[Q] Batch re-encoding videos for the Transformer - Eee Pad Transformer Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

OK, so I've accepted that really to get the best performance out of my shiny new Transformer, I really need to re-encode my library into baseline compatible H264. I've played about with a number of handbrake profiles, but the major issue I am having is that input sources are in multiple bitrates and frame sizes. Handbrake will enforce its own quality settings and this will either mean the output file is far larger than the original or quality will be lost unnecessarily.
Does anyone know of a program that will quickly re-encode files at the original frame size and bitrate, but using a baseline profile?
If not, the only sensible solution would be to stick every file into mediainfo and force the bitrate to something similar. I don't want to have to do this for my entire collection. This takes time. I need to be able to batch convert. Quite annoyed about this to be honest.

MPEG Streamclip?
If not I'd suggest looking for an acceptable ffmpeg script or play around with that. winFF might also be of use.
More info- http://www.klopfenstein.net/lorenz.aspx/using-ffmpeg-to-encode-videos-for-the-ipod

No. It will just apply a predefined bitrate or constant quality over the top of whatever file comes in. High bitrate files will be chopped down and lower ones will become unnecessarily large with no extra detail.
I need a system that matches the input detail but applies baseline profile. I want to select a whole folder of files and set it off to transcode. I may have SD and HD files in there. There's no one size fits all. It needs to detect the input quality.

ryukent said:
No. It will just apply a predefined bitrate or constant quality over the top of whatever file comes in. High bitrate files will be chopped down and lower ones will become unnecessarily large with no extra detail.
I need a system that matches the input detail but applies baseline profile. I want to select a whole folder of files and set it off to transcode. I may have SD and HD files in there. There's no one size fits all. It needs to detect the input quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The handbrake profile posted here before keeps the same resolution of the source file, the quality gets equalized though.

I think Super will allow you to drag and drop multiple files into a list to convert all to a preset.

Just bumped the thread with the Handbrake setting that work on the tf
LEEDROID GB3.0.1DESIRE HD using XDA PREMIUM

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not looking for a handbrake profile that works with the TF. The issue is that bitrate is becoming standardised.
For example, if I have a low bitrate file and pass it through the handbrake profile, it will re-encode it at a much higher bitrate and create a huge file with no extra detail in the picture quality. Equally if run a lower bitrate profile on my larger file, it will lose me a lot of the quality I originally had.
What I need to do is batch process a folder full of different files and keep them at their original bitrates whilst applying baseline profile. I need to do this unattended so I don't have to mediainfo each file individually as this would take hours.

Related

Ringtone conversion help

Hi all
I have read in another thread that you can use MP4 files as ringtones.
I have a couple of very nifty mp3 extractions from the turkish (kiss) song. When I convert these files using "Easy CD-DA extractor" program to mp4 I am unable to play these files for ringtones.
But when I convert these pesky 65k files into wav, they end up being 2mb!!! Anyone know of a good conversion program?
These files are attached. I think this would be a pretty funky tune (although some others might consider it ...sad) haha
*****WHOOPS.. looks like the firewall at work isnt allowing these files to be uploaded
Using windows sound recorder (sndrec32.exe) you can convert the WAV file:
File->Properties->Convert Now
Change the Format to PCM
Attributes: 11.025 kHz, 8Bit, Mono is about as basic as you would want to go (poor quality, only use for small clips).
This should reduce the size down to about 100Kb or so. You can change the attributes for a better quality but keep the format as PCM. Also note that better attributes mean more memory.
cdex
is pretty good i'm not sure about the xda playing mp4 but it does play wma
also you can make it mono insted of stereo and reduce the samplerate to 11Khz this will also dec the size of your tone
and the loss of quality dont really mean all that much when it's a ring tone anyway since the speaker itself is hardly THX surround quality to begin with and of cause not stereo
thanks to everyone who responded.
Easier yet - if you can get them to wav format, then do so at high quality.
Then simply use Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft if not alreay on your PC), to save them as 96K .wma files.
These can be used straight away on the phone, and take up only around 400-500K for a full 40 second tone/song, in high quality 96K format!
high quality dont matter when played by the tiny mono speaker of the xda
you can use wma better and smaller than wav..
read this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=6425&start=0
Rudegar, I agree with what you are saying, but only to a degree.
Because, like anything in life, whatever you put into something bad, will only but be worse when it comes out.
So using a poor quality tone, to be played through a speaker that is already poor, is just asking for trouble.
Why I suggest using a decent quality tone, is not to have a mozart like outcome. But on the contrary, simply to ensure that the poor speaker doesn't make too much of a dogs dinner of it any more than is necessary.
But I know what you are saying.

