't been able to confirm as I dont have MCE. Streming from Media Player 11 is supposed to work also.
Apparently, the Xbox360 is designed to be restricted against other platforms. Streaming video from Twonky Media is indeed possible since last year's updates for Xbox360 with XviD/DivX (at least in an AVI container) and later versions of Windows Media Video (WMV). x.264, which is my preferred video encoder, only plays on the xbox360 from Twonky Media in an MP4 container with the m4v file extension. I have managed to transcode successfully with Handbrake using the AppleTV profile, which gives m4v without having to rename the output. Some restrictions apply with Xbox360 for this format, but seem to be covered by the AppleTV profile. A major drawback, however, is that subtitles will have to be hardcoded ("burnt in"). And you have to build a DVD file structure for the video to be transcoded, if not available from the beginning. This last prerquisite can be done fairly easy with TMPGEnc DVD Author.
Happy overnight transcoding!