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Movies On The HTC EVO

Camslam

Well-Known Member
Apr 1, 2010
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I was hoping to get some feedback from those of you that are in the advanced category for smart phones and media. I'm gearing up and converting many of MY videos to MP4 in anticipation of watching them on my hotly anticipated new 4.3" screen. :)

In regards to the conversion of MY OWN PERSONAL video files, I had some questions about settings and the process for making the videos look and work best on the EVO. I realize this question may be premature given the actual phone isn't out yet, but any info would be appreciated.

My main questions are:

What settings people would recommend for using Handbrake to convert the files?


What settings will use the least amount of resources and memory, but will still give the best playback/image possible on the EVO?

I have waded through what information I could find on the forum in the EVO and Incredible (closest match to EVO) threads and this is what I have found in case anybody wants to use it for reference. THANK YOU to those posters who have supplied the following information, it got me moving in the right direction.

If anybody has any additional information that will help someone like me (coming from an ENV2, EVO will be first smartphone), I'd appreciate it and thanks in advance.

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Programs available to convert files to MP4: (These were the most often mentioned, but there are several others available to use as well)

XDA Video Encoder - [APP][REF]Video encoding GUI - xda-developers - Appears to be free, instructions listed on web link for operation. "Probably the best movie converter. It was designed for converting movies for older, less powerful HTC devices, but it'll still work great for this. Extremely easy to use, and produces small file sizes with great quality. Works pretty fast too. I highly, highly recommend it for converting movies to use on Android phones."

ANYDVD - SlySoft AnyDVD | any dvd, region free, dvd copy, copy dvd movies, dvd decoder, dvd ripper, macrovision, dvd copying software - Free for 30 days, $$$$ after that. Updates often and seems to be regarded as best for decrypting files.

DVDFAB - DVD Copy Software from DVDFab | Copy DVD to PSP, DVDR or iPod - Free for 30 days, then $$$ after that. Full package looks like you are able to convert files for all kinds of uses and to all types of players including mobile phones.

Handbrake - HandBrake - Free. Seems to be the most popular here on the android forums. Easy to use and so far has done a good job converting for me.

DVD Converter Pro - InterTech DVD Converter - Free trial, then $$$. 1 comment from poster "I'm impressed by dvd converter pro. It worked well and seems to be much easier than dvd fab. I will probably purchase it. The incredible photo viewer is not well suited for displaying videos though."
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Tutorials and help: (comments taken from different threads here on Android forum)

- Well, to get the ball rolling, here are quite a few guides on how to convert DVD to an Android-compatible standard h.264 video format.

Guide, How To, Tutorial and Article list - VideoHelp.com

- Jerry Hildenbrand (Gbhill) @ Android Central wrote a great how to on video conversion using Handbrake as well as Double Twist on the Android Central Blog. It can be found HERE

- Here is another, more general, video guide which discusses Handbrake in more detail for those who are interested. I personally like the step by step guides with lots of pictures... I consider myself an advanced technical user, but sometime I just want to get it done quick.

Here are the links...
The Power User's Guide to Video Encoding with Handbrake | Maximum PC
The Last DVD and Blu-Ray Ripping Guide You'll Ever Need | Maximum PC

- If you use Handbrake uncheck the CABAC entropy coding under the Advanced tab. You can use it but it will limit you to yxflash (a pay for app) for the player. I can say that if you rip correctly it looks amazing on the AMOLED screen of the N1. Even Spongebob has amazing color resolution. But thats 90mb per 12 minute episode.

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Resolution and Settings Comments:

- I am using DVDfab. I have read that they should be set to 480 X 272 and use the preset setting for apple tv. I have encoded some to mp4 and they play really nice on my computer.

- I would recommend keeping either the horizontal or vertical resolution the highest the device supports which is either 800 vertical or 480 horizontal.

- Isn't the display resolution 800x480? So how did someone come up with 480x272? To get the best picture, I would set it to 800x??? or ???x480.

- If it's a dvd, you want to keep it at the same resolution of 720x480 (or whatever the 4:3 res is, but why you would use 4:3 on this phone is beyond me).

- 480x272 is a 16:9 aspect ratio, the ratio that is used for movies as that is the ratio that most widescreen TVs are (e.g., 720p = 1280x720 and 1080p = 1920x1080).

