DVD > Ipod Classic > TV [Aspect Ratio]

[Will Hay]

I need a little heads up if possible.
I'm storing kids movies on a 160GB iPod classic to hook up to the car headrests whilst on the move.
Quality is great, I usually use freemake or handbrake at standard 5GEN IPod settings.
However, now and again I need to output to HDTV and, obviously, quality is poor assuming I get the ratio correct.
Most of the time I output the movie using different [higher quality] settings and iTunes won't transfer to the iPod because it tells me the format is unsupported.
I'm struggling to know what settings to use that will play on the iPod and not look too bad [I'm not after perfection] on the HDTV.
I believe the iPod is 320x240 but having tried to convert to 640x480 it played great on the iPod and looked much better on the HDTV but was only one third of the TV screen, i.e. huge black bars above and below.
Some brief pointers of what I should be trying would be appreciated.
I guess I need to know the happy medium between the iPod's 320x240 and my 16:9 TV?
Thanks,
Will

[aedipuss]

maybe time to upgrade to an new ipad. no pod video is going to look ok on a big screen.

[hech54]

1) You could try to tick the "Large File Size" box in Handbrake....might help.
2) Stop using iTunes. Try SharePod or one of the CopyTrans versions to put vids to the iPod.
My limited experience of iPod stuff comes from my iPod Touch which I believe is designed to also
be able to store and play large enough files to play back on a TV....I'm doubting the Classic was designed
for that but it's worth a try.

[oz_surfer]

I have managed the same thing. I took a DVD and changed it to a mp4. I set the size as 720 x 576 x (16 x 9) Happy feet i think. Then sent it to ipod classic 160gb.

Took ipod classic camping with portable dvd player that takes inputs from ipod convertor to Red/white (audio) and yellow (video) through the inputs on back.

Played movie at really good quality. Then tried it at home by hooking up to a Panasonic Viera 50" using same cable system inputs R W Y . Quality really good. ideally, it is not useful to set output video at mpeg 2 standard as it uses a lot of space, but it suited a purpose.

This was done using a video application i have found very useful. Allok MPEG4 Converter.

I am sure that other apps would work.

To start with, i ripped a chapter from dvd. Then converted 1 mins worth of video using different settings. Then sent them to ipod, and saw which one played better. After trying on tv, i then completed whole movie to the best settings.

[Will Hay]

Thanks for the constructive replies.
I have an iPad but the iPod is perfect for the car, it's also 160GB whereas the iPad is only 64GB.
Thing is, I was doing this when I first bought the iPod and outputting circa 1.3GB file sizes and they looked great on the iPod/headrests and good on the TV.
I can't remember the name of the software but burgled and had to replace it.
I can't seem to mimic the same quality as the iod settings output to circa 500MB and restraints within handbrake and free make wont permit me to increase.
I'll have a play around, including an alternative to iTunes.

[oz_surfer]

I used a program a few yrs ago that helped me out of a sticky problem. I had lost some mp3s, so i downloaded this application that was able to back my mp3s from my ipod to the pc, and it could transfer stuff from ipod to pc and pc to ipod.

The application did need itunes to be installed on machine.

the application used was called Sharepod i think.

[aedipuss]

you could try xmediarecode - it has ipod 640x480 presets.

[Will Hay]

duplicated

[Will Hay]

Currently trying xmediarecode, thanks for the suggestion, I'll report back with how it went assuming you're interested

[orsetto]

It isn't true that the old-school iPod is incapable of very good quality TV playback. I've been using the first video-capable iPod for years with excellent results hooked up to TVs when travellng, although expecting miracles on a 50" plasma is pushing it.

The trick is getting exactly the right encode for the iPod classic, and at the moment HandBrake is infuriatingly unpredictable at doing this. The interface has always been some hellish thing straight from the mind of Sheldon Cooper, but recent updates to HandBrake have crossed the line from "unintuitive results" to "WTF?????" I have not been able to wrest a decent iPod encode from Handbrake since I last updated it, and have gone back to using my old standby CloneDVDMobile form SlySoft. When HandBrake works, it has more reliable lipsync and keeps chapter markers, which is very nice. But CloneDVDMobile works with one-click simplicity every single time, giving a nice tradeoff between file size and PQ for external displays. I'm often in a hurry just before a trip to get new material on my iPod, CloneDVDMobile never gets in my way but HandBrake trips me up every damn time (my last batch of HandBrake encodes looks awful even on the 2" iPod screen).

If someone provides exact settings for your particular version of HandBrake, it can work really well, but without guidance you can be up a tree indefinitely. You can get a free 21 day trial use of CloneDVDMobile just by downloading it to a PC, to see if it does what you want. If you like it, buy a license, if not, people use lots of other free products to get good extensible iPod encodes. Run a search here on VH for "Encoding For iPod Classic" and you'll get plenty of hits, many involving HandBrake. I don't have the patience to sort thru all the tips and tricks for freeware, I got CloneDVDMobile as part of a package deal and I'm happy with it.

[Will Hay]

Thanks for posting, and more so for confirmation that for what I'm hoping to do handbrake is woeful
A 21sec test of a movie with xmediarecode at 640x480 was sucessfull, and the resultant full length movie on both the rear headrest screens and also my Sony 36" 1080p far exceeds my expectation.
I'd go as far to say that it's excellent on the TV.
xmediarecode is currently outputting nine full lengths movies and once I output to both the ipod and the iphone 4s [the latter I use to watch on the 36" tv using apple airplay] I'll know for sure whether I've achieved my goal.
Thanks again.

[orsetto]

you could try xmediarecode - it has ipod 640x480 presets.

A 21sec test of a movie with xmediarecode at 640x480 was sucessfull, and the resultant full length movie on both the rear headrest screens and also my Sony 36" 1080p far exceeds my expectation.
I'd go as far to say that it's excellent on the TV.

I had bookmarked aedipuss' suggestion of xmediarecode, figuring to give it a try soon: thanks Will Hay for confirming so quickly that it does the job nicely.

[Will Hay]

After my initial test and after many, many conversions, both 30min episodes and animation and live action movies I can confirm [as is already probably known! that xmediarecode produces excellent results for what I need and outputs a high quality image via apple airplay from my iphone 4s or component cable from my 160GB ipod classic to my 36" sony tv.

[Will Hay]

Final update for anyone stumbling across this thread in the future.
There is a *massive* difference in output quality between the iPhone 4s over airplay and the ipod classic 160GB using apple's component cable.
Don't get me wrong, the quality from the ipod isn't bad but that from the phone is astonishing in comparison.
Either way, thanks to the replies here I have what I need.
Respect to all for contributing.
Will Hay