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.

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] Best playback on Xperia

I think it's about time for us to clear a few things up concerning video playback on the X1.
The X1 can play most codecs using Coreplayer Mobile.
However, to optimize video's for the X1 and windows media player, a converter such as SUPER can be used.
Please note that optimizing your X1 is advised. See this thread for more information.
Now what I would like to find out is what settings work best for the X1 to playback video with a few different preset configurations.
What we need to know is the optimal:
Resolution
Framerate
Video Codec
Video Bitrate
Audio Codec
Audio Bitrate
Audio Sampling Frequency
Container
And any other/better tools to use.
To be able to better compare results I've uploaded the Crysis Warhead HD Trailer. You can download it here.
Please use this trailer to compare and post your settings in this thread.
This thread will be updated with new information as it arises. The second post contains an example of settings I used and will be updated with user posted settings that work well.
--- Important information ---
* CorePlayer is not hardware accelerated. This means that CorePlayer is more likely to play your video's choppy. The built-in media player, however, does have hardware acceleration. To get the best video performance, at this moment the built-in media player is your best choice.
* The h.264 codec is supported by the built-in media player and currently has the best compression vs quality ratio.
--- Downloads ---
Coreplayer Mobile
SUPER

--- Source file ---
Setting: HD Quality - 63.4MB @ 0hrs, 1min, 32sec.
Resolution: 1280 x 720
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: WMV9
Video Bitrate: 6090 kb/s
Audio Codec: WMA9
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: WMV
Download example here: Source file
--- Settings --- Here the optimal settings will be provided as they become available.
Configuration: Low Quality - 4.7MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 280MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 400x240
Framerate: 25
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 192 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 22050
Audio Bitrate:: 64 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Low Quality
Configuration: Medium Quality - 5.9MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 350MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 400x240
Framerate: 25
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 384 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Medium Quality
Configuration: High Quality - 10.4MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 620MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 608x368
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 768
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: High Quality
Configuration: Highest Quality - 16.8MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 1000MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 800x480
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 1294 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 128 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Highest Quality
---
When posting settings, supply the same information as I do here.

Good you have come up with this.. once we all share I think we can reach to as what best converter settings we can use for X1... After reading lot of material... I use these settings which gives me full screen decent/smooth run movies.. had no problems at all... but don't know if they are the best settings... check it out :
Xvid MPEG-4 Codec, 569 Target bitrate, 23.976 fps, Screen Size 640x384, Sound Mp3 128 to 160 kbit/s. Encoder used : TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. ( The best converter with total cut/edit features )
Let me know the results.

Nero Recode 3
AVC in MP4, 400x240, ~400kbps
HE-AAC, ~80kbps,
Runs excellent in the Mediapanel and did quite good (but worse) in the Coreplayer 1.2.5, when I still had it installed. Switched to the Panel completely for playing back my mp4 rips.
Uh, theres a template. Well then, again:
Resolution 400x240
Codec AVC/h.264
Framerate 25 or as source if lower
Video Bitrate ~400kbps
Audio Sampling as source
Audio Bitrate HE-AAC, ~80kbps

I have tried so many diff combination but still haven't found one optimal to use with the x1. This thread will be great for me to do more testing. I usually super or aimersoft. Please chime in if you use those above software to encode video.

I'm at work right now so can't be 100% sure, but as I remember (it's discussed in threads in the main SE X1 forum section) for the highest quality you can get on x1, encode the files for Baseline 1.3 h264, 800x450 max resolution, 30fps, and play them on wm media player or the media panel.
Videos will not run well at anything near that resolution on core player or tcpmp, they don't use the hardware acceleration that's available to media player and the media panel, although tcpmp and coreplayer will handle many more codecs.

Thanks for the additions people, I've uploaded a better video file to test with. It's HD by default so you can actually see the difference between high quality encoded and low/medium.
For those who post configurations, please (please!) stick to the template, I will try and reproduce the settings so I can judge them and add them to the topic.
I would like more information on the hardware acceleration topic as well;
1) Why isn't coreplayer hardware accelerated?
2) Can it be changed so it is?
3) Are there any other/better video players out there?

Because the driver specifications are not available and the hardware cant be accessed by third party programmers
CorePlayer team said in their forum they got hold of Qualcomm and are working to provide hardware acceleration for any MSM7xxx chipset having the graphics hardware in one of the next builds of the player
Better regarding what aspect?

Thanks for your reply. I'd like to see what CorePlayer can do if they manage to get the hardware acceleration working.
Better regarding smooth playback and codec support. Perhaps there's a way to add codecs to the Winmo media player?
EDIT: Updated with new configurations, all based on h.264 (for best compression/quality ratio)
EDIT2: Added another setting, tested for quality and uploaded all examples for your viewing pleasure.
EDIT3: Tested the movies on my X1. From low to high the quality is visibly better every time, so that's a good thing. On the highest quality setting proposed above, the graphics were stunning, however, it ran choppy, it looked like my X1 couldn't keep up with that high bitrate & resolution. I'd like more opinions, who else will test them!? (Tested with windows mobile media player).

Who can help me test the highest settings?

