Hlep!! Video sucks on my Atrix HOW2FIX?!?!?!
The Atrix is a peculiar beast when it comes to video and audio. While it is a very powerful device for certain things, it does lack in a few others. One of the most pronounced is video compatibility.
Please make note that this guide was made for Froyo-based (2.2+) firmwares, NOT the latest Gingerbread (2.3+) releases. However, the settings contained within play very nicely with the stock media players on the phone regardless of firmware.
FIRST: The Atrix does not play *.mkv files out of the box.
SECOND: Even with a media player from the market, *.MKV runs poorly.
THIRD:This guide will tell you how to fix these issues
So the Atrix will play 3 major video containers right out of the box. *.MP4, *.AVI, and *.3GP. The Stock media player will only translate stuff from those types of containers.
Audio works out of a boatload of containers. *.mp3, *.mp2, *.m4a, *.wav, *.wma, *.amr, *.ogg... those are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.
But you don't care about what it'll play, you just wanna make it work.
How to make stuff play on your Atrix
Transcode with Megui walkthrough: Here.
Transcode with Handbrake: Here.
Transcode with CLI with FFMPEG: Here. (Thanks relaxed!)
*NOTE: My preference on media transcode programs leans very, very heavily toward Megui. Megui (found here) gives a level of video control that you can not obtain with many (read as 'any) other transcode programs. If you take the time to set it up, you can get the results you want every single time with just a couple of clicks.
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BRICKING YOUR PHONE/COMPUTER/INTERNET CONNECTION/WHATEVER WITH THE USE OF THIS GUIDE. THIS GUIDE IS ALMOST EXACTLY WHAT I DO TO MAKE MEDIA WORK ON MY PHONE. IT WORKS 99% OF THE TIME, THE OTHER 1% OF THE TIME I MESS SOMETHING UP TWEAKING THE SETTINGS, IN WHICH CASE I FOLLOW THE STANDARDS LAID OUT IN THE GUIDE TO FIX IT!
Here is a list of supported codecs and containers that the Atrix plays that most people will be concerned with. As these are just containers, most of what you can put into them is almost unlimited. You can have h.264 video and flac audio in an AVI container, but it most likely will not work with any player due to the restrictions on said container. (Container first, with codec possibility laid out next to it):
1. MP4
Video Codec possibilities: h.264 baseline, h.264 main(*), h.263, xvid/divx
Audio Codec possibilities: AAC(**)2. AVI
Video Codec possibilities: xvid/divx, h.263, mjpeg
Audio Codec possibilities: MP3, AC3(**), PCM(**)3. MKV (ONLY WORKS WITH THIRD PARTY PLAYERS!)***
Video Codec possibilities: h.264 (***), xvid/divx(***)
Audio Codec possibilities: MP3(***), AC3(***,****),AAC(**)
Subtitle Possibilities: SRT(plain text)
(*)Main profile x264 will achieve better compression results. However, you must disable weighted B-frame/P-frame prediction. If the conversion software of your choice does not have the option for profile based encoding, then you must DISABLE weighted B-frames, and P-frames. More information on what these settings are can be found at the x264 main site, http://x264.nl. It should also be noted that any resolution at or below 1080p at any bitrate can be played, withstanding the speed of your sd card as long as you use the settings aformentioned.
(**) Due to limitations of the phone, audio tracks that are encoded in mono (1.0 channel) should be converted to joint-stereo or stereo for the best compatibility. If audio tracks have more than 2 channel stereo (IE 2.1, 3.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 or any combination thereof) they need to be downsampled to stereo, Dolby Pro Logic, or Dolby PLII to eliminate the 'echo' effect that these files will produce. AAC does this nicely. AC3 to my knowledge will not play at all if the channel set is anything but 2.0. NeroAACenc is recommended for AAC compression, more info here.
(***) Using QQPlayer, I have managed to achieve a playable MKV with soft subtitles. The video inside the MKV *MUST* be xvid, compressed with 2 pass with a bitrate of LESS THAN 1700kb at FILM framerate (23.976FPS) and NO MORE THAN 848x480 resolution. Any resolution lower than those numbers will work, with any other aspect ratio also. QQPlayer can read the aspect ratio properly, so watch your video tags inside the MKV. The audio *MUST* be MP3 (stereo or j-stereo) below 192kbps. Any sampling frequency works. The subtitles must be SRT plain text. H.264 as a video codec inside the MKV WILL NOT WORK WELL. Anything but MP3 audio in the container WILL NOT WORK WELL.
TO SUMMARIZE THE MKV:
[email protected] <=1700kb 2 pass @ 23.976 fps, resolution <= 848x480
MP3 @ <=192kbps (44.1khz or 48khz will work)
SRT Plain text subtitle track
**** After examining a file I encoded using High Profile 8-bit h264 and AC3, I found that no matter what media player I used (stock/mx/qq/rockplayer) on my installation of CM7 weekly3, there was no sound. I cannot promise AC3 will work, and if anyone knows how to make it work (kernel dependence maybe?) please let me know. I will probably be doing an update on the whole guide when I get some more information
Special thanks to relaxed and kmiller8 on IRC for proving me wrong on a few things in this post.
