Best Movie Format / Codec
 

Hi I am still waiting for my N900 (it should finaly be sold in Switzerland by the end of this month)

But I have been following every development. Funny when you hear people discoussing how 1.1 effects the phone when you are still waiting for yours since October, November, December, Janaury..

Here comes my question.

I do want to put some of my favorite DVDs on the phone. I have a whole suite www.avs4you.com that has lots tools in it to convert Videos.

There is one "Video to go" and one "Video Converter" with lots of possibilities. I was wondering if any of you can tell me what the best format, codec, size would be to convert to.

Here are some options I could choose

Format AVI,
MPEG-4 XviD (Bitrate 101 or any other)
Framrate (12,15, 20, 24, 25, 40)
Size 720 x 480, or 800 x 448)

or (only differences are noted)

WMV but only to 640 x 480 pixle

or

MP4 (ISO)
MPEG-4

or
MP4 (Sony PS)
H.264
MPEG-4

or
MP4 (iPod)

So I guess it comes down to

- What is the right format (avi, MP4, MOV, WMV)
- Size (I guess closest to 800 x 480 would be the goal)
- Framerate
- Bitrate

Do not understand anything of all this formats.

Regards Markus

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

If only playing back on a small display like the N900, I suggest that playback at native res is overkill due to the size of the screen. I use Handbrake.

1. MP4 /H264
2. 550 vbr / double pass (need this to get rid of motion blockies)
3. 96kb audio
4. Most vids are done at 536X300 (depends on aspect of video)
5. 23.96 fps

Advantages are more vids will fit on your card and less cpu power to play them back.

If you also plan on playing the vids back on a bigger display, native resolution (or the max of the original file) is best.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

The container should be mp4 using x264 for video and aac for audio. The easiest is to use handbrake with the baseline3.0 preset which you can download on the maemo video encoding wiki. You can also use tablet-encode. Despite being commandline with an optional gui, it might be the easiest once you learn the syntax of it.

EDIT: To point you in the starting direction:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Video_encoding

Again tablet-encode is easy but it uses mp4v which doesn't compress as efficiently but should produce a properly scaled/cropped vid that is compliant with the n900 mplayer specs.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

To each his own. I have very good eyesight and years in computing nudge me with every distortion. I encode at 800x480, h.264 or divx. I usually go with 1024 kbps, but I can and do go higher with scenes that require absolute clarity, like animation. (h.264 requires less bitrate). MP4.

It's less than obvious WHAT is being distorted, but I did notice the *wow* factor at 2500 KBPS versus 1024. I saw non-technical people actually say *wow*. It's a very nice screen and pushing it is a good idea for me.

Oh, and, I limited at 2500kbps because at 3000 and above the spikes in instant bitrate push it over the card max speed and it stutters when first launched. Second open is fine, but you lose the crowd. :)

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

For sure the best codecs to use are H264 for video and AAC for audio.

Settings are preference between quality & file size.

I like 1000kb/s video and 96kb/s audio

video size I keep 800px wide or less and crop off the black borders.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

I don't know anything about you all but mine really go all the way with whatever device designed for ..!
Here what I've used : Aimersoft video converter to MPEG-4
Video size :800X480
Video bit rate : 1500kp
Frame Rate : 29.95
Audio code AAC : 48000
Audio bit rate : 160k
they come out and look like ..blu ray ..! nice and crystal clean

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

If you have a high-quality source with nice shades, like animation, could you try 2400 kbps on same settings and see if you can tell the difference? Maybe it's just me.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

Up in the 2000+ range for me can induce lag and with the H264 codec being so efficient and the screen so small i cant see a difference of quality really between a medium and insane bitrate encoding, definitly not one enough to make up for the space lost.

Its not just the bitrate that will matter here, your filters and stuff matter too. Like I run a denoise filter via avisynth, I crop off black borders so I have a lot less video (so in the case of joesple who uses 800x480 his 1500kbs could actually be lower quality than my 1000kb/s 800x300 just because he is encoding black space for no reason unless his video did not have black bars...)

I wouldnt even worry about uppinng settings too much if you plan to use the TV out since its just composite connections, if it was some kind of HD connection then I would start to go into the 1500kb/s + range.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

I've tested up to 800x434 @ 5500kbps (yes, 5.5Mbps) for xvid in an avi container and it played smooth. Tried 6000kbps and it became choppy. This is using mplayer btw.

Re: Best Movie Format / Codec
 

Anyone have any max variable tested for X264? I tried that codec at DVD max res and it wouldn't run at all.