VideoNow Color (and Jr) Video Conversions

[ayeyen]

Hey! I'm ayeyen and I'm gonna try to help out wherever possible because I think this is a great thing!

Anyhow, can someone PM/email me to get me caught up on your developments? Thanks much!

(And VideonowDude, you're still the greatest)

[GregSmith]

Hey everyone...

I just won a Videographer's Award for my work transferring slides to video. See the results at http://videon.us

Continued good luck with the VideoNow and VideoThen software.

Greg

[EwanG]

Some things I'd like to understand better...

First, I managed to create my first disk last night. Took two attempts as the first time the volume was way too low. Since then I've made sure to do an 800% volume boost when I create the WAV file. I seem to have to do this with all my videos - which is a bit strange since they come from different sources. Is there some obvious prep trick I'm missing, or is this a known issue?

Second, I'm very confused at how they get a "full" Sesame Street episode on a disk. The ones my daughter owns seem to drop the Elmo's World portion, but otherwise seem to indeed have a complete episode. But that still would leave over 40 minutes of video - and my understanding from the instructions are that you are pushing your luck if you go past even 30 minutes. Again, something I've misread or misunderstood?

Finally, just a thanks again to everyone here for a great tool and some great discussions!

[EwanG]

Seperate post because this is a rather different issue and will probably get answered differently

When I cut down my CD-Rs, even with a label on, there is some wrinkling of the reflective material that occurs at the margin. I have also noticed a tendancy to get video noise in the title and first track, which makes me wonder if the disk is burnt from the outside in, or the inside out. I had always assumed the latter, but my experience so far has me wondering.

On a related note, what exactly does the reflective layer do? You aren't burning the data into the reflective layer are you? It's just designed to make sure the player reads the burned pits, right? If so, would you be better off to remove the reflective layer after the burn entirely, cut the disk down, and then apply something reflective back onto the smaller disk (thereby removing the mess at the edges)?

Thanks again,
Ewan

[nerys]

what is the limit ? is there anyway to get a video now player to play a color video 43-46 minutes long ? (enough for a normal television program)

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

[EwanG]

OK, I finally broke down and did the "Dremel" thing to my daughter's VideoNow Jr. The disc loaded probe was a bit of fun, particularly since I didn't like the idea of soldering the switch. What I did instead was to unbend a key holder (one of those small wire circles) and slip it through the arm of the lever that gets depressed, and then bend the remaining wire to anchor it on the bottom screw. This works nicely and doesn't involve messing things up too much.

However, even burning to a full-sized disk that doesn't get cut down, I'm still seeing some significant video "noise" during playback. I'm wondering if it's the FujiFilm CD-Rs or something else. Generally it isn't a constant problem but rather like static that comes and goes. I notice it's more prominent if I move the player while it's going, which makes me wonder if it's an inherent problem of the larger disk. Any ideas?

[EwanG]

Why ask if I'm going to just go home and try it anyway, right?

As it turns out, it makes a HUGE difference using Sony CD-Rs versus FujiFilm CD-Rs. The Fuji's have more of a greenish cast that looks a bit like a CD-RW whereas the Sony's look nice and silvery just like the PVDs from Hasbro/Playskool.

Daughter was quite (!!!) happy to finally get a new disk. Particularly since we had bought every VN Jr. title our store carried and several of the VN cartoons. Of course, it seems to me that Hasbro is missing out on a pretty big aftermarket. Even if I could buy all the Sesame Street episodes on PVD, I'd still want to have the ability to do what I did today - tape her sister's birthday, burn it to a CD, and let her watch it again and again.

FWIW,
Ewan

[dmcbudman]

we have the full sized one not JR
and have no trouble with 35 minutes
so i added more
it crapped out at like 37-38 minutes
if i remember ill check the total time to be sure and ill post my findings

[teknow]

we have the full sized one not JR
and have no trouble with 35 minutes
so i added more
it crapped out at like 37-38 minutes
if i remember ill check the total time to be sure and ill post my findings

actually it's kind of deceiving with the rubber around the jr. but the screens are the same size... I checked.
The Jr. is much sturdier and doesn't require cutting the sides out having the disc stick out, which makes it the winner for me.

*** use a mask when dremeling... the fumes can cause some massive headaches.

[VideonowDude]

Noise on playback
I too have been having noise problems on playback (picture & sound losing it) and thought it was because my modded player had dust in it. I tok the thing apart (again) and thoroughly cleaned it, but it didnt make any difference. Then I read the recent posts: check the media!