Transcode: Megui
Guide for Transcoding with Megui
Step 1: What file are you transcoding??
Yes, this is an important step. Say you get a movie from a 'reputable' source, or you ripped your own. If you are anything like me, I like MKV files. They play nicely on my desktop running Vista (don't flame pl0x, I know Vista sucks), but don't work on the phone. Usually stuffed inside that shiny MKV is a high-profile x264 encoded video with ridiculous settings and a shiny 5.1 (or 6.1, or even 7.1) FLAC audio track. Sometimes subtitles! And even in more cases multiple audio tracks! Will your Atrix play this monster file? lolno. Can we make it work for your Atrix? Yes. Read on.
This example is going to be using a MKV file, and we will be converting to a 720p MP4 using x264 and AAC. (Most other files will work this way as well. If you are ripping a dvd and looking to stuff it on your phone, find a guide on the internet. Google is your friend. Most guides will tell you how to get the dvd into a workable format on your computer, from there you can use this guide.)
Step 2: Get Megui.
As said previously, you will need Megui. (found here). You will also need avisynth. (get that here; make sure you get version 2.5.8, as it is the most stable at the time of writing this.) Install avisynth first, then Megui to prevent any serious issues. Megui will tell you it needs avisynth before you install it anyway, so this cuts out a step in the process.
For best audio results, you can get neroAACenc also. When you update megui, it will tell you how to get this file. Follow the directions on the website it sends you to at the update step to get this awesome audio encoder. Megui will tell you how to make it work.
As stated before I am not responsible for bricking your computer with this software. I am also not responsible for any issues regarding bugs or technical support with the software I listed. I just use it. It works flawless for me on 3 different x64 based computers (Windows XPx64, Vista Ultimate x64, and 7 professional x64)
Step 3: Megui.
Megui, after it is updated and working, looks like a complicated piece of software. There are so many configuration options even the configuration options have configurations if you go deep enough. Lucky for us, they are not as complicated as they seem. We will only be working with a few of the options.
In this case, we will be working with a MKV that has a video, an audio, and a subtitle track.
A. Extract the file.
Tools > HD Streams Extractor.
The reason we do this is to get all the information we can out of the file. Choose the radio button for 'select file as input' and either type or click the '...' button to browse to your file. Once that is done, we want to extract everything. So under the streams list, check them all. If you want to change the location that they extract to, then do so it is all up to you. This particular case will produce 3 files, a video track, an audio track, and a subtitle track. Click Queue. This will take you back to the main window. Click the queue tab and click start at the bottom to begin extracting the files.
B. Index the Video
Now we have the files extracted, we need to index the video file that was produced from this extraction. To do this, go to Tools > File Indexer and choose the *.mkv file that was extracted from the last step. Why this file and not the original? Because this file has only video in it, no extra crap. The file produced will most likely be 'T1_Video - .mkv' unless your source had a strange index set to begin with. Because this is a MKV file, we only have one option for indexing, and that is with 'FFMSIndex'. Click the queue button, go back to the queue tab on megui and click start.
C. AVIsynth gui inside Megui
Once the previous step has been completed, we will have a window pop up with the video in it. Yay! This video has a few things we need to do to it before we can start the actual encode process though. In my example, the frame rate is too high for the phone to understand (120fps... i should slap someone for that), and it by default has no subtitles. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have to resize the video to 960x540 as per the resolution of the phone, because it will play back up to 1080p. This video is fine at 1280x720. So unless you are concerned with the amount of space its going to take on your phone, leave the resize option alone. (*) Go to the filters tab. Under deinterlacing, choose 'progressive scan'. Reason for this: this example is animu. For some reason, it cannot detect interlacing in animu. If you have a film or another source, then you can click analyze and it will figure out what it needs to do with the file. Under filters, choose either a spline16 or a spline36 (because we aren't resizing) for the resize filter. If you are going to try to upscale, make sure you choose one of the soft resize filters. (*) Subtitles: choose your subtitle file. In this case, 'T3_Subtitle - 3 Subtitle (ASS).ass'.
To fix the framerate problem I had with this video, I changed the actual script manually. Under the script tab I changed a value. Avisynth script is a pain, but this made convert it properly.
Code:
FFVideoSource("C:\Users\Girgizzlemuf\Videos\TranscodeHOWTO\T1_Video - .mkv").AssumeFPS(24000,1001)
Reason I just changed the .assumefps is because the video is actually 23.976 fps, it was just tagged wrong when I extracted it. With this, we are done. Click Save and we can finally encode!
