To all of you whose files are NOT filling the Droid screen. I am using (not selling, just like it) Act1 Video Player app that has ZOOM feature that will fill the screen with a file that doesn't and from a 640x? it looks great (to me).
There may or may not be other apps out there that do this, I just quit looking when I found this one.
I ran my dvd through Handbreak using Mp4 and it came out all distorted in my computer folder on the c: When I went to drag it to my droid, it told me it was to large. I'm clueless how to get it to work.
If you are using Handbrake 0.9.3 the dvd probably didn't get decoded. I had this problem at first. It would rip the movies but it was a garbled mess of green and static. They took the decode feature out of handbrake starting with this version. An easy work around is downloading DVD43 It runs in the background and automatically breaks the encryption on any dvd you put in your drive. on my fairly slow laptop it only takes it 2-5 seconds after the dvd starts spinng for it to automatically break the encryption. You don't even need to open the program.
Device(s): Verizon Galaxy Nexus,
Verizon OG Droid (retired)
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i skimmed the entire thread. hope i didn't miss this but...
how do you get subtitles to show up using handbrake? under the "audio and subtitles" tab, i tried "autoselect" with "forced subtitles only" both checked and unchecked. no go.
video and sound both work fine. just no subtitles.
thanks for any help!
edit: after some interwebbing, it looks like it's not possible...
.
Last edited by oceanlight; November 18th, 2009 at 12:26 AM.
check out ipodme. its a free program that quickly converts to mp4 format. I just converted a full movie in 20 minutes and quality is great for the droid. Was an avi file. will need to experiment with other types.
I just tried this with good (and really fast) results!
The dev's website is: iPodME Noda’s Dev Blog
Last edited by drumtrucker; November 18th, 2009 at 01:39 AM.
Reason: expand on brief comments
i skimmed the entire thread. hope i didn't miss this but...
how do you get subtitles to show up using handbrake? under the "audio and subtitles" tab, i tried "autoselect" with "forced subtitles only" both checked and unchecked. no go.
video and sound both work fine. just no subtitles.
thanks for any help!
edit: after some interwebbing, it looks like it's not possible...
.
I need help with this too. Does anyone have an answer? I'm using the latest snapshot and it's a little bit different too, with it's own subtitle section (seperate from the audio) but am not sure how to select it.
Ok so im using handbrake, and for some reason it takes me over 8 hours to decode a 4 gb mkv file to an mp4 format...it is a 1080p file so maybe thats why...i have an intel core duo...and i even tried the hanbrake option of putting the priority higher and using the cores...is it just the quality of the file that makes this so unbearably slow?
Ok so im using handbrake, and for some reason it takes me over 8 hours to decode a 4 gb mkv file to an mp4 format...it is a 1080p file so maybe thats why...i have an intel core duo...and i even tried the hanbrake option of putting the priority higher and using the cores...is it just the quality of the file that makes this so unbearably slow?
what bitrate for output? video tab, try 500
what is input file size?
what size of 8hr output file?
doubleTwist does it easier than anything else for me. Handbrake took FOREVER. Total Video Converter is fast and it does convert into formats that will play and look good, but it is more involved than doubleTwist. doubleTwist handles the convert AND the copy seemingly at the same time. TVC can handle the same, but you have to direct it to save the converted video to the sd card. In to convert and copy at the same time, the phone has to be connected and mounted on the PC and you cannot disconnect it while the conversion is taking place or you will lose the output file.
The only drawback with doubleTwist is that is doesn't allow you to reduce the bitrate to a more reasonable setting for the tiny screen. There's no need to have a bitrate beyond what the screen resolution can show, because it won't look any better and the added file size of a over rated file will waste space on your SD card and take longer to sync with the phone.
These are the settings I used successfully with Total Video Converter:
--------
Audio Channels - Auto
Audio Codec - aac
Sampling Rate - Original
Bit Rate - 96kbps (audio)
--------
Video Codec - mpeg4
Frame Rate - 23.97fps
Bit Rate - 640kbps (video)
--------
Under the Video Resize tab, Check "Original Size" unless the original size is greater than the Droid's screen size. In that case, you will have to reduce it proportionally to fit the screen. The width should not be greater than 848 and the height should not be greater than 480. There are cases where the video may not fill the screen.
Aspect ratio should be set to whatever the original file is.
If you connect your Droid while TVC is converting and select the Droid's sd card as the output folder for the converted video, it will convert and transfer at the same time.
At this point, the file should play on the droid with the gallery player
Last edited by knock; November 19th, 2009 at 09:03 PM.
