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iPod TECHNICAL: HQ video for iPod w/sample vid
- Thread starter snowmoon
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assuming it is a pixel amount issue, I am ripping a video that is 720x304. that will give me 218,880 pixels. the max would be 480x480=230,400 pixels. my vid would be 11,520 pixels less than the max. lets see what happens......
I would also try 4:3 at say 540 x XXX. It's a weird resolution, but I think the iPod would handle it just as well as 480 x XXX.
If it's exactly 4:3, then it would be about 540 x 405, which is just under the number of pixels of 480 x 480.
If it's exactly 4:3, then it would be about 540 x 405, which is just under the number of pixels of 480 x 480.
EUREKA!!! its definately a pixel amount. my 720x304 video is uploading as we speak. that is full DVD resolution!!! (for at least the dvd im using. wont say which one but i can say it rhymes with schlyncredibles) I think im going to cry. will play it on the tv when i get home to see the tv results. I can say it looks georgeous on my computer screen. 
freeny said:EUREKA!!! its definately a pixel amount. my 720x304 video is uploading as we speak. that is full DVD resolution!!! (for at least the dvd im using. wont say which one but i can say it rhymes with schlyncredibles) I think im going to cry. will play it on the tv when i get home to see the tv results. I can say it looks georgeous on my computer screen.
Pretty sweet, huh!
I don't know too much about aspect ratios, other than that TV is more square than motion pictures.
I guess DVD's come in a couple of different aspect ratios...we can figure out the optimal setting based on aspect ratio. The bitrate won't change since we're basically adjusting the resolution so it doesn't go over 480x480 pixels.
Let us know how the 720 x 304 works on the iPod too. 640 x XXX is probably easy to scale down since its exactly 2x (or 4x) 320 x XXX. So curious if other resolutions downscale just as well.
480 x 480 = 1:1 ratio = 230400 pixels
640 x 360 = 1.78:1 (16:9 HD) ratio = 230400 pixels
653 x 352 = 1.85:1 (average Hollywood movie) = 229856 pixels
736 x 313 = 2.35:1 ("extra widescreen" movies) = 230368 pixels
640 x 360 = 1.78:1 (16:9 HD) ratio = 230400 pixels
653 x 352 = 1.85:1 (average Hollywood movie) = 229856 pixels
736 x 313 = 2.35:1 ("extra widescreen" movies) = 230368 pixels
the 720x304 plays pretty good on the ipod screen. occasional line here and there but nothing too distracting. on the tv, WOW!! the sound, A+. the wideo, an A. the only reason I didnt give an A+ is that there seems to be a tiny degrade in the contrast but this may be my settings.
aside from the ratio thats now been solved, what bitrate is working best? im setting at 1100kbps. aside from my stated contrast issue Im happy with it. would a higher bitrate solve this or would i need to use a filter? i use handbrake on the computer at work. its a new g5 and can rip a full video in about an hour or so. im at home now and only have an old titanium that takes 12 hours to do the same so im gonna have to hand this over to someone with more power until monday....
freeny said:
You are doing 2-pass, right? I don't know enough about compression codecs to give any other tips. I bet if contrast is inherently low in the TV out signal, that could be corrected.
You can go up to 2.5 Mbpps (I think you are using 1100 kbps, not kBps.) Is your video as good as the OP's?
actually the video was only one pass since i was crunched for time and only was interested in the image ratio. I will have to wait until monday to do a two pass. it does look fantastic on the computer moniter so perhaps it is just my tv. so an A+ it is!! very very happymadmaxmedia said:
Ok, here we go again. I chose "The Fifth Element" since I actually don't own a copy of the matrix ( I know, shocking ).