Music Compression

Does anyone know of a software that will allow the compression of music files from the device, without having to connect to PC? I have files 3-4 MB a piece, and I would like to get them down to about 1-2 MB, so I can store more music than I have. Thanks in advance.
Wrong section to post in.. but you would have to re-encode your files. The music you speak of is already compressed (mp3s/aac/whatever codec your music is stored in), so what you are asking for (two fold decrease)really is not possible unless you are willing to take a quality hit (by lowering the bitrate), but lets just say re encoding an already compressed format is not a good idea(lowering the bitrate at the same time would be a double wammy), unless you want your music to sound likes its coming from a tin can... Either way you would have to copy to your PC.
I meant lowering the bitrate, still the same enroding all mp3 codec. Ah, I guess I'll just do it before transferring to memory card, but sometimes I download from the mobile browser, and that's an extra step.

Can Windows Phone 7 play Ogg Vorbis files?

Simple question really. I'm guessing that it won't be able to, and that you'll need a different app which won't integrate properly into all areas of the OS. I can't find any info on it though.
Cheers
Audio support
Windows Media® Audio Standard3 (WMA) (.wma); Up to 384 Kbps; constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) up to 48-kHz sample rate;
WMA Pro two channel up to 768 Kbps; CBR and VBR up to 48-kHz
WMA Lossless: two channel up to 768 kbps and 48-kHz
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-LC) (.mp4, .m4a, .m4b); .m4a and .m4b files without FairPlay DRM up to 320 Kbps; CBR and VBR up to 48-kHz
MP3 (.mp3); Up to 320 Kbps; CBR and VBR up to 48-kHz
That's copied from the ZuneHD tech specs. I don't see OGG there, so I don't expect it to be compatible. However they might add it on the long run.
I found a great reply to this over at another site, which I'm probably not allowed to mention or link to, so here's the text:
"There is a managed implementation for mono called csvorbis, it includes a sample which outputs a wav file this didn't need many changes to work with XNA's SoundEffect class. I did a whole track at once, this took a few seconds in the emulator so you may need to stream it using DynamicSoundEffect for better results. The mooncodecs folder has a codec for the desktop version based on csvorbis which may be worth a look aswell."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also this:
"With pain. You would have to port the Vorbis source code to safe, managed C# to decode the Vorbis file. I can think of less painful things, such as the removal of both feet."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure I read that Microsoft will be allowing native code soon, after a request from Nokia, so fingers crossed that they'll implement something. It seems unlikely, so maybe this will fall to XDA developers.
There isn't a current solution yet is there? Maybe via a custom ROM?
Why bother with OGG since .wma and .aac are far superior? .wav is the best but the files are too large.
prohibido_por_la_ley said:
Why bother with OGG since .wma and .aac are far superior? .wav is the best but the files are too large.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please stay on topic, the OP didn't ask which one was better.
Moved to Q&A.