The original file size is 4 gb, it made it 1.4 gb at the end....i had the bitrate at 1000, still super slow. It turned out great but it took half the day to do so...looks fantastic
The original file size is 4 gb, it made it 1.4 gb at the end....i had the bitrate at 1000, still super slow. It turned out great but it took half the day to do so...looks fantastic
try 500
I did a few at 300 and they looked decent but 500 better. Any higher and i couldn't really see any improvement on this TINY screen.
1) Download latest version of HandBrake
2) Start with the iPod Legacy preset and create a copy (add button). Call it "Droid" or something.
3) Go into the user_presets.xml file is creates and edit it.
(On XP, this is in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\HandBrake\)
4) Edit average bitrate from 1500 to less than 1000 (700-800 is good) and AAC audio from 160, to 128 or 96. Remove analyze=all: (keep one : between other parameters). Save file.
This will give good compatibility and decent file size to your encodes. There is no reason to go up to 1500 avg bitrate on a movie only 848x480 at best. 1000 is more than enough for transparent quality and could probably go even lower. Using CRF 22-23 instead of a set bitrate is okay too. The iPod-Legacy preset works fine, but the files are bigger than they need to be.
Make sure you choose other appropriate settings as necessary, such as de-telecine film, etc.
Sizing:
If you are using a HD or Blu-ray source, lower width to 848. The reason you shouldn't use 854 is because it is not divisible by 16 (compression works better this way.) Handbrake should remove top/bottom black borders on 1.85 or 2.35 AR material appropriately. Yes, the video will still show them during playback, but you don't want to encode them. For 1:77 material, it should end up a perfect 848x480 video. For 4:3 video, set height to 480 and let HandBrake choose the width. You will get side black bars during playback, which is okay (AR is correct).
For DVD or native sources smaller than 854 wide, set either Width (to 720 for DVD) or Height to 480 and let Handbrake choose the other dimension. If the source video is smaller than both 854(H) and 480(W), leave it be. Don't re-size it bigger.
And finally, download and buy Act 1 Video Player. It's worth it.
Last edited by valnar; November 28th, 2009 at 08:16 AM.
Reason: Changed HandBrake version to 0.9.4
Last night I tried converting .mp4 at 848x480 with a 640kbps bitrate. It was acceptable, but when there was high motion (I encoded Planet Earth and there was a scene with a lot of birds flying), it looked awful.
I think I'll stick with a 1000kbps bitrate as there is little sacrifice in video quality from 1500, but a nice reduction in file size.
For me, at least, a 1Gb file for a movie is fine, and waiting 45 mins for it to convert is also ok.
Does the same processes work for a movie that has already been compressed? For instance, I downloaded a bunch of movies from the crackberry site that have been compressed but for a smaller screen. I simply want to make them bigger...suggestions?
Many thanks to you guys who have put this info together. I found that the Handbrake instructions in the first post work best for me.
Here's my two cents. Most of the instructions here say to set the width at 848 and leave the height blank. That's great for widescreen videos, but less-than-optimal for videos that aren't widescreen. If your video isn't widescreen (that is, if the aspect ratio is less than 1.77), I'd recommend that you set the height to 480 and leave the width blank. That should give you a smaller filesize and better playback.
I haven't heard much about tweaking the audio properties. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? If we're converting from a DVD, we probably want to downmix from Dolby Surround to Stereo, right? I'm not sure how Handbrake and Droid handle Dolby/DTS/AC3 tracks, but it makes sense to downmix with Handbrake to reduce the filesize and the Droid's workload.
EDIT: A couple of points worth noting about Handbrake 0.9.3 on Windows. First, the AAC (mp4a) audio input is broken. This means that certain MP4 files (those with AAC audio) cannot be converted. Other MP4's (those with MP3 or other audio) should still work. Second, Handbrake no longer includes a DVD decrypter. Most DVD's are encrypted so that they will only playback on licensed, region-restricted DVD players. This is intended to prevent piracy. Without the decrypter, video will exhibit strange artifacts such as random changes in brightness, distorted colors, and static. Most free software no longer include the decrypter due to legal issues and the DMCA. The workaround for the AAC issue is to download the latest development snapshot. The workaround for the DVD issue is to rip the DVD with other software that has the decrypter, then convert the ripped file using Handbrake.
Last edited by TrueFlog; November 21st, 2009 at 12:06 AM.
Last night I tried converting .mp4 at 848x480 with a 640kbps bitrate. It was acceptable, but when there was high motion (I encoded Planet Earth and there was a scene with a lot of birds flying), it looked awful.
I think I'll stick with a 1000kbps bitrate as there is little sacrifice in video quality from 1500, but a nice reduction in file size.
For me, at least, a 1Gb file for a movie is fine, and waiting 45 mins for it to convert is also ok.
YMMV.