I think 800x450 would be the best resolution as it's the closest to the native resolution of the display while still maintaining the 16:9 aspect ratio -- important if you want the proportions to look how they're supposed to look. Use this resolution only if the source video is HD, though. DVD videos are 720x480 (I think 720x400 is viewable since it's letterboxed), so encoding to any resolution above that would just be a waste of space by creating a larger video file.

- Yeah, I just encoded a movie using 480x272 and it looks great. Even on my 15" laptop screen. I think when you encode a movie from 5 gig to 800 meg it probably doesnt make a huge difference if you use 800 x 480 or 480 x 272.

- Folks, this is a classic debate, but recording the vids at full Inc resolution has drawbacks with no gains (unless you also plan on playing them back on a bigger display- laptop is example).

1. Drains more battery
2. Takes up over twice the space

Please download a video for PSP or iPod, iPhone (or format one this) and you will see that you will not notice a difference between the vids on a 3.7" display.


Output from the composite video of the Inc will also not use the higher resolution either. Composite video out is the constraint there. Not 720p output like the EVO (that puppy will run hot outputting that res to a display).

- So i put a movie on my Incredible that was set to the 480 x 272. It plays perfect and looks perfect.
 
A lot of your cut and pasting is obviously for other devices (in case others miss that fact).

Probably so, but I only pulled from the EVO and Incredible threads, as I mentioned, I'm new to smart phones, so I'm just looking for any and all ideas.

Keep in mind that ALL of my source material is HD though, so I'm not upscaling anything by putting in "800" as my resolution.

Herein lies my question, none or little of my material is technically HD that I know of, so for standard def I wonder what settings to use. The comment that talked about not needing to increase the resolution settings because it won't improve the picture quality while using up memory that is not necessary.

If I want to put something like "The Dark Knight" on my phone to watch later, what settings will be best for optimizing the full 4.3" screen?

Is it just something you have to mess around with and then see what works best?
 
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DVD Source material is 480p which is a little trickier since 480p denotes a horizontal resolution of between 640 pixels and 854 pixels. If it were me, I would still set the horizontal resolution to 800 (the horizontal resolution of the phone) and check the "keep aspect ratio" button. We may not be able to tell on our 4.3" screen a difference between setting the horizontal resolution at 640 or 854, and since none of us have the phone yet, it's hard to say right now what will look best. I think it will take a little experimentation to get a great picture at the most reasonable file size.
 
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DVD Source material is 480p which is a little trickier since 480p denotes a horizontal resolution of between 640 pixels and 854 pixels. If it were me, I would still set the horizontal resolution to 800 (the horizontal resolution of the phone) and check the "keep aspect ratio" button. We may not be able to tell on our 4.3" screen a difference between setting the horizontal resolution at 640 or 854, and since none of us have the phone yet, it's hard to say right now what will look best. I think it will take a little experimentation to get a great picture at the most reasonable file size.


Did it work out for you?
 
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DVD43 is a replacement for AnyDVD. And Free.

I tried a test conversion the other night.
Using "normal" with 160kbs audio and 65% constant quality the bit-rate (video) came ot to about 2750kBs and the file size was 2.6g. Quality on the computer was of course excellent. If a phone could play that high a bit-rate I'd be shocked. That's 3.5x what I use for my Pre.
 
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DVD43 is a replacement for AnyDVD. And Free.

I tried a test conversion the other night.
Using "normal" with 160kbs audio and 65% constant quality the bit-rate (video) came ot to about 2750kBs and the file size was 2.6g. Quality on the computer was of course excellent. If a phone could play that high a bit-rate I'd be shocked. That's 3.5x what I use for my Pre.

That file size seems pretty big. The movies I converted for my brother's Droid (848 x keep aspect ratio) using Handbrake were ~1gig. They look and play great. I just used the Iphone preset and changed the resolution, so I'm not sure what the bitrate and audio quality settings are by default on that template.
 
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The trick is to find out what res you want (native Evo res or 1280x720 for output), set that, then adjust bitrate so that the final movie fits in whatever target file size you want. Also depending on where you watch it, the bitrate may matter more or less. You will notice compression artifacts more on a 50" HDTV than you will on your phone so you can get away with a lower bitrate for some random TV show you just want to be able to watch on your phone.

