PDA movies

[ronin]

Hi all,

Wondering if anybody has any experience with full length movies on a PDA and using ffmpeg in the Mac environment.

I have Kinoma Producer for the Mac but not happy with the quality at smaller file sizes....

Have fiddled with ffmpeg for a few days and getting very confused! My Sony Clie NX80v will play mpeg-1 files and will play them off a Compact Flash card. I currently have a 1GB CF card. My goal would be to get 2 movies on the card at a time, so about 500MB per movie at my native Clie' resolution of 480x320pixels.

I'm having trouble going from:
VIDEO_TS>MPEG1 using my 500MB file size parameter, getting errors, to many dropped frames etc.

I'm now going to try VIDEO_TS>AVI>MPEG1

Are my expectations too high to get a good quality movie into 500MB? I actually got great results going from VIDEO_TS>AVI>Kinoma pdb file. This was on KILL_BILL_VOL1, but the Kinoma pdb file was 937MB!

Am I at the limits of compression technology trying to get it down to 500MB and "good" watchable quality...that though is the crux..what is the defininition of "good and watchable"

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Rick

[thoughton]

A normal VCD uses mpeg1 at 352x280 (or 352x240 in NTSC) and can only fit about 60 mins of movie per CD (800MB).

You could investigate the KVCD specification, with that you can get a very watchable movie onto a single CD. You'd have to fiddle around to get it to fit into 500MB at your non-VCD resolution though. And can your pocketpc can play a file with KVCD specs (very extreme variable bitrates)? - probably but not sure.

Can your Sony play divx or mpeg4? You'd get much smaller files with either of those.

[Wibbler]

There are two basic VCD specs, the older NTSC with either

352 x 240 at 29.97 fps (NTSC)
352 x 240 at 23.98 fps (FILM)

and the later addition of

352 x 288 at 25 fps (PAL)

there are other non-standard formats, which may work with mixed results..

W.I.Bbler.

[promoter]

Hi all,

Wondering if anybody has any experience with full length movies on a PDA and using ffmpeg in the Mac environment.

Rick,

You might want to see this thread in the Brighthand Zire 71 forum.

The author, junglemike, claims he can get full-length movies down to a reasonable size and quality on his Palm. He uses a PC program (VirtualDubMod) to convert the video and Mmplayer to play them on the Palm device. I've diddled with ffmpegX trying to get a usable result, but no joy yet. If you have any success, I'd appreciate knowing what settings you used.

[ronin]

Thanks people for the replies!

@thoughton:

there is a program called mmplayer that is supposed to be able to play MPEG4/Divx files...its still buggy and I cant get it to play a movie on my Clie"..You're right though...that would be the perfect player if it would work!!! It appears to be still in the development stage. I can get a great quality 2 hour movie in dvix at 480x320 at about 450MB...but it won't play with mmplayer!!!


@Wibbler

My Clie' has problems playing video encoded at 24fps...15fps seems to be the limit the Clie' processor can handle


@promotor

I have poured over all the forums i can find over at Clie' Source.com And most users are on PC platforms..There is a program called Image converter that alot of them use that "supposedly" gets very small file sizes in the Clie/Sony proprietary "mqv" format that is "great quality" But it hard for me to believe these people are really getting 2 hour movies on 256 MB cards!! At least not in great quality and in sizes large enough to actually see. I can't get a mpeg1 movie with ffmpeg to play at small sizes and low bitrates on the Clie'

So,............I'm back now to Kinoma and trying to get the best settings down. I will post back with my final results...my work flow will be DVD_TS to avi using ffmpeg then to pdb file using Kinoma

Rick

[vitualis]

Somewhat off topic, but it is much easier getting portable video working well on Pocket PCs or the Sharp Zarius (i.e., Linux based).

Regards.

[ronin]

vitualis,

Thanks for the reply...but I've already spent a bundle on my Clie' and the 1Gb compact Flash card. Got to make that work.

and further off topic....

On your signature I notice a link to a blog..so I clicked...

LOL....reminds me of days gone past! I too am a doc...13 years out of residency now.....so as a resident, how do you have time to be a moderator in these forums and have 5000+ posts!!!??? You should be working 30hours/day and getting no sleep or time to eat! Good luck!

Rick

[barron]

There is a thread over at ClieSource:
http://www.cliesource.com/forums/showthread.php?s=7d4397672ff410d5267a2dc025b26575&thr...5&pagenumber=1
where someone successfully encoded a movie that will fit on his 256mb memory stick and play on his clie. He provides a template and a sample clip that looks very good. Unfortunately I have been unable to duplicate his results but you may have better luck. For some reason my movies run in super slow motion after converting the .VOB file with ffmpegX. Doh!

[barron]

If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at this thread. With a tip of the hat to major, I can now get full length movies running on my Clie UX50. A full version of "Austin Powers" weighs in at less than 225 MB, easily fits on my 256 MB memory stick and looks pretty good and sounds great (with head phones/ear buds)!

-barron

[glockjs]

i thought most pda were 320x240? no? that should help your file size a little. so should downing the bit rate. so should using alot smaller audio(probably the biggest prob). and worst case dropping down the fps.

[ronin]

I think my problems and searching have been solved!!

Please see this thread https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=218172http://<br /> <br /> After fiddling with the settings, it appears that using Movie P... <br /> Rick

[iMacfan]

Hi,

I'm trying to do exactly the same thing for my TH55. I've managed to create an mpeg, but this stops every so often, which I believe is because the video stream is VBR. So far, I have not been able to see how to encode it as a constant bitrate. Any ideas?

David