Fabolous - if your video has a lot of movement and you want better quality, doing a 2-pass encode should increase the quality of the final video (but will increase encoding time by about 50%)
not sure if someone mentioned this but DVD catalyst 3 is only $9 and has a Droid HQ setting! (its under verizon not motorola in the manufacturer selection drop down menu.) works great! full screen crystal clear and easy as pie! worth the $
not sure if someone mentioned this but DVD catalyst 3 is only $9 and has a Droid HQ setting! (its under verizon not motorola in the manufacturer selection drop down menu.) works great! full screen crystal clear and easy as pie! worth the $
not sure if someone mentioned this but DVD catalyst 3 is only $9 and has a Droid HQ setting! (its under verizon not motorola in the manufacturer selection drop down menu.) works great! full screen crystal clear and easy as pie! worth the $
Just for laughs, people like you are why everything is $9.95 (which is what this is) instead of $10. My bro-in-law same way.
The 'it's under Verizon' comment is in regards to finding 'your device' on the drop down list.
I want to try a few more before I comment, but nice job on the one I have tried so far.
No one needs to buy DVD Catalyst at all. It's just another front end to x264 but since it hides the CLI (or parameters) from you, I have no idea what it's doing. You could probably get just as good or better results with HandBrake, Ripbot264 or HDConvertToX. Although with the latter, you'll have to hand create your own x264 options. This is why I recommend HandBrake for the purpose of our Android encodes. It's 95% there already and simple to use. Just read my post above to optimize it further.
soooooooooo all this talk about CONVERTING video to h.264 to play properly.......
But when I want to take a video file with me, it's kinda a last minute thing, I don't really have time to "convert" the file, that's a HUGE drawback IMO. What are the chances that someday there will actually be a supported DivX/XviD CODEC for the phone?
From what I have read the processors on the current mobile devices cannot handle it. It is a pain, andf makes you wait, but what can you do? Carry a PC?
I use handbrake to encode and downsize. On a decent two year-old AMD dual core I can convert a one-hour video in about 10 minutes. I downsize big-time and set the quality level at only 50% in handbrake. Oh, and in handbrake you can do a batch so if I have a whole lot of videos I just downloaded from my favorite sports torrent site I can let them convert overnight and in the morning they are all ready for me.
Also, having them smaller (down converted) means the are smaller so I fit more on the device and even better they copy over MUCH quicker than the full-res file.
I hated the idea at first but now I don't mind. If I have no time to convert, I take an old laptop with me.
I'd like to think that in a couple years we'll be beyond this but in a couple years, people will be uploading even higher-res videos!
Good luck,
-Bob
Last edited by littleroot; November 22nd, 2009 at 06:24 PM.
Reason: more info and fixed typo
Maybe this is a stupid question, but has anyone figured out why some seemingly properly formatted videos only play audio? I have ton of mp4s (NewArtRiot rips, for those familiar with torrents) that won't play on my Droid. Using Media Player Classic, here are the stats from one of them:
According to the properties in Windows, the video bitrate is 1113 kbps. It would seem by looking through this thread that these videos should play without any additional conversion, but none of them will play on my Droid. Anyone have any thoughts?
Maybe this is a stupid question, but has anyone figured out why some seemingly properly formatted videos only play audio? I have ton of mp4s (NewArtRiot rips, for those familiar with torrents) that won't play on my Droid. Using Media Player Classic, here are the stats from one of them:
According to the properties in Windows, the video bitrate is 1113 kbps. It would seem by looking through this thread that these videos should play without any additional conversion, but none of them will play on my Droid. Anyone have any thoughts?
Reference frames, b-frames, b-pyramids, base profile, high profile, etc. There are tons of parameters possible with H.264 and only certain ones are compatible. It had to be encoded properly. Most things you download from the Internet are not encoded for mobile phones.
Any way i convert videos the end result is great video and audio quality, but i am having out of sync issues. The audio is late. Sometimes i can restart the device, play the same video again and it works fine. What conversion setting helps to fix this if any? I am mainly ripping my own DVDs. See attached screen shot for my settings.
Any way i convert videos the end result is great video and audio quality, but i am having out of sync issues. The audio is late. Sometimes i can restart the device, play the same video again and it works fine. What conversion setting helps to fix this if any? I am mainly ripping my own DVDs. See attached screen shot for my settings.
A lot of those are defaults, but I like specifying them anyway because it makes it easier to edit if you want to change/tweak something. You can change --pass 2 --bitrate x00 to --pass 1 --crf 22 (or 20, 21, etc) instead for a one pass quality encode.
Any way i convert videos the end result is great video and audio quality, but i am having out of sync issues. The audio is late. Sometimes i can restart the device, play the same video again and it works fine. What conversion setting helps to fix this if any? I am mainly ripping my own DVDs. See attached screen shot for my settings.
rooster - its not clear what program you are using, but most of these are just front-ends for FFMPEG. The command you need to pass on to FFMPEG to sync audio is "-async 1". There may be a section in your program for "custom commands".
