PSP movie resolution and slight audio problems

[PanderingAndy]

Hello all,
I'm using ffmpegx to convert avi's ripped from DVD to PSP MP4 format, but I'm having some issues.

First off, it appears that after selecting my output source as "PSP", I can only encode at the standard 320 by 240 resolution. Although The psp supports two other resolutions, if I change the settings for width and height to these other resolutions, my files come up as not compatible once they are on the PSP. Any other users have any experience or insight???

Second issue. the program I use to rip my DVD's converts to AVI, with Mp3 as the audio format. When I convert these to the MP4 format (using AAC as the audio output) there is a slight (half a second or less) sync error. More Ideas???

Thanks in advance.

[major]

PSP only supports 320x240 unless you trick the header in order to make non-standard resolutions play too. This will be added in next version.

For the sync, are you sure it is the audio, and not the video, having a different duration than the source?

[PanderingAndy]

Well that's good to know. Thank you so much, I thought I was missing something.

As far as the sync, I haven't checked the length's of each corresponding file to check for differences. Not sure if the free program I'm using will allow me to separate the files. Also, Is it better to not convert to mp3, but use a stream or direct setting instead and then convert to aac using ffmpegx?

After some reading, I'm gonna try YadeX to rip these VOB files (whatever that is :P ) and then try converting. I'll let you know. Just out of curiosity, what do you use? Or do you just use ffmpegx to convert the VOB files?

Will the new version also allow the new H.264 setting that comes with the 2.0 update for PSP?? not sure what's different about it.

[ZippyUK]

I second that question:

Will the next version also encode H264 video compatible with the new PSP 2.0 firmware?

[major]

Unfortunately, no. There is much work needed on the side of the mp4 muxer in order to enable that.

[ZippyUK]

I saw something in another thread about an issue with the MP4 muxer and h264.

Is this down to you to fix, or is this open source?

Anyway I don't think there is any way to do h264 in MP4 container on the Mac yet

Oh well, thanks for the fast reply.

[Void_Ptr]

Regarding the resolution issue, 320x240 is not the maximum. As has been covered in other forums, the issue is one of maximum pixels (76,800 is the max). What you need to do to get better resolutions is select PSP mode, drag your movie into the input box, do some basic math to figure an approximate resolution that is less than the 76,800 pixel limit, and then in the autosize, select whatever aspect ratio is closest to your native movie aspect ratio.

Generally if I'm compressing movies (or tv shows) to my psp, I'll use 368 width, and then whatever the autosize gives me for the height, which if I'm using 16x9, will work out to 208. So, type in 368x208, select 16x9 in autosize, and use that.

As for the sound issue, I can only guess, but this is a classic symptom of bad vob decoding. Generally what you will want to do is instead of processing the VOB files individually, is to take the whole VIDEO_TS folder and use some tool to encode that to an AVI first (XVid, DivX, whatever) and then encode that to the PSP. It's clumsy, but ffmpegx doesn't seem to support direct VIDEO_TS to PSP (I just tried it.) Good luck.

[Void_Ptr]

Oh, you are already starting with pre-encoded avi's. Well, then I would recommend following the ffmpegx how-to to rip/compress your dvds and use a different sound format like ac3.

[geekable]

Handbrake can stick H.264 inside an MP4 file -- seems they've solved the muxing issues.

Why don't you take a look, since it's open-source?