My original work was done with Sony CD-Rs with good results. I finally ran out after making a good number of coasters while developing the software, so I switched to Nashua CD-Rs, and in retrospect I think that's when things got much worse. More recently I have been using Memorex CD-Rs, and I still had the problem.

However, most recently I bought a pack of TDK Music CD-Rs, and they appear to kick ass in the noise dept: almost no noise at all now. Even when cut down to size. YMMV of course...

[trevlac]

@VideoNowDude,

Any chance you'll share the code? You probably posted enough info ... but the devil is always in the details.

I've made a few disc with your filter and I think this is very cool. I have 2 little ones and each now has a VideoNow.

Thanks for your efforts.


-----------------------
Now on to some improvements ...

• Can one use your filter with AVISynth?
• Batch would be real nice. Real time encode is a bit of a drag.
• Any ideas on the color matrix and what Phaeron said? I would think if you resized to 216x160 and then took the appropriate color (matching the lcd grid) you would get the proper placement of the pixels and better resolution.
• I would use a box blur of about 2 radius, 2 type before the resize. You get a bunch of aliasing (jumping edges) on a straight Nearest Neighbor resize.

-----------------------
As to why videoNow Jr. vs a $99 DVD player
+ Battery life is much better on the videoNow Jr.
+ Device is lighter
+ Harder to break the videoNow Jr.
+ Much easier to use the videoNow Jr.
+ It's fun for Dad

[VideonowDude]

Just figured out how to convert faster than realtime: on my 4 yr old PC I can convert at 7x realtime speed. Here's how:

Get ready as usual. Then right before clicking Output Playback set these menu items:
Options:
Display input video: off
Dsplay output video: off
Sync to audio: off
Audio:
No Audio

Then click Output Playback.

I might have to tune my code to be performant now! If I had the time...

[trevlac]

If I had the time...

I know what you mean. Small kids and time at home do not go together.

BTW: Good work-around for the faster encode.

----------

I got some time to play with this over lunch

I would really like to have an encoder that is command line and works with avisynth. That way you can do all the up front work in AVS and do a bunch of encodes controled by a batch file.

Step # 1 is a decoder to make sure I have the bitmap working correctly.

I made a virtualDub filter that does the video decode. Really a bit of a hack. It requires a video as input to Vdub to produce frames. Then it lets you open a VideoNow.wav file and shows the images. Since Avery did all the video display work ... it didn't take too much.

I give 2 options: 216x160 and 144x80. The 1st is to try to mimic the videoNow screen. I don't think I have the color matrix correct yet. I could only test with VideoNowDude's intro.

Once I get the colors correct, I'll work on the batch encoder. I'll post all my code here.

Thanks again for all the hard work on the specs!

http://www.trevlac.us/vidNowDec.zip - Source included.

[trevlac]

Wow! My colours were really off. Anyway .. I think I've fixed it. One question on the colours ....

Is the 1st 'pixel' made from R0,G0,B1 or from R0,G1,B1 with 0 or 1 being the line number. I'm doing the former and it seems to work for me, but this sceme leves an unused G1 at the begining of each set, and a missing one at the end. My filter is still at the link above. Source is included.

Anyway ... here are some sample pics I decoded with the vdub filter.






[edit]

Ok i was goofing off and I figured out the other nibble order so I don't have any 'wasted' ones. See the example attached. The logo is much sharper, but I'm not sure if the other source is better. The saturation is certainly lower on the 'proper' order. I'll have to do some more tests / compares.

[trevlac]

Finally ... I think I have the Decoder working

No sound ... and you have to load a dummy file into Vdub with at least as many frames to see the full clip.

But the images look pretty good. I also have a 216x160 option which is intended to simulate what you see on the VideoNow LCD. Actually the LCD looks much better than my simulation.

I also added a contrast knob and tell you the file frame count / time.

Below are some samples I pulled from various "wav" files. The center one is the LCD simulation.



On to the batch encoder ... or maybe a stand alone decoder ... or maybe

[trevlac]

I just love talking to myself ....

Anyway ... I wrote a batch encoder. Very much in the test stage so you might have problems ... which I'd be happy to fix

http://www.trevlac.us/vidNowEnc.zip

-----------------------------------------

The encoder is command line. So you need to do something like:

c:\videoNowEnc.exe myInput.avs 1080

- 1st parameter is a movie file with 144x80 24bit RGB, 17640 8 bit stereo

- 2nd (not required) is the # of frames per output track <chapter splits>. 1080/18fps = 1 minute

I've tested with frameserved video from VDub and with Avisynth input. I included my avs script in the zip. Source is also included

------------------------------
The goal of all this was batch encoding with little to no manual steps. Running with avs input, you could setup a .bat and do this with drag and drop. If anyone is interested, I'll make it more clear.

