Database Users

Best bitrate for videos on Hermes?

I am stating to convert some of the movies and to be played on my hermes on the go, but eventually I found out that the movies converted thru pocketdivxencoder eventually dropping out frames.
I want to know the best setting for converting video for Hermes...
Is it better to convert to WMV at a particular bitrate than converting to DiVX?
THanks a lot.

If you're gonna use the ATI Imageeon Decoder, video bitrates can go up to 1.2MBps, but you will sure get a lot of artifacts. if you intend to use Raw Frame Buffer, video bitrate can go up to 700KBps (audio 128KBps), but also remember that Pocket PCs can play higher bitrates without dropping frames when the video is wider, e.g. playing a 16:9 movie clip is somehow easier than playing a clip with 4:3 aspect ratio.
BTW If you want to stream the audio to your BT Headset while watching a clip, a video bitrate of 410KBps (audio 128KBps) is good, but you will have to use the ATI Decoder.
Cheers!

Rockman27 said:
I am stating to convert some of the movies and to be played on my hermes on the go, but eventually I found out that the movies converted thru pocketdivxencoder eventually dropping out frames.
I want to know the best setting for converting video for Hermes...
Is it better to convert to WMV at a particular bitrate than converting to DiVX?
THanks a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to use TCPMP player and download the ATI imageon fix cab (search for it), a few adjustments and your pocketdivx converted films will play perfectly.

i use sompy media encoder, its free and has a stting for pda screen size and sound that is realy good, just load the file and away you go.

Take a look HERE ive used plenty of videos encoded this way and works a treat.
In coreplayer (aka TCPMP) i use Directdraw as ATimageON produces artifacts until they allow a non-rgb filter to be used.

mrvanx said:
Take a look HERE ive used plenty of videos encoded this way and works a treat.
In coreplayer (aka TCPMP) i use Directdraw as ATimageON produces artifacts until they allow a non-rgb filter to be used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your guideline and I have got some satisfactory conversions.. but when I switch to DirectDraw in TCPMP, it gives me black screen no matter which type of video files I am playing.
When I switch back to ATI Imageon, sometimes it will work but sometimes I will get weird screens (the whole screen got messed up and "jumping around"). The only perfectly working selection for me is RAW or GDI.
Am I doing something wrong in the setting with the directdraw and atiimageon? Thanks again.

With bitrate size there is a law of diminishing returns. After a certain bitrate you will not notice the difference on the Hermes screen.
After years of encoding/transcoding. I have settled on these paramters as the other variable is trying to fit as much onto my MicroSD as possible.
Video DivX @ 350 kbps, high quality, 2 pass.
Audio AAC 64 kbps 44 KHz (SSR profile)
Using MP4 as the container.
The quality is pin sharp. Using higher bitrates for me yield no benefit when viewed on the phone. The filesize comes out at approx 170 meg for 1 hour.
When I get back I will upload some samples of stuff I've done and I don't mind watching on the phone, typically 4:3 like The Wire and of course the Simpsons.

Wam7 said:
With bitrate size there is a law of diminishing returns. After a certain bitrate you will not notice the difference on the Hermes screen.
After years of encoding/transcoding. I have settled on these paramters as the other variable is trying to fit as much onto my MicroSD as possible.
Video DivX @ 350 kbps, high quality, 2 pass.
Audio AAC 64 kbps 44 KHz (SSR profile)
Using MP4 as the container.
The quality is pin sharp. Using higher bitrates for me yield no benefit when viewed on the phone. The filesize comes out at approx 170 meg for 1 hour.
When I get back I will upload some samples of stuff I've done and I don't mind watching on the phone, typically 4:3 like The Wire and of course the Simpsons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What program do you use to do this encoding? I would like to try out your settings on a few movies i have been waiting to encode myself.

Globalrebel said:
What program do you use to do this encoding? I would like to try out your settings on a few movies i have been waiting to encode myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a long while I was doing it manually with Virtual Dub Mod and demuxing audio etc but this can be arduous when doing a lot of stuff.
Nowadays I tend to use WinMenc .61 with the Mencoder binaries. It's not the best GUI in the world, in fact it's pretty plain and could do with updating but it gives the control I need, batch encoding, and is very fast.
I wiill link them all here when I eventually get home.
You could try PocketDivX encoder (and Lathe) which use Mencoder as well but were half the speed for me when it comes to the 2nd pass when I tested them. IIRC they don't give as much control either.