*If you resize the video to something smaller, make absolutely sure you choose the "resize mod16" option or things WILL break. Also, the only way to upscale properly is to add a soften filter and some grain to the video on the upscale. You can check google for some filters that will do that, and check with the megui nomenclature to get the filters working right. I don't recommend upscaling native 720p footage, but upscaling 480p or 576p footage tends to work OK.
D. The Encode. (Video)
Now we get to the part that actually matters. After you click save from part C, go to the input tab. Choose 'x264: *scratchpad*' under Encoder settings and click 'config'. The x264 Config dialog will open. Click the checkbox next to 'Show Advanced Settings'. Under the AVC Profiles pulldown, choose 'Baseline Profile' or 'Main Profile'. Please note that if you enable main profile, you will need to go to the 'Frame-Type' tab, and DISABLE 'Weighted prediction for B-Frame', and change 'P-frame Weighted Prediction' to 'Disabled'. Under Tunings, choose the type of video that you are using (in my case, animation). AVC level we can leave at unrestricted/autoguess. If you want a bit more compressability you can change the level if you want. The lower the number, the less information is stored per frame. If you want to change the bitrate you can, i prefer a constant quality of between 18 and 21, (the bigger the number the smaller the file fyi). Any of the other tabs are up to your discretion on modification. You don't need to change the other values. If you want to save the preset, click 'New' down by the presets and name it so you can just load it later from the main window without changing any of the other settings. Click OK, make sure the file format is 'MP4', then click 'Enqueue' under the video encoding.
E. The Encode (Audio)
Same drill as video. Choose the audio file, choose either 'Nero AAC: *scratchpad*' or 'FAAC: *scratchpad*', then click configure. It should also be noted that while FAAC is open source, you will get better results from NeroAAC. Both will give the same basic options. Under output channels, my personal preference leans toward 'Downmix multichannel to DolbyDigital Pro Logic II' for the simulated surround experience when plugged into a tv, and the samplerate at 48000hz for the best range of sound. As far as bitrate is concerned, VBR 100 will get you about cd quality sound. (NeroAAC give the option for a quality, Q=0.5 is a bit better than cd quality.) Again, you can save your profile as whatever so you don't have to click the options again, click ok and click enqueue on the audio dialog.
* side note, my example i did not re-encode the audio, as the audio extracted was AAC. lucky me~ *
** side side note, you can close out of the video preview window at any time after the video has been put in the encode queue.
F. Almost done...
In the main window, go to the Queue tab and click start at the bottom. After some magical mumbo jumbo, your files will be done. This will take a while depending on the specs on your encoding machine. After that is done, we need to make it into a file that has both the audio and the video. Under Tools > Muxer > MP4 Muxer we find just that. Choose your video, make sure the right framerate is selected (in my case, 23.976), choose your audio, and name your file at the end in the box named 'Muxed Output'. It will most likely try to name the file for you, you can change it to whatever you want as long as it ends in .mp4. Click Queue, go to the queue tab in the main window and click start one last time. Once that is done, you have a video that will play flawlessly in the stock media player on your phone.
And that is it. Results may vary depending on the video used, and bitrates/quality will vary depending on your tastes. If the final product is more than 2gb, it will cause some weird issues on the phone. If that is the case, reduce the bitrate on the video and that should solve your problem. If you are using a constant quality, x264 Q=20 (depending on motion) will yield between 350~400mb/30 minutes so plan accordingly. I personally have made a 720p video that was about 2 hours long fit 1.4gb with x264 baseline Q=20 and audio through [email protected]=0.5.
If you would like some screenshots illustrating the process, you can go here to find them.
Guide for Transcoding with Handbrake
Step 1: What file are you transcoding??
This is a very important step. Generally if you can load it into Handbrake, you can transcode it. There are all kinds of options we can use to transcode to make it work on the phone, and this guide will cover those steps.
Step 2: Get HandbrakeHandbrake can be found at http://handbrake.fr/. Instructions for download for your system can be found there. Currently Handbrake supports MacOS X, Windows and Linux.
Even though Handbrake supports a large number of operating systems, if you use Windows the preferred method of transcoding is still going to be MeGUI due to the reasons listed in the first post on this thread!
Step 3: HandbrakeHandbrake has a much simpler interface than Megui. However, because of this, there are much fewer options. This is good for a lot of users, but as stated before it does not give you much control over the video. For Linux and MacOS X users, this is going to be your best solution for a graphical interface. In the example I am going to use, again like the Megui walkthrough, we will be using a MKV file containing a video, audio, and styled subtitle track.
A. Load the file
First you need to load the file for input. Click on the button in the top left that says 'Source'. Choose your file that will be loaded. Under the drop-down menu that says 'Title:' you have a few options. For best results, choose the 'Frames' option and choose the entire video. This prevents chapters from being loaded into the file and makes the file more compatible with the phone. The Summary tab at the bottom will give you the details on the file that is loaded.