ogg file scanning - does not read artist info

I have some ogg vorbis music files. When the Music folder is scanned it reads in the information properly from mp3 files, but not ogg files. It shows "Unknown Artist". I have checked the tags and the Artist is there. In addition, some programs display the Artist information (from the tag) when playing. But when you go to search by artist, all apps (I have tried several) show "Unknown Artist".
Does anyone know where the media scanning code is located? Maybe I could look at it and see why it isn't handling ogg files.
Thanks.
A fellow Vorbis user!
I have never gotten any ROM to view Vorbis tags - I also had this issue on early Pandigital Novel tablet ROM's, which were later corrected. I already asked VS CS to fix this, but I always assumed that I was the only one who ever called them about this.
I'm not sure if this is kernel or framework based.
Well, I see there is an MediaStore and associated classes and given that multiple music apps seem to be sharing the scanned library, I suspect it is in the Android code, not the Linux kernel. On my Ubuntu there is no problem with ogg files either. So any idea where to find the media scanning code?
Thanks.
Unfortunately I don't know. I usually use an app like Rockbox, which uses its own database.
Deleted duplicate
Yeah, I've noticed this as well, even on my Droid. It's definitely in the android code.
It's tough being a vorbis user...
Hey, just thought I'd chime in if you didn't mind me.
Yeah, I have a huge collection of Ogg Vorbis files on my computer, and my media player software on my laptop does not read tags either (my files were converted from mp3s, I thought maybe the tags were stripped out).
Same thing on my GTablet and my Nexus One, non of my media player software on Android reads the tags either (if they still exist).
In my case, the tags are definitely there - I know because I'm meticulous with adding them. My Cowon S9 sees them, Rhythmbox sees them, but not the music players on this device (except Rockbox).
Want this fixed? Call VS and complain, in all seriousness. I think the guy on the phone almost laughed at me when I told him Vorbis tags were broken. Not exactly high on their priority list.
Btw, transcoding MP3's to Vorbis should be avoided, if at all possible. It's a lossy to lossy transfer, which means that there will be quality loss. Think of the old days of copying a VHS tape to another tape - each generation is inferior to the previous one. If you can, keep your "master" copy as a lossless file like ALAC or FLAC, and from the best source you can find (like a CD). That way, you can make lossy copies from that lossless source to reduce quality losss.
(I'm a big music fan).
roebeet said:
Btw, transcoding MP3's to Vorbis should be avoided, if at all possible. It's a lossy to lossy transfer, which means that there will be quality loss. Think of the old days of copying a VHS tape to another tape - each generation is inferior to the previous one. If you can, keep your "master" copy as a lossless file like ALAC or FLAC, and from the best source you can find (like a CD). That way, you can make lossy copies from that lossless source to reduce quality losss.
(I'm a big music fan).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, well, gotta conserve space somewhere (and I don't have a FLAC converter).
Still, I need space for more music and since OGG helps me to save space a little bit, it's totally worth it for me.
Sorry, but I lose my master copies as soon as the conversion is done. The originals were copies from CDs using other software (as in, straight from the CD audio .cda to .MP3 and then to .OGG, but not always. Sometimes, I go straight to .OGG.).
I put the CDs back in their cases and the temporary file is deleted is what I mean.
I remember VHS tapes!
Wow, I feel old... I wonder if their quality degrades over time?
I'd hate to see what they look like now...