# AviSynth script
LoadPlugin("c:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\DGDecode.dll")
video = MPEG2Source("C:\DVD_VIDEO\VIDEO_TS\tfe.d2v")
audio = WavSource("C:\DVD_VIDEO\VIDEO_TS\tfe T01 3_2ch 448Kbps 48KHz.wav")
AudioDub(video, audio)
AssumeFPS(24,1, true)
SSRC(44100)
Crop(0,60,0,-62)
ConvertToYUY2()
SpatialSoften(1,1,4)
TemporalSoften(1,4,4,10,2)
ConvertToRGB()
BilinearResize(640,272)
SelectRangeEvery(15000,300,1500)
#
Pass 1
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -qscale 2 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 1 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass1.mov
The result here is 35mb... 14.1MB/minute... this is actually iPod compliant and almost identical to the original.
Pass 2 - 1100 kbits
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -b 1100 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -maxrate 2350 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 2 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass2-1100.mov
http://u2.rit.albany.edu/~ew2193/tfe-pass2-1100.mov ( 23.3MB .mov 9.32MB/min ) - excellent
Pass 3 - 900 kbits
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -b 900 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -maxrate 2350 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 2 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass2-900.mov
http://u2.rit.albany.edu/~ew2193/tfe-pass2-900.mov ( 19.6MB .mov 7.84MB/min ) - ok
# AviSynth script
LoadPlugin("c:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\DGDecode.dll")
video = MPEG2Source("C:\DVD_VIDEO\VIDEO_TS\tfe.d2v")
audio = WavSource("C:\DVD_VIDEO\VIDEO_TS\tfe T01 3_2ch 448Kbps 48KHz.wav")
AudioDub(video, audio)
AssumeFPS(24,1, true)
SSRC(44100)
Crop(0,60,0,-62)
ConvertToYUY2()
SpatialSoften(1,1,4)
TemporalSoften(1,4,4,10,2)
ConvertToRGB()
BilinearResize(640,272)
SelectRangeEvery(15000,300,1500)
#
Pass 1
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -qscale 2 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 1 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass1.mov
The result here is 35mb... 14.1MB/minute... this is actually iPod compliant and almost identical to the original.
Pass 2 - 1100 kbits
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -b 1100 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -maxrate 2350 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 2 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass2-1100.mov
http://u2.rit.albany.edu/~ew2193/tfe-pass2-1100.mov ( 23.3MB .mov 9.32MB/min ) - excellent
Pass 3 - 900 kbits
C:\Program Files\pspvideo9\apps>ffmpeg -i "C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\My Documents\My Videos\tfe.avs" -r 24 -vcodec xvid -bitexact -4mv -vprofile SP -b 900 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -maxrate 2350 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300 -pass 2 -passlogfile tfe-sample -f mov tfe-pass2-900.mov
http://u2.rit.albany.edu/~ew2193/tfe-pass2-900.mov ( 19.6MB .mov 7.84MB/min ) - ok
Some DVDs don't seem to work in Handbrake. I get 'No valid title'...is there another option for ripping these?
I've tried using Mac the Ripper, then used ffmepgx to convert to vob file into mp4 mpeg. When I went to play it, Quicktime pops up saying, "Couldn't open the file because an invalid sample description was found in the movie"
Any ideas?
I've tried using Mac the Ripper, then used ffmepgx to convert to vob file into mp4 mpeg. When I went to play it, Quicktime pops up saying, "Couldn't open the file because an invalid sample description was found in the movie"
Any ideas?
It might be your computer. I get the same thing on my old 600mhz titanium, but ill take it to work and pop it in the new g5 and it works fine. what computer you using?Sky Blue said:
Okay, I haven't looked at identical material encoded at different resolutions, but I am pretty positive that higher resolution MPEG4 video is output to the TV at higher resolution. The samples by snowman (as well as some of my own encodes) look sharper than the episode of Lost I bought.
Others have also echoed these findings, I don't know anyone who has stated that the TV out was locked to 320 x 240 based on actual viewing.
