Converting video to sandisk sansa mp3 player fast!!!

[goheadtry]

Hi I have a Sandisk Sansa Mp3 player e 250 I was wondering how I could convert video for it using ffmpeg or other free/opensource programs the sansa program flips the video sideways when it converts. so it is wide screen on the screen. They are some type of quick time format what can I/ Should I use to analize the video format and parameters so I can then convert the video file using a free or opensource program that is opensource.

It has to be fast.

[aedipuss]

the arcsoft one that comes with the device works.... it's a weird 160x208 motion jpeg 15fps format with 11.025khz stereo audio. good luck.

[Squash]

GSpot is good for checking out the file parameters.

There's a very good Sansa e200-series forum over at:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9

There's a huge e200 video sub-forum link on that page.

I have a Sansa e260. As aedipuss said, it appears to only play mjpeg, which is too bad since it doesn't compress very well. Using GSpot to check out the 2 sample video files that came with the player, I see this:

"Sansa e200 demo.mov" (a slide-show): Video codec: mjpa (Apple Motion JPEG A) 12fps 176x220 2250kbps, par and dar = 0.8 (4:5). Audio = sowt, 44100Hz.
"Revelations.mov" (CGI outer-space clip): Video: mjpb (Apple Motion JPEG B) 15fps 160x208 1363fps, par and dar = 0.769 (10:13). Audio = twos, 11025Hz.

I never installed the Sansa video converter software that came with the player so I can't help you with that. I also don't know if plain-vanilla mjpeg works on the player or if you have to use the Apple version from the Sansa converter. I've never really used mine as a video player, other than to experiment with it for a while when I first bought it.

Right after I got my e260, I installed Rockbox's e200 series firmware on it (I probably wouldn't have bought the e260 if there hadn't been a Rockbox build for it). Using Rockbox, you can play regular mpeg1 and mpeg2 files, in addition to about 20 audio formats. The Rockbox folks are working on adding other video formats (H264 would be nice).

With Rockbox, if you want to boot into the original Sansa firmware, you just hold down the "left arrow" key when you turn the player on. The 2 firmwares co-exist peacefully. To uninstall Rockbox, you just delete its folder on the player. And it's freeware.

I converted a couple of WMV files to mpeg2/mp3 using mencoder and they played fine on the Sansa using Rockbox, so that's one option you might look into for the longer term. It's easy to convert just about anything into mpeg.

Hopefully the above thread will give you some leads to follow up on for more info.