Alas no time to give links to binaries just yet but Google might help if you're in a rush. Here is a quick sample of Prison Break with the above settings.
http://www.wam77.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Prison.Break.S02E18.Clip.350kbps.mp4

Found a bit of time
Download Winmenc http://yawoogle.googlepages.com/winmenc.0.61.zip
Download MPlayer http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mplayer-rtm-svn-23169.7z
Download Mencoder http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mencoder-rtm-svn-23169.7z
Download PthreadGC2 ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/dll-latest/lib/pthreadGC2.dll
Place all in the same folder. Run Winmenc.
If you want to try my options download this http://www.wam77.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Mp4_PocketPC_DivX350_AAC_320.240.ini
and then click on load profile and point it to the file. (There are others in the default profile dir that you can play with)
This will also do Xvid, DivX, X264, mpeg2 (in .avi container) with 2 pass options. If you want ultra sharpness you can try higher bitrates but I can not tell for most things. If you also want to keep the file size fairly small I have found 350 kbps to be a good trade off. Run a few tests at different bitrates and decide for yourself.

Awesome guide Wam.
Using your setttings I have been playing with the x264 codec. It's alot more demanding on the cpu. however it does produce very noticeable far superior results over divx. It also takes a good 2x more time to encode, but nvm that the end result which counts.
Getting x264 playing on hermes appears to be a slight headache for some.
TCPMP used to support it, now doesnt.
So you have 2 options CorePlayer or old beta version of TCPMP 72RC1.exe
IIRC I remeber reading the coreplayer is newer more effeciant by approx 10% than the tpcmp x264 beta decoder. I also had a bit of a headache getting the aac audio codec working.. maybe cos I have a wm2003 device. I clicked on and installed far to many differnt things to know how I fixed it .
Also apprently the ATI ImageOn boosts performance nicely for 264 files. but causes problems with divx xvid etc.. which are commonly used.
1) get new rom ak3.. 2)install atifix + If you set zoom to 100% - artifacts dissapear.
Nice thread here. - http://70.84.52.18/corecodec.com/forum/index.php?topic=3723.msg22042#msg22042 - srry if cross forum linking isnt allowed..
I have only a dell axim x5 - maybe 5 years old now, but it has a 400mhz intel xscale cpu which I guess is comparible to what the hermes samsung cpu can do. So my testing regarding performance maybe a bit off. I can confirm though x264 codec is the way forward. All the new devices use it for good reason.. ipods. playstaion portables, blueray. hd tv's.
A little more clarifcation needs to be done. to provide us all with the ultimate setup. one thing for sure. wams settings are great. and produce fantastic results. the software he reccomends - winmec is real nice and easy to use..
I also spent a fair bit of time with MEgui front end and, it has so many more options.. which could be a bonus but was just too confusing for me. Also winmec and Megui may have shifted the timing of frames off a tiny bit.. I'll need to check on a longer file to see if there was any syncing issues.
I'll be back soon with a definative guide.

Oh yeah x264 is definitely the way to go and the improvement are easily noticed for the same bitrate.
I did a few x264 but this was back before WM6 (AKU 3.3) and the ATI fixes and I could play smooth BUT without audio which wasn't much use.
I might give them a try again when I have more time to play but for the time being DivX is giving me good results... and is quick!
Oh I am using TCPMP 0.81. I would use Coreplayer 1.04 but until they fix the negative audio sync bug I am forced to use TCPMP.

Coreplayer Audio

I've set my Coreplayer up as per the posts elsewhere in the Athena threads and the video quality is almost perfect now.
I'm using 320x240, DivX 6, 500-700KBps constant bitrate files.
Stereo MP3 audio. 96kbps or 128kbps.
After 10 mins of playback the audio slowly starts to lose sync (it plays fine on my PC).
Has anyone got any ideas what I need to do to stop the audio from losing sync?
Any help greatly appreciated.

hi
when you say "outof sync", does this mean that the audio is fine but the video is not "in time"? if yes, that's exactly what i was going to ask in the forum =) but i'll be trying the parameters you set. i've been meaning to ask the "optimized" setting for this application.
cheers

Robson said:
hi
when you say "outof sync", does this mean that the audio is fine but the video is not "in time"? if yes, that's exactly what i was going to ask in the forum =) but i'll be trying the parameters you set. i've been meaning to ask the "optimized" setting for this application.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, that's exactly it. It starts off fine, then ever so slowly the video gets ahead of the audio.
I've 'fiddled' with just about every setting I can think of within Coreplayer but have yet to find a solution.