Which Video Player and Encoding methods do you use

Hi all
Just thought i would share my findings.
I am using MX Video Player as my video player.
I use Mizzu Movies as the front end for it - it really is very very nice and will auto get information, reviews, trailers etc etc for movies.
To convert my Blu Ray mkv files, DVD rips or pretty much anything i use DVD Catalyst on Windows 7 PC
I use the asus transformer HQ settings and select partial border removal.
Using all the above results in very nice looking movies with flawless playback.
I travel abroad quite a lot and everyone who see's me using the Asus for movies on the plane is very interested in what i have.
For Blu-rays I've found DVD Catalyst 4 to be inadequate because of sync issues. I've also read that by turning off Blu-ray Telecine will correct this issue but it doesn't. So, I had to look at other software to rip and convert my Blu-rays. Also DVD Catalyst 4 set my Kaspersky Antivirus Heuristic virus detection off and said it was performing in a way similar to a virus or trojan.
I've found that Aiseesoft Blu-ray Ripper works really well and is my favorite. It has video acceleration and will utilize you're AMD (app acceleration) or a NVidia video card with (Cuda technology). It's normally $39 but you can get it HERE for $23.40 with the coupon code 'SMRT-ADEK'. HERE is a guide as to what settings to use for the TF. It tends to make my videos a little less in size than Pavtube does. i.e., Aieesoft Blu-ray Ripper will create a file say 2.5gb in size while Pavtube is a little higher. Also, since I have an AMD/ATI video card it will accelerate the ripping process to nearly half the time as Pavtube due to the fact that Pavtube doesn't support AMD/ATI acceleration, just NVidia Cuda technology. Also, Aieesoft Blu-ray Ripper will automatically preserve forced subtitles while Pavtube you have to actually check ON a tick box for it to pick up forced subtitles. Also it has a video preview while ripping while Pavtube does not. Incidentally you can turn this feature on or off, whichever you prefer.
Another great software would be Pavtube Blu-ray Video Converter Ultimate which runs $65 but you can get it for $37.70 HERE with coupon code 'SOFT-K8TT'. It makes flawless videos for the TF using the XOOM settings. HERE is a guide on how. It has video acceleration just for NVidia video card. It will also let you select not only different subtitles but allows for 'Only allow forced subtitles'.
Incidentally, both rippers have built in AACS ripper technology and can even rip the new AACS-24 copy protection which is the newest copy protection format. So there is no need to also run AnyDVD HD in the background while you rip to be able to rip. A huge plus in my book.
I use either Dice Player or MX Video to play my movies in HW acceleration mode.
This is the Pavtube settings. Right click on the picture and 'Save As' to download a short single chapter MP4 file to test on your TF.
This is the Aieesoft settings. Right click on the picture and 'Save As' to download a short single chapter MP4 file to test on your TF.
cheers...
EDIT: Please read further into this thread as things have changed drastically. Thanks
I use the extremely convenient VidsOpt script for reencoding and remuxing x264/MKV. I tried out some other ripping tools like DVD Catalyst and XviD4PSP but they were cumbersome and too heavy on my system (only 2.8GHz P4/1GB RAM). After this step, there is really no reason not to use the stock player since MP4 files can be HW decoded (video and audio). If I am watching something with subtitles or the occasional XviD I will use MX Video.
AcIdC0R3 said:
For Blu-rays I've found DVD Catalyst 4 to be inadequate because of sync issues. I've also read that by turning off Blu-ray Telecine will correct this issue but it doesn't. So, I had to look at other software to rip and convert my Blu-rays. Also DVD Catalyst 4 set my Kaspersky Antivirus Heuristic virus detection off and said it was performing in a way similar to a virus or trojan.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Sync issues are you referring to AcidCore? I am aware of audio sync issues if you play the created video files on a PC using Windows Media Player, but this is due to some codec-issues with WMP itself. This is also mentioned in numerous locations on my website. For device playback as well as playback using Quicktime or VLC, the files should play just fine.
As for the Kaspersky, it doesn't like it when an app is running the conversion as a separate process. I have tried to work with them, but it is easier for them to mark something than to actually unmark something. DVD Catalyst is clean.
As for the links you provided, those articles are loaded with affiliate-links, meaning that those articles are mainly written to lure people into a purchase so that the guy who wrote them gets about 50% of the purchase price for the sale.
dvdcatalyst said:
What Sync issues are you referring to AcidCore? I am aware of audio sync issues if you play the created video files on a PC using Windows Media Player, but this is due to some codec-issues with WMP itself. This is also mentioned in numerous locations on my website. For device playback as well as playback using Quicktime or VLC, the files should play just fine.
As for the Kaspersky, it doesn't like it when an app is running the conversion as a separate process. I have tried to work with them, but it is easier for them to mark something than to actually unmark something. DVD Catalyst is clean.
As for the links you provided, those articles are loaded with affiliate-links, meaning that those articles are mainly written to lure people into a purchase so that the guy who wrote them gets about 50% of the purchase price for the sale.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, when I ripped the movie Wanted it played just fine on WMP but on both Dice and MX the audio was out of sync with the video. I felt like I was watching a dubbed movie or something. I tried three different settings with Catalyst and I got the same thing. Also when I ripped the movie Apocalypto which the whole movie is subtitled and Catalyst overwrote the subs with some kind of font that looked like it had some type of halo effect to it. I had to enable the Booster Pack 2 in order for it to pick up the subs at all. All other movies seemed OK though.
As for the links, I bought both Aieesoft Blu-ray Ripper and Pavtube at a 40% discount each which was a big plus in my book.
AcIdC0R3 said:
Actually, when I ripped the movie Wanted it played just fine on WMP but on both Dice and MX the audio was out of sync with the video. I felt like I was watching a dubbed movie or something. I tried three different settings with Catalyst and I got the same thing. Also when I ripped the movie Apocalypto which the whole movie is subtitled and Catalyst overwrote the subs with some kind of font that looked like it had some type of halo effect to it. I had to enable the Booster Pack 2 in order for it to pick up the subs at all. All other movies seemed OK though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try the stock player?
The files dvdcat creates are optimized for hardware playback on the Tegra2. While MX and Dice can play a lot more video file types, their settings can get in the way of how the file plays. Using the stock player the videos should play just fine.
dvdcatalyst said:
Did you try the stock player?
The files dvdcat creates are optimized for hardware playback on the Tegra2. While MX and Dice can play a lot more video file types, their settings can get in the way of how the file plays. Using the stock player the videos should play just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried playing it with the stock player and it's still out of sync.
My settings are:
Player Screen Size: 864x432
Video Quality: 2250kbps
Video Mode: 1 pass
Sound Quality: 160kbps
Audio Mode: stereo
Conversion Format: h264_xoom
Framerate: 30
AcIdC0R3 said:
I just tried playing it with the stock player and it's still out of sync.
My settings are:
Player Screen Size: 864x432
Video Quality: 2250kbps
Video Mode: 1 pass
Sound Quality: 160kbps
Audio Mode: stereo
Conversion Format: h264_xoom
Framerate: 30
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What did you convert?
from Bluray using dvdcat's Bluray mode or using file-mode (just the m2ts file directly)
Besides the settings you mentioned, you also mentioned the telicine option. Are there any other settings in "Global" that you enabled?
Try resetting DVD Catalyst to its defaults:
* Make sure DVD Catalyst is not running
* Click on "START" > "RUN" (or hold down the windows-key on your keyboard and tap the "R" key)
* In the run dialog, type in:
%appdata%
and click OK
*delete the "DVD Catalyst 4" folder
After that, start dvdcat, and if you want to convert Bluray (icw AnyDVD HD or something similar), enable power user, and enable the checkmark in the Bluray tab in Global Settings.
Then just select your profile, and leave the rest of the settings as they are.
so far i have tried about 5 different methods to convert to mp4 from mkv etc
I have used dvdcat to convert about 10 movies so far and have not run into sync problems.
I have left most things on default so dont find it cumbersome at all, in fact I found it a lot easier to use than most others, i do have a quadcore 4gb windows 7 64bit system though so runs pretty fast. I use eset nod32 smart security which is a superior product to kaspersky without false positives.
I will also play around with more options in time.
Nice to see some alternative methods here though which I will also try.
Any other methods guys?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
dvdcatalyst said:
What did you convert?
from Bluray using dvdcat's Bluray mode or using file-mode (just the m2ts file directly)
Besides the settings you mentioned, you also mentioned the telicine option. Are there any other settings in "Global" that you enabled?
