How to convert any video to MP4 iPod, iPhone, PS3, XboX360 using free tools

Baldrick · Administrator Joined: 09 Aug 2000 Location: Sweden

This guide describes the basic steps how to convert to MP4 AVC/H264 for devices like the iPod, PSP, PS3, XboX360, iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia, SonyEricsson, etc with optional burned / permanent / hardcoded subtitles using FREE tools.

Tools required
.Net Framework 3
XviD4PSP
DVDFab DEcrypter(For DVD sources)

Preparation
Install first .Net Framework 3 and then XviD4PSP.
If you are going to convert from a DVD then use the free DVDFab Decrypter to rip the DVD to your HDD.
If you want burned in subtitles then must you have an external subtitle file like srt/sub. You can extract subtitles from mkv using mkvextractgui.
If you want burned in subtitles from a DVD source you must extract the subtitles using VSRip first, read this guide

Guide
1. Open your video source, XviD4PSP supports most formats like AVI, MKV, RM, MOV, WMV,DVR-MS, MPG, VOB, DVD etc. To open a DVD click on the DVD-tab and choose the VIDEO_TS folder where you ripped the DVD to your HDD.
2. Choose your MP4 format, like MP4 XboX 360, MP4 iPod, etc
3. Under Video Encoding can you change video quality encoding settings, for best quality leave it as X264 HQ Ultra. For faster encoding you can choose X264 1P 4000k. If you want smaller output file size choose lower bitrate like X264 1P 768k(the 768k = video bitrate) or click on the E next to the Video Encoding tab and manually lower the bitrate. You can use a bitrate calculator to calculate the exact output file size.
4. Subtitles, choose Subtitles from the menu to load external subtitles from srt, sub/idx,etc.
5. Cick on Save to save the current task. You can now load another source and set settings.
6. Last Hit Encode to convert your video.

Done.

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

Short and sweet, and damned close to fool proof.
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Baldrick · Administrator Joined: 09 Aug 2000 Location: Sweden

Yep, Xvid4PSP is a superb and easy all-in-one converter.

drstew · Member Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: United States

How does the quality compare to AuotGK? Would this be good for an Archos 704 with a 7 inch screen with 800x480 resolution (somewhat higher bit rate for quality)?

d2idan · Member Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Location: Israel

thanks but when i open a file its stay a lot of time on "Caching ..please wait..work in progress"... and in the middle then it does audio muxing
and then it stay a lot of time on "Caching ..please wait..work in progress"

what to do ?

Baldrick · Administrator Joined: 09 Aug 2000 Location: Sweden

d2idan: What is your source? Give us as much information as possible like what video and audio codec(identify with mediainfo) and if you can play the video in windows media player without problems.

d2idan · Member Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Location: Israel

well i dont have problems to wait when it caching the mkv file
because it work .
and thank you for this add and software.
a good one

i now see a lot of files in the temp folder what i need to stream into my xbox ? (i use streaming with WMP11)

d2idan · Member Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Location: Israel

i see a lot of files in the temp folder
what is my movie ?

and the folder is only 1.4 g , the mkv file is 4.7 g
how is that ? ...
and in the middle of the conversation my screen saver had problem i could only see the mouse on the screen with nothing else untill i restart my pc. why is that ? please help. thanks

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

Screen savers are a waste of cpu and do nothing for your monitor. Use the power settings to put your screen to sleep instead. Better for your screen.

Your output file will be where you tell it to save it when you press encode. of course, if your screen saver screws up the system and you restart halfway through the process, you can't expect to have everything work, can you. Start again (without the screen saver) and see what happens.
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FulciLives · Posted: Jun 21, 2008 22:34

A few things I would like to add to this discussion in terms of compatibility with the PS3 and XboX 360:

The newest version of XviD4PSP just came out a couple of days ago. It is version 5.033

Notice that there is now one setting for both XboX 360 and PS3 instead of one for each. The reason is both were the same in terms of video settings so instead of an XboX 360 only setting and a PS3 only setting there is now a single setting for both. This makes it less confusing. Also I think it is "nice" that the two machines are interchangeable in terms of MP4 video properties. Makes for less of a nightmare (especially if you have both yourself).

However I discovered that the XboX 360 only likes 2.0 AAC-LC whereas the PS3 will work with 5.1 AAC-LC so if you want to make a file that is compatible with both you must use 2 channels instead of 6 channels.