Yep, that's exactly it. It starts off fine, then ever so slowly the video gets ahead of the audio.
I've 'fiddled' with just about every setting I can think of within Coreplayer but have yet to find a solution.[/QUOTE]
well, at least your video gets ahead. for me it's the other way around...the video is late yet the audio sounds perfect =)
cheers

ive already asked this question. with no replys. ive tried every setting and format possible. still loses sync. it doesnt matter if its from the sd card micro drive or streaming. it still loses sync. ive even tryed disabling the auto scaler and running tcpmp over clocked. still loses sync. im a a loss. if you find a solution let me know.

I guess we need to wait for the next version of Coreplayer which will (hopefully) be released on the 18th of June. It supposedly fixes some of the ATI issues.

I am so sick to death of this subject!! Not mad at you guys, but at ATI/AMD. This has been an ongoing issue since September last year when the TyTN was released with the ATI Imageon chip, and due to no input or support from ATI/AMD, Corecodec cannot fix this issue as it's to to with the Imageon hardware.
Bottom line is find the settings that work best for you. For me, I find TCPMP v0.72RC more stable and versatile than CorePlayer v1.04. Also set Video driver as Imageon (NOT Imageon decoder!) this yields best performance and visual quality 'during' playback.
If you're using DVD-Rips use the above setting, but if your playing/stretching QVGA 320x240 on your Athena, then Rawframebuffer mode is even more stable in the GUI, but lacks the ooomph of the Imageon driver, which to some extent might well eradicate your lipsync issues.
One more test folks. Play your video whilst your Athena is pluggen in to mains power. See if the lipsync is still out. If it is make manual adjustments in the A/V offset in TCPMP under Advanced.

mackaby007 said:
I am so sick to death of this subject!! Not mad at you guys, but at ATI/AMD. This has been an ongoing issue since September last year when the TyTN was released with the ATI Imageon chip, and due to no input or support from ATI/AMD, Corecodec cannot fix this issue as it's to to with the Imageon hardware.
Bottom line is find the settings that work best for you. For me, I find TCPMP v0.72RC more stable and versatile than CorePlayer v1.04. Also set Video driver as Imageon (NOT Imageon decoder!) this yields best performance and visual quality 'during' playback.
If you're using DVD-Rips use the above setting, but if your playing/stretching QVGA 320x240 on your Athena, then Rawframebuffer mode is even more stable in the GUI, but lacks the ooomph of the Imageon driver, which to some extent might well eradicate your lipsync issues.
One more test folks. Play your video whilst your Athena is pluggen in to mains power. See if the lipsync is still out. If it is make manual adjustments in the A/V offset in TCPMP under Advanced.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rgr that - will test later - thanks!

Ive got the exact same problem on my x7510 i start playing it and slowly the video will go ahead of the audio and its out of sync very easy to detect when your viewing a lecture. ive tried all kind of video players

Vico100 said:
Ive got the exact same problem on my x7510 i start playing it and slowly the video will go ahead of the audio and its out of sync very easy to detect when your viewing a lecture. ive tried all kind of video players
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How cam that you can use it.
I'v tried 0.72 version as well as 0.81 and both give me the "crash.txt" error while starting TCPMP.
Oh, you are using CorePlayer not TCPMP, right?

im using coreplayer the latest version becuase tmcp as you said keeps on crashing, (for me too).
With a hard reset playing even a video in windows media player still gives a audio lag. Its so bad, now i don't care about quility just let me have a video with audio i don't care how bad the video looks like.
Does anyone have any solution? ive tried all kinds of "video output" settings and it still gives audio lag (even raw framebuffer)

FINALLY! ah found it after lots of searching of google and forums and sites...
its -400ms and its perfect thought the whole video..
(Note: the best method that i use to see if its in sync is to watch a lecture and then watch their mouth real careful and you'll see that -400ms gives the best results )

Vico100 said:
FINALLY! ah found it after lots of searching of google and forums and sites...
its -400ms and its perfect thought the whole video..
(Note: the best method that i use to see if its in sync is to watch a lecture and then watch their mouth real careful and you'll see that -400ms gives the best results )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is this -400Ms?

-400ms is -400 milliseconds as in time. The minus sign means "start playing the video 400 milliseconds ahead of the audio. Its perfect for core player put all the settings on max just take acceleration and dithering off. And it plays a DVD rip perfectly no conversion very sweet on its 5 inch screen
If you don't know put the -400 in the settings next to "manual A/V offset +/-" and just type in "-0.400"

Vico100 said:
-400ms is -400 milliseconds as in time. The minus sign means "start playing the video 400 milliseconds ahead of the audio. Its perfect for core player put all the settings on max just take acceleration and dithering off. And it plays a DVD rip perfectly no conversion very sweet on its 5 inch screen
If you don't know put the -400 in the settings next to "manual A/V offset +/-" and just type in "-0.400"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for sharing this tip!