Try resetting DVD Catalyst to its defaults:
* Make sure DVD Catalyst is not running
* Click on "START" > "RUN" (or hold down the windows-key on your keyboard and tap the "R" key)
* In the run dialog, type in:
%appdata%
and click OK
*delete the "DVD Catalyst 4" folder
After that, start dvdcat, and if you want to convert Bluray (icw AnyDVD HD or something similar), enable power user, and enable the checkmark in the Bluray tab in Global Settings.
Then just select your profile, and leave the rest of the settings as they are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it was the first Blu-ray that I tried to transcode. Let me try your recommendation and see what I come up with. Thanks.
AcIdC0R3 said:
Yeah, it was the first Blu-ray that I tried to transcode. Let me try your recommendation and see what I come up with. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are welcome,
If you run into complications or have questions, rather than using this thread, maybe shoot me an email instead. I don't mind answering on forums, but I don't think this thread is the place for it though.
email is my username at gmail dot com.
I have to say that by taking your advice and setting things back to default that the Blu-ray rip came out perfect. It even came out smaller in size and the cropping was perfect. While most of my movies play in letterbox (black bars above and below the picture) that after ripping with DVD Catalyst and then playing in MX Video that I had no letterboxing. It played full screen. Stock video player and Dice Player both still played it in letterbox. The video setting was defaulted to 1280x720 and the video formatted out to 1280x544. There was no sync issues any more. Time to rip the movie Wanted using Aieesoft Blu-ray Ripper took a little over 2 hours and the time it took DVD Catalyst to rip the same movie was just over 40 minutes. Impressive to say the least.
Video player : Built-in video player
Encoder : FFMPEG (git-latest) command line. transcoding to playable MP4 format.
I just changed my dvdcat setup to just removing black bars from the video file instead of remove partial borders and quality is now better.
Removing partial borders lowered the resolution to 1072 x 512
raze1000 said:
I just changed my dvdcat setup to just removing black bars from the video file instead of remove partial borders and quality is now better.
Removing partial borders lowered the resolution to 1072 x 512
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always use "remove from file" (the default) myself. The other ones cut off part of the video to get more screenfill. If you use a video player other than the stock, you can usually zoom the video anyway if you want full-screen.
I've been re-transcoding my movies using DVD Cat and while the movie Underworld "Evolution" ripped perfectly using default settings Underworld did not. It's defaulted to just removing the black bars but it shoved the video to the left and it was severely cut off on the left. I looked all through the settings and couldn't find anything to fix this. Although when I went to 'Preview' the setting was defaulted to 1.33:1 and the first little picture with the borders was selected. I had to put it down to 1.35:1 movie default and choose the second little picture without the borders. Strange; as it made it 1280x405, so it was constrained but it fit and had no borders on the TF.
Needless to say, DVD Cat is going to take some trial and error to figure it all out.
Underworld is a bit tricky because it is so dark.
In Global > Borders, you can increase the scan-point count, which should eliminate the issue you experienced. It is quite rare, but its tied to the way DVD Cat actually detects borders on movies. Rather than using fixed values, it takes screenshots of the movie at 5 (default) points, and then looks for the actual borders.
dvdcatalyst said:
Underworld is a bit tricky because it is so dark.
In Global > Borders, you can increase the scan-point count, which should eliminate the issue you experienced. It is quite rare, but its tied to the way DVD Cat actually detects borders on movies. Rather than using fixed values, it takes screenshots of the movie at 5 (default) points, and then looks for the actual borders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember seeing that. It's set at 5 right now. Is that a setting under the borders tab that's selectable or is it always on? I'm at work so I can't look at the software at the moment.
its defaulted at 5, but you can change it to something like 7 or 8.
I've only ran into the issue 3 times.
twice with episodes of 24, where the shots were taken during the time-display part, and Underworld 1
So what setting do you recommend; 7 or 8? I guess I'll just have to tinker with it when I get home. What is your final file dimmensions on Underworld 1 after transcoding with DVD Cat?

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