ffmpegX settings for Video iPod

[garethhk]

Would anyone advise the correct parameters for clip conversion that will be playable in the new Video iPod?

I ordered a 60GB Black version from online Apple Store. It won't be delivered in another 7 days so I have no way to verify. I tried to convert a short movie with QuickTime Pro 7 / iPod preset and the resulting file ends with .M4V extension. I saw in a discussion board that people failed to play 320x240 h.264 .MP4 clips converted with ffmpegX in iPod.

Any experience to share? Thanks.

[klutzak]

I have had some success using ffpmegX to convert video into .mp4 format, but it was a little strange. I started with the PSP preset from the 'Summary' target format drop-down.

I changed the video size to 320x240, and selected the 'best' button to alter video bitrate.

under 'options' I selected 'PSP' and left the name as 'movie'.

When I started the encode, the 'save as' name was converted to "M4Vxxxxx.MP4" which I assume is necessary for the PSP to play the video. I changed this name in the finder before I uploaded it to iTunes and then downloaded to my iPod.

The resulting file plays beautifully in my iPod Video, with the encoding time being a fraction of the time that QT 7 takes to export!

curiously, if I unselect the PSP encoding profile, the video will play garbled on the video iPod.

No other codecs, including h264, will even download onto the iPod from iTunes.

I have no idea why that is, or what the encoding profile does besides change the name, but it must do something relevant...

Hope that helps.

[garethhk]

Thanks so much.

I'd try when my Video iPod arrives.

[cicero]

It may have to do with the fact that the iPod video requires the 'baseline' profile, not the 'main' profile, of H.264. I don't know how you specify that in ffmpegX, but presumably by pick the PSP option it is selected. I know very little about encoding for the PSP though.

[klutzak]

I've seen some tutorials appearing online that supposedly use the H264 codec in ffmpeg, so I'm stumped on this. The vids I create that way will load and playback in iTunes just fine, but won't DL onto the iPod.

It would probably help to know exactly what changes the 'encoding profile' makes in the options tab. In ffmpeg, the H264 codec is from mencoder, and doesn't offer this option. I've tried both the mpeg [mp4] and xvid [mp4] from ffmpeg, and they both work if the 'encoding profile' is set to PSP.

Which would be fine if that didn't also cause the save as filename to be changed to something PSP friendly but otherwise hostile. This makes long conversion queues a PITA.

Plus, the files that are generated by H264 are much smaller and I'd like to go that way if possible.

Has anyone been able to successfully use ffmpeg's H264 to generate an iPod compatible file? If so, please let me know what procedure you followed...

[cicero]

I've seen some tutorials appearing online that supposedly use the H264 codec in ffmpeg, so I'm stumped on this. The vids I create that way will load and playback in iTunes just fine, but won't DL onto the iPod.

IMO, that's been the source of most of the confusion out there. Just because it plays in iTunes does not mean it will play on your iPod. I think some people have written guides assuming that it will without having thier iPod video in hand to test it. The iPod decoder is very different than iTunes which is essentially QT7.

Unfortunately I'm not much help with settings for ffmpegX. I just haven't had enough time to put into it to figure out some good iPod settings, but I'm interested too if someone out there has it working.

[ahmontgo]

Many of the online "guides" are wrong. The h264 mp4 files produced by mencoder aren't baseline profile, and so don't play on the iPod. If there's a flag for mencoder to produce a baseline profile, it would be very useful to have such a setting available, or perhaps the x264 encoder could be added to ffmpegx. There is a hacked version of handbrake that produces baseline h264 which works (I have tested it on my 5g) and is available here:
http://s8.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0RVTS3ESHZ1Z535XQLI2Z25GHD

Using the ffmpeg xvid encoder with an mp4 container produces files that are playable on a video iPod. Under the "Video" tab select "Xvid [.mp4] ffmpeg" and use AAC encoding, or use the PSP setting (which uses the Xvid mp4 encoder) The iPod officially supports this format up to 480x480, but reports of success up to 640x272 have been circulating.

Obviously we'd love it if our favorite tool ffmpegx could support a baseline profile h.264.

[GrBear]

Interestingly enough I tried the settings as the post above, and while the MP4 file will playback in VLC fine and dandy, opening it in Quicktime 7 gives me the error:

QuickTime cannot open the file:
"<filename>.mp4"
an invalid sample description was found in the movie
(-2041)

I've been using HandBreak MP4/AAC settings to play around with, but it won't convert divx movies (obviously) only DVD/VOB's.