Vico100 said:
-400ms is -400 milliseconds as in time. The minus sign means "start playing the video 400 milliseconds ahead of the audio. Its perfect for core player put all the settings on max just take acceleration and dithering off. And it plays a DVD rip perfectly no conversion very sweet on its 5 inch screen
If you don't know put the -400 in the settings next to "manual A/V offset +/-" and just type in "-0.400"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So does this work or not???
I am confused, because on the other thread, you mentioned it did not work.

it does for like 5-10 minutes then audio gets our of sync

Vico100 said:
it does for like 5-10 minutes then audio gets our of sync
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this information.

Vico100 said:
im using coreplayer the latest version becuase tmcp as you said keeps on crashing, (for me too).
With a hard reset playing even a video in windows media player still gives a audio lag. Its so bad, now i don't care about quility just let me have a video with audio i don't care how bad the video looks like.
Does anyone have any solution? ive tried all kinds of "video output" settings and it still gives audio lag (even raw framebuffer)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it play flv files as well?

Tadeusz said:
Does it play flv files as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coreplayer plays flv files, yes. There's no need to separately install additional component. It benchmarks better than TCPMP in my test.

"Perfect" HandBrake settings for TP2?

So is there such a thing as "perfect" handbrake settings for TP2?
I've been playing with it a couple of hours, and these are the settings I'm down to using:
Output Settings, Format: MP4 file
Picture Settings tab: 640 x 400 (what are you guys using?)
Video Tab: Video Codec MPEG-4 (FFmpeg), framerate 29.97, 2 pass encoding, average bitrate (kbps) 600
Audio&Subtitles tab: Automatic Source, AAC Audio Codec, Mixdown Dolby Pro Logic II, samplerate Khz Auto, Bitrate (kps) 160
I haven't really touched anything else, but with these settings I seem to be getting the slightest lag where sometimes I can perceive the frame rate, for lack of a better term. It's as if the smoothness is about 90% - 95% there, but not quite. Anything I can do about that? I tried making the width x height numbers smaller, but it didn't seem to work.
What are you guys using for handbrake settings? Are you touching any other settings than the ones I mention above?

I've tried all sorts of setting with HandBrake (including yours, just now) and there always appears to be a bit of a stutter. I've had much more luck using SUPER encoder (encoding to AVI).

I just reencoded a divx file to MP4 using x.264 compression and it plays smooth as silk using the HTC album application. That was on the latest 6.5.1 (504) Valkyrie (sp?) ROM as of a couple of days ago. I am probably going to flash to the new 28002 Energy ROM tonight so we'll see if it still works there.

Avatar28 said:
I just reencoded a divx file to MP4 using x.264 compression and it plays smooth as silk using the HTC album application. That was on the latest 6.5.1 (504) Valkyrie (sp?) ROM as of a couple of days ago. I am probably going to flash to the new 28002 Energy ROM tonight so we'll see if it still works there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What were you other settings on handbrake? I guess you selected h.264(x264) under the video tab. What did you use for avg. bitrate on the video tab and what did you use for width/height or anything else under the "picture settings" tab?
I'm not familiar with the ROM stuff you're referring to.
Thanks for the info. I'm still playing with these handbrake settings!

ualdriver said:
What were you other settings on handbrake? I guess you selected h.264(x264) under the video tab. What did you use for avg. bitrate on the video tab and what did you use for width/height or anything else under the "picture settings" tab?
I'm not familiar with the ROM stuff you're referring to.
Thanks for the info. I'm still playing with these handbrake settings!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, the site freaked out and I couldn't finish my post. Anyways, I actually used the free version of Any Video Converter and not handbrake (I got them both about the same time. That theoretically shouldn't make that much of a difference though when using the same settings. It just seems a bit easier to me to use.
I went with the original size. It might not make a difference but I have this nice, high-res screen, might as well take advantage of it, right? Original size in this case was 592x320. Video bitrate was set at 768k and the audio was 128k AAC. Windows shows them slightly lower in the file properties for whatever reason, though, 749k and 125k respectively.
My final file size was around 554 MB compared to right around 1000 MB for the original xvid. This was for an hour and a half movie.
I think you could approximate the settings by using the xbox 360 profile and changing the target bitrate for video and audio to something closer to the values I used.
Edit: This is the link to the ROM I was using. You will note that it appears to have updated D3D drivers so that might make a difference as I have heard of people having stuttering issues with WM 6.5 using the HTC album player in Manila. I point that out because the HTC player is apparently one of the only ones capable of taking advantage of the GPU accleration in the phone to handle the video decoding. Other players are more likely to stutter due to doing CPU decoding.

