Video conversion tools and settings?

[Touche']

The HTC Encoder over at XDA takes approximately 3 hours to convert a 700mb .avi file...and that's only when it doesn't freeze 2/3 of the way through. All I want to do is take down the 700mb AVIs to about 350-400mbs. I have yet to find a program that can do this for TP2. I wish PocketDivXEncoder worked for TP2.

[dishe]

Originally Posted by Touche'

The HTC Encoder over at XDA takes approximately 3 hours to convert a 700mb .avi file...and that's only when it doesn't freeze 2/3 of the way through. All I want to do is take down the 700mb AVIs to about 350-400mbs. I have yet to find a program that can do this for TP2. I wish PocketDivXEncoder worked for TP2.

That's weird, I never had it freeze on me half way through... It DOES take a while, though. But that's because it's using h.264, which is already computationally expensive, and underneath the scenes its using FFMpeg (or maybe it was mencoder?), which is open source and currently only supports single threading. That means if you have dual cores, its only using one at a time.

PocketDivx also used single core threading, however divx is much less overhead to compress. The tradeoff, however, is lower quality/filesize ratio. Not to mention H.264 with the hardware accelerated playback actually plays smoother on our phones than divx with a non-accelerated player (coreplayer, tcpmp, etc).

You don't have to use the free tool, there are plenty of ways to write to h.264, including quicktime pro, Adobe premiere, Sony Vegas, etc... they use more efficient encoders capable of using multiple cores (SCREAMS on my quad core @ work), but they're not free. I happen to work in video content creation so I have a selection of tools at my disposal... Hard to beat that free tool at XDA, and I would still recommend it over anything else.

[eyepoker]

how do you feel about VDub? I'm capturing movies - just started yesterday - h264, 16:9, not sure of res though i think its around 640 in width at least (as i said i just started yesterday) - 2 hour video is about i think 700mb. Will try to see how it runs on the TP2 when i get home this evening.

Anyway, have you tried VDub, and if so, i suppose i should try to mimic the settings that were mentioned above where possible? Else any advice on that particular application. Will of course look at the apps that were mentioned.

[amw1972]

I'm gonna give any video converter a bump here...since I have been using it for the past couple of years. The free version gives you enough "freedom" to customize the files you want to convert. .mp4, .avi, etc...The PRO version gives you device profiles from iPhone/iPods, to Zune, to PS3, to WinMo...

I was playing with the settings last night to convert some videos to play flawlessly on HTC Album. I have experienced issues with Coreplayer pixelating/lagging/video and audio not matching; also had issues with the "newest" TCPMP build not rendering properly.

Have not tried to use WMP.

[parousia15]

I use the HTC video converter: http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/htc/.
The program itself has a step-by-step instructions. I don't even mess with the settings and the mp4s work great. Downside, the files take up a lot of memory. Perhaps there are settings to chagne that, but I don't know what they are.

[dalastone]

anyone having issues with audio playback since the sprint 6.5 update?? ahy fixes? seems some of the movies/vids that worked perfectly on 6.1 now refuse to output any sound thru speaker/wired headset...but WILL play audio over BT. yet some play fine. they were all ripped/encoded the same way.

[nrfitchett4]

well, i'm using spb video converter. once again, not free, but I'm converting to avi and not having any trouble playing on my divx player.

[captblaze]

if you have a newer nvidia video card in your computer i suggest badaboom. it uses the cuda function on the video card to lower the encoding time significantly. i have a 280gt (Q9550 cpu) in my rig and i can take the average dvd to mp4 in about 14 minutes. the software also has profiles for iphone / zune / mediacenter, so you have some presets. you can also customize the audio and video as you see fit.

the drawbacks of badaboom are few. hasnt been updated in a while, you can only encode to mp4 / not free

[tpaxadpom]

my favorite application for converting, cropping, resizing, editing is avidemux 2.5 (free). You can copy or reincode audio and video separetely. It's too bad album player on TP2 doesn't support videos with mp3 sound as quite a few of them would play right off the bat.
For video format use mpeg4-ASP (Xvid). You can do 2 pass or single pass, constant bit rate, average bit rate, basically everything you can dream of.