Video content for mobile devices: advice needed

[spycam]

So,
as i understand, probably not many of the smart phones or other mobile devices can show x.264 MP4 videos, i guess i should need to go with DIVX encoded MP4 files, or i am wrong?
I somewhat don't like the 3GP format.

Also, what resolution of the video and what aprox. bitrate should i go with, to have average owners of Iphone, Ipod and all the other smart phones and mobile devices?
I thought about 480×320.

If it comes that x.264 is the way to go, i know how to encode such video. But what with sound? Should it be MP3 or AC3?
If it's not x.264, then what format it should be?

Also, if i want to put such videos on a site that is created for mobile devices, is it possible to stream these videos some way? Since not many of them support flash, flash players can't be used, but maybe there is something that makes it possible to view videos on the site?

Thanks for the answers

[surfmonkee]

get a copy of xmedia recode it has an amazing collection of presets for many many handheld devices like phones ipods creative zen, all sorts.

that way you can choose the device and the program will do all the rest.

its free lightweight and behind it is the incredible ffmpeg

this tool should be in everyones arsenal of tools for video!

differsnt devices use different resolutiopns. for example my zen xfi only does 320/240 where as my psp does something else etc etc etc.

recode will set all that for you. i would be surprised if there is not a preset for the device you want to use.

[spycam]

Well, i was asking more of a universal solution, like which ONE resolution to choose that could fit bigger part of the market, i'm not going to create videos for every mob device or to only one specific one, so i need ONE format and ONE resolution...

[SatStorm]

AFAIK there is not such thing like a "universal" solution.
In practice, I bet DivX 352x288 or 352x240 with ~600kb/s would play on most devices. Non Sony/Apple that is.

The other approach is to imitate what youtube do for the mobile devices. It is the so called: &fmt18 format.

[spycam]

But what MP4 format should it be, Divx or X.264?

[surfmonkee]

you will come in to problems if you think one resolution will fit all devices. that is simply not the case.

you only have to scan down this list of a few devices and see what a nightmare it can be, which is why xmedia recode will be your best friend in the long run

http://forums.techarena.in/portable-devices/1175664.htm


one format and one resolution is not possible across multiple devices!

a quick look at the preset list in recode tells you different devices need very different specs or there would be just one preset!

[poisondeathray]

And you will come into problems if you think 1 format or set of encoding settings will fit all devices

Even between h264 encoded with x264, there are different profiles and settings that play on some devices but not on others. The fact is you will have to encode different videos for different devices. e.g. what plays on a PSP won't play on an IPOD becase of some settings

[spycam]

OK,
I have tried Xmedia Recode,
i tried to convert AVC mp4 TO MPEG4 mp4, there is a problem with audio track converting, no matter of o select 22500/64kbps/mono, it will always set the sound to be 44100/stereo, not sure about bitrate now.
Also, since i have to convert a few hundreds of videos, it is very time consuming to add tags to each video manually, even if they are all the same, settings are the same, tags are the same, if i select all videos in the list to apply the same settings and tags to them, then i add them to jobs, it recodes the files as 0 kb ones... And i didn't find any job file, where i could edit the lines to change the data...