Database Users

DEFINITIVE VIDEO SETTINGS

Howdy all,
I have had my M5000 for some time now - and having some experience in video / compression settings, I have spent months fiddling back and forth trying to find the perfect settings for SMOOTH playback.
I have read thread after thread all over the web with half help, good ideas, etc but no definitive answers.
The strange thing is that after searching for a long time, I came accross an Xvid of Mr T's "Be Somebody" (don't ask) - and this runs absolutely perfectly on my M5000.
Analysing the exact compression settings with vDub and gSpot reveals the following :
Frame Size : 352x240, 29.970fps
Length : 90418 frames
Decompresser : XviD MPEG4 Codec
Number of Key Frames : 678
Data Rate : 802Kbps
Audio Sample rate : 44100Hz
Channels : 2
Compression : Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer 3
Data Rate : 96Kbs
Thinking I had cracked it, I then used these exact compression settings on several ripped DVDs, but to no avail. Jerk. Jerk. Stutter. etc.
I've even tried setting the data rate as low as poss for both audio and video, reducing frame size to tiny, but it still won't play smoothly.
So - after this long rant (apologies), could anyone please tell me the exact settings they use for absolute 'smooth as a button' playback - and if there's anything painfully obvious that I am missing?!
I am running these vids from my highspeed SD card, with TCPMP 0.72RC1 installed on the card also.
I am happy to use any software, but am rather keen on Pocket DVD Studio.
I am extremely jealous of those who appear to have full framerate playback, so please help - for the sake of my sanity!!

well my xda is in the post on its way to me, but i did have the same problem with a standalone divx dvd player. you need to go to moitah.net and download the mpeg4modifier and unpack the bitstream.... this sorted the problem for my divx player...
let me know how you get on

Greetings.
My Exec plays videos encoded with PocketDivxEncoder full screen with no stuuter or jerking. I simply use a preset for one of the Pocket PCs and it works like a charm. I use TCPMP as my video player.
Good luck!

lathe
Hi,
Same here. I use PocketDivxEncoder (free) and TCPMP, works like a charm. I tried upgrading to lathe (bought it) for the sake of being able to compress to a higher resolution for the possibilities of the universal, but that was not a succes. The extra options are nice but you end up with a blocky and stuttering picture (even if you put in the same configurations used in PocketDivxEncoder). After a couple of test runs like this I gave up on lathe and went back to PocketDivxEncoder. So my advice is to stick with this program for encoding.
Good luck with finding your best solution!

Hi I am on a universal, after not being impressed with wm player i upgraded to TCPMP aswell and its very good, full screen works wonders. As above its all free.

Have you tried encoding the video with Microsofts WM9 Encoder, it's free and, fair enough the resolution isn't great as with all these encoders for pocket pc, the picture is perfectly good on a 3.5" screen. WME has a built in Pocket PC profile to make converting a file even easier.
If the source is in 16:9 format the letterbbox is automatically added to keep aspect ratio or you can choose to crop the file etc......

Help with videos

Hi, i got myself a quick 2gig memory card today and want to put some of my movies on it, i have 2 questions
What is a decent converter that i can use?
What settings would run on Universal smooth?
Thanks all

Normally works without converted it, in ac format 1,5Gb of movie it will be played smoothly, if not try google to find some converter bc right now i can´t remember any.
hope this help
regards

thanks a million, some tweaking to the player and im fixed
thanks again mate

what you said works, but i have no quality and it keeps sticking my video, any ideas why?

I went through the various options for this a few months ago. In TCPMP, set the following for best performance:
In Video:
Smooth video (only 50%)
Quality: Normal
Video driver: Intel XScale
In Settings - DirectDraw
Overlay with colorkey
In Settings - Intel XScale
Everything selected
Leave all other video settings off or at the default settings.
Unfortunately, the universal can't manage any video (XviD, MP4 or WMV) I've tried at the native resolution of 640x480 without some serious frame skipping. But it seems to cope well with videos I've encoded for my Archos, which are XviD or DivX, 320x240, and are encoded at 1000 kbps or less. You can use B-Frames (they don't take much processing power and give a significant performance increase), but don't use GMC or Q-Pel.
As for converters/encoders, take your pick. There are loads. Dr DivX is pretty simple to use, but IIRC isn't available any more. Your best bet is to follow one of the guides at doom9.org.

thanks, its ashame my mp cant read it because i prefer the interface on windows media player then core media player aswel as my playlists, thanks again, hope some update for the codecs or something comes out soon

Why not try Windows Media Encoder if you are just converting from one format to another (don't know if you can rip DVD, never tried). The built in profiles are good enough for the Uni's screen. To rip from DVD I use IMTOO dvd ripper. Just create a profile as listed above and away you go.....Good luck,Pug

TCPMP+PocketDivxEncoder (http://divx.ppccool.com) ... for the best results!

yarser said:
TCPMP+PocketDivxEncoder (http://divx.ppccool.com) ... for the best results!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it better than DrDivx? I have had some good success with DrDivx. The problem is that it wastes some space for the widescreen formats and I would prefer to use every single pixel available. Is there a setting in DrDivx that reformats the movie to fit exactly in the Tornado screen?

