Homebrew Wiimc Vs .mp4

[XICO2KX]

i find it gets a little out of sync but it gets back into sync again...??

Yes, I've also noticed that sometimes it gets in sync!
So, this might be solved with some kind of frame skipping technique, I guess!
There's some discussion about this at the official WiiMC forums here, if you want to take a look!
It would definitely be really great if it could play H.264 correctly!

 

[Lacius]

Yes, I've also noticed that sometimes it gets in sync!
So, this might be solved with some kind of frame skipping technique, I guess!
There's some discussion about this at the official WiiMC forums here, if you want to take a look!
It would definitely be really great if it could play H.264 correctly!

You can reduce the problem by setting "Frame Dropping" to "Always" in WiiMC, but it is only likely to have a minor effect. These problems are due to the Wii's hardware limitations, not WiiMC. Very little, if anything, can be done about it. Pretty much everything is still being released as Xvid, so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[XDel]

I've not read through this whole thread, but I have a simple and easy solution.

Get Freemake Video Converter (it is free).

When you have a movie, assuming you are in Winblows, right click the file and goto it's properties. Click on the DETAILS Tab, and see what the resolution is. If it is over 700x400(ish), then it is going to be choppy and you'll want to use Freemake Video Converter to size it down to DVD quality. Do that and you shouldn't have any more issues with any of your videos, at least I don't.

http://www.freemake.com/

 

[duffmmann]

Just look elsewhere for .avi files. I'm in the same boat as you, and I still manage to find all my favorite new episodes of shows and new movies in .avi format.

 

[LightyKD]

Yes i have had the same problem the way i have got around this is by using
'Any Video Converter Professional' and converting all by this set up

Output Profile - Customized AVI Movie (*.avi)

Video Options
Video Codec - xvid
Frame Size - 640x360
Video Bitrate - 1000
Video Framerate - 24

Audio Options
Audio Codec - mp3
Audio Bitrate - 192
Sample Rate - 44100
Audio Channel - 2
Disable Audio - No
A/V Sync - Basic

(on my pc it takes about 7mins to convert each 21min tv series episode & the file size of the converted episode is around 178MB - 185MB)

Then after i finsh converting i put the converted episodes on my HD Drive fire up the wii and watch thru WiiMC
I have been doing this with all my dvd movies i own just resently and never had any play problems at all on WiiMC & MediaPlayer CE

PS i have found that if you make the frame size to big (eg 1280-720) while using the setup i have stated above you'll get problems with the picture going red and out of focus all the time.

THANK YOU!!!! I re-visited this thread today only to find this particular post and I was able to get a 600+mb episode of "Power Rangers: MEGAFORCE" down to barely above 200+mb! I can work with this!

 

[Jayro]

I convert all of the movies I download using DVDFab, to a 480p MP4 movie (H.264). The Wii struggles with 720p framerates with such a demanding codec. But I've found it's the best for file-size (Under 4GB movies) and stability. AVI files tend to get pink and blotchy every 20 seconds or so for me, and then correct themselves a few seconds later, and it's just a mess using AVI files.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I use AnyVideo Converter, seems to work pretty well?

Although to be honest these days I switched to the Wii-U and PlayOn it just works with everything I throw at it. Not sure what I will do when the free year runs out I guess I will have to buy it if it's not too expensive. So far I have no complaints about its ability to stream media from my server.

Edit: Also if you live in the US, honestly I can't recommend Netflix enough for 8 bucks a month it's totally worth it. I tried the free month of Hulu Plus and the best thing I can say about that is... It had a lot of older obscure TV shows and a lot of subbed Japanimation.... Movies? Not nearly as much as Netflix

 

[LightyKD]

I use the parameters listed above for my videos but with a resolution of 720x480. While its good for a ton of videos. I up the bit rate to 2000 for my "Power Rangers: MEGAFORCE" episodes. Episodes of that show tend to have a lot of action going on and if I had left the bit rate at 1000, you could see a bit of pixelation.

 

[XICO2KX]

Well, if someone here has experience with MMX/SSE programming, you can try to speed up WiiMC's internal FFmpeg-based H.264 decoder using the Wii's CPU Paired Single instructions!
Just go here and try to optimize the code inside the *_paired.c source files:

http://code.google.com/p/wiimc/source/browse/#svn/trunk/source/mplayer/ffmpeg/libavcodec/ppc

 

[XICO2KX]

Just found out that MPlayer-CE plays some H.264 encoded files just fine that were stuttering/buffering a lot on WiiMC...

 

[SuperrSonic]

if you absolutely must use h.264 just imitate what the official video apps on the Wii do, just lower the resolution; you'll save space and have some worry free, clear playback. I still haven't found a video that fails with that setup.
Netflix uses 512x384 and it looks perfect. The difference in detail is negligible.

MPlayer CE kinda cheats, it does stay most of the time in sync but playback is not smooth.

 

[XICO2KX]

if you absolutely must use h.264 just imitate what the official video apps on the Wii do, just lower the resolution (...)
MPlayer CE kinda cheats, it does stay most of the time in sync but playback is not smooth.

Lowering the resolution is a good idea, but having to convert every video we want to play, does not seem a viable option...
Maybe that could be done inside the H.264 codec, but it had to be hacked/tweaked by someone with the knowledge to do so...
Well, in defense of MPlayer CE, it's better to have a sometimes-not-so-smooth playback than no playback at all!