XBOX 360 owners have to watch out as some/most video might not play even if they are standard h264 video with AAC audio... why? The XBOX 360 only support:

Video profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to level 4.1)
Video bit rate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps
Audio profiles: AAC, 2-channel, Low Complexity
Audio max bit rate: No restrictions.

Any MKV with video specs above those limits and the XBOX 360 will choke ;-(

Maybe the PS3 is more forgiving.

Thank You So much ... Great Tutorial!!

Thanks so much!

Bernard, thanks for the tutorial. The audio is playing on my 360 but not the picture. My video specs are below the limits you set above. My video dimensions in some cases are odd though e.g. 1280x544. Could that be the problem?

What if on some videos the option for pass through is greyed out? I checked both mp4 and mp4 isma and neither work. Is there anyway I can fix that? Any other alternatives? Thanks.

Great tutorial! Thanks!

@Earbird: I had that issue, and found here (forum.videohelp.com/topic347506.html) that if your video has subtitles along side it, pull up the Movie Properties in QT and uncheck those subtitle tracks. NOW you can passthru.

Oops! The parenthesis found its way into my link.

forum.videohelp.com/topic347506.html