So it looks like for ripping DVD's, higher resolution MPEG4 will be the way to go. The encodes by snowman look excellent, I would say compression artifacts are more noticeable than any lack of resolution. For a 60GB iPod, it might be worth encoding at even higher bitrate, say 1.5 to 1.8 Mbps for really nice results.
That would result in 11 to 13MB per minute, or up to 1.6GB for a 2-hour movie. I would use this for certain favorites that you want on your iPod. Otherwise for regular stuff I think about 1.2 Mbps (or 10MB per minute) is more than adequate.
Others have also echoed these findings, I don't know anyone who has stated that the TV out was locked to 320 x 240 based on actual viewing.
So it looks like for ripping DVD's, higher resolution MPEG4 will be the way to go. The encodes by snowman look excellent, I would say compression artifacts are more noticeable than any lack of resolution. For a 60GB iPod, it might be worth encoding at even higher bitrate, say 1.5 to 1.8 Mbps for really nice results.
That would result in 11 to 13MB per minute, or up to 1.6GB for a 2-hour movie. I would use this for certain favorites that you want on your iPod. Otherwise for regular stuff I think about 1.2 Mbps (or 10MB per minute) is more than adequate.
I have been following this thread, and have been trying to get your ffmpeg line to work. Granted this is on linux, but I compiled the latest CVS of ffmpeg, and XVID, yet it returns:
According to the ffmpeg man pages:
If I make the changes sugested in the faq, then other XVID options cause it to fail. Any hints on getting this line to work elsewhere?
thornrag said:
I would like to state for the record that your post is biligerent and completly without merit. If your post was meant as a satire of the kids in the hall bravo, otherwise you are being a jerk and if you continue with this type of posting you won't last long here.
Step up and show your stuff... if you think you can do better, please do. The conversion to RGB serves a SPECIFIC PURPOSE to reduce chroma aliasing in the low resolution pR and pB channels. The video is scaled only ONCE through the entire chain ( output may cause a scale, but as far as I can tell it does not ). I CROP, to improve viewability on the iPod, then scale once to a final output video. The filters are to improve compressability but do not compromise the basic video quality at the target bitrate.
A round of applause for snowmoon. I have officially added you to my buddies list.snowmoon said:
thornrag is a newbe as you can expect.
snowmoon said:
Yeah, that post was confusing (about scaling and whatever)...
Do you think this bug can be fixed in firmware update? I would assume so.
Can you explain a little more about it, such as how the bug manifests itself?
Thanks, Steve
madmaxmedia said:
The bug is that if you have a quicktime video that states it's output resolution is different than it's native ( ie 480x480 video that wants to be played back at 640x480/4:3 or 852x480/16:9 ). I can get ffmpeg to create .mov files that ate 480x480 and properly play back in quicktime, but play back as SQUARE ( black border left and right ) on the iPod.
In thory this can be fixed with a firmware update... it's also possible that this is an encoding bug, but I generally doubt it becuase it works under quicktime player and VLC just not on the iPod. I have gotten reports that QTPro CAN do "the right thing" and encode 480x480 non square resoltions that playback on the iPod so I know it's possible.
So if you have a video that looks correct on the computer, but plays back squished in one or more directions... you have encountered the bug.
wififun said:
Hmmm... stumped on your main question, but I would like to point out some other areas that might cause you problems. My input video has been specifically re-jigged to 24fps and by forcing it you will probably end up with audio sync issues.
I don't think you will need the -vtage option since you are not outputting an .avi file. This may be why it's complaining.. try without the -vtag and see what happens.
well I went back and forth with this, and discovered that by default ffmpeg is not compiled with xvid and faac enabled. The addition of "--enable-xvid --enable-faac --enable-gpl" seems to have fixed these first parts. I do not know where -vprofile comes from to make that switch work, but so far this seems to be working.
Weird. iTunes doesn't want to sync this file any more after months of keeping it on my iPod it says that it's not supported. I haven't updated the iPod's firmware, but did move to iTunes 6.0.2 recently.snowmoon said:
B