dvd to pocket pc conversion

[paul_pompey]

Can anyone give me info on how to convert my dvd to work on my pocket pc (pda)

freeware would be preferable


thanks

[yoda313]

Hello,

Can't you just use the portable video selection in divx when you use the normal dvd - divx procedure? I can't be certain as I don't have a pda. That would be one way to do it.

Kevin

[makntraks]

Can anyone give me info on how to convert my dvd to work on my pocket pc (pda)

freeware would be preferable


thanks

First question? How the heck could you even think about squeezing some massive size file (DVD) into something that could fit into the memory constraints of a pocket pc??

makntraks

[paul_pompey]

Oh it can be done , remember the video quality dont have to be that good seeing as it is being viewed on a small screen

there are commercial software packages that do it but im really after freeware

[makntraks]

Why not just buy one of these?
VideoNow



makntraks

p.s. Just kidding....
p.s.s Actually they can be set up to play VCD if I recall (there is a thread around here somewhere...)

[Andymadonna]

I say this in this in tools

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=661#comments

it may help you

[Baldrick]

pocketdivxencoder?

[Darth Paris]

What type of PDA software are you going to use to paly it? My fathers runs windows pocket PC edition(or something like that). As far as i know it will only play WMV so I would rip to a divx file and convert to WMV via Windows Movie Maker.

[vitualis]

Pocket PCs don't just play WMV.

They can play just about everything and are greatly preferable to the Palm platform if you want to go down the multimedia path.

Firstly, get the right software. The included Windows Media Player on your Pocket PC can be safely ignored as it is trash compared to third party proggies.

For music (WMA / MP3 / OGG / etc) I suggest something like PocketMusic or GPlayer.

For video (WMV / DivX / XviD / MPEG1/2), I suggest Betaplayer.

To get video content onto your PocketPC, I suggest using your standard DVD --> DivX conversion programs rather than something specialised. You get better results and they are already heavily documented (e.g., Doom9 guides). I find that Gordian Knot works very well.

For DivX:
Framesize: convert the video to a framesize of 320x240 (i.e., screen size of Pocket PC) or something with less height if the source is widescreen.

Video Bitrate: I generally find that a video bitrate of 250-300 kbit/s is more than enough for perfectly watchable video -- 2-passes are recommended. I turn GMC and Q-pel off in general (if you don't have a high powered Pocket PC, these settings make decoding more CPU taxing).

Audio: this depends on you. I don't watch the video on my Pocket PC with headphones so I generally encode the audio as MONO 22.050 kHz in MP3 at 32 kbit/s. Through the little Pocket PC speaker, this sounds just fine. If you are going to use headphones, encoding in stereo at 44.1 kHz would be recommended.

Basically, on my Pocket PC, I can get very decent fullframe, full speed and smooth video at around 300 kbit/s total bitrate. Stick in a 512 Mb or 1 Gb SD card and you've got hours and hours of playback time.

With the DivX files at the above settings on my iPAQ rx3715, in the "benchmarking" mode of Betaplayer, I can play the video at around 210-230% speed.

I haven't benchmarked my older iPAQ 1930 yet, but it could play video smoothly (mostly) with the older PocketMVP which was less efficient than BetaPlayer.

BTW, the iPAQ rx3715 still has almost 8 hours of battery life with full screen brightness and Wi-Fi turned on! If you set up a wireless LAN network, you can play DivX files off your PC on your Pocket PC. Fantastic!

Regards.

[paul_pompey]

Thanks for your help everyone especially vitualis for for very useful information

[Suntan]

Movies on PPC are great. I can get 2 to 3 on to a 512mb SD card depending on movie length and quality I encode at (if its going to be a long weekend it is better to have 3 lower quality than 2 higher quality imo).

Anyway, Betaplayer is definitely the player to use. I would say it is safe to go with the most recent unstable version as Picard does a good job of keeping things together.

For encoding you can go the all in one route with PocketDivxEncoder (which actually uses FFMepg as the encoder FYI) a lot of people on the Betaplayer Forum say it works great, but I prefer the old fashioned way. I wrote a Howto for encoding spicifically for PPC you can read here.

All Freeware btw.

-Suntan

[tk25]

I use "fair use" to convert dvd to xvid or dvix. I'm a beginner and this was real easy and results are very good. This is free if you make the final product less then 700mb. there are guides posted in this web site.

I use about a 200mb to 350mb final movie file depending on movie length.

I found 16kb sound is just fine.

Beta player at www.betaplayer.corecodec.org is the player to use and much better then pocket mvp.

tk25

[garryward]

Hi I use flask and DIVx 5.2.1
works well for me