Prepare content from OGM for Xbox 360

OGM is a container that can store video, multiple audio and multiple subtitle tracks. It has many advantages over AVI and so has been used widely online to distribute and share certain content. OGM is not directly supported by the Xbox 360 console, but luckily the video and audio you generally find in OGM is easily stored in another container that is supported by the Xbox 360. Since many OGM files have OGG audio, there is no way to avoid converting it to MP3. The Xbox 360 console does not support subtitles yet either, but in this article we will show you how to put a video stream and an audio stream from an OGM file into an AVI container to play on Xbox 360.

Software you need

WinRAR	WinRAR is required to extract VirtualDUBMOD files.
AviCodec	AviCodec will give us some information on our OGM file.
FFDShow	DirectShow filters that would decode most of the streams you would find in the OGM container.
Haali Media Splitter	Haali Media Splitter brings support for splitting OGM to DirectShow players and programs.
VirtualDUBMOD	VirtualDUBMOD is capable of opening and processing OGM files.

Download the above items and store them on your hard disk drive. You can install WinRAR immediately if you don't already have it installed. Haali Media Splitter brings more support for OGM to Windows programs that rely on DirectShow (make sure OGM support is ticked on installation). FFDShow is a set of filters that can decode easily most of the streams you would find in an OGM file.

OGM --> AVI Step 1 - Get information on OGM file streams

Using AviCodec

Download and install AviCodec on your computer. When you have it installed, run it from your Start Menu. You can simply drag and drop your OGM file into the program to display the contained video and audio track details, or you can click Select and browse for the files in an Explorer FIle Browser.

The picture with this text (click to enlarge) shows how AviCodec will report on my OGM file. It reports that I have an XviD video stream (FourCC is XVID) and stereo OGG audio. While the XviD (or DivX) video is good for the AVI container, we have a problem with Ogg Vorbis. This must be encoded to MP3 audio for support with the Xbox 360 console. You might be lucky enough to have MP3 audio or AC3, in which case, you can ignore the transcoding part later in the guide but you'll still have to identify the audio stream you want to keep if there are many of them.

I will write with the assumption that you have OGG Vorbis audio too. Let's continue with VirtualDUBMOD.

OGM --> AVI Step 2 - Prepare VirtualDUBMOD and Open OGM

Setup VirtualDUBMOD

Download VirtualDUBMOD. The download comes in a ZIP file. Create a new folder anywhere on your hard disk drive and extract all the files from this ZIP archive into it using WinRAR. When you are finished open up VirtualDUBMOD.exe and navigate your way through the user agreements and prompts until you get to the main window.

Main Window

The main window of VirtualDUBMOD is pretty much blank, not representing the amazing amount of tasks you can achieve with the software at all.

This version of VirtualDUB doesn't just support opening and saving AVI files, it also supports MKV files and OGM files, making it perfect for this article.

We will now use it to open an OGM file and save it as an AVI. In all probability I will probably have to encode an OGG audio stream to MP3.

Open OGM File

In VirtualDUBMOD, click File --> Open Video File. An Explorer File Browser will now open up. Navigate to the folder where your OGM file is located and open it with VirtualDUBMOD.

When it is loaded and you can see the first video frames (usually black) of the video, click Streams --> Streams List.

OGM --> AVI Step 3 - Convert OGG Vorbis to MP3 and disable audio

Stream List

In my example picture I only have one stream, but on many cases with OGM, you may have many different audio streams. Since the Xbox 360 console won't allow you to switch between streams during playback, you will need to identify the track you want to keep.

However, first I will go through the short steps of transcoding OGG Vorbis to MP3 audio.

Full Processing Mode

Right click on any OGG Vorbis audio stream and you will see that you can change it to Full Processing Mode instead of the default Direct Stream Copy. This will allow you to set a compression and encode an audio file to mux into the video.

When you have selected Full Processing Mode, click the Compression option.

Compression - Lame MP3

From the list of compression you can use for your audio, I recommend clicking Lame MP3 on the left. Now on the right you will have the options of several bitrates to choose from. I personally chose 192kbps CBR MP3, and this should be a reasonable setting for anyone, but go higher by all means if you wish.

Once you have selected your bitrate, click OK.

Demux - Encode to MP3

Now that you are back at the Stream List, select the OGG Vorbis file again, but this time, click the Demux button and an Explorer File Browser window will open asking you where to save the Demuxed stream. Before you settle on a name, change Save as type to All Files and give your filename an extension of MP3 as that's what it will be when the encoding finishes.

Click the Save button and the process will begin automatically.

MP3 Encoding Process

Encoding to MP3 should not take too long for any of the streams on a modern computer, but it still does depend on the source file and available resources at the time.

When the process finishes, you will be back at the stream list. Click the Add button and an Explorer File Browser window will pop up again. This time, go to the location where you saved the MP3 file and double click it.

VirtualDUBMOD will now briefly check the file before listing it there amongst your other streams.

Import MP3

Click the Add button and an Explorer File Browser window will pop up again. This time, go to the location where you saved the MP3 file and double click it.

VirtualDUBMOD will now briefly check the file before listing it there amongst your other streams.

Stream List

If you have several streams, try selecting one and click Comments. The author of the files may have tagged the languages. If he/she did not, then you may have to demux one by one (on Direct Stream Copy mode if you have something like VLC to play back the OGG audio directly).

You can simply double click any stream you want to disable and it won't be included in your output AVI file.

Disable Streams

To disable a stream, either select it and click the Disable button or simply double click it. Look at the picture with this text (click to enlarge); when the stream is shaded out it won't be featured on the output AVI file.

Set Disabled Streams to Direct Stream Copy

For a more speedy process and to avoid having to save a file essentially twice, make sure all of your Disabled tracks are set to Direct Stream Copy. If you don't do this, you may experience problems with your resulting file and will have to open it and save it with VirtualDUBMOD again.

Remember that if you have already encoded your MP3 (and you should have by now), and added it into the Stream List through the Add button, then you must set that as Direct Stream Copy too or else you could end up with PCM audio.

When you are done with the Stream List, then click OK. When you are back at the main VirtualDUBMOD window, click File --> Save As.

OGM --> AVI Step 4 - Save and finish up

Save as AVI

There are two very important things you must remember to do here.

Firstly, you must make sure that Save as type is set to Audio-Video Interleave (AVI) and not either of the other choices.

Secondly, you must ensure that Video Mode is definitely set to Direct Stream Copy. If it is not, you will end up with ridiculously large files due to no compression.

When you made sure both of these essential settings are taken care of, give your output file a name with a .avi extension, and click Save.

Finally

Depending on the circumstances, the above instructions may fail to bring you playback on the Xbox 360. If that happens, please go to the Xbox 360 forum in our Discussion Forums and ask for help. However, this method should work for the vast majority of OGM files you have.

Version History

v1.0 -- First on site -- Feb 13th, 2008 by Dela