Another thing I have noticed (this is not specific to output but to the input):

If you input a MKV and the audio is 5.1 AC-3 or 5.1 DTS it will more often than not be seen by XviD4PSP as 2 channel audio instead of 6 channel audio. The work around is to demux the audio file then load the demuxed audio file. This way the program is technically getting only the video from the MKV and ignoring the audio in favor of the demuxed file. When you do this it will correctly recognize 6 channel audio. Please note that you then have the option to keep all channels (for 6 channel output as per the input) or you can downmix to 2 channel and you can do that in a variety of ways including Dolby Pro Logic II (which is probably the best downmix option if you have 5.1 or 6 channel audio and want to downmix).

From what I've read the 128kbps default is considered "good enough" for 2 channel audio but you can go higher if you want. I've also read that 256kbps is considered "good enough" for 6 channel audio. Personally I've been using 256kbps for 2 channel and 448kbps for 6 channel audio. I admit that probably is "overkill" though

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
_________________
"The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
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yoda313 · Regular joe Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: sector 001

d2idan · Member Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Location: Israel

what are the different between Q18 ULTRA and Q21 ULTRA ?

det66 · Member Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Location: United Kingdom

keep getting crashes caused by DEP. Windows won't let me turn DEP off for Xvid4PSP

FulciLives · Posted: Jun 30, 2008 01:17

dbone1 · Member Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Location: United States

Just downloaded the latest version of Xvid4PSP and it is working great. I have a bunch of DVDs on my HDD that I am looking to encode to high quality h.264/AVC files to play on my 50' Plasma via SageTV. Just curious if anyone has any suggestions on settings they are using. I am looking to maintain 5.1 sound, and keep the file size around 1-2GB. I have made a couple MP4s this weekend using the following settings (MP4-> x264 Q21 2P Ultra ->128AAC). I didn't get a chance to watch on my 50', but the file on my computer monitor looked very good (sound came out a little choppy at times, but could just be my computer speakers). Any thoughts, tweaks, etc... would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

FulciLives · Posted: Jun 30, 2008 09:47

@dbone1

When playing back to your TV/Stereo system what will be the playback device? The computer? A PS3? An XboX 360? Something else? Need to know this in order to suggest conversion "tactics". For instance MP4 can use 5.1 audio on a PS3 but only 2.0 audio on an XboX 360.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
_________________
"The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE

dbone1 · Member Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Location: United States

FulciLives:

I actually have both a PS3 and XBox360. My main device though would be SageTV, with PS3 as my backup to keep 5.1 audio (I believe SageTV can play 5.1 as well). Thanks

FulciLives · Posted: Jun 30, 2008 22:18

Well with the PS3 you can use the PS3/XBOX 360 profile in XVID3PSP and convert the audio to 5.1 AAC-LC 256kbps or 2.0 AAC-LC 128kbps OR you can use the M2TS profile which will make a PS3 compatible file. Basically here the video is done the same as when you use the PS3/XBOX 360 profile but you can use AC-3 audio (I think also DTS audio as well).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
_________________
"The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE

dbone1 · Member Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Location: United States

FulciLives - I appreciate the feedback. Do you notice much of a difference from using 256kbps to 448kbps for 6 channel audio (I know you mentioned 448kbps as possible overkill)?

Also, and this may sound stupid, can you create a 1080p mp4 from a Standard DVD rip, or can you only do this from a 1080p (Blu Ray) rip? Just curious if setting the output resolution to 1920 x 1080 for a SD DVD conversion serves no purpose.

I was able to encode a Blu Ray rip into a h.264 1080p mp4 (I just used a 2 minute clip for Casino Royale for test purposes), and the vid looks great. No issues when playing back on my PC, but it plays choppy when I stream to my SageTV HD Extender (I am thinking this may be more of a network issue. My router is not a gigabit router, so possibly my network cannot handle that data, I use powerline to connect my PS3/SageTV Extender to my network, I will have to play around with this, or just get one of the new Gigabit routers???)

Do you have a preference/any specific benefit of encoding to MP4 vs MKV (assuming the device to play the file can handle both containers, I know MKV is probably the lesser supported of the two, but i am sure that will change)?

Once again though, thanks for your feedback. I have started encoding using different profiles to see what works best, will let you know if I come across any problems

Brent212 · Member Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Location: United States

Does anyone know where I could find details of the different formats? I have no idea what the difference is between "MP4 Xbox 360" and just "MP4", for example. Resolution differences? Are some formats interlaced and some progressive? Basically, what does the "format" option control?

I just want to compress DVDs, and clips from DVDs for playback on a computer, btw. Should I just use MP4? I'd like to save space, but I really want the quality loss to be minimal.

Brent212 · Member Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Location: United States

I'm having an issue with a 720x480 4:3 mpeg2 clip from a dvd.