Presets
I haven't used Handbrake in about a month. I used 0.93 for Windows. When I converted something for my phones, I would use the Iphone/Ipod Touch preset. It's converts to a h.264 MP4 file. I would dial back the resolution for my Tilt. With my Tilt2 I raise the preset resolution to 800 instead of 640. I play it with the latest Coreplayer or TCPMP GF5500 Edition. The videos are amazing. I have been trying the GUI posted earlier because it's much faster.

bennyj71 said:
I haven't used Handbrake in about a month. I used 0.93 for Windows. When I converted something for my phones, I would use the Iphone/Ipod Touch preset. It's converts to a h.264 MP4 file. I would dial back the resolution for my Tilt. With my Tilt2 I raise the preset resolution to 800 instead of 640. I play it with the latest Coreplayer or TCPMP GF5500 Edition. The videos are amazing. I have been trying the GUI posted earlier because it's much faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!
Avatar28 said:
I went with the original size. It might not make a difference but I have this nice, high-res screen, might as well take advantage of it, right? Original size in this case was 592x320. Video bitrate was set at 768k and the audio was 128k AAC. Windows shows them slightly lower in the file properties for whatever reason, though, 749k and 125k respectively.
My final file size was around 554 MB compared to right around 1000 MB for the original xvid. This was for an hour and a half movie.
I think you could approximate the settings by using the xbox 360 profile and changing the target bitrate for video and audio to something closer to the values I used.
Edit: This is the link to the ROM I was using. You will note that it appears to have updated D3D drivers so that might make a difference as I have heard of people having stuttering issues with WM 6.5 using the HTC album player in Manila. I point that out because the HTC player is apparently one of the only ones capable of taking advantage of the GPU accleration in the phone to handle the video decoding. Other players are more likely to stutter due to doing CPU decoding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks. I'll have to try the x264 setting. I thought I tried that once with handbrake when I was playing with a 10 minute DVD trailer, but for some reason my TP2 wouldn't play it. It might have been just a bad file conversion that particular time, but I assumed at the time it was just an unusable conversion type. I have been using the MPEG4 (FFmpeg) file and that seemed to work every time. I haven't a clue what the difference is.
I think I'm still using WM 6.1. I'm relatively new to this stuff and I'm not too sure about what a ROM is. I know it means "read only memory," but how it applies to my phone or how I can modify it and what the consequences are of changing it- I don't understand.

Ive used Super to convert a DVD rip of Iron Man to my TP2 @ 720x 480 resolution @ 1200kbps in MP4 h246 and it looks sexy! you have to make sure all other apps are closed and surprisingly enough, Windows Media Player handles this file with ease(Windows media player actually works now!It only took 10 years!lol) and framerate is movie speed @29.970. Even more surprising is the fact that this is playing on a virgin device( running the stock ATT ROM till tomorrow....) and the current ROM is incredibly bloated.

"Avidemux" is an awesome program to easily convert your movies. I use "Handbrake" to RIP but I find "Avidemux" much better for movie/video conversions. it has presets but will also let you setup formats, crops, etc. anyway you want. It has enormous capability and still easy to use. I use it to convert to 640 x (?) (xvid) mp4 @ 700 kbps with 128 kbps AAC audio for use with the Album player and it is sharp with no stuttering. I am going to use it to convert to x264 mp4 @ 1000 kbps and see how WMP handles it as a test but I generally despise WMP.

Handbrake
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?

NH3MAN said:
"Avidemux" is an awesome program to easily convert your movies. I use "Handbrake" to RIP but I find "Avidemux" much better for movie/video conversions. it has presets but will also let you setup formats, crops, etc. anyway you want. It has enormous capability and still easy to use. I use it to convert to 640 x (?) (xvid) mp4 @ 700 kbps with 128 kbps AAC audio for use with the Album player and it is sharp with no stuttering. I am going to use it to convert to x264 mp4 @ 1000 kbps and see how WMP handles it as a test but I generally despise WMP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
omarmir said:
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks guys, I'll try them.

omarmir said:
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn! Finally. I posted about this 15 days ago. You should update to the new Handbrake. It's much faster.

