MCEBuddy

 I am trying to play my converted files on my xbox media center extender. The files are being converted from dvr-ms to WMV default. The error i'm getting in mcx is something along the lines of "cannot play video: either the codec (file to compress/decompress audio and video) is missing or the file is corrupt" the wmv files play on the media center pc, but not on the xbox.

The following is taken from http://assets.xbox.com/en-us/HardwareManuals/WMCE-Xbox.pdf

"You can watch Windows Media Video (WMV) 9 files on Media Center Extender for XBOX. Older WMV files will not play.

 Media Center Extender for Xbox only supports the NTSC standard (4:3, also known as 'Video Mode/Normal' on the Xbox console) TV format, and 480i mode."

So, according to the media center extender manual, i should be able to play these wmv files on the extender.

I recorded a sample 30second or so clip of live tv, and converted it with MCEbuddy to WMV default. When I looked at the file properties, it said the audio was windows media audio v8 and the video was wmv2. Interestingly though, the video size was 720x540. I dont know why It recorded to this size, so I tried specifying the size in MCE buddy. I converted the clip to a WMV 640x480 and a WMV 720x480. none of these 3 files played.

 
So then I thought well maybe the files arent being encoded to wmv 9 because I dont have the proper codecs installed. I downloaded the Windows Media 9 VCM from http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Codec-Packs-Video-Codecs/Microsoft-Windows-Media-Video-VCM.shtml
This only said it enabled third party encoders to use wmv9 in their containers, So i wasnt sure if this would work. Even so, i converted another two clips with MCEbuddy to wmv640 and wmv720. neither of these worked either.

 
So i did another google search and came up with this:
http://movavi.com/codec/WMV3.html
the WMV3 codec. I am still confused as to why I have wmv2 files and need wmv9 files but the latest codec i can find is wmv3. either way, its supposed to be the latest and and i downloaded the file for windows media player 7.1 and later for XP. The file was named WMV9Codecs.exe, so i thought this could be it. I recorded another two clips from my sample to wmv640 and wmv720, and neither of these worked. the file properties still said it was a wmv2 video with windows media audio v8, so it seemed nothing changed.

 
So after this, i thought maybe i have the right codecs but need windows media encoder. so i downloaded windows media encoder 9 and installed it. converted two more clips, again wmv640 and wmv720 and neither of these worked. I tried using the actual windows media encoder 9 program to have it encode a WMV file from the wmv640 file that mce buddy recorded. 30 seconds through the conversion it errored out and didnt finish. I also tried using windows media encoder 9 to encode a clip that was converted by mce buddy to DIVX 640x480. wm enc complained about missing codecs, yet the divx file plays fine on my mce machine, so the proper codecs should be installed. i believe i have the latest divx and xvid with ffdshow installed.

 
what am I doing wrong here? is there a way to find out what MCE buddy is converting these files to? why does my file properties say wmv2 files and not wmv3 or wmv9 which i have installed? I can upload some of my sample clips to rapidshare upon request.

thanks,

-mike
 

Hi, i feel for you! Spent all evening setting up my dads new HTPC, linked to a Linksys Media Center Extender telling him MCE Buddy was a great program to archive all his recordings and watch them in the living room but no - to my surprise it wont play them!

Spent quite a few hours trying to reconvert them. D/l WMV encoder 9 (crashed during encode). Tried using Encode 360 which has worked in the past on the extender (crashed again). Windows Movie Maker did create a playable file but in the wrong aspect ratio and no good for batch processing.

 In the end i used River Past Video Cleaner and convereted the MCE buddy WMV's to WMV's which played after messing around with conversion settings. I think it may well be the AUDIO codec MCE Buddy uses not the video. I used WMV9 and WMA 9.2.

 Its not a very tidy solution, it takes along time to twice convert a program, and i dont like having to convert a WMV into another WMV. I'd love a reply from the author on this as its a great program but this certianly strikes me as a big flaw. I dont know whether an xbox 360 or V2 MCE extednder would be less fussy on the codecs?

Yep,  MCEBuddy produces WMV2 not WMV3/WMV9/VC-1.  This is because it's GPL and I can't package anything MS uder GPL (or anything like it).  The only option I know of is Microsoft Media Encoder, which I cannot re-distibute with MCEBuddy.  I've asked everyone involved in MCEbuddy so far for an open source/GPl compatible transcoding library to WMV3/WMV9/VC-1 and have come up with nothing.  If you know of an option, please let me know.

Derek