I use
Fox Video Converter. Virtually any format with any setting and you can adjust any of the settings to suit yourself. Generally a 700Mb Divx converts into a roughtly 250-300Mb WMV or ASF or whatever you want. Then TCPMP.

Video encoding program that ads subtitles to the video file

Hello,
Is there any program, shareware, freeware or so, that will encode video files (avi/divx) with the subtitle text embedded into the video file? I head that smartmovie does that, but mine doesn't encode the text into the video. Is there any pc program that does that?

I m using "pocketdivxencoder 0.3.60.exe" which can add subtitles to the file and convert it (very easy to use - very elegant) ... try this -- (dont know, if it is in ENG ... i have czech version and dont know if there is ENG version too ... try search ..

Thanks, I've found the english version, I'm using it to convert and play the files with core player on the pda. It seems to work fine.

I got pocket DVD converter last night, not tried it yet, but im hoping to shrink the movies way down in size.. how big was your movie?

Smartmovie can do it
http://www.lonelycatgames.com/?app=smartmovie

I encode with 320kbps video and 44khz - 96-112kbps audio. For an average 700 mb film you will get a high quality 300mb converted one. Of course you can reduce the video bit rate to about 240 without major loss in quality but in some fast moving sequences the quality loss will be visible. I encode using pocketdivxencoder and play the files via core player on the pda. You may need to overclock your device to play such files, a value between 247 - 299 Mhz should handle just about anything you can throw at it.

Smartmovie has some encoding problems in some cases and doesn't add the subtile to the video file. At least my version doesn't do that as hard as I try.

Playing video formats?

The Blackstone is the first smart/windows mobile phone i have had so after recieving my phone i tried some of my video files but (as i expected) windows media wudn't play them, i have seen on other threads that alot of people mention Core Player 1.2.5 and wondered if anyone could give answer me a few quick questions:
1. Does Core Player play most formats (im trying to play x264.mp4 and dixv .avi)
2. Where can i find Core Player?
3. is it a free program? if not how much is it in GBP?

Go to www.coreplayer.com and see for yourself. I think on their homepage they anwser pretty much all your questions.
Ascenca

Thanks - Don't know why didn't find their site!

I had this problem - Core Player 1.2.5 plays all files perfectly on the HD - commuting will never be the same again...

Which version do i need?
CorePlayer Mobile For PocketPC / Windows Mobile
CorePlayer Mobile for SmartPhone
I assume its the SmartPhone version?

This is the version you need: https://www.mobihand.com/cart1.asp?posid=130&pid=8905
(mobile/WM)

HD is a PocketPC

working
Coreplayer 2,5 works perfectly.The PocketPc version the smartphone one is for devices without touchscreen.
Its a commercial software.
Ideal is to use the Qtv display as video output.
I tried different encoded format and the best result is encode the avi files with following attributes:
dimension 640*480
Bitrate between 700 and 750
Framerate 25fps
Audio MP3
Stereo 128kps
Frecuency 44100 Hz.
You can use a higher bitrate till 1200 , but the video doen't play always very smootly then

I tried a couple widescreen (960x540) files in different formats (wmv, mov, avi) with coreplayer 2.5, and none of them would play anywhere near smoothly. the mov played with about 1.5 fps, the wmv with about 5 fps und the avi with something like 7 fps. do any of the numerous settings in coreplayer need to be changed or is the device simply not powerful enough for full native resolution video playback?

just tried some more videos, this time a 1 MBit/s 480x270 wmv file, and even that couldn't be played in any useful way:
played frames: 85
dropped: 447
did you change anything in the core player settings to achieve proper playback?