The Best Settings and the best CONVERTER For TP2
In 2 weeks I've tried it all. 8 converters to be exact. The best one out there worth anyones time is a converter call AVS Video Converter 6.3(not free but reall worth it trust me). It has it all! It's pretty quick compare to the rest, but most importantly pumps out excellent video quality with smooth framerate. There's a few that's faster but most of them has bad famerates, bad quality, or both. Yes bad framerate playing on my super computer. The best settings that work for my TP2 is the following:M4vipod at 415 bitrate, 24fps, 640X384. Plays smooth looks great can't ask for more!
Converters I Tried: Handbrake 9.3 too slow
Handbrake 9.4 got sound no video?
Iwisoft choppy framerate looks very promising waiting for a newer version
Ultra mobile 3gp not enough settings file comes out to big and to slow
Any Video Converter when it works it very good, freezes to often during conversions plus to slow.
And a few others I don't remember.
Thanks hope I can help.

how come I only got the sound with no video from the H264 files I converted with Handbrake on max OS X....

I have been trying to get my new Sprint Touch Pro 2 to run movies smoothly using Windows Media Player Mobile. This is a very difficult task... I think I have just succeeded. At first, I was using Handbrake to encode my DVD using the 640 resolution setting. This worked great for playing on my home computer, but after using Mobile Device Center to Sync my TP2 and playing the MP4 in Windows Media Player Mobile, I only got video to play and NO AUDIO.
This was very frustrating for a long time. I finally solved the problem. I increased the video resolution to 720 in Handbrake (leaving the audio settings as is), and bingo....the audio and video both play using Windows Media Player Mobile. I used the 23fps, 16:9 setting and 768 bitrate and it plays pretty well. Not sure why audio is not playing using the 640 resolution...any ideas???
-Chris

So I must be doing something wrong. Im using a failry new pc (Acer Iconia Tablet PC) and I started to convert a file in Handbrake last night around 12, 8am this morning its still converting.. what is the deal here?
I am trying to convert a .m4v file to .mp4 and the issue is that the file has subtitled I need to have burned in. I typically use videora but it didn't recognize the file.
I did the settings here (iphone settings) and i actually queued up 2 versions one with ac3 audio and one with aac, not sure which one i was supposed to choose.
Everything else was standard (subtitles burned in).
the movie is a 2.5 hour movie why is it taking so long.
I wish I was better with using vlc's conversion settings.

Double post on accident

I don't know the perfect settings, but these at least get you going with good results. They require modifying a profile which is x264 level 2.1 before I found this out I had some hit and miss results with 0.9.3 occasional green screen with sound in the Album player and consistently no video in the higher versions.
I'm using 0.9.5 now. The first thing you want to do is uncheck "always use iPod friendly file extension (.m4v) for mp4" in Tools>Options>General and maybe enable Query Editor tab in Tools>Options>Advanced/Other.
Then you want to pick the level 2.1 Apple preset: iPhone & iPod Touch
Change the Audio Mixdown to Stereo, Samplerate to 48
Change the Video to Avg Bitrate 1000 for lower res, 650 for near or full 800x480
Preset>Save Preset
Minor changes to the new preset can now be saved by right clicking on it.
MDavisiw said:
So I must be doing something wrong. Im using a failry new pc (Acer Iconia Tablet PC) and I started to convert a file in Handbrake last night around 12, 8am this morning its still converting.. what is the deal here?
I am trying to convert a .m4v file to .mp4 and the issue is that the file has subtitled I need to have burned in. I typically use videora but it didn't recognize the file.
I did the settings here (iphone settings) and i actually queued up 2 versions one with ac3 audio and one with aac, not sure which one i was supposed to choose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Encoders need raw power your tablet PC has a specialised processor. I don't think you can burn in subtitles yet in Handbrake unless the source is DVD and they're VobSub (unsure about BluRay source) and the Audio must be set to AAC.
I think you will need to use Avidemux which has support for burning in many subtitle formats. I didn't have much luck with it up to now as it appears the Windows stable version r7200 is quite broken, partially rendered VobSubs, and crashing during encoding. So far so good using the latest beta r7317 hosted by Gruntster on the iPod preset.

Coreplayer 1.3.6 Judder - stock ROM 1.48 (SOLVED)

I've done a search and read many posts about coreplayer performance on the HD2. Most have no problems but some do and i'm one of them.
I have no problem playing the files using these settings from member Shasarak (thanks mate):
Options/Video and activate Dither, then "smooth zoom always" rather than "smooth zoom 50%". You will get substantially better performance if you then go into the DirectDraw settings page, choose "YUY2" as your overlay format, leave "use device stretching" checked, and uncheck the other two boxes.
I have tried all other settings and combinations but i agree the above gives the best performance.
However, i am still experiencing occassional judder and it's annoying me.
1). would upgrading to stock ROM 1.66 make a difference?
2). is there ANYTHING else i can do to stop the judder? i've already tried disabling background tasks, wifi etc
3). The audio is also very slightly out of sync, it's delayed, it's minor but i notice it. It happens on all videos, they are all .avi I've not seen anyone complain of this before.
Thanks