B. The video.
Under the video tab, you will be presented with some basic encoding options. We will be using H.264(x264) because it is what the phone can read easily. The other options we will not worry about. Keep the framerate the same as the source (Unless you are encoding from a dvd, then you need to follow a dvd-ripping guide) and choose your bitrate. With x264, the quality is inversly proportional, so if you choose a quality of 30, your file will be small but the quality will be garbage. Keep the constant quality between 18-23 for the best results with reasonable file size. If you want to target a certain file size or bitrate, you can choose to do so as well, but be aware that those settings will force a 2 pass encode that will increase the transcode time.
B1. H.264 Settings.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to 'install a preset' to make these work. Here is a list of settings you need to change to make it work on your atrix:
Weighted P-frames = OFF
Maximum B-frames = 2~6
Adaptave B-Frames = OFF
Those are the ONLY settings you need to change to make the video work. As long as the settings for weighted p-frames and adaptive b-frames are set to off, you can change any of the other settings to your liking. Leave CABAC on though, as it increases compression by a lot.
If you have an odd-sized source, or if your source has 'letterboxing', or if you have the urge to resize your video to whatever resolution, read the next section. Otherwise, skip to part C.
B2. Crop/resize
If you have a weird source that requires some special attention, click the button at the top that says 'Picture Settings'. From the dialogue that pops up you can resize, crop, add certain filters (deinterlace, IVTC, soften, sharpen etc...) to make your file more compressable and watchable. You can also use this window to resize your source, but upscaling via this method is not recommended due to picture quality problems on stretching. There are a lot of advanced options in here, and due to the complexity of said options, this guide will not go into detail on what they do, because if you are in here, you already have some idea what you need to do to fix your source.
C. Audio/Subtitles/chapters
Putting these sections together because they are easy. Under the audio tab, you are presented with a few options for the built in AAC encoder, FAAC. Choose your bitrate. 128kbps will give you a bit better than cd quality, 160 is a pretty good option for stereo, 192 is a good option for Dolby PL or Dolby PLII. If your audio track is multichannel, I strongly suggest you change the 'Mix' settings to Dolby PL/PLII. Reason: multichannel AAC produces a horrible echo when played back in stereo on the phone. DRC if you want to make the louds quieter and the softs louder.
Under the subtitle tab, you can choose your subtitle track. By default, it has no track selected. If you have subtitles you want to get on your video track, you need to click on the '+ subtitle'. This will automatically load the subtitle track from the MKV. (Alternatively, if you have a subtitle track outside the file you can click '+ Import SRT' to add a text-only subtitle track.) Choose the radio button for 'Burned In' to directly encode the subtitle track onto the video.
The atrix does not recognize chaptered MP4 files. So under the chapters tab, uncheck the box for chapter markers. This is not required, as it does not affect playback on the phone.
D. Destination
Almost done. Under the destination box at the top, choose the destination for the file. As a note, we will most likely have to rename the file to .mp4 after we are done, because for some reason the final product will be .m4v. Not hard, if the file works as m4v then good. If not, rename it to .mp4 and you should be fine. Now click start, grab a beer and walk away for a bit. This is going to take a while. When it's done, do what you normally do to get stuff on your phone.
Having trouble installing these files on a 64bit machine.
check the support on the megui site. I run win7 pro x64 and have zero issues. I'll be updating this further after I get some sleep
================
FFmpeg / libav Instructions
================
H264 720p Main Profile - High Quality & Compression
=======
Windows
=======
Extract to the root of C:\
For 32bit Windows --> http://win32.libav.org/win32/libav-win32-20110515.7z
For 64bit Windows --> http://win32.libav.org/win64/libav-win64-20110515.7z
C:\libav\usr\bin\ffmpeg.exe -i INPUT -sn -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 -threads 0 -fpre "C:\libav\usr\share\ffmpeg\libx264-veryslow.ffpreset" -fpre "C:\libav\usr\share\ffmpeg\libx264-main.ffpreset" -wpredp 0 -flags2 -wpred -maxrate 4M -bufsize 4M -acodec aac -strict experimental -ac 2 -ab 192k OUTPUT.mp4
============
Linux / *BSD / OS X
============
Install the latest version through your package manager.
$ ffmpeg -i INPUT -sn -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 -threads 0 -vpre veryslow -vpre main -wpredp 0 -flags2 -wpred -maxrate 4M -bufsize 4M -acodec aac -strict experimental -ac 2 -ab 192k OUTPUT.mp4
Note: if "-vpre $preset" doesn't work, use -fpre /path/to/preset.ffpreset
============
Thanks to Girgizzlemuf for the great guide!
Updated handbrake walkthrough
This need to be a sticky or something... Vital information. Thank you so much, OP!
Atrix on CM7.1 plays 720p mkv AVC [email protected] (details attached) perfectly well (stock/MX/BSPlayer).
Is this guide out of date ?
it was posted: 14th May 2011, 01:01 PM
whiteline said:
Atrix on CM7.1 plays 720p mkv AVC [email protected] (details attached) perfectly well (stock/MX/BSPlayer).
