Ideal Video Format?

[SwordOfWar]

SUPER is nice for ease of use and presets for common devices. I doubt it will have settings for each specific phone, though. While being easy to use, it doesn't offer as much customizable settings and best converting quality.

H.263/H.264 should be the best video codec if thats supported on the phone.

Well the whole point of codecs are to get the best quality with the lowest size.

There are tons and tons of conversion programs out there though, and they can have some complicated settings for someone looking for top-notch converting quality.

You will probably be happy with something thats just easy to use.

DoubleTwist is suppose to convert media for android phones, though I have no idea if that works on a mac.

 

[pipcorona]

When I was using h.264 I was having an issue where I would get sound and no video. I started using the MPEG4 codecs and now my videos work and look great. Here are some screenshots of my settings in handbrake.

Picture Settings
Video
Audio & Subtitles

 

[hazydave]

I know that H264 is of much better quality, but in all honesty; has anyone noticed that much of a difference in that format vs MP4 on the playback of our phones?

Try not to mix up concepts here. MP4 generally means the MPEG-4 container, which, like Quicktime (.mov) or AVI, can technically have anything inside of it. The usual mix is H.264 (eg, MPEG-4 part 10 video) and AAC audio. But it's totally possible to put H.263 or most any other video type in there (H.263, also called MPEG-4 part 2, is completely legal as far as the MPEG-4 specs go; other video types might weird out your video player, since they're possible but unexpected).

H.264, aka AVC, aka MPEG part 10, offers the best coding efficiency of any video CODEC in common use. That's not really the same thing as "quality", but rather, quality per bit, or however else you'd care to look at it. An AVC video at 1000kb/s should look better than an MPEG-4 ASP (Advanced Simple Profile, part of MPEG-4 part 2) video at the same bitrate. Go to a higher bitrate on the ASP video, and you can get the same quality as with the AVC video.

AVC is more complex to decode, but it's not a single thing, either... there are different profiles and levels. AVC Base profile is the simplest... this definitely works on the DROID, and it's also the format used for the iPhone/iPod. AVC Main adds a few additional complexities... this is the format used by most high-definition camcorders. AVC High adds some additional features.. you find this on Blu-Ray and some of the newer HD camcorders. My guess, on those MP4 files that play audio but not video, is that you're encoding in a profile not supported on the DROID.

The one problem I had with the current video player is that it seems to try to fill the screen, regardless of the MP4 file's stated pixel aspect ratio. So if I encode a widescreen DVD at 720x480, it gets stretched to full screen. That's actually ok, given the 16:9 screen. But say it's a 2.35:1 film, and I encode in 720x386 or some-such (eg, cut off the black bar, to save space or increase quality). In this case, it still fills the DROID screen, even though it should not scale vertically at all. If I instead encode to 848/856x386, it looks correct.. but I have wasted some encoding efficiency here, having to do the scaling myself.

 

[JTAC]

I used handbrake with ipod settings but selected mp4 format and set the resolution manually at 854x480 and the audio bitrate at 1000 kbps as I was having unsycing with audio/video. now when I let the video play the sound if fine but if I pause or skip it unsyncs. Then I tried dvd catalsyt on apple iphone (HQ) settings and it worked great no unsyncing when I skip around and it fills the whole screen and is really crisp!

Going to give DVD Catalyst a try. What did you select to fill the whole screen on this program?

 

[tc1]

I used handbrake with ipod settings but selected mp4 format and set the resolution manually at 854x480 and the audio bitrate at 1000 kbps as I was having unsycing with audio/video. now when I let the video play the sound if fine but if I pause or skip it unsyncs. Then I tried dvd catalsyt on apple iphone (HQ) settings and it worked great no unsyncing when I skip around and it fills the whole screen and is really crisp!

Going to give DVD Catalyst a try. What did you select to fill the whole screen on this program?

" No cropping: leave the resulting video as is.
Remove black bars from file: If you preview a selection, and it shows black bars on top and bottom (called padding, which is quite common on widescreen DVDs) this setting will cut that off automatically. This does not make a movie full screen on your device, but does improve quality.
Remove black bars from device: This setting removes the black bars from the file (as above) but cuts off parts of the sides of the movie to make it appear full screen on your device.
(As of DVD Catalyst 3.6.0.0)
Fullscreen stretch: The black borders are removed from the file, and the movie is stretched to fill the screen. Nothing is cut off of the movie, but depending on the resolution, the movie might appear distorted.
Add black bars to fit resolution: Removes the black bars from the file, then scales the video to the set resolution (without distortion) and then adds black padding (if needed) to fill the entire screen. Used for 4x3 > 16x9 conversion."


From the DVD Catalyst 3 user guide.

 

[iunknown]

So the best video I've ripped to date is through replay media catcher using ipod high quality setting. (mpeg4, 24fps, 640x 480). I haven't had results as good in handbrake with settings recommended by others. The H.264 option in handbrake doesn't play video on my droid. Don't know much about video, but if my source file is bigger than 640, should I increase my bitrate but reduce the size to 640 even though the droid plays at 854? What I'm trying to say is, I'd rather have a quality video, but if the droid has to enlarge it, maybe it will look fine since the screen is so small anyways? Is there a agreed apon best way to set things?
The rip was a star trek movie, but at 1500 bitrate you still see squares in the blacks. I tried to rip it with replay media catcher, but it would not rip. But I was able to rip Surrogates, and its my best rip to date.

