[GUIDE] Nero Recode 2: Making HQ QVGA Movies

[Guest RSkillz]

Well, I'm not sure where to put this topic, but since it involves QVGA resolution (320x240) and the STUNNING display of the HTC Tornado, I thought I'd post my findings here ;)

Yesterday I was searching Modaco for a good tutorial about making HQ QVGA res Movies, but there was just one topic that I found interesting enough:

http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=234521&st=0

(page 2, post from Martin)

So I decided to find a good solution and here's my guide:

- Software used: Nero Recode 2

TCPMP for playback

- info borrowed from:

http://spawnweb.dk/recode/k750.htm

1. Startup Nero Recode 2 and select "Recode DvDs and Videos to nero Digital"

2. Select Import Files and browse to the file that needs to be recoded, Doubleclick on it and select Close.

3. DEselect "Fit to target".

Click on "More>>" and select "Standard" for the Nero Digital Profile.

4. Now Slide the bar in Video Quality (as close to) to 430Kbps.

5. At the Audio #1 Tab Select "Settings...", "Custom Profile", 96kbit/s, 44100Hz and select OK.

6. Now you can Select the "Start/End" Button and Trim your Video if necessary, and select OK.

7. Select "Video" Button.

On Deinterlace tab, Leave Deinterlace Video on "Disable (recommended)"

On Crop tab, select "Custom Crop" , "Adjust..." and Modify the borders if necessary.

On Resize tab, select "Custom Resize" and enter "320" on bottom and "240" at right.

Make sure "Letterboxing (square pixel)" is checked, select OK.

8. Press "Next ->"

9. Press "Nero Digital Settings", expand "MPEG-4 Encoder" and select "High Quality Encoding (2-pass)"

for the "Encoding Method".

Select "Quality/Speed" and select "Extra Quality" at the Performance/Quality drop-down box.

Select "Advanced" and check "Simple profile (Quicktime compatibility)"

select "keyframes" and enter "50" at "Minimum keyframe interval"

10. Press "Burn"

That's it!

I compared the result with PocketDivxEncoder and the quality is much better when the movie has dark (black) scenes, far less artifacts! :P

If you have any suggestions, comments, please feel free to drop a line!

Edited May 11, 2006 by RSkillz

[Guest edgecrush3r]

Excellent !!! I recoded a lot of videoclips/movies using VirtualDub, and playing with hundreds of settings to optimize everything for my C500.

Since today I got a QVGA device, so I was looking for a easier and more simplyfied alternative. Will give things a try with 'Nero Recode 2' (this tool looks promising ;) )

[Guest jbrad]

Excellent guide, fantastic results, many thanks RSkillz ;)

[Guest hyedipin]

Oh my god, it took 2:30 hrs to encode a 45 minute video.

Come on guys, you don't need that sharp quality , better yet, why do you need 2-pass ??? It could be my centrino not encoding so fast, but still, I encoded many XVIDs into pocket video format and all I did was to resize them, that's it, and it took like 10-15 minutes!

And the sound,you can just downsample to a mono (if you are not going to listen using headphones)

Really, either just use WMV in mobile profile, or just use divx. But thanks for the guide for those who want top notch video on their tiny screen.

Good Luck

[Guest thenext1]

I just use XMPEG with XVID to encode movies, and obviously TCPMP to play them on the phone.

For maximum video quality I set ~ 600kbps bitrate in the xvid options, NO multi-pass (the video gets awfulyl degraded I dont know why), and mminimum quality audio...

Simply a word: GORGEOUS!!

[Guest hyedipin]

I think we need to have a comparison test for different formats, and also how long it takes to convert.

I tried Nero in the past to convert WMV to Divx, it does a beautiful job! Great Avi output, which I then took and fed to Vdub.

Above is a good guide but just a bit too advanced for "let me watch this on subway" kinda video

[Guest RSkillz]

Thanks for the comments, I'll do a single pass encoding later on today and also see how long it takes on my centrino to encode a full episode of CSI:NY.