I open it in xvid4psp and set it to use the MP4 format, denoise/sharpen disabled, brightness/contrast disabled, x264 Q21 Extreme encoding, audio encoding set to "copy".

I also go under Video->Interlace (or something like that...), and set the output to Interlaced, since the input is interlaced and I don't want to deinterlace it (or do I? I'm going to be watching this on my TV from my computer's TV out...). Under Video->Resolution (not sure if that's what it is), I see that the input and output resolutions are the same (720x480) and input and output aspect ratios are 4:3.

Now when I create the new video file and play it, it's wider than it should be. Either the aspect ratio is set to 16:9 or it's not set at all (is that possible?) so that the 720 pixels aren't "squeezed" to the width of 640 pixels (I think that's what's supposed to happen when you play a 4:3 720x480 dvd, right? Since a 16:9 dvd is also 720 wide...).

Any ideas on why this is happening? The original video plays with the correct width on the same player (Media Player Classic). I've looked through every setting I could find in xvid4psp and can't figure out what would cause this.

Thanks,
Brent

tonydead · Member Joined: 18 Apr 2005 Location: Colorado

FulciLives · Posted: Aug 25, 2008 17:21

Personally speaking the PS3 is more versitile than the XboX 360. With the PS3 you have basically no real bitrate worries where this can be an issue with the XboX 360 i.e., too high a bitrate or even very high momentary bitrate "spikes" etc. can cause the XboX 360 to have "fits" and hang etc.

MP4 on XboX can only be 2.0 whereas MP4 on the PS3 can be 5.1 AAC-LC

PS3 can natively support the M2TS format which is h.264 video with AC-3 audio (I think DTS also is supported). This compared to MP4 which is h.264 video with AAC-LC audio. So the M2TS format is an easy way to keep 5.1 AC-3 without playback issues. The XboX 360 does not handle the M2TS format.

So for DVD Rips and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Rips I would favor M2TS and playing back on the PS3 and forget the XboX 360 (this for people that have both ... if you ONLY have an XboX 360 then there are other alternatives but not as easy or friendly as using XVID4PSP).

If you want high bitrates and high resolution and 5.1 audio on an XboX 360 you have to go with WMV and 5.1 WMA audio. TMPGEnc Xpress is supposedly what most people use for this type of conversion. Ironically the PS3 will play this as well but can't handle 5.1 WMA although I've downloaded such files and it is easy to re-encode the 5.1 WMA to 2.0 WMA (can even do so with downmixing the 5.1 to analog Dolby Pro Logic II Surround sound).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
_________________
"The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE

CrashMonkey · Member Joined: 08 Apr 2008 Location: United States

Ok, so I have been mucking around with converting an MKV file to MP4. I have done a number of them using both this tool and GoTSent, and a couple of files have been giving me fits. I don't want to re-encode the video, it is in H.264 already. I just want to transcode the audio to AAC for Xbox playback, so I have set the video option to copy. The source looks like this:

[img]http://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1916061/

[/img]

But when the copy is done, it looks like this:[img]http://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1916061/

[/img]

I don't get it. If I re-encode the video it comes out fine, albeit I have to figure out the setting cus suddenly the file is 1/3 the orginal size. Any idea why it is changing the video dimensions or how I get it to stop do that?

Baldrick · Administrator Joined: 09 Aug 2000 Location: Sweden

What is the resolution in the mkv(identify using mediainfo)? Maybe it's using a 16:9 display aspect ratio while the resolution/frame size is 320x240(4:3). You then have to set the display aspect ratio in the mp4 to 16:9 also using for example yamb.

CrashMonkey · Member Joined: 08 Apr 2008 Location: United States

Not sure how to fix this with YAMB.

FulciLives · Posted: Dec 09, 2008 10:30

I think the problem is that you don't have it set to 16/9

YAMB has an option to set the video to 16/9 so you need to set that parameter. If you are using another program to get the MP4 file you can simply input the MP4 into YAMB and it will output a new MP4 with the 16/9 flag if you set it that way.

Make sure you change the file name or the destination so as not to overwrite the original!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
_________________
"The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE

CrashMonkey · Member Joined: 08 Apr 2008 Location: United States

Yamb keeps telling me i have 2 input files. I'm using the creation mode and inputing the squared looking .mp4 file. any help is appreciated.

Silvane · Member Joined: 17 Mar 2007 Location: Canada

Thanks sooo much for this guide. ^_^ Easy for me to follow and got it to work the first time!

hishighness · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2008 Location: United States

Hi,

So I did everything, but when I used the decryption software, it made it into an ISO and not a VAB file. Therefore, I wasn't able to use Xvid4PSP because it cannot recognize ISO files. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!