 

[dean.collins]

I tried encodehd but it caused audio errors, did anyone else have issues.

 

[Natolx]

I downloaded an MP4 rip of a Bluray and managed to get everything working properly at 848x480.

I chose Ipod touch settings, and changed the resolution in handbrake

The sound didn't process because it was originally 5.1 AAC but I used Yamb to extract the sound from the original, and the video from the resized MP4. Then I used mediacoder to reduce the original audio file to mpeg 4 stereo and recombined with yamb. Voila, ridiculously pretty HD video on the droid

 

[valnar]

Picked this up on another forum...

"Even so, a video that's 480 tall will be as large as possible for the Droid screen.
If you're trying to force every video to be full screen, you might be distorting the picture.
Or it's possible that when forcing full screen you're chopping off part of the picture vertically, to force it to fit in 848-854 pixels..
which isn't optimal either. Only in the extreme cases would the video be wider than 480px would allow and you would instead choose to fill the horizontal.
These are the proper dimensions for various source files:

DVD 4:3(they're easy)
720x480=720x480

TV at 720p or 1080i/p
1280x720=853x480
1920x1080=853x480

Film Aspect Ratios
16:9=853x480
1.85:1=853x461
2.35:1=853x363"

I haven't tried it yet, but.....are you saying the Droid does not scale properly or fill in the black borders to maintain AR correctly? So are you recommending "hard coding" the aspect to fit the Droid's 854x480 screen, or will it pick up any video's AR correctly?

 

[JhankG]

Since I am using a Mac, handbrake is one of my only free options (that I'm aware of). Anyone willing to give me a screenshot or their exact settings using handbrake? How can I ensure that I get the best quality and don't get the black bars?

 

[droidzoid]

I've been monkeying around with this. So I rip my Saving Private Ryan (SPR) DVD using dvddecrptyer into 1 VOB file. Then I use Super C to encode in mp4 format (using H.264) I set the Video Scale to 854x480, the bit rate to about 1500, and the audio to 128kbps. The MPEG2 bit rate is just under 5k and the audio is 192kbps. its encoding as i type this.

I also downloaded the latest version of Act1 as it now supports the Droids screen resolution.

I tried a sample of this on 1 chapter and it filled the screen completely, audio sounded good, no jerkiness. THis was the 1st chapter in SPR so its action packed. I'll report back with the full monte.

Tried handbrake - It didn't work too well.

UPDATE 1 :

I let Super C crank on it overnight - it choked. could be numerous things so says Super C. I was working on my laptop during the encoding process. Tonight I'll let it run stand alone. Could also be a memory problem.

UPDATE 2 :

I let Super C crank on it overnight again. - it choked.

update 3 : I bought DVD Catalyst. Works great. $10 well spent. I use the Droid preset and modify it for 848x480 video. Next release will be 854x480. It's faster than Super C to boot.!

Building up my library.

 

[JhankG]

I have a Family Guy episode that I am trying to convert for the Droid. The original file is 512x384. I am assuming that I can't go any bigger than that for the conversion, so does this mean I will have the black bars? Is there any way around this?

 

[JTAC]

I have switched from HandBrake to DVD Catalyst. The main reason why is because when I would skip around the movie with Handbrake, the audio would become unsynced momentarily. Now that I have Catalyst I don't notice that. But I have run into one roadblock with Catalyst. How do I get the movie to appear in full screen mode. I have the Verizon Droid preset at 848x480 and have tried to remove bars from file, device, even crop them out.....each and every single time I get the horizontal black bars or part of the movie missing.


Correction...I have switched back to HandBrake (never switched back and forth so many times). The main reason is because I want to utilize the full screen on the Droid. Sure movies look great in their native 16:9 format, but after awhile the black bars on top and bottom start to annoy me. I managed to get ful screen on the Droid using DVD Catalyst 3, but it was at the sacrifice of chopping the picture off during playback. I like that Catalyst allows you to skip back and forth in a movie and there is little to no lag time or un-syncing of the audio.

After playing around with HandBrake, here are my new settings.

iPod Legacy preset
Crop: Automatic
Size: 848x480
Video: MP4
Constant Quality: 100%
Audio: Stereo / 48 KHZ / 160 KBPS

By far the best or my most favorite settings I have done.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZTFNRMVL

 

[valnar]

Black bars will happen if the AR of the movie is not exactly 1.77 : 1. What movie are you converting?

 

[Utzz]

One thing I've found that helped with the audio/video becoming unsynced was ripping the DVD to my hard drive first (I used DVD Decrypter and ripped only the main movie and 5.1 audio streams) and then used Handbrake. It was also nicer this way as I could que up movies and then go to sleep.

Handbrake settings:
iPhone & iPod Touch preset with "width" set to 720 and "height" left blank. That's it. You can try playing around with the Constant Quality setting, but 59% (the default) seems to be a sweet spot. The program suggests that "70% is fine for most users" - that setting will render a movie unplayable on the Droid. At no point did FFmpeg produce a better picture than h.264, but h.264 was also slower in the encoding process.

On widescreen movies like Sin City and Watchmen, the entire screen is filled.

On fullscreen movies like Ninja Scroll, black bars appear on the side but not on top.