Also if you are getting TV shows, etc from p2p or other sources like that, remember that they may already be compressed so it is overkill to re-code them at some killer high resolution and bitrate. When ripping your own DVD or BD, you will have more control since you are starting with a fairly high quality original.
 
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The trick is to find out what res you want (native Evo res or 1280x720 for output), set that, then adjust bitrate so that the final movie fits in whatever target file size you want.

Just to add to this. If file size is your main concern, in Handbrake you can just enter a "target file size", and it will automatically adjust your bitrate and other settings to try to get the best quality at the file size you desire.
 
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Just to add to this. If file size is your main concern, in Handbrake you can just enter a "target file size", and it will automatically adjust your bitrate and other settings to try to get the best quality at the file size you desire.

Yep that works great.

I however prefer to use constant quality so I know what kind of picture quality I am going to get and I don't have to do a two pass encode. Size is a little unpredictable though.
 
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Yep that works great.

I however prefer to use constant quality so I know what kind of picture quality I am going to get and I don't have to do a two pass encode. Size is a little unpredictable though.

Same here. Quality over quantity for me. I'll suck it up and buy another (or bigger) card if I need to. I doubt I'll need anything larger than 32GB though. I move stuff on and off my phone frequently. Most anything I've converted thus far has been under 1GB, so I should have plenty of room.
 
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Is there no android version of Air Video or some equivalent? An app that allows you to stream to your phone from a home computer over the internets

They are working on Sling for Android and like someone said, if you don't want to buy anything, you can use Orb. Adding a tuner card to your computer will allow you to share out any OTA/analog cable stations you have over the internet to your phone or other computer via Orb as well.
 
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Ok guys and girls, I've got a question...actually 2. I'm new to converting videos to watch on a cell phone and want to try it out and have a few videos loaded up to use and show off of the evo when I get it. I currently have a palm pre and have been able to load one there and get it to work...actually I just loaded 1 chapter but it still works. If what I am doing works on the pre then it should also work on the evo right? Second, is there any reason why I should first rip the DVD to the hard drive before converting it? I'm using AnyDVD and Handbrake if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance for any advise.

edit: I just thought of a 3rd question. Is there any reason to use mpeg4 over h.264? They both worked on the pre and I didn't notice a difference otherwise.
 
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Ok guys and girls, I've got a question...actually 2. I'm new to converting videos to watch on a cell phone and want to try it out and have a few videos loaded up to use and show off of the evo when I get it. I currently have a palm pre and have been able to load one there and get it to work...actually I just loaded 1 chapter but it still works. If what I am doing works on the pre then it should also work on the evo right? Second, is there any reason why I should first rip the DVD to the hard drive before converting it? I'm using AnyDVD and Handbrake if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance for any advise.

edit: I just thought of a 3rd question. Is there any reason to use mpeg4 over h.264? They both worked on the pre and I didn't notice a difference otherwise.

1. If the Pre can play it, the EVO can play it.
2. Sometimes it can speed up encoding, but it's more hassle then it is worth.
3. H.264 is an advanced for of mpeg4, it will give you much better picture quality at the same file size (or a much smaller file size at the same quality). It however will take longer to encode by your computer.
 
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1. If the Pre can play it, the EVO can play it.
2. Sometimes it can speed up encoding, but it's more hassle then it is worth.
3. H.264 is an advanced for of mpeg4, it will give you much better picture quality at the same file size (or a much smaller file size at the same quality). It however will take longer to encode by your computer.

Ok, Thanks for the answers. I guess I'll go with H.264, I don't really care about the time it takes to do the encoding, and better quality/smaller file is always good :D:D
 
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h.264 is a specific mpeg4 codec if I understand correctly. It can get kind of confusing with container files and codecs and formats, etc.

Still, h.264 is a common codec so you should be fine. MPEG4 in general is an improvement over the MPEG2 (commonly used in DVDs) in that you can get a better picture in a smaller file size. The tradeoff is that it requires more processing power to decode on your device than mpeg2 so it takes better advantage of newer hardware. A few years ago it would have been unlikely to find a mobile device with the horsepower to decode mpeg4 video.

Wikipedia and videohelp.com have lots of good info if you want to know more about this stuff...probably more than you would ever want to know :) I produce and convert a lot of video for a living but I only have a fair knowledge of all the various formats and codecs available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
 
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