I was thinking of adding the abitlity to process an entire directory of AVI files. Input would be the Dir & a template AVS script. Output would be a bunch of directories with the VDNxx.WAV files.

[EwanG]

I just love talking to myself ....

Just so you don't get to feeling lonely...

Sounds like an interesting project. For myself, I am too much of a control freak to let the program just pick break points based on number of frames. Of course I'm also fairly likely to put a couple AVIs together (multiple short clips of the family in action) to be able to easily drag and drop a directory and expect the program to know which ones I want on a particular disk.

At this point I'd be more inclined (personally) to try and find ways to get more content onto a single disk. But with Disney coming out with some non-folding DVD players this year, I suspect it's more likely we'll be going with one of those later this year than for me to continue using the VideoNow Jr. Unless it turns out that the Disney units aren't very robust.

Just my .02 worth...

[maxedroom]

Nice to see a little more action around here. I finally wrote my own frame dumper/decoder. It ouputs files in a manner that simulates the LCD screen with the pixels staggered. The output is 433x320, so two pixels per actual pixel with one on either the left or right of a row of pixels to stagger it. The images look better this way without all the vertical lines running through. I'm now going to work on a stand alone encoder that uses a 216x160 input file. Below is a sample of the image I was able to get from the program.



If anyone wants the source code or a video file that I made from the dumped frames, just let me know and I'll post it.

[trevlac]

@EwanG

Thanks for the reply. I was just trying to suplement vDude's encoder. I grab loads of shows from my Satalite Recorder. I wanted a quick and easy way to put a bunch on disc for a trip. I know what you mean about control vDude's encoder is great. But I wanted to try different resolutions and methods of pixel placement to see if they **maybe** improved the picture. Probably not worth the effort ... but once interested, it's sometimes hard to stop thinking about the problem.

My kids are 3 & 5. I'm not sure they are ready for a DVD player. But with the price of players, I can't imagine VideoNow is going to last for the older crowd.

@Max

Great idea in the simulation. I changed mine to match yours. I've also been thinking about encodes using higher than 144x80 resolution. Since most source frames are more than large enough, one could match the pixel placement to the LCD ... after a blur.

I was thinking 432x160 would be the proper resolution. Then you would skip every other input pixel across the width, skiping the 1st on the 1st line, keeping the 1st on the 2nd line .... ect.

This should pull the pixels as they match the placement on the LCD.

xRxGxBxRxGxB
GxBxRxGxBxRx
xRxGxBxRxGxB

Frankly ... I'm not sure it matters too much ... but I'm interested in playing around with it. One should do a blur 1st. Or you could take the average values of an xRx combo to get the blurred R. Or maybe a bilinear resize to get to 432x160 is good enough.

[edit] I forgot my simulation picture Maybe it's too dark still?

[trevlac]

@Max

432x160 is definately the way to go! Check out my example below. I started with 720x480 source.

1st pic is the source bilinear resized to 432x320 for comparison.

2nd pic is source resized to 144x80, Encoded, pulled back out at 433x320

3rd pic is source resized to 432x160, Encoded, pulled back out at 433x320

It looks better on the LCD. I changed my encoder to take 432x160 as input.








I was bugged by how the simulated image was too dark. I played with adding the luma from the 'other' pixels back in. IE for red, add luma from g&b back to red. For green, add luma from b&r. It seems about right using 1/2 the luma. Not sure why. This image does look closer to what you see on the lcd ... especially if you sit back about 5 feet.

Another thing I noticed was that the LCD image is taller as far as aspect ratio goes.

[trevlac]

@Max

BTW: I'd love to see your source. I'm quite the novice programmer. But I've been hacking at this video stuff for some time. Not too long ago, I learned one way to read avi files. But I certainlly don't know more than some basics.

@All

Just some notes on modding the player. I found (following vDude's instructions) that after removing the screws from the bottom inside cover, I could also slide the ribbon cable out of the connector. This allowed me to completely remove the bottome inside cover. Much easier to work that way, away from the electronics. I just did some whittling with a razor blade knife. I also found that a hot soldering iron did a real quick job on the larger parts. Then I cleaned up the melted spots with the knife. Finally, for the "saftey switch" I put a drop of super glue on the top and pressed in the switch. It didn't come back up.

