Portable MP4 player

vcd_user · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2004

My firend got a 2.2" portable MP4 player from China. It has terrible manual and comes with software that convert video files to AMV. But the player does not recognise .amv file extension. The device has marked on the player itself saying that it is an AVI player. It contains a demo avi file which plays reasonably well. That's why he bought it and brought it back to Canada.
He tried to load up some avi files which plays on his computer. But the portable player says incorrect format. We are new to this. I think that we probably need some conversion before the regular avi files which plays on larger screens can play on the 2.2" player.
Can some one suggest what we can try so that we can use the portable player. We were thinking if we can decode the demo avi file, we can try to convert other avi files to the same format and hopefully they will play on the player.

Soopafresh · Craptastic Joined: 01 Jan 2004 Location: United States

Really, really, really hard to say without seeing the thing. I'd suggest you try this site, as they cater specifically to your style of player:

http://www.mympxplayer.org/dload.php

Bjs · RoadKill Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Location: Australia

A couple of tool's ...

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Encoders-Converter- ... Tool.shtml
http://www.brothersoft.com/mp3_audio/players/mp3_player_utilities_50889.html

From here , you have the same tool's mine came with ... the video's converted using the first listed tool work on mine .

And as it's amv ... there not mp4 player's ... and a possibility your friend got ripped off ... just like those who bought what they thought were 4 gig mp4 player's in ebay .

Here's a good link on all this stuff :

http://www.s1mp3.org/en/ ... have a sticky in the forum for help on these device's coming out of china ...

By they way , if the device starts generating funny file's of various size's that you didn't put on the player ... then the reported memory max capacity has been tampered with using a hacked firmware .

In my case , all the doc's , receipt's , and the device were handed over to the authorities too deal with fraud ... I don't care if I don't see my money back ... but sting me for financial gains via misleading advertising , and their screwing with the wrong person ... I bite back hard .

vcd_user · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2004

Thanks for all the replies. I'll go through them carefully. As I mentioned the player has avi marked at the back of the player and the demo sample file has .avi extension, so I am not surprise that it does not support amv even for whatever reason they gave me the software which converts files to amv.
If it supports .avi, I am still not clear (perhaps after I read all the replies it will be clearer to me) if I need to convert standard avi files which plays on my computer before it can be played on this type of portable players.

Bjs · RoadKill Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Location: Australia

Copy the file from the device to the pc , and flash it through gspot and mediainfo tool's and see what they have to say about the file's internal makeup ... Then you'll know what it want's you to convert too before they become actually playable on the device .

What tool was supplied with it to convert to amv ? .

Just thinking it could also be a naming error ... if the file that play's has no space's in it's name , and the file you wanted it too play dose , and failed too , then that would be one problem simply fixed .

Another come's in the form of idiot programs converting to a format with a specific file extension , yet has a double named extension ... such as ...

Myvideo.amv.avi ... or the other way round ... real screwup's .

Then you might actually get somewhere with the device

DVantrease · Member Joined: 08 Nov 2000

I just got one of these devices too. While it's advertised on ebay as an 'MP4' player, you actually have to convert your videos to AMV format. But, mine came with a mini-cd with the conversion program, plus it's available as a free download from MxMPXPlayer.org . I don't know about your video with the avi extension, as mine will only play amv's. On a good note, the conversion program is free, very easy, and very fast. I can convert a 30 minute tv episode in about 7 minutes. And you can use any format video as your source.

I love my player, I just wish I would have sprung for a larger screen. Mine is only 1.5", but then it was only $40.

Dave

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

I also recently got a PMP from China:
2.4" screen
2G internal + MiniSD slot.
It comes with AVI convertor on miniCD which is actually a GUI to Mencoder with 9 predefined settings in an ini text file

The ini

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

BTW the eBook, MP3, lyric + MP3, FM radio, JPEG viewer and Tetris game are all fine. It does indeed appear on XP automatically as 2 drives (though on my laptop, only if it is turned off).

lylewinton · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Australia

Hi all,
I posted my solution at the below link. Basically, these so called MP4 Xvid players only take a very specific AVI file encoded with MPEG 1 layer 2 audio, specific Xvid encoding, specific format and frequency. None of which I can be bothered to figure out. I think all of these chinese MP4/MP3 players are various versions of S1MP3 (see http://www.s1mp3.org/en/). If you use AVIConverter it will create AVI files that are the right format. My MP4 player and others don't seem to ship with this, only AMV and MTV converters which often don't work. Ask you're supplier where to get the software, mine happily obliged.

http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1659923&sid=0cf98f ... 36#1659923

As for audio/video sync problems... AVIConverter does a bad job converting from some file formats. I've had trouble with AVI and MPG (MPEG1 and MPEG2), regardless of frame rate etc. Try converting the file to something else first. Matroska MKV format works really well, audio in sync and everything. I used VirtualDubMod (just google search for it) to convert my existing AVI files to MKV, then AVIConverter to convert to AVI files that my MP4 player understands.

Trust me, I've spent a lot of time on this. Try some other file formats if you like. Let me know if you have any success.