Is this guide out of date ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Updated op with some more information about the guide, I had almost forgotten I posted this :3
Thank you for your trouble.
I just found link to this thread with this comment: "all questions to meida on atrix answered"
This is so bad , why Optimus2x reproduce all videos you put on it and our Atrix doesn't? There is no way to Port O2X codecs to Atrix?
The new MX player (1.6f) has special codec for Tegra 2 processors. Although it uses software mode it run most of the mkv and mp4 smoothly.
This usually eliminates the need of converting, unless the file is in very high bit rate. I tested 5 720p movies, including subtitles, and it run OK.
I have only problem with movies from my Canon camcorder which saves mp4 720p files in 12Mbps and 50fps.
I had a htc desire before, and I switched to Atrix mainly because the Desire wont' run 720p properly(1 core cpu with andreno 200). I find it quite frustrating Atrix doesn't play video out from the box either, especially because my vide's desire S has no trouble playing them (still 1 core cpu with andreno 205).
Yesterday I was playing with a wayteq tab (still 1 core cpu) and it played 1080P mkv's even through hdmi in real 1080 on my tv. I think I'm gonna sell thisone, it is hard to get used to it, especially after a phone with Sense...
Followed Megui walkthrough with no good results
Hello,
I have a .mkv file which doesn't play on my Atrix (if I try to play it, the media player starts but doesn't display anything and after few seconds freezes the phone). I tried Megui following this walkthrough, but trying to play the new video shows me the message "Unable to reproduce the video" (or something similar).
How can I see what I've done wrong? How can I solve this problem? I need to play videos with the stock player because I would like to use the Entertainment Center to play videos on TVs...
Thank you everyone in advance for the help!
kir89 said:
Hello,
I have a .mkv file which doesn't play on my Atrix (if I try to play it, the media player starts but doesn't display anything and after few seconds freezes the phone). I tried Megui following this walkthrough, but trying to play the new video shows me the message "Unable to reproduce the video" (or something similar).
How can I see what I've done wrong? How can I solve this problem? I need to play videos with the stock player because I would like to use the Entertainment Center to play videos on TVs...
Thank you everyone in advance for the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
take the video, move it to a computer. find a media converter program online. download, install, convert, enjoy.
Sent from my MB860 using xda app-developers app
I solved my problem. I had to set the configuration of the x264 codec to "baseline profile" and not "main profile" :victory:
Related
Hi,
Could someone tell me what the correct settings are to encode video to my XDA. I need screen resolution and FPS also Kbps.
Video Encoding for Pocket PC
The simplest method of encoding for the pocket pc is to encode using windows media encoder. Simply download the encoder from
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp.
Once you have it is very easy. There are templates for pocket PC.
Voila!
I have noted however that mpegs encoded for the pocket PC look and play better. I have not compared with the new encoder though. To play mpeg files you need mpegtv.
http://www.mpegtv.com/
BeDammit
Beos isn't dead...
http://www.yellowtab.com
Also, with WME9 you can tweak quite a few settings to customise it for your needs, although it's far from intuitive. I use it myself to encode movies for viewing on the train, quite acceptable quality, full-screen, stereo, 20fps, at about 1MB per minute.
I've been asked to share some instructions for Windows Media encoding, as the existing how-to guides only cover divx and mpeg: so here goes...
1) Get the software - Windows media encoder 9 - from Microsoft here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx
2) You can use the wizards to covert for pocketPC, but as this is about tweaking for optimum performance, select the custom setting to create a blank project and bring up the session properties window. I'll now go through the tabs on the session properties:
Sources) WME is very flexible, and allows you to use multiple sources, but in the case of simple file conversion, just alter the default source. Select the File radio butto on the source from section, and browse for your file.
Output) Select the Archive to File checbox, and then browse for or enter the output filename. Note WME will helpfully set the extension to wmv automatically. Make sure the push and pull checkboxes are cleared.
Compression) Here's the fiddly bit. Why they don't allow you to create and save off a complete custom destination is beyond me, but select a destination of PocketPC and click edit. We'll now go through the compression settings dialogue:
- General) For pocket PC you want to use Audio: CBR: Windows Media Audio 9, Video: Windows Media Video V8. You now need to set up your target bit rate. Windows media allows a single file to have more than one bit rate, so that if it's viewed over the internet, a different stream can be sent depending upon the bandwindth. As we're going to be creating a single file, we'll only want a single bit rate. Remove all the target bit rates and add a new one. Give it a bit rate of 120K - note this pop-up window is a bit superfluous, it just alters the caption on the second tab, from where the real bit rate can be set:
- 120 Kbs) OK here is the main tweak page for the compression. Here are my suggested values for a very higly compressed, but watchable file:
Audio format: 20kbps 22KHz stereo CBR. You can up this if the sound quality is very important, but don't go too high otherwise the PocketPC won't have enough power to process the file.
