Database Users

Movie Conversion

Does anyone know of a good Movie convertor? I have all my movies already converted on my PC to full size Xvid for streaming to the TV (Pinnacle showcenter) but want ro reduce them down for my exec.
I have always used pocket divx and lathe in the past but can never get the audio in sync.
I have been trialling Pocket DVD studio but the playback is far inferior and choppy compared to pocket divx encoder!

You've got 2 options.
1. DVD to Pocket PC by Makayama Software Tokyo, Japan. Compress 2hr DVD to 128 mb only.
2. Canopus Pro Coder 2 also a good compressor to all formats and media type. http://www.canopus.us/us/products/procoder2/pm_procoder2.asp
I use both of them and very satisfied. All my memory cards were full of Movies or Music.

Or take the plunge and learn how to use VirtualDub for the best results. It takes a fair bit of learning, but once you know what you're doing it's quicker and produces better results than any other software.

Already posted in this forum..use Advanced X-Video Convertor or use the Smart Movie Convertor 2.76..yr problems will be solved...

hdubli said:
Already posted in this forum..use Advanced X-Video Convertor or use the Smart Movie Convertor 2.76..yr problems will be solved...
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Thanks for the help folks. These two look exactly what I am looking for.
I cant try them yet as I am doing a conversion using movie shrink & burn 2. I will post my results for all that I test later!

Hi question...
Coming from a P9 user, so please excuse my ignorance..
Isnt there any need to resize the screen/view? what's the dimension? When i converted movies for my p9 before, i had to make the movie smaller to fit my realplayer.. is there such a thing for Universal? What are the dimensions?
Thanks!!!

The screensize on the universal is 640x480 which is about the same as a 700MB XviD or DivX which may jitter a little and take up way too much storage.
I usually shrink down to 320 x 240 (maintaining the aspect ratio) or even less which doesnt present any noticeable loss of picture quality on such a small screen. For best playback result I use the free TCPMP (formerly Betaplayer) in full screen.

Try pocket DVD studio, simple easy uses wm codec, so you get good quality. Aslo allows you to output films, fo ppc, palm and other players. Bst thing is it does all the hard work. You can also cover pretty much all files. I have just converted all my south park series from realplayer to my m5000.
And you can resize screen to your hearts content from smartphone to vga size.

Hi, a quick question about video screen size. I have tried full screen mode on my o2 Exec and the playback is still the same size, with a dark boarder around it, what can i do to fix it? Thanks!

@keith
I think that for WMP to play at full screen the movie needs to be converted to 640x480 otherwise it will remain at 320x240 even when full screen, I think that betaplayer does not suffer this problem and will expand the movie to fill the screen.
So either convert your movie to 640x480 or change your movie player.
Don't quote me on any of this, I dont even have my Universal yet but from what I have read this seems to be the case.
Regards

I will try a different player; to convert them into 640X480 will be space consuming... thanks.
gooroo said:
@keith
I think that for WMP to play at full screen the movie needs to be converted to 640x480 otherwise it will remain at 320x240 even when full screen, I think that betaplayer does not suffer this problem and will expand the movie to fill the screen.
So either convert your movie to 640x480 or change your movie player.
Don't quote me on any of this, I dont even have my Universal yet but from what I have read this seems to be the case.
Regards
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I've had your same problem. I tried resizing videos (with no success).
I now use TCPMP. I can now play avi's and mpeg's in full screen (File sizes are a bit prohibitive though)

No offence if I can covert a 3hr long bolloywood film to fit easily approx 250mb at vga resloution? How can you not covet 2 hour films in high quality to tiny sizes?
Have you also tried pocket divx?

Can I say that the scale to fit function is not working for media player? Logically, I would assume that scale to fit means whatever the resolution, stretch it to fit the screen, even if that means quality lost, no? i am not a big fan of converting it to 640 if that means double the size...

Thanks!
Got it now... Im using TCPMP now and it's far superior than WMP. I never did use WMP after I installed this wonderful video player.. It even played smallville xvid... which i cant even play in my laptop without the codecs installed..
Really enjoying this phone.. well, despite of the bugs..

keithchk said:
Can I say that the scale to fit function is not working for media player? Logically, I would assume that scale to fit means whatever the resolution, stretch it to fit the screen, even if that means quality lost, no? i am not a big fan of converting it to 640 if that means double the size...
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If you use the right software to encode you can then also then play natively at 640 on your exec.