[Guest kkrull]

Anyone tried mediacoder.sourceforge.net with our hardware?

[Guest RSkillz]

Well, I just encoded an episode of CSI:NY (44min. 350mb) and it took me 19:56 minutes.

And this is WITH 2pass encoding.

I have a 1.7Ghz centrino laptop, 1gb ram and 7200rpm hd.

I think the added ram and fast hd really helps out when it comes to encoding :P

I also did the same episode with all the same settings, but with singlepass encoding and it still

took me 17:47 minutes, so I can't really say there's a big time difference between singlepass

and 2pass encoding. Because of this, I still recommend 2pass encoding.

@hyedipin: what kind of centrino do you have? 2:30hrs compared to 20min is a BIG difference.

and I choose stereo, because I always use headphones.

I think it's a good idea to downsample to mono if you never use headphones,

this way you will shave of some of the filesize.

@thenext1: I choose 430kbps, because I still want the filesize to be 'reasonable' small.

This way we can pack more video's on the card and still have HQ output.

What filesize do you get when encoding? The filesize I get from encoding the

CSI-NY episode is 163mb. You also say minimum audio quality, is that mono sound?

@kkrull: I've never heard of mediacoder.sourceforge.net ;)

[Guest thenext1]

@thenext1: I choose 430kbps, because I still want the filesize to be 'reasonable' small.

This way we can pack more video's on the card and still have HQ output.

What filesize do you get when encoding? The filesize I get from encoding the

CSI-NY episode is 163mb. You also say minimum audio quality, is that mono sound?

Usually I store music files in MP3 formats, and then download and re-encode their video, so I don't mind having minimum quality audio als long as I can watch the video correctly. the audio is mono, 8kpbs mp3.

I've tried WMV encoder but WMplayer lags at displlaying them.

I've also tried Pocket DIVX encoder, and XMPEG with various settings, but the best for me is XVID.

A sample file that was 4 minutes long, encoded to 320x240 to 19 mb in no more than 5 minutes (with XMPEG).

Trust me the video quality is SUPERB!!

In your case, since you'll also want to hear audio ;), you may want to adjust down the video bitrate a little bit, and up the audio bitrate to ~ 64 kbps, no more...

[Guest hyedipin]

Hi,

20 Minutes? Really, maybe my source was the problem, what is your CSI:NY source format?

I got 1.86 Ghz, 1GB RAM, Toshiba Satellite. It is strange that it took me such a long time.

Would you suggest using Vdub?

Edit: Now I know, I guess my source was pretty long! 352x288, 1:53:32, 128 kbps MPEG Layer-3, 29 fps, 112kbps @ 24bit DivX.

I assume CSI was about 18 minutes? So eventually it takes around 20 minutes, as opposed to my source 1:53, taking 2:00 encoding..

[Guest maximr]

When I follow your guide, the movie gets recoded into NeroVision (MP4) format, which I can't play with TCMP - it gives me an error message stating that MP4 support has been removed due to IP conflicts or something like that. Am I doing something wrong?

[Guest RSkillz]

@hyedipin: The CSI episode was 44 minutes and took about 20 minutes to encode.

I'll have a look at the source later on and let you know.

@maximr: Did you install the extra plugins from TCPMP? I also installed:

- TCPMP AAC plugin

- TCPMP AC3 plugin

- TCPMP FFMPEG plugin.

That should do the trick ;)

[Guest Dbllohin]

I just found this great thread and tutorial.

I am having a wierd problem in video playback. I encoded my files to 320x240 and 30fps; playback is awsome but after some time picture freezes and audio keeps going.

Now on this thread I see people encode to 15FPS and I am wondering is that the reason for my playback freezing?

BTW my phone is T-Mobile SDA from USA and I use DVDSoftVideo to convert as does all formats and its free.

http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/

Any thoughts on this?

Thank you