Video Size: use a calculator to work out the correct dimensions to produce a full screen on the pocketPC, given your original video size. So if the original video was 352x240, we want a width of 320 to fit the screen. 240*320/352=218ish, so the size you would want is 320x218.
Frame Rate: High frame rates can require too much performance than the pocketPC can provide, but it's worth playing around with this one. I tend to go for 20fps for movies, 15fps for animation (such as Southpark )
Key Frame Interval: If the PocketPC video stalls because of peformance, this is effectively how long you'll have to wait before it recovers. Lower values produce bigger files, but higher values make stalls more irritating. I tend to use 4s
Video Bit Rate: One of the best things about Windows Media is the bit rate is totally flexible. You'll definitely want to play around with this one. The higher the bit rate, the bigger the file and the better the qaulity, but the more power required to play it. 100K bps gives a not-crystal clear, but perfectly watchable result.
Buffer size: I tend to leave this at about 5s - it affects the total memory required when watching the movie, but doesn't make tht much difference.
Video Smoothness: This setting is a little fiddly. It determies whether you want a smooth but slightly blurry video, or a sharp but jerky video. It depends on what you're encoding. It's a percentage value. I generally use 5 for action movies, 15 for southpark. Keep it low, otherwise you'll get a slideshow on the PocketPC.
Once you've set up your values, you'll probably want to use the export button on the General Tab to save this off to use again.
Back on the compression tab) Initially leave two-pass encoding unchecked, so that you can encode just a bit of the file first to check things are OK. Once you're happy with the results, you can select two pass encoding to produce slightly better quality results.
Video Size) As we set up the correct video size on the compression settings, this is a bit superfluous. However it can be used to crop borders off letter-box content, which saves a bit of space.
Attributes) Set up how you want
Processing) If the source is a poorly encoded video, you can de-interlace, or if it's a movie that has been recorded directly, you can inverse telecine (telecine is where they change the frame rate from film at 24fps to video at 25fps). I tend to leave it as None.
Plug-ins) OK this isn't really important, unless you have a DVD rip that has very quiet sound. There's no simple way of amplifying the sound in WME, so you need to use an audio plug-in. I've used Scrollworks Peak Slammer with good results, but it's quite costly for a simple audio amplifier. I'd be interested to know if there's a simple freeware audio amplifier plug-in out there. http://www.scrollworks.com/products/slammer
Security) Leave blank
Advanced) Leave the defaults
Now click apply!
Ok don't go the whole hog just yet - click start encoding and let the first 30 seconds or so get encoded, then stop the encoding. This doesn't delete the partially encoded file, so you can check the output to make sure it's OK. Click the properties button to bring up the properties window again, and alter any settingas you feel need changing here, such as volume, size, compression, smoothness etc. Keep doing this partial encode/tweak settings cycle until you're happy with the results.
Once you have good session settings, go back to the compression tab and select two-pass encoding and click the apply button. Now press encode and wait for your file to be produced.
Hope this helps
having played with encoding quite a bit, i have to say that when disk space is a problem, nothing but divx is worthwhile.
Get the DIVX codecs from www.doom9.net
Get the application virtuadub from the same site
Now you can open any avi,mpeg file in virtuadub, and encode it using the divx codec. Apply a resize filter if you want to make the screen size smaller. Use some audio codec settings to reduce sound quality, and you will have a movie, not DVD quality, but watchable, and doesnt take hundreds of Mbs.
Use pocketdivx http://www.projectmayo.com/projects/detail.php?projectId=9
to play the movie.
Also found a great audio tool to decrease the size of mp3 or WMA files.
DbpowerAMP from http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ allows you to covert audio formats, and to reduce quality.
Managed to get a 5Mb mp3 file, to 900k WMA file, and it sounded good on the xda
I've noticed that video playback on the XDA will be a lot smoother if you turn off the phone while viewing. Probably something to do with the phone being a realtime application with high priority.
I have google searched and used these directions (in the xda-developers > Samsung Captivate > Captivate General Forum)
Short instructions for Windows users
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If you are going to rip Bluray or any other HD medium you must first get AnyDVD HD it will counter any of the protection schemes that Bluray and HDDVD disks use as well as DVD. If all of your sources are DVD then AnyDVD will do. Of course for BR you must have a BR player installed in your computer.
You need the following tools, at the very least:
AnyDVD HD (Please buy this and don't torrent it, it is that good!)
RipBot264 (it is much faster than Handbrake at re-encoding)
VidCoder (requires Handbrake to be installed but is a better GUI for Windows users)
Simplistic instructions:
•Place DVD/HDDVD/BR in drive
•Allow ANYDVD HD to scan disk
•Right click ANYDVD HD icon and select "Rip Video DVD to Harddisk"
•Open VidCoder
•Start with the Apple Universal profile and edit is as follows:
◦Picture > Max Width 800 (Changed to 480x320)
◦Video Filters > Denoise Medium
◦Video > Average Bitrate (kbps) 1500
◦Audio > Target All, Codec AAC, Mixdown Stereo, Sample Rate 48, Bitrate 128
•Make sure you change the Container and extension to .mp4 then Save As... and call it Captivate or any other meaningful name.
