Database Users

Video playback

Hi,
I've started to look into DVD conversion for WM5 and with the number of people here with the same device I am curious to know what results others have found to be the optimum settings for video compression and playback.
I guess the questions I would like answered are;
- what video player software do you use on your Universal?
- what software have you used to convert DVD to WM5
- what settings have you found to provide the best results? (frame rate, bit rate, cropping, display size, etc)
- did you use any hacks to improve the playback (registry hacks or eliminated software etc).
Regards
Michael

i'm using WM Encoder... it works perfectly... maybe u can try it out...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&DisplayLang=en

Hi,
So what settings have you found work best with this media encoder?
Michael

Select Pocket PC widescreen (CBR) for video and CD Quality (CBR) for audio, check 259kbps and you're good to go...
works for me... hope it will for you...
Cheers...

Hi,
But is that the best resolution the Universal can do?
Michael

you can try encode with better resolution, but it will appear the same, some will be worst unless u have a big screen... cos big resolution medias will automatically resize to fit in your media player and it'll take up more space...

Will this play in full screen in WM10?

Full screen mode... Select Pocket PC widescreen (CBR) for video and CD Quality (CBR) for audio, check 259kbps

nonentity said:
i'm using WM Encoder...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i havent had any luck with this... i think its because i dont have a DVD decoder for my Windows Media Player (on my PC)
my DVD drive came with a copy of InterVideo WinDVD, which plays DVDs fine - but Windows Media Player doesnt recognise DVDs (the menu Play -> DVD... is greyed out)
does anyone know of:
- free (or cheap?) decoders for WMP that would get WM Encoder to work? or
- an alternative encoder that comes with its own decoder?
thanks!

dalelane, I don't use WM encoder myself, (I'm a VirtualDub man) but if you want a very comprehensive set of codecs do a quick Google search for the "K-Lite Codec Pack" or the "Ace Mega Codec Pack". Both are free, and if you still can't use WM Encoder after you've installed those codecs, then it's obviously not meant to be...

Video Playback
Can anyone advise a way of increasing the size of video playback in so called full screen mode to actually fill the screen?

You've got two options:
1) Encode it in a resolution that fills the screen, i.e. not 320x240 but 640x480. The problem with this is that it will probably not play smoothly.
2) Use a decent media player that can resize a 320x240 video to fill the screen like TCMPMP. (Free)
You'll find a link to download TCMPMP elsewhere on the forum. I've tried it and it works a treat.
All this info is available elsewhere of the forum if you do a bit of searching.

Movies I've ripped for my Dell Axim X50v with fairusewizard light and the default 2-pass XVID settings file size 700MB play fine on My JasJar using TCPMP. The only setting I change in Fairuse is the resolution. I make it as close to 640x480 as possible from the list of resolution it gives you.

Rip DVD to view on Magician

Can anyone give me simple instructions as to how to rip a DVD so i can watch it on my Magician.
i have managed to rip DVD to MP4 and can view in TCMP? but with no sound and can run smart movie but can't work out how to go from DVD to the required avi???
any ideas please...

I use Pocket DVD Studio to do that...no messing around..specify size you would like and click convert. No temp file needed....it rips DVD on the go

Yep,
Works fine

Have you tried the free PocketDivXEncoder? You can find it at http://divx.ppccool.com
I have been using it for a while and found that it gives pretty good compression and quality. The conversion is quite fast too.

I've heard a lot of good recommendations from a lot of ppl in various forums...will try it myself

InterVideo WinDVD
I have been using WinDVD Creator (it came with the video encoder card) and it makes a god job of creating DivX files which I can use on the Jam.

Help with videos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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Click to collapse
well there are really great video players like TCPMP and CorePlayer with which i have to never convert any video... just dran ang drop it from computer to SD and it runs flawlwssly... except rmv... which WMP can play after tweaking but can not fast forwar... except that no problems at all not size nor video format...
Cheers
Rajiv