With regards to uadio sync:
Menu --> Tools --> Settings
Select the 'Advanced' page
Manual A/V offset let's you adjust the audio sync

The judder is most likely due to the format the videos are encoded in just eating too much CPU. How do you encode them?

kilrah said:
The judder is most likely due to the format the videos are encoded in just eating too much CPU. How do you encode them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't encode them, just downloaded movies in the common divx/xvid format. I played movies on my old N96but re-encoded them to mp4 as it didn't play avi and i never tried coreplayer on it.
Perhaps i should try re-encoding, but don't see why this phone couldn't handle a standard 700mb divx avi.

kr00t0n said:
With regards to uadio sync:
Menu --> Tools --> Settings
Select the 'Advanced' page
Manual A/V offset let's you adjust the audio sync
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers mate, you are the man! putting a -0.300 has made it much better, not sure why it would be out like that on all movies? I'm very happy with that What do the other 2 settings do - soft drop tolerance & hard drop tolerance?
now just to fix the juddering.
I've found, and i think someone else suggested this in another thread, that if you pause it for a moment it sorts itself out. Would rather not have to do that but i don't see a way around it

jonbaker76 said:
Perhaps i should try re-encoding, but don't see why this phone couldn't handle a standard 700mb divx avi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The standard ~1h30 700MB divx movies I've tried to play all worked nicely. But sorter ones of the same size (meaning more bitrate) could start being too much load. Just try and do a benchmark in coreplayer with a video that causes problems, if you have less than about 150% average playing speed you might start getting drops.

It may help to put the phone in "Airplane Mode"; if it's checking for email messages in the background while playing it will judder like crazy. Use the task manager to kill off any other running applications as well....

I come to the conclusion that this phone just can not handle playing divx/xvid in avi very well, and i'm not sure why it can't.
I have gone back to my old ways of converting the video to mp4 using winavi mp4 converter, this also cures the problem of any files that have ac3 audio as it converts that as well.
On my 8 year old computer it would take 30 mins to convert a 700mb film, i have since bought a quad core Dell running 64 bit windows 7 and it converts in less than 10 mins!!
Smooth as butter now but a shame i have to go back to doing this. But at least the files will play in coreplayer, windows media and htc's player so plenty of choice
If anyone wants the settings i use for winavi mp4 converter then just ask away. It's not free but mine was if you get what i mean
EDIT:
I HAVE FOUND THE REAL PROBLEM, IT'S MY COREPLAYER! IT STARTED STUTTERING THE MP4 FILE THIS MORNING, WHEN I SWITCHED TO WINDOWS MEDIA OR HTC PLAYER IT WAS FINE 9OBVIOUSLY COULDN'T DO THIS BEFORE AS NEITHER OF THOSE PLAYERS SUPPORT AVI)
I JUST TRIED COREPLAYER AGAIN AND IT'S PLAYINNG THE SAME MP4 FILE FINE NOW, MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY COREPLAYER, WILL GET ANOTHER VERSION.
WHAT A DRAMA AND SORRY FOR BORING YOU ALL WITH IT LOL

Baseline 720p h.264 still not smooth

I know that Tegra 2 cannot handle high profile h.264 video playback, so I re encoded some of my videos using baseline settings and video is still slightly choppy whenever the camera is moving.
Anybody have any idea what the deal is?
The link below is a screenshot of mediainfo with one of the video files in question.
http://imgur.com/cdbYa

You might try dropping your video bit rate down to 2200. Been encoding using HandBrake with that and they've been coming out pretty smooth.

I have been using HandBrake with the bitrate at 4000 and the videos are smooth

I use constant quality.
But that doesn't seem to be the issue, I just encoded a sample at the bitrate you suggested and it still had slight playback problems.
Here are the h.264 encoding settings I'm using in handbrake.

This is what I got in mine

And here are the samples I made. One is at 2200 kbps the other is at a constant quality setting of 20. If someone could try them on their Xooms that would be awesome. Maybe I have a defective device.
Sorry to make you use Rapidshare, I couldn't get the attachment uploader to work. It would just hang after uploading the files.
http://rapidshare.com/files/451985226/Toy_Story_samples.zip

Hmmm. I started off with the iPod Legacy preset, then modified the picture size. Looking at my advanced settings, I see it has "Reference Frames" set to 1, "Partition Type" set to "All", and the "Psychovisual Rate Distortion" all the way to the left.
Not sure what any of that really does, but you might give it a try.
I might try encoding something with a higher bitrate just to see how it turns out.

