Everyone who wants to use their Next-Gen console as a media center in addition to playing games received an early Christmas gift last month when DivX support was added to both the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX360.
Unfortunately for those who use the Matroska file format (.MKV) support for this format was not included.
Until support for this popular format is added there is however a quick and relatively easy solution to this problem that does not require any transcoding of the video stream which is time-consuming and results in degradation in the quality of the picture.
This process just extracts the audio and video into two different files onto the HDD. The audio is then transcoded and repackaged together with the untouched video stream into a file that is playable on the console (MP4). This process only takes minutes on a regular computer (compared to hours when transcoding of the video stream as well).
This file can now be streamed to the console, burned onto a disc or placed on an external USB device.
Backward compatibility works for many games on newer consoles, but titles such as The Simpsons: Hit and Run have been left out.
From base building to swinging willies, here are the best survival games around, which include a couple of less than obvious picks.
It turns out that many moons ago, Microsoft once had its eye on the Sony published LittleBigPlanet series.
Microsoft in a nutshell. Always tried to poach Sony employees, games, 3rd party games and devices like the depth camera that was turned into Kinect but was running on PS2 before Xbox 360. Wouldn't be surprised they wanted LBP. Just like they worked behind the scenes pushing the MLB to bring Sony's baseball game to Xbox instead of making their own.
https://www.playstationlife...
They didn't spend years trying to develop their own baseball game. They wanted Sony's game.
They're scum.
"However, Healey said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right doing that, adding it would have been "morally corrupt"."
Major kudos to Media Molecule for being an upright studio with principles.
Great, more stories like this please. Show the last of the zombies holding the line what we've been saying for years: Microsoft is anti competition, anti industry and has no interest in making games at all.
But hey, at least there's an Xbox Games Showcase to look forward to, right?
Well considering SONY just killed the series, LBP would've been dead by now either way. Though MM probably wouldn't exist by now either, so I'm glad they stayed with SONY, hopefully they don't get shut down any time soon or ever honestly.
@Tecra_X: Thanks and a thousand bubbles for you!
I needed a good and reliable MKV to MP4 (or AVI) programs for my job! :D
I just need a way to transfer the subs from one file to the other.
Code Geass needs to be rewatched on my HDTV.
This should work in theory, however there are a few problems. The first is that H.264 support in PS3 (and possibly Xbox360) is hit and miss, so if the encoder was lazy and didn't set a level, the system may refuse to play it even though it's able.
The other as visage finds, is that a lot of MKVs are fansubs, and have "softsubs" which are just textfiles that display at the right time, and are not part of the video image. Using this tool will mean you get a video without subtitles, because the subtitles in MKV are non standard (as is anything to do with MKV). In this case, transcoding is required.
Don't you just love it? It would be a lot simpler if people just used MP4 in the first place. I don't see why you would want the option to turn subs off if you was downloading a fanSUB anyway. If you don't want text, get the raw, they are usually better quality and less raped to death with crappy filters anyway. Ahem, so anyway, if people stuck to MP4, it would be a lot simpler because the format is supported a lot more than MKV.
I feel sorry for Mac users because they are tied to approximately 1 player if they want their subs to display in their MKV. Even Windows has patchy support. There are no commercial programs supporting it (meaning this is why converting it is such a chore and relies on kind people who write such conversion tools). MP4 is really coming in to it's own now. Supported on PS3, Xbox360, AppleTV (to a very basic extent) and H.264 DVD players (google Kiss 1600). You can also play them on the PSP and mobile phones. I had the Cowboy Bebop movie on my Nokia N95, it was awesome, and the quality was really flawless, and I'm not just saying that.
Anyway, that's enough of my rant. Unfortunately I can't change the fact that fansubbers would rather use such an obscure format, but luckily this only seems to happen in English fansubbing. I see a lot of Spanish groups using MP4, and also a lot of AMVs are MP4 too, some people even making a point to make sure it works on the PS3, so you can just pop it on and go.
http://www.animemusicvideos...
restricted. So do what I did. Buy a 2nd cheap video card ($40 - Ebay) and a 50 ft. DVI to HDMI cable ($30 - Ebay) and voila, instant media center that can play anything you can throw at it in full 1080p resolution. I have since used my PS3 and 360 as a media center.
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