Please suggest VirtualDub settings to "downsample" AVI's for Palm

[Lolipop Jones]

I've got VirtualDub running OK, but I can't seem to get it to correctly reduce the size of the output files. (It's creating files consistently bigger than the originals).

What I am starting with are .avi's approx 90 min in length and 700-800mb in size-I would like to shrink them to fit the Palm TX in landscape mode (480w x 320h), using XviD, and about 200mb each. There are so darn many video options in VirtualDub I can't seem to figure out where to start tweaking......

I tried shrinking them using AutoGK which has been tried and true for me in the past, but I kept getting audio synch problems I can't solve.

[daamon]

Welcome to the forums.

There's plenty of guides that will cover this in detail, and a ton of discussions and information in the forums if you get stuck.

Have a hunt around in:

* "All Guides" (link to the left)
* "Convert" (link to the left)
* And at the bottom of the page for the tool's entry in the Tools section - click here: VirtualDub

[jagabo]

90 minutes at 480x320 will look pretty poor at 200 MB. You might try resizing down ot 240x160 -- or whatever height is appropriate for your source's aspect ratio.

Use a bitrate calculator to figure out what bitrate you need to fit the video in the size you want. Then set Xvid up for 2-pass VBR at that bitrate. Also look at the properties of the encoding profiles (levels tab of the profiles dialog). Look for something that matches your player.

[festmaster]

There is a payware (only $ 8 ) tool called Lathe that is a one click solution for all sorts of pocket players. The review is at https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Lathe.

Personally, I use AutoGK to resize videos for my PocketPC. Under advanced settings you set the maximum width of the resulting video (320 is best for PocketPC and I imagine is very good for Palm, too). I also ramp down the quality to 75% and lower the CBR for the audio to its lowest setting. It saves space and on a 3 inch screen it makes little difference.

[Lolipop Jones]

Thanks all for your help. I would not have posted here without first looking at the guides, however I found lots of info about ripping DVDs, fixing mismatched audio and installing subtitles, but really nothing about forcing output file specs to match a given handheld.

Festmaster - Up till very recently I have been using AutoGK as well, I set the screen width to 480 and the audio to mono/CBR/80 and it has given me perfectly sized files that work great on the Palm TX screen. But for some reason I'm finding that when I try to compress an already existing AVI (as opposed to MPEG's and VOB's which still work fine) I get sound 5-10 seconds out of sync every time (this includes source AVI's with both CBR and VBR audio).

The only solutions I found on the web for this involved stripping out the audio and doing a bunch of pre processing before running the files back through AutoGK. I'm still enough of a noob that I want a single program solution with batching capability (I have about forty of these files I want to convert) rather than having to run a multi-step, multi-program process on each file.

Which is why I'm looking at VDub.

[daamon]

I used this guide recently as the basis and the principal for re-encoding a troublesome Xvid AVI to an Xvid AVI that I could work with.

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=810#810

I just chose different settings in the Xvid Configuration window (where the guide has red numbers 1 to5) to suit my purposes.

I used VirtualDubMod, applying the principals from the guide, as it doesn't automatically re-write the headers in a VBR audio file as VirtualDub does - causing the audio to go out of synch with the video. An option comes up to correct the headers, and I select "No" then use a Direct Stream Copy of the audio.

[jagabo]

File size = running time * bitrate

All you have to do to make the file smaller is reduce the bitrate (video and/or audio).

The lower the bitrate the lower the quality. The trick is to balance the frame size, frame rate, the specific video, and bitrate.

[Lolipop Jones]

Found the solution - AVI ReComp listed here on the software section, does the job perfectly. 200 Mb files that look and run great on the handheld.

thanks everybody - LJ