[PanderingAndy]

Void_Ptr, That's kind of what I've done in the past. I've selected the movie, PSP as the output format, typed in 368x208 in the dimensions and selected 16:9 as the aspect, all with absolutely no luck. Every time I preview the movie on the computer it seems like it's going to work. Resolution is 368x208, widescreen, MP4 formatted file and once it's on the PSP it's total bunk. Incompatible file every time. Is there maybe an issue with B-Frames or something? I don't know...it just doesn't work. phooey to that. : (

Anyways, I've decided to try something new... I am testing a small 12 minute Aqua Teen Hunger Force Episode which is in 4:3 in a new configuration. I am using D-Vision 3 to rip the file to an H.264 output and not converting the audio path to Mp3 or anything, just using the direct stream, all the while using 2-pass. The output file was full resolution, with an AC3 audio track that was stereo, 48khz, 192kbps, rather than 5.1 (maybe because of the H.264 format). That file is running through ffmpegx as I type to be output as pspmp4, 320x240, aac 2 channel, 64kbps, 24khz using b-frames and 2-pass. We'll see what happens, maybe audio lag, maybe not...

I'll let you know.

[major]

Handbrake can stick H.264 inside an MP4 file -- seems they've solved the muxing issues.

Why don't you take a look, since it's open-source?

I took a look since day 0, they use a different muxer, incompatible with ffmpeg for now, but vast amounts of mental resources are currently spent to integrate valid methods in ffmpeg and they will pop out in due time.

[PanderingAndy]

No Luck. The video appeared to be perfect as far as all of its properties on my mac. Great image quality, sound sync was perfect, resolution was 320x240. moved it to psp. Started to play....Saw image and as soon as the audio was supposed to kick in at about.5 seconds into the video..."this video can not be played". grrrrrrrr.

[major]

My advice would be to select your source file, and then choose the PSP target format, and hit Encode, without modifying any settings whatsoever.

[PanderingAndy]

Yeah, I started all of this by doing just that...and it works. But to be completely honest, the quality is not the best. That's why I started this whole thing... I know that psp isn't going to yeild the highest quality, atleast not right now due to the limitations sony leaves us with, so maybe I'll just play games on it until that is all sorted out and sony allows higher resolutions. I'll try a few different things for before I throw in the towel though.

[Scarpad]

Unfortunately Sony Wants to sell UMD movies I've bought quite a few and they look amazing, still with over 1200 DVD's investing in UMD's is not leaving a great taste in my mouth. AVC will Help but you still are not encoding close to the native rez of the screen and it will leave less than desirable results. I'm considering a PMP alternative that will let me encode using xvid at a higher res , like either the Archos Av500 or Creative Zen models due soon.

[joshewah]

You can use the default settings, just increase the video bitrate to 768kbps which should give you better quality

[spooker]

There is a good guide on how to encode video for the PSP using FFmpegX at http://www.pspbrew.com/wiki/index.php/Video_HOW-TOs

The main thing you want to look at when encoding with FFmpegX is to use PSPREZ (available at the link above) to modify the file header to trick the PSP in to playing non standard resolutions.

[major]

The main thing you want to look at when encoding with FFmpegX is to use PSPREZ (available at the link above) to modify the file header to trick the PSP in to playing non standard resolutions.

This will no longer be needed in forthcoming version 0.0.9t.

[garethhk]

I discussed converting 16:9 movies for viewing in PSP (in a HK Mac Fans Discussion Board). A fellow Mac fan then wrote a droplet based on PSPREZ that'll do the trick.

c.f. http://mac.hk/appletalk/viewtopic.php?t=13349

Direct download: http://drgeek.gotdns.com/DropPSPREZ.dmg

Enjoy.



Gareth

[Harbinger]

Ever since encoding for the PMP file type (Xvid Mencoder 480 x 272 with Mp3 Audio) it has been very difficult to go back to the "Sony sanctioned" mpeg4. The newly added bonus of being able to stream these files from a http server also breaks some significant file size limitations.

This may get some of you started in the right direction:

http://www.mastamind.de/?p=232

Here's the translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mastamind.de%2F%3Fp%3D232%23m...language_tools

And here's the newly updated media player with streaming support:

http://www.optixx.org/2006/02/14/pmp-mod-m4g3-bugfixes/


I'm currently outputing as described in the German tutorial. I wonder, with the popularity of .PMP growing quickly, whether we'll see the option for creating this file type rolled into FFMPEGX