TCPMP includes Xvid/Divx codecs so it doesnt care what codec was used to encode and doesnt suffer from the WMP screensize problem. IMHO TCPMP is far superior to any other player. If you want a free encoder for your existing movies use pocketdivx encoder. I trialed about 5 commercial products a few months back but didnt have time to post my results. None of them were perfect and pocketdivx encoder produced the best picture/sound quality results but does suffer from time sync issues from time to time.
Its a bit like the cheap £30 asda dvd syndrome. They play anything whilst the top of the range Japanes brands play nothing except retail DVDs

I use Pocket DVD Player for Palm, yes for PALM, to convert a movie and use TCPMP to resize it to fit the screen of my O2 EXEC. So basically, I use the 5th setting where the black part on a wide screen DVD is automatically croped out, thus giving a a full screen effect by automatically taking out the black part of the screen found on the bottom and top part of a wide screen DVD movie.
I use the following settings:
Resolution: 464x224 (104kPixel)
Output Size: about 488 MB
Audio: 40 Kbps, 44 KHz, Mono
Video: 464x224, 15 fps
Duration: about 2:08:00
With the following settings I can convert any DVD and play it smoothly with no lags, skips, nor any miss in audio. As you can see, the only drawback is it uses up a huge amount of SD card space, about 488 MB. But I don't care, as long as it is easy and simple. I can easily delete and exchange any movie I want. I can also make the output size smaller, but it causes skips and the quality of conversion is not that good. With the above settings, my EXEC turns into a mini DVD player. Heck, it made my friends wonder and ask, "where did I bought such a small DVD player?" They were amazed to hear, "Ohhhh it's my phone."
Not only that, since I am using 464x224 size conversion, I can play it on my TH55/E1 and O2 XDA EXEC with one conversion and both running on TCPMP.

which video encoder

Hi I'm thinking of encoding video to playback on the Tytn, can someone please recommend a software that will keep the movie size small while maintaining quality.
Thanks

i've always found best results with avi format. TCPMP is available for free for the tytn but does have a playback issue which is very simply worked around.
As for software for converting your videos, I use CarryDVD (not free) for converting my dvd's - I found converting a DVD movie to a 250-300MB avi gives excellent results. For converting non-dvd video files, eg. larger avi files, I use the free version of Lathe - PocketDivX Encoder with Xvid and 2 pass encoding checked.
Hope this helps.
Matt

Ive used AutoGK, it encodes from several sources (including VOB files from DVDs) into Xvid or DivX.
I personally encode into .avi using Xvid (it does a 2pass Mpeg-4 Xvid encoding to .avi) and audio is encoded in MP3 at 128kbit VBR. And i set it to encode into 320x240.
Using Coreplayer (or TCPMP) it plays back FLAWLESSLY.
For example ive encoded an episode of the simpsons (22mins) from DVD into a 60Mb avi file and its just perfect playback on the TyTN. The performance TCPMP/Coreplayer seems to depend somewhat on the ROM you are using.
An excellent guide for using AutoGK alongside DVD Decrypter (both freeware) is found HERE on doom9.org. Using my analogy the filesize you set in AutoGK can be found using 5.45*minutes.
Use half that if you are encoding a low detail picture such as a cartoon (as i did with the simpsons). So for example a 30 minute video of a properly filmed source (ie friends, or cheers etc..) would use a filesize of 163.5Mb.

Guest69 said:
i've always found best results with avi format. TCPMP is available for free for the tytn but does have a playback issue which is very simply worked around.
As for software for converting your videos, I use CarryDVD (not free) for converting my dvd's - I found converting a DVD movie to a 250-300MB avi gives excellent results. For converting non-dvd video files, eg. larger avi files, I use the free version of Lathe - PocketDivX Encoder with Xvid and 2 pass encoding checked.
Hope this helps.
Matt
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Thanks Guest69, i've downloaded the trial version of CarryDVD, if I like it i'll buy the software.

Not free, but I am using CloneDVDmobile from slysoft. $39, iirc, though I got the suite (ripping and decoding as well) a while back when it was on sale. Yes, there are free versions that do much of the same, but quite honestly I got tired of going multiple places to get updates. Seems to work well for encoding.
Just figured out that you have to choose the Raw Framebuffer option and NOT the ATI Imageon (in the TCPMP Video Options) in order to get normal playback on the hermes. I've got a recode of Madagascar that looks great at 300MB for the 80(?) minute movie at 320x(whatever the 16:9AR works out to). There are some tearing-like transition artifiacts, and minor artifacting if I keep my eyes within about 10" of the screen (which is as close as my old-fart eyes can focus).

I get good results with virtualdubmod. Have a look here: http://zodiacguide.sitesled.com/
I started off using the guide, but like to have as much control as possible so now I don't. Obviously depends on the codecs you install, but I like it.
Possibly not the simplest one-stop method.