If you use those settings any HD (1080) source will likely end up being about 1-2 GB in total size. With the settings saved you can then select a video source, it can be anything that Handbrake supports from VOB to MT2S to MP4 to MKV files. Pick a Destination location and name and start encoding.
I have a Core i7 running at 3.5Ghz with 8GB RAM and a full length movie takes about 2x-3x the run length, so a 120 minute movie will take anywhere from 4 to 6 hours to encode, SD (DVD, 720p HDTV, SDTV) will encode much faster, sometimes even faster than 1x runtime.
You can also to the same with Ripbot264 with the added bonus that Ripbot can handle subtitles, but those instructions are for another day.
to try to get a movie of mine transfered to my phone. If does not play.
Can someone help me with the right settings or with their own instruction on how they transfer their movies. I'm using the following programs (VidCoder,DVDDecrypter, andHandbrake).
TIA
This has been wracking my brain since I got the Eris. I'm trying to find the best media playback profile for videos on the Eris.
Here's what I know:
-The containers supported are 3GP and MP4.
-I also know that the screen is HVGA so I export videos on quicktime pro, toast, handbrake or whatever I'm using to do that.
-I also know that H.264 AVC is a supported codec.
-What I don't know is what bitrate the Eris can handle I've played with bitrates as low as 800kbps and as high as 2500kbps. Each video has a level of lag and sync issues that the video is completely unwatchable. I have a feeling that the bitrate is the issue. So what's the magic number? What do you folks use to convert videos? What's the suggested profile?
Thanks in advance!
Same here.
I'm having issues with my videos as well. I would really like to find good working settings for converting videos.
Has anyone had luck with this? What program and settings work?
Thanks.
Ok I found some settings.
I found these settings. I'm trying a video right now. I'll report my results.
http://www.smor.tv/blog/android-htc-hero-eris-x264-h-264-video-encoding-with-handbrake/
Sounds great. I used Quicktime Pro and used the iPhone setting which produced an .m4a video for iTunes. It works great on the video player app that comes preloaded on the KaosFroyo ROM, but it doesn't work great in the Android stock gallery, it hiccups a bit. I dont think it's the ROM, I think it's Android's stock video player. But if you try Video Player for Android and .m4a it seems to be working well. However the frame rate could be better. This Handrbrake solution might be better, looking forward to hearing the results.
Working settings for hanbrake 0.9.4
If you don't have handbrake you can download it from here.
I started with the settings here.
I had to change a few things so I'm listing the whole setup.
Picture Tab
This will give you a nicely cropped full screen video.
Size: Width 480 Height 320
Keep Aspect Ratio: Unchecked
Automatic Cropping: Checked
Anamorphic: None
Video Filters
Everything on this tab off.
Grayscale Encoding: Unchecked
Video
Video Codec: H.264 (x264)
Framerate (FPS): 24
2-Pass Encoding: Checked
Turbo First Pass: Checked
Avg Bitrate (kbps): 384
Audio
Make sure you only have 1 track here.
Audio Codec: AAC(faac)
Mixdown: Stereo
Samplerate: 44.1
Bitrate: 64 (You can set this to your taste, I find 64 works well enough for me.)
DRC: 1
Be sure to add your track after you have selected everything.
Subtitles
This tab is not really needed but it's a good idea to do this for movies with foreign subtitles like anime or foreign flicks.
Forced Only: Checked
Burned In: Checked
Add the track when you are done. As with audio you only want one track here.
Chapters
Create chapter markers: Unchecked
Advanced
The settings in this section are very important to working videos on the eris.
Reference Frames: 2
Mixed References: Unchecked
B-Frames: 0
Motion Estimation Method: Uneven Multi-Hexagon
Subpixel Motion Estimation: Default (7)
Motion Estimation Range: Default (16)
Analysis: Default
8x8 DCT: Unchecked
CABAC Entropy Coding: Unchecked
Psychovisual Rate Distortion: Slide all the way to the right
No Fast-P-Skip: Unchecked
No DCT-Decimate: Unchecked
Deblocking: Both set to Default
According to the official Qualcomm docs for the MSM7200A it's supposed to support up to 500kbps (average) H.264 Baseline Profile. Total bandwidth for audio+video should average 600kbps, so generally stick to AAC 96kbps or less.
Hi, i've just realized that the format for hd videos is not compatible with the ps3, how is it possible? i mean, the format is h.264 with aac audio... do you know if is there any workaround for this?
I finally found a workaround but it's really convoluted...
The video codec for X10's 720p video is not h264 but MPEG-4 (like XviD/DivX) but the audio codec is .AAC .