I don't have an iPod with video yet, but I wanted to transcode some videos beforehand.

[garethhk]

My Video iPod arrived at my doors this morning.

I imported two movies to the iPod. They both played fine. One of them is a small iMovie Project converted to h.264/ACC with iPod preset in QTPro. Another is a MotionJPEG converted to PSP preset xVid MPEG-4/ACC solely with ffmpegX. The file name was changed from .MP4 to .M4V as suggested by an earlier thread. The PSP preset encoded with NTSC 29.97fps. The file plays smoothly with no lip-sync problem in iPod. ffmpegX will be my encoding solution for time being as it encodes much faster than QTPro.

My thanks to fellow readers for their advice and input.



Gareth

[ahmontgo]

If you get the -2041 error, check the info box in vlc; if it doesn't have mp4v/mp4a for the video and audio (and you know that they are both balid mpeg4 streams), try using the ffmpeg command line to fix the fourcc tags:

ffmpeg -i brokenmovie.mp4 -vtag mp4v -vcodec copy -atag mp4a -acodec copy movie.mp4

If you used the wrong audio codec, you can also use this command to reconvert the audio:

ffmpeg -i brokenmovie.mp4 -vtag mp4v -vcodec copy movie.mp4

[GrBear]

VLC says it's definately a MP4V video stream and MP4A audio stream.

./ffmpeg -i ~/Desktop/Broken.mp4 -vtag mp4v -vcodec copy -atag mp4a -acodec copy ~/Desktop/Fixed.mp4
ffmpeg version CVS, build 3211265, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
configuration: --enable-mp3lame --enable-gpl --disable-vhook --enable-ffplay --disable-ffserver --enable-a52 --enable-xvid --enable-faac --enable-faad --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb --enable-pthreads --enable-x264
built on Aug 14 2005 14:46:34, gcc: 3.3 20030304 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 1666)

Seems that stream 0 comes from film source: 24000.00 (24000/1) -> 23.98 (24000/1001)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2, from '/Users/grbear/Desktop/Broken.mp4':
Duration: 01:28:26.5, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1090 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 480x352, 24000.00 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo
Output #0, mp4, to '/Users/grbear/Desktop/Fixed.mp4':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 480x352, 24000.00 fps, q=2-31
Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding
frame=127229 q=151107.1 Lsize= 706174kB time=5306.4 bitrate=1090.2kbits/s
video:588330kB audio:114898kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.418993%

Performing the step you suggested produced the above results, but the output file skips through the movie VERY quickly in Quicktime (which opens it now) and tries to do the same thing in VLC. It's like it plays a frame, jumps forward 5 minutes, plays another frame, jumps forward, etc.

VLC chokes on the file now too doing essentially the same thing.

Very odd behaviour indeed.

[ahmontgo]

It looks like you used the MPEG4 [.MP4] (ffmpeg) setting on the Video tab rather than the XviD [.MP4] (ffmpeg) setting. The Summary tab "MP4" by default uses MPEG4 [.MP4] for the video, which in some of my tests produces the -2041 error.

[Cricri]

I tried and I tried but "iPod h.264" does not work for me. Works but my iPod video does not get it!

"iPod for TV" works like a charm, anytime!

(ffmpegX 0.0.9u r2)

[major]

Are you not changing any of the preset settings? You should do exactly as follows, first open source file, then select iPod H.264, then click encode.

[Cricri]

I did not change anything (I doubt it, but if made a change, does the app keeps the setting after a relaunch?).

To be true before checking for the last version of ffmpegX I did try to load this preset :

I've attached an ffmpegX Settings file that I've been using to encode very high quality H264 videos for my iPod. The results are very close to what you would get if you use Apple's "H264 for iPod" export from QT Pro (or iMovie, etc.). File size is similar, as well.

The attached setting file is:

ffmpegx_setting-ipodh264,500kb,48k@128k,q5-30,30fps.ffx
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=286423

But I did not save any Preset... And when I check the number in Video, Audio etc.. They are not the ones indicated by rumplestiltskin, so I think my iPod h.264 preset is the one which comes with ffmpegX 0.0.9u r2.

[major]

(I doubt it, but if made a change, does the app keeps the setting after a relaunch?).