Quick howto on VirtualDubMod and MKV...
1) Open original file. Always say NO to any question about fixing headers.
2) From menus select "Video" and "Direct stream"
3) Then "File" "Save as..." and select MKV format.

I know, I know. Technically this shouldn't work as MKV is just a container and you're not change any compression or codecs. But it does![/url]

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

It's the later kind, not the S1M3, but Rockchip.

The AVI converter (or similar XVid & MP2 settings in other programs) all produce playable files that are perfectly in sync on Windows, but with badly out of sync in the China MP4 player, with audio far ahead. The demo.avi is 24fps with 50ms Audio interleave (=1.2 video frames). Everything I use produces audio exactly interleaved with video.(42ms if video is 24fps). At 24fps the video seems the correct speed. At 25fps the video runs much slower.
I'd guess it HAS to be 24 fps or 20fps and a fixed TIME audio interleave, not video frame interleave (which seems odd).

But ALL the videos are OK in Windows, inc the demo.ini but only the supplied demo.avi plays with audio sync on the China MP4 player.

The CD had ver2 and ver 3 of the AVI converter. Only difference is the resolution. (Ver 3.0 has the required 320x 240)

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

I'll have a look at MKV.

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

I found VirtualDub (not VirtualDubMod) will set audio interleave to ms instead of frames.
BUT even with copy video/copy audio, no recompress.
1) Normal AVI save is very bad
2) Old AVI save gives the same format as the demo.avi
3) Not matter what I set the audio Interleave in ms, it creats 72ms interleave, not desired 50ms
4) Makes the video play nearly 1/2 half speed.

So really I need to figure the "extra" mencoder settings in convertor.ini so the mencoder used by AVIconvertor does same settings as the working demo.avi (i.e. the 50ms Audio Interleave).

lylewinton · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Australia

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

Ther seem to be no audio codec or audio settings at all in VirtualDubMod
I can't figure how MKV will help as the player can only read AVI. And very specific AVI at that.

I now have managed to make AVIs that are identically out of sync on Windows

The problem may be that the MP4 player only appears to play 24fps or 20fps properly and the frame rate conversion causes a problem.

Perhaps somewhere there is a tool that resyncs PAL VOD to 24fps without conversion of video.

Cornucopia · Posted: Feb 21, 2007 12:27

Have you tried giving the mp4 player an AVI (Xvid/MP2) file with audio in CBR mode as opposed to VBR? Maybe the player has trouble with sync because of the VBR audio...

Scott
_________________
"You don't know what you got, until you lose it".--John Lennon

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

The sample demo.avi file is detected as having VBR MP2 by most analysis programs.

On lavac and toolame there does not seem to be an option to change how the MP2 is encoded other than bitrate, mono/stereo and sample rate.

I would have tried this if I knew how to.

It seems to me that the demo.avi is encoded at a fixed 4096 byte audio interleave rather than a more normal 1:1 video frame interleave. Gspot detects this as 50ms interleave. I can't figure how to duplicate this setting in mencoder.

I think a 4096 byte audio interleave at 24 fps will play, and nothing else.

Cornucopia · Posted: Feb 21, 2007 13:11

There is a GUI for toolame called (surprisingly!) "toolamegui" that you can get at the Afterdawn website. (Just checked it) It allows you to set CBR or VBR, as well as many other options.

Might make a difference...doubt it...but worth a try.

Scott
_________________
"You don't know what you got, until you lose it".--John Lennon

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

Not on Afterdawn

http://guiguy.wminds.com/downloads/

But the site creates some nasty popups. close them on the task bar..

So I'm not sure how kosher the contents are.

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

Very broken site. I'm sceptical it does anything not documented elsewhere

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

The BeSweet GUI does tooLame, besweet and others

http://besweet.notrace.dk/BeSweetGUI0.6b61.zip

Cornucopia · Posted: Feb 21, 2007 14:03

You're right, site's not good anymore (but the app is):

I'll host it on my site for a short time. Try this: http://www.cornucopiadm.com/goodies/toolamegui.zip

Scott
_________________
"You don't know what you got, until you lose it".--John Lennon

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

Ta.

I'll have a look when my head stops hurting. I'm sure is sinus and not building a Linux tool chain

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

Downloaded it already if you want to remove the link and edit post

vcd_user · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2004

I thought that I had posted this a week ago. I am not sure why it is not here. Anyway I'll post again just in case, it may help someone.
After a bit of asking around. A friend of mine point me to a site www.a-grade.com.hk, there is a tool called AVI2.0. I used the tool to convert mpeg and rmvbs to avi and the resulting file plays fine on my friend's little player. Now we are happy. I hope this can help someone too. But the tool is in Chinese. I am running English WINXP. The chinese are displayed as ??? //// . With some guess, I was able to use it with all the default options. I did not change anything because I wasn't sure what those /// ??? are.

pmpvictim · Member Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Location: Ireland

I can't find it. I'm suspect it just a Chinese front end on mencoder.

Have you exact link?

Is the sound in sync with video?