Jellyfin Transcode Profile for XBMC4Xbox

[GoTeamScotch]

(cross-posted from OGXbox.com)

I have made a profile for Jellyfin (a media streaming server similar to Plex) that transcodes videos down to a format that the Original Xbox can handle. I have tested it on a few of my own 1080p and 4K videos and it seems to work fairly well and I'm hoping to find a few testers who can try it out. At the moment, it still drops frames occasionally, but I'm going dial in the profile to smooth things out further. Once done, I plan on submitting the profile as a PR to the Jellyfin project to see if it can be bundled in with future releases.




This profile basically just tells Jellyfin what containers and codecs to use (and at what bitrates), then Jellyfin handles the transcoding as if it were any other device.

To use this, download the ZIP file attached to this post and extract it to your PC. Then upload the XML file you just extracted to your Jellyfin server under this path:

Code: Select all

/etc/jellyfin/dlna/user/XBMC4Xbox.xml

(varies for Windows users, likely located in Appdata/Local)

XBMC4Xbox.zip

(1.07 KiB) Downloaded 617 times

You should then see this new profile under Settings > DLNA > Profiles. To try it out, open your Jellyfin client and cast a video to your Xbox as usual. The video should start playing on your Xbox. If anything goes wrong, check your log file for hints. It will tell you which profile it is using. If it doesn't say "XBMC4Xbox" and instead says "Default", then there's a problem.
Reply here with results and feedback.

Tested with XBMC4Xbox v3.5.3
(this profile targets this version of XBMC4Xbox specifically, but this restriction can be removed if XBMC4Xbox ever has a new release)

[sixties keith]

Thanks for the great work on this, personally i hadn't heard of jellyfin but ive used Plex for years and had worked on a Plex profile for quite a while with varying results for xbox.
Unfortunately I'm not in a position to test atm, but I've taken a copy and its on the to do list once i pull it out of storage.

[GoTeamScotch]

Thanks for the great work on this, personally i hadn't heard of jellyfin but ive used Plex for years and had worked on a Plex profile for quite a while with varying results for xbox.
Unfortunately I'm not in a position to test atm, but I've taken a copy and its on the to do list once i pull it out of storage.

Would you mind sharing your Plex profile? I'm no expert in this, and I'm be interested to see how yours differs.

And just to reiterate, my profile still needs some work. I've found some videos that seem to stutter, and I'm not quite sure why that is yet. Still testing and tweaking.

[MasterChief2]

How this approach differs in quality compared to this ffmpeg command to transcode videos:

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ffmpeg -i some_1080p_h264_video.mkv -scodec copy -acodec copy -vcodec mpeg4 -b:v 3000k -maxrate 5000k -bufsize 4096k -s 1280x720 -f matroska -y outfile.mkv

I was using this ffmpeg method while making my Stream Movies & TV Shows app for Xbox.

[GoTeamScotch]

How this approach differs in quality compared to this ffmpeg command to transcode videos:

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -i some_1080p_h264_video.mkv -scodec copy -acodec copy -vcodec mpeg4 -b:v 3000k -maxrate 5000k -bufsize 4096k -s 1280x720 -f matroska -y outfile.mkv

I was using this ffmpeg method while making my Stream Movies & TV Shows app for Xbox.

I read through as many transcoding discussions as I could find and the command you pasted is what I started with as a reference point. The main parts of that command that are relevant in my DLNA profile are:

• Video codec: mpeg4
• Container: mkv
• Total bitrate: 5mbps
• Video dimensions (720p)

I haven't spent much time with this project lately. Just an hour here or there over the past month. Most of that time has been spent just learning how Jellyfin's DLNA profiles are laid out. There's still much work to do in order to represent what format XBMC can play. Different aspect ratios can take advantage of different bit rates, but Jellyfin supports that so it shouldn't be too hard. (famous last words)