Angelusz said:
EDIT3: Tested the movies on my X1. From low to high the quality is visibly better every time, so that's a good thing. On the highest quality setting proposed above, the graphics were stunning, however, it ran choppy, it looked like my X1 couldn't keep up with that high bitrate & resolution. I'd like more opinions, who else will test them!? (Tested with windows mobile media player).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look at my post (#31) here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=460294&page=4
especially this:
Jabe said:
2.) this one is the important one. Do not change screen resolution. Original file was 624x352 and when I set it to 800x like you suggested the playback was somewhat jerky when people were moving. So I set it to "no cnahge" and gained 2 things:
- output quality was far superior (i don't know about that if you choose smaller resolution, like converting HD to 800x)
- the conversion is much faster. before it took 1h10min, now it takes 45min. in other words, encoding speed went from 0.7x to 1.0x.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think we are talking about the same thing. I've noticed that increasing resolution does cause some problems. I use Media Panel for playing my videos.

I do use the Mediapanel as well, it might be imagination but I found it to be the best player regarding playback performance.
Upscaling a smaller source file in image size will worsen the quality massively. Think about how a codec works: upscaling means making the image look "soft" or "washed out". These soft or washed out images are then used by the codec to predict differencies and/or movements between the frames and then this data is used to render the subsequent frames. Since the whole image (being washed out) figuratively looks "all the same" (its just a soup of different unspecific colours) the codec has hardcore problems predicting movements between the single frames. Thus the prediction is bad, based on an already bad image, multiplies the bad effect onto every subsequent frame.

Display Driver Assist - Does it improve video ?
This is an interesting thread, please let me add my experience of converting and watching video on my Xperia.
Firstly this program DVD Catalyst won the top award for converting DVD to almost any format to any resolution, any bitrate.
Here is the URL : http://www.pocketdvd.ca/products/dvd catalyst 3.html
Here is the URL for SmartPhone Awards list for all the best in catagory software for video coversion for Pocket PC 2008.
http://www.smartphonemag.com/cms/awards/2008/winners_ppc_apps#CatDVD_Converters
If you download the trial of DVD Catalyst you can have 15 days of free fully functional DVD conversions, thats enough to convert almost anybodies collection. I do intend to buy this when I get round to it.
I experimineted with different formats and resolutions and here were my conclusions.
Format - Sony Media Panel seems to like the 3gp format best ( subjective )
Resolution - I use the maximum 800 X 480
Bitrate - 750 kbps though 500 is still very good.
Audio 128 kbps Stereo
All these options can easily be changed in the converter, you can set your PC Processor prioirty to high ( recommended) or highest if you not doing anything else and a complete 2 hour DVD, with high prioirty for processor will be converted and ready for copying to your X1 in about 35 - 40 mins.
Also I found my Xperia settings had an impact on video playback quality, none more so than Glyph cache, which I now have at 128kb.
I am currently experimenting with the " Display driver preloader " you can find on the thread by ell82...http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462346
In it he uses this file, libgles_cl.dll, copied into the windows directory, to add hardware acceleration to some 3D games. This as close as we have come so far in adding hardware acceleration across the board to all programs on the X1, obviously this needs some testing and benchmarking, something this thread is very good at.
This file does not replace any windows files, you can add it to WINDOWS folder and remove it at will, it doesn't hurt, over right or harm anything.
Im using it on and off, id like to see some hard data on it, it may not be the magic bullet we have all been waiting for, but it could be a move in the right direction.
View attachment 139876

Mark A Cilenti said:
Format - Sony Media Panel seems to like the 3gp format best ( subjective )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3GP is not a format, its only a container. The content, video wise, is either SP, ASP or AVC video (mostly, accepts a wide range of codecs though) and audio is AMR or AAC. In fact you don't follow the standard at all, your files are NOT 3GP COMPILANT. Since 3GP is just a simplified version of the MP4 container anyway, of which the latter is more versatile regarding possible content and resolution restrictions, I would definitely abandon 3GP and go for MP4. Of course with AVC video and a flavor of AAC audio.

Maybe noob question (I haven't got an sdhcmicro card so cannot test myself):
On my hx2790 tcpmp (ver 0.72, last version) always worked a treat on default 700-1500mb divx and xvids. You loaded lots of movies on a 8gb card and opened them with tcpmp. Some movies required AC3 sound and there was a plug in for that too. The movies played back 100% flawlessly.
Can we not just do this in the X1?

gold333 said:
Can we not just do this in the X1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, not yet.

700mb dvd rips run fine in coreplayer, but for fast scenes it lags like hell

Here's what I do:
Open PocketDivXEncoder
Select the 'HD TV' option
Resize to 400xABC (maintain aspect ratio)
Video quality = 70
Audio = max
Coreplayer runs it flawlessly and looks great, even fast scenes.
Watched the first season of both Burn Notice and Merlin with no issues in action packed scenes

totally agreed with coreplayer ! really better than movie player in the XMB Panel !!!! you can find my thread here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3093597#post3093597
Don't know why it is so slow with the XMB Panel & so better in core player !
Core Player : reverserd enginered the chipset.... really difficult thing & to be really/fully optimized but it works better than the std XMB movie player !!!! (written by who ? sony developers or htc ? or together ?, they should buy corecodec ! )

dadeadman said:
700mb dvd rips run fine in coreplayer, but for fast scenes it lags like hell
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But tcpmp 0.72 doesn't? Tcpmp was the ultimate micro footprint everything player for mobile devices.

"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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.

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
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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.
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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.