How to convert HD video to play back on Vega

[Guest nigelpwilson]

Hi Guys, this has been touched on in a couple of other threads but I can't seem to find a definitive answer. I've got several BluRay rips mostly in .MKV format that I want to convert to play back on my Vega (still in HD). What settings should I use to convert them ? (I have AVS Video Converter and GOTSent). As always, any help greatly appreciated !!

Cheers,

Nige

[Guest removed-14]

I'd like to know this too.

[Guest warriorscot]

What I would do is just use mediacoder and load a profile that fits or makes a new one. Mostly all you need to do is change the container to mp4 or avi and use an audio format that isn't dolby that the vega handles which you can look up but mp3 works fine. Not sure about a guide because I haven't done it but I use mediacoder whenever I do other conversions it works great and has plenty of features usually more and better than a lot of the paid programs around. If you want it quick just change audio and container if you want to save space on the vega change the res to that of the vega.

[Guest nigelpwilson]

What I would do is just use mediacoder and load a profile that fits or makes a new one. Mostly all you need to do is change the container to mp4 or avi and use an audio format that isn't dolby that the vega handles which you can look up but mp3 works fine. Not sure about a guide because I haven't done it but I use mediacoder whenever I do other conversions it works great and has plenty of features usually more and better than a lot of the paid programs around. If you want it quick just change audio and container if you want to save space on the vega change the res to that of the vega.

Thanks for that, but I'm still lost ... no idea what a container is ...tried using a few programs to convert to .MP4 but none of them will play back

Edited December 11, 2010 by nigelpwilson

[Guest removed-14]

Just tried mediacoder with an mpg dvd rip. Video worked ok but no sound. Used mp3 for audio?

[Guest nigelpwilson]

Just tried mediacoder with an mpg dvd rip. Video worked ok but no sound. Used mp3 for audio?

I want to keep HD quality though

[Guest removed-14]

I want to keep HD quality though

No I was saying I had tried it on mp3 for the sound and it DIDN'T work. I want to know what I did wrong.

[Guest removed-14]

Switched to RockPlayer and i'm now getting audio but the lip synch is not great. Suggestions?

[Guest SilentMobius]

I want to keep HD quality though

What do you mean here, this statement could mean a number of things?

1. Do you want to only keep the resolution the same.

2. Do you want to not re-encode the video stream (and thus not suffer a generation quality loss)

If you have video that is a direct rip (not a re-encode) from a blue-ray disc it will never play on the Vega without re-encoding. If you have already done some re-encoding (and thus already suffered a single generation loss) then it depends on the setting you used to do the rip/re-encode

Matroska is just a container (a wrapper that defines how the streams are stored) its a good one, but next to nothing uses it other than open source software. It has nothing to do with HD

Each stream in the container may be video or audio

Each of these is encoded using a codec, the parameters for the codec are often bundled up into a bunch of parameters called a profile.

Android does not support matroska at all. None of the accelerated media libs (called opencore and/or stagefright) will read that container.

Anything that _can_ read matroska is not using the core libs thus is not accelerated and thus will never play HD well (Rockplayer/arcMedia/etc)

You can change the container without re-encodeing the video and audio streams.

The Tegra2 cannot handle 1080p h.264 (A.K.A. AVC) High profile (this is what Blu-ray uses internally)

It can handle 720p High profile, or 1080p Main Profile (supposedly, Android my also be a weak link, the nvidia libs for this are immature). The max bitrates for these are not specified yet (so we'd have to determine those experimentally)

I can play the The Bourne Ultimatum trailer from here: http://www.h264info.com/clips.html

That is Baseline profile, 1080p, AAC LC for audio. 7.49Mb/s (Blu-ray maxes out at 40Mb/s) Actual resolution is 1920x816 which I believe is the correct rez for 2.35:1 (cinemascope)

Edited December 11, 2010 by SilentMobius

[Guest ricwales1]

Try handbreak. I used this to convert video to my hero works well enough. Wouldn't bother much with HD on Vega as screen size and quality wont do it full justice. If you do try handbreak most option are for apple but should work the same.