I'm gonna try it, I'll let you know.
Dr.Preston said:
And here are the samples I made. One is at 2200 kbps the other is at a constant quality setting of 20. If someone could try them on their Xooms that would be awesome. Maybe I have a defective device.
Sorry to make you use Rapidshare, I couldn't get the attachment uploader to work. It would just hang after uploading the files.
http://rapidshare.com/files/451985226/Toy_Story_samples.zip
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

It is slightly choppy in the beginning. Here is the .plist file I'm using. I got it from someone but I don't remember. All the videos that I have encode look great.

Grrr, even using the settings in that plist I'm still getting the slightly choppy playback. It's only noticeable when the camera is moving.

If you still have to convert, why not just convert it to mpeg4 (.mp4) with 3,000 kbits rate? It looks blu-ray quality for me. I used either the program Ultra MKV Converter or Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate.

I can playback main profile vids just fine.. level 3.1 mp4, aac audio. I can post up a batch file that I made.. it just requires dgnvindex.. I drop a mkv file and it re-encodes in about 14 minutes.. granted, I do have a 3.9 GHz amd hexacore.
The important thing is the cmd line for the 64-bit x264 enc binary I use.. I can post a short test video for those that would like to try it out... robot chicken ep anyone?

If you could post the script as well as an example video that would be fantastic.
I'm beginning to think maybe my Xoom is defective as the settings I'm using should play smooth on just about anything.

Here is a video I encoded this morning: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MIX4IUTB
I used these settings in handbrake:
--quality 21 --encoder x264 --x264opts no-8x8dct:bframes=0:no-cabac:cqm=flat:weightp=0 --drc 2.0 --markers --format mp4 --maxWidth 1280
media player classic reports this as having a bitrate of 4000. It runs great on my xoom. There is no lag at all or frame drops using the stock movie player.
I have a few videos that have hit 8000kbps, and they run great too. I'm thinking about trying to get it up to 10k to see if the xoom can handle it or not.

I played back your video on my xoom. It looks like it's playing smooth, but there aren't very many pans or high motion camera movements in it, which is where I have been seeing most of the choppiness.
I remoted to my machine at home and got handbrake transcoding another video using your settings. Should be done by the time I get home.

I recently encoded a handfull of movies for my Xoom, one being the new Tron Legacy movie.
I re-encoded a 1080p mkv file
these are the settings I used
Picture Settings:
Anamorphic: strict
Filters:
Decomb - default
Detelecine - default
Target size: 3900 (since the xoom can't handle files larger than 4gb)
Audio tab: remove all but one channel since you don't need multiple streams
Advanced:
Referenced Frames - Default (3)
Maximum B-Frames - 0
CABAC Entropy Coding: unchecked
8x8 transform: unchecked
weighted p-frames: unchecked
option string should be: 8x8dct=0:bframes=0:cabac=0:weightp=0
screenshots are...
http://img.exstatica.net/images/screenutu.png
http://img.exstatica.net/images/screenlsl.png
exported preset
http://www.exstatica.net/HB_Export.plist
If you use the exported hb settings make sure you still modify the picture settings as its not stored in the preset.

So I've been messing with this same issue since launch day and I had a revelation two days ago. I got out my iPad and played the same file but using the iPad preset in Handbrake for the encode, just like I have for the last year. The iPad had the same exact, imperfect, slight hitching in the playback of slow camera pans! I realized that because the picture on the XOOM is bigger, and I'm scrutinizing it like crazy with my face up against the screen, I'm noticing it more than I ever had before.
Conclusion: the iPad has almost the same exact video playback characteristics as the XOOM and it's probably not getting any better. I think a lot of it simply has to do with encoders compression capabilities and deficiencies, but I could be wrong.

Still no better with those exact encoding settings.
My device must be defective.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you will awake the trolls
CJNYC said:
So I've been messing with this same issue since launch day and I had a revelation two days ago. I got out my iPad and played the same file but using the iPad preset in Handbrake for the encode, just like I have for the last year. The iPad had the same exact, imperfect, slight hitching in the playback of slow camera pans! I realized that because the picture on the XOOM is bigger, and I'm scrutinizing it like crazy with my face up against the screen, I'm noticing it more than I ever had before.
Conclusion: the iPad has almost the same exact video playback characteristics as the XOOM and it's probably not getting any better. I think a lot of it simply has to do with encoders compression capabilities and deficiencies, but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Handbrake preset export
Here is my current handbrake setup for encoding any HD movies for my Xoom.
I have encoded 10 full length movies and they all play fine... including ones with lots of light changes and fast action scenes. I notice no tearing or glitches.
Attached is the .plist preset. just rename it from xoom.plist.txt to xoom.plist and go to handbrake preset menu and import it.