obstler said:
I tried a couple widescreen (960x540) files in different formats (wmv, mov, avi) with coreplayer 2.5, and none of them would play anywhere near smoothly. the mov played with about 1.5 fps, the wmv with about 5 fps und the avi with something like 7 fps. do any of the numerous settings in coreplayer need to be changed or is the device simply not powerful enough for full native resolution video playback?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Firstly, the issue with the video files comes from the fact that they're larger than the resolution of the screen. (your video=960x540, HD=800x460) This means that as well as decoding and playing the video, it also has to scale the video down to it's resolution. This is why it's stuttering. Full native resolution video playback is 800x640 which, incidentally, is the native resolution of DVDs, so if DVD rips have been encoded properly, should not need resizing or re-encoding to play on the HD. (feel free to be skeptical of this, I don't own a HD yet so can't confirm this)
The 1Mbps file possibly wasn't playing properly for that exact reason, it was 1Mbps. As BerreZ states, the highest bitrate to get good playback is 750Kbp

Thanks, got CorePlayer up and running now works like a dream!

I'm waiting for funds to clear so i can finally order one of these bad boys. I'm not too demanding when it comes to video playback on the phone. 700KBPS is the standard encoding of dvd rips isn't it? like, your traditional torrent movie file.So it looks like we can play them on the HD then using coreplayer? I'm not to concerned about HD quality playback and i've been using an XDA2i for 5 years, mainly for clips and such when bored at the bus station .
Maybe with a higher capacity card I might throw a movie or two on there
....IB a n e

BANE said:
I'm waiting for funds to clear so i can finally order one of these bad boys. I'm not too demanding when it comes to video playback on the phone. 700KBPS is the standard encoding of dvd rips isn't it? like, your traditional torrent movie file.So it looks like we can play them on the HD then using coreplayer? I'm not to concerned about HD quality playback and i've been using an XDA2i for 5 years, mainly for clips and such when bored at the bus station .
Maybe with a higher capacity card I might throw a movie or two on there
....IB a n e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a)Native DVD resolution is not 800x640
b)700Kbps is not the "Standard Encoding" for DVD rips.
bitrate will depend on the size of the encode, the length of the movie.

Apologies, my mistake.
...Ib a n e

Urgh -it's payware. Another cost.

Is there a decent free avi/media player?

One time, I got a cab, but lost it, with some codecs to play divx and other on the Media player. Does anyone knows something like that??

I just purchased CorePlayer. It gave me v1.3.6 not 2.5. Anyway I have tried a divx and avi film. With both I just saw a green haze for a bit and I needed to soft reset the device to recover.
I downloaded the cab not exe and installed it directly onto the device. My films are on storage.
I get a "Copy & Convert" dialogue box with "Convertion (None)" and it seems to do nothing for a while but it does seem to copy the file across ok. What that means is I can see it in explorer. That said it seems to take several runs at it and the bars never go beyond three or so.
Have I just got the wrong resolution?
Any ideas?

Video Transcoding Tips?

I'm planning to transcode some video to watch on my universal via SD card, the presets on WinFF (Win32 wrapper to FFMpeg) are numerous but going to try 3GP @ 320x240x15fps, anyone else achieved this and if so what rates/sizes/formats did you use?

?
Transcoding ?? Why would you need it ? Unless the videos are HD, the Universal has the power to play them fine (most of them very fine ). If the space is your problem, I suggest a bigger SD-card.
I think it's a waste of time those ~30 minutes needed for conversion of a movie that lasts @ 90 min; and I'm pretty sure that you'll delete the movie after you'll watch it.
PS: for best results use TCPMP (freeware) or Core Player (not freeware). The Media Player is much slower and it supports few codecs.

Transcoding
I agree
There is no need for this as the UNI has all the power needed to play films with ease. If space is an issue google for DVD Catalyst. It's freeware and can reduce the size of DVD's down to about 275Mb.
Then just play them through the TCPMP as suggested by GNotten as this is far superior

I USE MKV videos with coreplayers .... they save so much space compared to other video formats and the video quality is far better than other format... one movie is around 250~300 mb...

Size and wether or not it could handle it were my main issues. Dont have a problem kicking off a transcode ffmpeg job and wandering off elsewhere while it's busy but i'll give a raw video a go and see how i get on

cycloid said:
Size and wether or not it could handle it were my main issues. Dont have a problem kicking off a transcode ffmpeg job and wandering off elsewhere while it's busy but i'll give a raw video a go and see how i get on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well there are really great video players like TCPMP and CorePlayer with which i have to never convert any video... just dran ang drop it from computer to SD and it runs flawlwssly... except rmv... which WMP can play after tweaking but can not fast forwar... except that no problems at all not size nor video format...
Cheers
Rajiv