No, it doesn't. You could save a preset file so as I can check what you did. Or you can send me the file to major4@mac.com. Or you can try again by following the 3 steps indicated, in the correct order (if you choose the preset before opening the file, it probably will not work, as the preset image size and the bitrate would be modified when the file is opened).

[Cricri]

major, thank you for your answers to my mails :

The iPod only accepts 320x240 for H264
Also make sure that video bitrate is not exceeding 768 kbps

That's it!

[karms]

When following the above PSP encoding process to create an ipod compatible m4v file, I am receiving the following message in the process window..

[xvid @ 0x381324]XviD: Color spaces other than 420p not supported

My input is a DV file a bit over an hour in length. Any help appreciated.[/b]

[karms]

Does the mp4 file created by the ipod h.264 process need to be changed to a m4v before the ipod will accept it?

[major]

No.

[jaimev]

I'm trying to understand the video encoding options for the video iPod ( I'm considering getting one ).

If you encode with H.264, the resolution of the video must be exactly 320x240 for it to play on the iPod, right?

If MP4 encoding is used, the aspect ratio can be something other than 4:3? And it can be bigger than 320x240, subject to some maximum kbps data rate?

If the H.264 iPod preset encoding is used, and the source material is narrower than the 4:3 aspect ratio, how can letterboxing be added so that a 4:3 ratio can be output?

Sorry to sound so dumb - I'm new to both ffmpegx, and the iPod video.

[major]

I guess that even in H264 encoding you can use different aspects so long the total number of pixels does not exceed 76800.

[jaimev]

Thanks...after some searching it turns out that with H.264 encoding a movie has to be composed of 300 macroblocks (16x16 pixels) or less. With MPEG4, it's a max of 900. Info from this page

[icheerful]

My parameters:
Preset - iPod TV
Dimensions - 384 x 288, 4:3, 25 fps, 621 kbps
ONLY "use I-frames" and "decode with QT" unmarked

anything not mentioned, are by default of iPod TV preset.

[Melanie.]

could someone help me? i tried the psp setting, and it finished in one second and the file was zero kb

[rumplestiltskin]

For those having problems dropping otherwise good mp4's into their iPod, remember that you must turn OFF auto-sync'ing -or- set the iPod to sync with the appropriate folder. I simply turn it off and have no issues.

As for the proper H264 settings:

Assuming your source video is okay, use the iPod H264 setting, then move to the Video tab and set the pixel size for the appropriate ratio but keep to the "rule of 16's" (multiple of 16 for both height and wdith), and keep the total number of pixels below 76,800. Click the "Best" button and bump the resulting bitrate up by around 10-15% (IMHO). Unless you know the hack to add H264 with extremely high bitrates (see forum thread named "MPEG Streamclip"), keep the bitrate below 768. Note that ffmpegX will never suggest such a high bitrate if your pixel size is within the 76,800 limit.

Move to the Filters(?, might be options, I'm not at my Mac right now) and set ME function to multi-hexagon, then set Qmin to 3 and Qmax to 28 or 30. These are the "quality" settings within which ffmpegX will keep the quality. I'm assuming you also have the constant bitrate checked. Whether you use "2-pass" or not is up to you. Takes a lot longer but it does improve quality and, if you use it, you can move Qmin and Qmax up a few notches. This will keep the file size down (as my Q3-28 setting will inflate the file size but provide the best quality).

There's a "use Quicktime" checkbox that often helps (if QT Player will actually play the source). If it plays in QT Player, I use the checkbox and, more often than not, the converted file is fine.

[major]

Please note that the qmin scale for H264 is logarithmic, so using a QMin of 3 seem unnecessarily low. Defaults should provide quite good results.

[Baseballman1243]

Converting my videos works on my iPod, although for some reason lets just say the file is 29 min. long, it converts it and it turns to something 36min long. And after the video is over its just a white screen for 7 more minutes. Can anyone tell me why it does this please.

[rumplestiltskin]

Some questions, BBman.

Have you changed the framerate from the source material? Does the initial 29 minutes play at normal speed? Does the audio remain in sync throughout the 29 minutes?

[Baseballman1243]

yes, everything is alright, it just keeps going on and on with a blank white screen. Also, it tells you when its going to go past 29 min. On the progress bar, it goes to 186% (or something like that) even when the blue has filled up the line.