Converting non-complaint MPEG-4 to play on RPi

[doveman]

My brother's got a lot of video clips that he's downloaded or been sent that play fine on his PC but not on his RPi running XBMC I've just built him. His old PC had a composite output to connect to his CRT TV but the new PC I built him doesn't, so that's why I had to build him the RPi.

Anyway, these clips are identified in MediaInfo as S-MPEG 4 or MPEG-4 (Microsoft) and so he needs to convert these to be compliant and play on the RPi.

Will he be able to just transcode them to avoid degrading the quality or will they need to be fully converted?

I had a look at Handbrake but that doesn't seem ideal for the job as it requires specifying a destination filename for each file, which will be rather tedious if he's got a lot to add, so is there something simpler that will just let him add files to the queue and automatically create the destination file with a suffix in the same folder as the source? The less unnecessary video options the better really as well, as with Handbrake I haven't got a clue what to tell him to set everything to, so if anyone can advise I'd be grateful.

[Baldrick]

Rpi? Raspberry pi?
Isn't that a normal computer? So it should support everything but hd/complex h264 files might look like crap/very slow playback.

What happens when you play the files?

[jman98]

Rpi? Great. Another AKOTY (Acronym Known Only To You). If you want help, avoiding cutesy acronyms that few people know might be a really good start.

What the does the Rpi require to play video? Knowing and sharing its requirements here might also be useful. Or you can provide no further useful details like you have so far and have people here make wild ass guesses that may not help. We have members who actually enjoy doing that, but I'm not one of them.

You could install MediaInfo and use it to open a file and post the info here about it. I'm guessing that maybe your files are VC-1, but that's just a wild ass guess. The Microsoft reference could also be a reference to Divx. Maybe there are so many limitations to Rpi, whatever that is, that it's not a good choice for being a home theater playback device. What OS are you running on the Rpi? Knowing that would also be useful. Linux will have to most limitations. Can you try installing VLC and see if that just solves your problems in a simple way on this mysterious Rpi box?

[doveman]

OK, sorry. The Raspberry Pi is quite popular as an XBMC box and the acronymn RPi is quite commonly used. My mistake assuming people here would recognise it but it's hardly a "cutesy acronym that few people know".

When I play the files I just get audio, no video.

jman98, as I said MediaInfo identifies the problematic files as S-MPEG 4 or MPEG-4 (Microsoft) so I don't think they can be VC-1.

The RPi runs XBMC on top of OpenElec, which is a Linux variant as I understand it. It has optional MPEG-2 and VC-1 licence keys, which I've bought. This lists the formats it can play http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi/FAQ#Video_and_audio_formats_the_Raspberry_Pi_can_playback I can't install anything like VLC on it.

If converting the files it can't play is going to be complicated, an alternative might be to install Plex on the PC and have that transcode the files to H.264 as described towards the bottom of this page http://mymediaexperience.com/raspberry-pi-xbmc-with-raspbmc/

[Baldrick]

You can easily batch convert with VidCoder. It's based on handbrake so you get same settings/quality as it.

[doveman]

You can easily batch convert with VidCoder. It's based on handbrake so you get same settings/quality as it.

Thanks, that looks like it should be much better for batch converting. Do I definitely have to convert them rather than just transcode into a compatible format though?

If so, I'm still a bit lost as to what settings to use. The source files are probably not great quality anyway, so would the Universal preset be suitable without tweaking. I see I can change the audio to Passthrough to avoid re-encoding that, so I don't have to worry about any audio settings but there's a ton of options on the Video tab (not to mention the Video Filters tab and several on the Picture tab) that I have no idea what to set to.

[smrpix]

Do I definitely have to convert them rather than just transcode into a compatible format though?

YYD, ITST

Convert it to one of these:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi/FAQ#Video_and_audio_formats_the_Raspberry_Pi_can_playback

As suggested, Handbrake should work well.
Still waiting on that MediaInfo report if you want more specific advice.

[doveman]

Do I definitely have to convert them rather than just transcode into a compatible format though?

YYD, ITST

Convert it to one of these:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi/FAQ#Video_and_audio_formats_the_Raspberry_Pi_can_playback

As suggested, Handbrake should work well.
Still waiting on that MediaInfo report if you want more specific advice.

Now who's using AKOTY.

The files are on my brother's PC so I can't get the Mediainfo for them until I'm able to arrange a time to TeamViewer to his PC but I have got one I copied to my PC to test with.

General #0
Complete name : E:\Dick Limerick Academy - Nob'eads (beat. Ro Jista).avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format/Family : RIFF
File size : 30.2 MiB
PlayTime : 5mn 5s
Bit rate : 827 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf53.30.100

Video #0
Codec : S-Mpeg 4 v2
Codec/Info : Microsoft MPEG-4 V2
PlayTime : 5mn 5s
Bit rate : 529 Kbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits

Audio #0
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3
Codec profile : Joint stereo
PlayTime : 5mn 5s
Bit rate mode : CBR
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Writing library : LAME3.98.4

EDIT: I found another one that I aborted the transfer of as it would have taken too long but the info taken from what did transfer should still be valid I guess.

General #0
Complete name : E:\back to base.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format/Family : RIFF
File size : 4.73 MiB
PlayTime : 1mn 41s
Bit rate : 390 Kbps
StreamSize/String : 178 KiB
Writing application : Lavf52.2.0

Video #0
Codec : S-Mpeg 4 v2
Codec/Info : Microsoft MPEG-4 V2
PlayTime : 1mn 41s
Bit rate : 312 Kbps
Width : 320 pixels
Height : 240 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.136
StreamSize/String : 3.78 MiB

Audio #0
Codec : MPEG-2 Audio layer 3
PlayTime : 1mn 41s
Bit rate mode : CBR
Bit rate : 64.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 22.05 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize/String : 796 KiB

[smrpix]

Try just making a normal h.264 mp4 out of handbrake/Vidcoder and see how it plays.

Try these settings: 1280x720, up the bitrate to 1000 or better still a CRF (CQ, RF) of 24 (529 is really low for live video -- upping it won't improve it , but it will keep it from getting much worse.) Go with AAC 320, 44.1, 16 bit on the audio. You'll end up with a larger file, but it's at least a starting point to tweak from.

[doveman]

Thanks for the suggested settings smrpix, that makes it a lot less confusing

[smrpix]

You're welcome. Good Luck.