PS3 will only play MPEG-4 video when it's in an .AVI (or .divx) container, and only with .MP3 audio.
So if you want to keep the original video stream you'll need to demultiplex (extract) both streams, convert the audio to MP3 and then multiplex it back with the video stream.
Here's how I did it:
Open YAMB (http://yamb.unite-video.com/download.html)
Choose the "Editing" tab on the left, then double click "Click to extract streams from MP4/AVI/MOV/TS files"
Click the folder icon by the input box and navigate to and open your MP4 video from the X10.
The content box will now show the streams contained in the MP4. The first will be the video stream. Make sure it is selected, then choose "Extract to AVI." in "Options". Then choose an output folder and hit "Next". You will now have an AVI containing the video.
Now choose the audio stream and under "Options" this time choose "Exrtact to Raw Format". Then choose an output folder and hit "Next" and you'll have the AAC file.
Convert the AAC file to MP3 with your audio converter of choice. (There are plenty of good free ones) You can also take this opportunity to change the audio from mono to stereo and increase the sample rate but increasing bitrate much higher than 128/160kbps will not give you better sound, just larger files.
Now open AVI-Mux GUI (http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/#download). I use v1.17.7 since it is the latest stable release that runs on Vista.
Drag your video into the top box and hit the "generate data from source files" button.
Now do the same with your audio. Data may automatically generate in the lower box; if it doesn't, use the button.
Hit "Start" and choose a destination and there you have a PS3-compatible AVI. (Should play on XBOX 360 too for what it's worth...)
[rant]
I think it is beyond ridiculous that these video files are so incompatible with most devices/players. The only way I can watch them in native format is on my computer with MPC or with my WDTV, which is actually OK for me at home but not everyone has the proper codecs on their computer or a dedicated digital media player.
IMO "Joe Consumer" with limited tech knowledge would be stuck watching these on the X10!
[/rant]
Thanks for your answer, is really annoying to have to demux/remux... SE should have a better integration brtween his devices.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
I've been trying to find information about this but I have been unable to yet (likely due to how new it is). I'm trying to find the best settings to re-encode my videos for a balance of quality and size.
Test the NT's video capability here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1348488
As for encoding specs, it's simple: conform to MP4 specs (H.264, AAC stereo) if you want to use built-in player and hardware accel.
Newbies tend to obsess with encoding parameters, and there've been reams of how-to's for Handbrake encoding. You don't have to bother with any of that. The 4430 should handle anything in 720p, and the majority of 1080p. I would use the default settings of whatever encoder you prefer.
For quickie conversion to MP4 (from common formats), see my VidsOpt script conversion in the above link.
Thank you for the information. And it's not so much worrying about all the settings but trying to maximize how many shows/movies I can hold on the NT at once. I travel a lot for work and some of the flights are LONG so having as many options as possible is what I'm really looking for since it wouldn't be as simple as just loading other videos onto the NT at the time.
Cozila said:
Thank you for the information. And it's not so much worrying about all the settings but trying to maximize how many shows/movies I can hold on the NT at once. I travel a lot for work and some of the flights are LONG so having as many options as possible is what I'm really looking for since it wouldn't be as simple as just loading other videos onto the NT at the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get a 32 GB uSD card. I can hold 20+ hours of video on mine.
>to maximize how many shows/movies I can hold on the NT
There are two ways to lower a movie's size, reduce the resolution, or reduce the quality. Both are a personal preference.
A 90min movie averages 800MB-1GB, encoded at 480p and standard quality. Then, you can fit 32 such movies onto a 32GB uSD. With a larger res, you can fit fewer. You can also of course have more than one uSD card.
Getting ready for the Thanksgiving drive and saw this question, so did a test re-encode of Green Lantern. Original file is a 720p mkv
Video Bitrate: 720p (1280x536 @ 4811kbps)
Audio Bitrate: DTS @ 1509 kbps
Using Handbrake Normal as the baseline.
1) Container MP4, left extension as .m4v
2) Picture: changed Anamorphic to Loose, Width to 1024 (assumed native width was a good idea to reduce size)
3) Video: Video Codec x264 which means encode took about 50 minutes. Constant Quality 22
4) Audio: AAC Mixdown to Stereo, Samplerate Auto, Bitrate 160
5) Subtitles: need to play around with this later
Original mkv filesize was 5.7GB
.m4v file was 913MB
To me, it looked absolutely great. Could not complain and actions scenes didn't show any sign of stutter. Didn't watch the whole thing through, but didn't seem to come across any problems either.
I'm sticking with these settings and will see if there are any changes required.
I'm not a video encoding expert or a Handbrake expert - but I think I know enough and need at least 3-4 movies for the drive.
Hope that helps.
Thank you very much, I'm going to give those settings a try when I get home.
The settings are working great. So much that I actually put the setting into a preset file for anyone else that wants it in http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1361819. Thank you very much for your help iron_c