[Guest removed-14]

Try handbreak. I used this to convert video to my hero works well enough. Wouldn't bother much with HD on Vega as screen size and quality wont do it full justice. If you do try handbreak most option are for apple but should work the same.

Just used Handbrake with RockPlayer on my Vega and it works great! Easy to use and quite quick too.

[Guest nigelpwilson]

Just used Handbrake with RockPlayer on my Vega and it works great! Easy to use and quite quick too.

Which setting did you use? This is all so confusing!! My £100 X5A China Tab could play back 1080P .MKV through HDMI using Rokplayer perfectly (was crap for everything else) LOL

[Guest warriorscot]

Video handling will get better as the platform improves from the Nvidia and google end of things and as advent or paul push out updates. As others have said the Vega can't actually output HD on its screen so keeping video on it with that format is wasting space but its up to you.

So far the only videos I have played on it regularly are TV episodes with MPEG Audio Layer 3 48000Hz stereo 127kbps as the audio setting. And a couple movies also with mp3 audio although slightly higher bitrates. AC3 audio is a no go as it is a dolby "all your monies belong to us" format which is why most people will find problems in lots of their films as most things these days are using either AC3 or DTS when you get them. There are a few reasons why it won't be outputting in mp3 format I would check the output is in the right format. It is always best to use one of the profiles in mediacoder as it is a very complicated piece of software for a beginner but also powerful and flexible to any device which is why I recommended it. Generally its easiest to find a profile similar and tweak it so it does what you want either just changing audio and container and leaving the resolution the same or changing the resolution so it matches the device and therefore looks good and plays without additional load of the device having to scale down itself.

If you have problems with conversion software the forums for that software are usually the best place to go for help. I know the mediacoder forum used to have a bit where if you put in your device specs and what it can handle they will make up some new profiles for it and you just try them out and tell them if they work. Its how they built up the profile database but I don't know if they do that any more. You might also have more luck with Handbrake as its a bit more user friendly just a little less versatile its what I gave my computer illiterate relatives to use when I can get them on mediacoder for one reason or another.

[Guest SilentMobius]

Yeah handbreak using iXXX presets will work for day-to-day video encoding. Personally I'm looking to get a profile set up for ffmpeg so I can batch encode everything, I'd it set up for the best the Vega can handle, hence the investigation

[Guest removed-14]

Which setting did you use? This is all so confusing!! My £100 X5A China Tab could play back 1080P .MKV through HDMI using Rokplayer perfectly (was crap for everything else) LOL

Sorry not done any HD stuff yet, just some DVDs.

[Guest TylerDurdenK]

I've just converted a 720p MKV file to an MP4 that fits the Vegas screen using 1024x576 as the resolution, with the AVS Video Converter:

It started like this:

Video

ID							   : 1

Format						   : AVC

Format/Info					  : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile				   : [email protected]

Format settings, CABAC		   : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames		: 8 frames

Muxing mode					  : Container [email protected]

Codec ID						 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC

Duration						 : 4mn 44s

Bit rate						 : 4 000 Kbps

Width							: 1 280 pixels

Height						   : 720 pixels

Display aspect ratio			 : 16:9

Frame rate					   : 23.976 fps

Color space					  : YUV

Chroma subsampling			   : 4:2:0

Bit depth						: 8 bits

Scan type						: Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)			   : 0.181

Stream size					  : 132 MiB (84%)

Writing library				  : x264 core 56 svn-680

Encoding settings				: cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=4000 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30

Language						 : English


Audio

ID							   : 2

Format						   : AC-3

Format/Info					  : Audio Coding 3

Mode extension				   : CM (complete main)

Codec ID						 : A_AC3

Duration						 : 4mn 44s

Bit rate mode					: Constant

Bit rate						 : 640 Kbps

Channel(s)					   : 6 channels

Channel positions				: Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE

Sampling rate					: 48.0 KHz

Bit depth						: 16 bits

Stream size					  : 21.7 MiB (14%)

and ended like this:

Video

ID							   : 1

Format						   : AVC

Format/Info					  : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile				   : [email protected]

Format settings, CABAC		   : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames		: 1 frame

Codec ID						 : avc1

Codec ID/Info					: Advanced Video Coding

Duration						 : 4mn 44s

Bit rate mode					: Variable

Bit rate						 : 2 647 Kbps

Width							: 1 024 pixels

Height						   : 576 pixels

Display aspect ratio			 : 16:9

Frame rate mode				  : Constant

Frame rate					   : 23.976 fps

Color space					  : YUV

Chroma subsampling			   : 4:2:0

Bit depth						: 8 bits

Scan type						: Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)			   : 0.187

Stream size					  : 89.6 MiB (93%)

Language						 : English

Encoded date					 : UTC 2010-12-10 18:59:15

Tagged date					  : UTC 2010-12-10 18:59:15


Audio

ID							   : 2

Format						   : AAC

Format/Info					  : Advanced Audio Codec

Format version				   : Version 4

Format profile				   : LC

Format settings, SBR			 : No

Codec ID						 : 40

Duration						 : 4mn 44s

Bit rate mode					: Constant

Bit rate						 : 192 Kbps

Channel(s)					   : 2 channels

Channel positions				: Front: L R

Sampling rate					: 48.0 KHz

Stream size					  : 6.40 MiB (7%)

Language						 : English

Encoded date					 : UTC 2010-12-10 18:59:15

Tagged date					  : UTC 2010-12-10 18:59:15

It looks great and plays perfectly with the stock player.

[Guest TylerDurdenK]

I have found a useful calculator for setting the output resolution on your video converter.

http://goo.gl/Hzu0

Put the original resolution in the left hand boxes and 1024 in the X box on the right. This calculator will tell you what pixel count you need for the Y axis you need to maintain the aspect ratio.

For example, I am just converting a film that was in full HD with a resolution of 1920x816. The calculator told me to use 435 for the Y axis.

This method should result in the best picture quality for any files you want to convert.

[Guest removed-14]

I have found a useful calculator for setting the output resolution on your video converter.

http://goo.gl/Hzu0

Put the original resolution in the left hand boxes and 1024 in the X box on the right. This calculator will tell you what pixel count you need for the Y axis you need to maintain the aspect ratio.

For example, I am just converting a film that was in full HD with a resolution of 1920x816. The calculator told me to use 435 for the Y axis.

This method should result in the best picture quality for any files you want to convert.

Nice find. Should come in handy.

[Guest POPE Mad Mitch]

Yeah handbreak using iXXX presets will work for day-to-day video encoding. Personally I'm looking to get a profile set up for ffmpeg so I can batch encode everything, I'd it set up for the best the Vega can handle, hence the investigation

I plan to find an optimal set of ffmpeg (and probably vlc) settings to do transcoding, just as soon as my vega actually fecking arrives, i've done a lot of this this kind of transcoding for a range of mobile devices, so shouldn't take long.

[Guest warriorscot]

With any luck after the next couple of android and Nvidia updates we won't need to do all that much in terms of conversions.

[Guest Neo_VR]

With any luck after the next couple of android and Nvidia updates we won't need to do all that much in terms of conversions.

Heres hoping!... the only two things i want at the moment are a decent web-browser and being able to play 720p MKVs without needing to re-code!.

[Guest ricwales1]

Some good news and something to keep an eye on - core player

http://forum.corecodec.com/viewtopic.php?f...e&start=175

[Guest warriorscot]

Cant help with the last but web browser wise Opera, Firefox and Dolphin HD are pretty good although like firefox copies opera on the desktop they seem to have copied dolphin on Android.

[Guest SilentMobius]

Ok, it looks like the main profile support is pretty weak right now, but the following ffmpeg command-line produces playable 1080p results using the baseline profile.

ffmpeg -i INPUT_FILE -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -vpre baseline -crf 20 -b 5000k -threads 0 -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -profile aac_low OUTPUT_FILE.mp4

[Guest remlap]

Hi can you point me to where you grabbed FFMPEG from that allow me to use that command easily?