[maxedroom]

Is there a minimum size for a video? For example, say you have a disk that is cut to size, but you only put about 5 minutes of video on it. Will it pass the disk size test and will the video play? I ask because I want to try something that might allow the use of a standard mini-cdr. If all the read head is doing is moving to a specific spot and trying to read anything, even a blank, unrecorded part of a disk, then I wonder if you could cut a disk down to VideoNow size, cut a hole in it just slightly larger than a mini-cdr and then put some sort of thin rubber on the inside. Then, you could just insert the mini-cdr into the cut cdr and use it to "extend" the size of the mini-cdr. I just don't want to maim my player and cutting disks is tedious.

[VideonowDude]

Yes, there is a minimum size as the player checks for a particular track to make sure you are not using 3" CD-Rs. It is somewhere around the 20 minute mark I think, though I have not done exhaustive (coaster-generating) tests to find the exact point. 22 mins is the shortest usable disc I have personally created. (That's 44 mins in Nero-time).

Your idea is interesting, so long as you have a readable track at the right point, it shouldnt matter if its the inner CD-R or your outer wrapper disc. Good luck!

[trevlac]

Has anyone played with Gamma or color correction?

No doubt the LCD does not display like a CRT. Can an image be tuned to the LCD? Does it make a difference?

Hello?

[VideonowDude]

trevlac, I haven't done any work on that. To be honest I burn cartoons, and my customer is under 3 yrs old, so picture quality hasn't been a priority for me. What kind of things are you burning that shows up the lack of advanced processing in my converter? (Well any processing really )

[trevlac]

@videoNowDude,

The only thing I would suggest is to use 432x160 as input instead of 144x80. Take the R,G,or B from every other pixel. Skipping the 1st pixel on the 0 and subsequent 'even' lines. This should make the image pixels line up with their corresponding R,G,or B LCD element in the 216x160 array. This makes an appreciable difference. See my GoBots pictures above.

---------------
As far as color correction and gamma and such ... I just do this with Avisynth before I feed the video to the encoder. You could do the same thing with virtualdub filters. I don't think the encoder needs to do any real processing. Other free tools already do that job.

I've been doing some Power Ranges shows for my 5yr old. If I up the saturation by 50% and adjust the gamma by 1.5 ... the picture really pops on the display. This doesn't work as well for the cartoons I've done for my 3yr old.

I'm a bit of a video nut and I've really had fun fooling with this toy. Normally, you can't really tune an image to a screen. But in this case you can try.

-----------------
On a different note ... I noticed that my local Target store is selling the vNow Color units for $25. They also have the Disney DVD players for $140. They look 'heavy duty'. I of course wondered about the image quality of their 3.5" screen ...

[trevlac]

It was too much of a temptation .... $24.95 for the regular color unit.

So I got one. The mod is much more difficult than the Jr. unit. You need to cut out a good portion of the lid to get a regular CD-R to fit. This exposes the edges of the spinning disc. The latch is also a problem.

You could probably fashion some plastic over the exposed spots, and make a new latch. But I wanted to point out that the Jr. mod is really easy vs the regular color unit. But of course the Jr. costs about $50.

[maxedroom]

Thanks for the price alert. I got one myself the other night. Yes, the temptation was too great, however now I can experiment all i want without ruining my daughters Jr.

[maxedroom]

@trevlac

Is the executable in the zip posted at:

http://www.trevlac.us/vidNowEnc.zip

the 432 version or the 144? I can't compile the source, I guess I'm missing the vfw stuff.

[trevlac]

I complie with normal VC5 and/or VC6 I added under the link tab, "object/library modules" the library vfw32.lib.

I updated the zip file with a recent compile and some of the VC6 project files. But to be honest ... I havn't been tracking source too closely Let me know if it does not work, and I'll make sure the zip has a working latest copy tonight.

I'm using the following type of Avisynth script to feed the encoder:

AVISource("myAVI.avi")
BilinearRezise(432,160)
ConvertToRGB24()
ChangeFPS(18)
ResampleAudio(17640).ConvertAudioTo8bit()

I also add things like Normalize(),Amplifydb(3) to increase the audio volume .... and .... Tweak(sat=1.5), Levels(...) to juice up the picture.

------------------
BTW: I messed up the mod I tried on the regular color player. I nicked the lcd connector ribon. It doesn't look worth the effort to try to fix. Plus ... you have to cut away too much of the case to get a full sized cd to spin ... for more than just a test unit. I think I'll stick with the juniors.