Which Video encoder
Hi
I use a product called DVD Catalyst there are two versions and you can download a Full 7-day uncrippled trial version here
http://www.pocketdvd.ca/
The program is a all in one ripper DVD to PDA/IPOD/PSP etc
Colin

Try Super. Completely FREE and converts between nearly every file format imaginable. You do need to play with the settings to get good results though. Try 300-400KBps to start with and increase / decrease based on performance, and remember to use single channel and fairly low quality sound to keep the file as small as possible (unless you have decent earphones (and an adapter ))

Super is good but doesn't not give you a 2-pass encode option. Try something like PocketDivxEncoder which has the 2-pass option for encoding to Xvid. It's also very easy to set up and fast.
I actually use WinMEnc. not as polished or professional as PocketDivXEncoder but will convert from DVD or .avi file and is excellent quality plus the second pass is twice as fast as PocketDivxEncoder. (Both are based around Mencoder). For years I did it manually using VDub Mod and even Auto GK.

Another vote for Super. Excellent program for converting any format into any format.
And completely free.

overzeetop said:
Not free, but I am using CloneDVDmobile from slysoft. $39, ....... I've got a recode of Madagascar that looks great at 300MB for the 80(?) minute movie at 320x240.
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I've got CloneDVDmobile as well. I've used the full CLoneDVD for years with great success. The default for DVD encoding on CloneDVDmobile is set at a quality level of 23 or about 556 meg for a 2 hour movie. What quality level are you finding works best for the Hermes and DVD encoding to get as small an AVI file as possible without making the video un-watchable?

I try to keep my avi files to around 300mb per movie. This seems to keep a sharp picture even with action scenes.

Watching Videos on Sprint Mogul

Alright, so I have TCPMP on my phone and it works great and all, except for the fact that i don't have videos for it to play on my phone and don't have the software necesary to get those videos onto my phone. I have some .avi divx files that i would like to convert and watch on my phone because they are currently way to big to watch on my little screen (resolution and size) so I just wanted to know which program would be good for me to use on my computer in order to convert the videos for watching on my phone using TCPMP, I have tried a couple in the past (mainly Ashampoo Movie Shrink and Burn 3) and the video quality is fine, but the audio and video are never synched in TCPMP, and even though I have tried using the manual audio/video sync option, I really don't know exactly what I am doing, and would just prefer a video that has it automatically synched well. So what is the best program to use to convert the videos on my computer, for viewing on my Sprint Mogul?

I use SPB mobile dvd. Small and Simple

TCPMP can easily handle full-res divx files.
For example, a friend of mine is about to copy The Daily Show and Colbert Report that he downloaded on bit torrent right onto his phone.
No transcoding necessary.

Yea but the problem is, wouldn't the file be much smaller if I shrink the resolution down to the exact size of the mogul's screen, as I like to save as much space as possible, (I have 1GB free on my 4GB card). But thanks for the info, ill try it out.

If u convert it to 320x240 4:3 with 50% quality u looking at ~ 200mb

I dunno if this exactly what you are looking for, but for converting video files into whatever resolution and format, I use AnyVideoConverter. Freeware version available as well as a "professional" version for a nominal amount.

sompy is one of many software u can use

Have you tried Orb.com yet?
If you have an unlim data plan you could always use www.orb.com to stream the videos to your Mogul. Then you wouldn't have to worry about the format or using space on the phone or the storage card to keep the videos. If you go into the options on TCPMP and check all formats then it will play the streams pretty seamlessly.

Media Conversion

Hi there,
I am reasonably new to the HD, and WM in general. Just got my HD and absolutely loving it. I have a few long train journeys coming up though, and am looking to make the most of video/audio playback.
Basically I'm not 100% sure how to do it all. I have some DVDs that I would like to rip to my harddrive and then convert into a suitable file type to be played on my HD. I have DVD Decrypter which I will use to rip them to my harddrive, but I'm not entirely sure of the best way to proceed from there. They will just be in standard DVD format on my harddrive. If anyone can help and give me a quick tutorial and recommend a few programs to use, I would be most appreciative.
Thanks!

Firstly I rip the DVD movie to a Divx format.AVI file, then I use a program on my desktoppc called "PocketDivxEncoder" which converts the .AVI to a compressed format suitable to dump onto my memory card (about 80MB for a 45min TV show with reasonable quality - so on that basis a movie would be arounf 160 - 180MB), then finally use PocketDivx player (downloaded from www.divx.com) to watch fullscreen - works perfect for me, I have a 16gb card and have several completer series of tv shows stored quite happily with really good quality viewing!

Thanks for that. How do you rip the DVD movie into DivX? Sorry, new to all this!

there are several freeware apps that you can use to rip a DVD, I use one called "Shark Ripper", it has numerous options incl. output format - where I select DIVX video compression and MPe audio compression. Take a search on download.com and I'm sure you'll find a suitable freeware DVD ripper!

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
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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