Any way i convert videos the end result is great video and audio quality, but i am having out of sync issues. The audio is late. Sometimes i can restart the device, play the same video again and it works fine. What conversion setting helps to fix this if any? I am mainly ripping my own DVDs. See attached screen shot for my settings.
Thanks!
I've been having the same issue but with converting Divx/Xvid files. One thing I noticed is that the files are only out of sync if I skip forward/backward. If I just let the video play through from the start, it usually stays synced.
As the developer of Act 1, I can also attest that it just works. :-) The major pull for Act 1 right now is that I believe it's the only video player on the market that directly supports any screen size. If an app does not state support for a large screen like Droid's, it will think it's displaying at 480x320 but then get artificially stretched to fit the screen.
Thanks, valnar, for doing the research on encoding and all that for Droid. Awesome to know that it's all good.
As the developer of Act 1, I can also attest that it just works. :-) The major pull for Act 1 right now is that I believe it's the only video player on the market that directly supports any screen size. If an app does not state support for a large screen like Droid's, it will think it's displaying at 480x320 but then get artificially stretched to fit the screen.
Thanks, valnar, for doing the research on encoding and all that for Droid. Awesome to know that it's all good.
Between Motorola's Droid screen, the Android OS, your app and a good quality x264 encode, this thing beats anything I've seen in it's size. Until an Android phone gets OLED, this is the best it gets folks.
I grabbed Handbrake and tried to move a DVD to my Droid. Handbrake would not stop "scanning..." the DVD. I downloaded a trial version of DVDFab, which was a breeze to use based on the advice from this thread. Went from DVD to Droid in 30 minutes on my dual core machine. Not sure I want to pay for DVDFab, though.
Any idea why Handbrake stalled on the "initial "scanning..." step?
I grabbed Handbrake and tried to move a DVD to my Droid. Handbrake would not stop "scanning..." the DVD. I downloaded a trial version of DVDFab, which was a breeze to use based on the advice from this thread. Went from DVD to Droid in 30 minutes on my dual core machine. Not sure I want to pay for DVDFab, though.
Any idea why Handbrake stalled on the "initial "scanning..." step?
-Matt
HandBrake is for converting the DVD, not ripping it. You still need a way to decode the encryption. DVDFab is one way - AnyDVD is the best way. Yah, it cost $$.
HandBrake is for converting the DVD, not ripping it. You still need a way to decode the encryption. DVDFab is one way - AnyDVD is the best way. Yah, it cost $$.
Thanks, Valnar!
I am checking out freeware - DVDSmith, now. Seems to be a bit slower.
Last edited by mswhite60; November 29th, 2009 at 03:31 PM.
I was able to rip a copy of Xmen that I have on DVD to MP4 using DVD43 amd Handbrake (using the 720 x 480 setting) and it works perfect. I ended up with a 700 mb file using 1500 bit rate and 160 audio rate and the picture is very crisp. Also, I am using act1 which is a nice media player for the Droid.
So, after many hours of playing, I have come up with the best settings for ripping my DVDs. I have tried using Any DVD Convertor Professional with no success. The videos come out good, but any movement, fast forward or rewind, causes audio to go out of sync.
Here is what i have determined to come up with a good video quality, synced sound except on rewind but can be fixed on fast forward. Make sure you are using Handbrake (0.9.3 Build 2008112300) and DVD43 (4.6.0.0) for decryption.
See attached screenshots. The resulting video file is roughly 400-600MB in size depending on length. On a Dual Centrino with 4GB of RAM it takes roughly 25-45 minutes per DVD.
FYI. I am a novice when it comes to video conversion. So if someone does not agree with these settings, too bad. It works great for me.
Last edited by therooster0514; November 30th, 2009 at 10:19 AM.
ahhhhh, handbrake just had an update. Now I can't put my own dimension in the width. I used to put 720 there and leave the hieght blank. It now changes what I put in there, back to the native resolution. I just did one video with the new update. Waiting for anyone else who may have tried it out. In this case the native resolution was 650. So I would have been up-resing. It used to up-res prior to this update.
Device(s): Sexy Nexy - Galaxy Nexus. Trying not to root.... for now
Thanks: 39
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ive read ALL the posts... phew.. but my internet is down until friday night.. hopefully ive gained enough knowledge to download a movie from the internet, convert it and put it on my droid on the FIRST TRY lol.. wish me luck.
The Motorola Droid - the first ever Verizon Android Phone - exploded onto the mobile market with an incredibly successful ad campaign that brough Android to the masses. With a huge and vibrant touchscreen, solid metal body, full QWERTY keyboard, 5M... Read More
