Encoding video - alternatives to Windows Media Encoder?

[Guest HelloDave]

I've installed Windows Media Encoder 7, but it refuses to run on my machine (win 2K) - the program appears in task manager, but no GUI appears so I can't use it! Anyone got any thoughts? I've tried un/reinstalling several times but no luck. ****** microsoft! :evil:

I've tried alternatives to WME7, such as the command line tool (WME8?) but that always crashes when I try to encode videos, and WME 4, which makes .asf's that are viewable on the phone, but if I try to encode a DiVX with it the video comes out green :cry:

The only other alternative I can think of is use a generic video encoder (I've tried VirtualDub) but I'm not sure what codecs I can/can't use, and how to mix sound and video - all my attempts have failed when the file reaches the phone! I've got all the codecs installed; it's just getting them to work. The back of the SPV manual mentions compatibilty with an ISO MPEG-4 codec - any ideas where I can find one, as the one I tried (RealMagic) didn't work, and i'm not sure what audio codec I should use with it.

If anyone has any ideas please tell me - this is driving me nuts! I might scratch off the V from SPV on the front of my phone, as nothing is happening at the moment, and i've got a 128mb SD card in the post and a long train journey coming up soon! Aaaagh!

Thanks!

--

Andy

[Guest spacemonkey]

Don't know about getting them to work with the phone (haven't got mine yet) but if you're looking for general information on video encoding etc check out doom9.org

For an mpeg4 compatable codec grab yourself divx (www.divx.com) and have a play with that. As for audio you can put any type of audio stream you like in an avi file and since the player on the phone is mediaplayer which plays mp3s I would imagine an mp3 audio track should work.

[Guest dodgybob]

Try AV Squash... goto www.download.com and type it into the search box...

Its not bad.. buyt not as good as encoder!!

[Guest HelloDave]

OK, bizarrely WME has now decided that working isn't such a bad idea and I can encode videos, ahh the joy! Unfortunately, whenever I try to encode a DiVX video it says there is an unknown error in the stream and the encoding fails. Has anyone else had any luck encoding DiVX's directly from the file with WME 7?

I've found a solution to the problem, but it involves using a program called AVIUtl to frameserve the DiVX avi to a file, and the audio has to be extracted to a seperate .wav. I then use VFAPI to convert AVIUtl's frameserve file to a fake avi format that WME can read, and that then encodes the video and adds the audio again. This is a bit complicated though (lol) so does anyone have any other suggestions?! WME will encode mpegs and non DiVX avis fine straight from the file!

[Guest dearsina]

Perhaps the subject of encoding videos needs it's own thread, but for now, I will share with you the little knowledge I have left of some hours of playing around with Windows Media Encoder (Free from micrsoft.com) and an SPV.

Basically, even the video Orange supplies with the SD card skips during playback (take a close look at it, compare it to a computer playback) and therefore using the exact same specs to encode longer videos will have a fatal effect on the smoothness of playback.

Playing around with a 4 minute music video, originally an MPEG file, I settled for the following settings (Go thru the Wizard in the beginning of the program, but de-select the "Start encoding after pressing Finish", go to View->Properties Panel, select the 'Compression' tab, and click on Edit):

Audio encoding mode: CBR

Video encoding mode: Bit rate VBR (Peak) (!)

Audience: 46,02 Kbps

Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9

Audio format: 16 kbps, 22 kHz, mono CBR

Video codec: Windows Media Video V7

Video bit rate: 25 Kbps (!)

Video peak rate: 100 Kbps (!)

Video size: 160 x 120

Frame rate: 16 fps

Key frame: 8 s

Buffer max: 15 s

(!) What is interesting is that the VBR (Peak) setting is the best video encoding setting, which makes sence, because encoding MP3s with VBR was also a good thing, back in the day.

When running the music video (Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal, if you want the file, send me an e-mail, I don't think copyright infringement is much of a problem when the screen is the size of a stamp, but you never know, so best send me a secret e-mail...) on my SPV it ran almost perfectly and even though some quality is lost compared to higher settings, it is worth giving up some detail for smoother playbacks. If you wish, you could decrease the audio quality for smaller file size, but the sound becomes very metallic, and almost annoying.

The encoded file was 1.2MB, which is not bad for a 4 minute clip. A full feature movie (110 minutes) will come to about 33MB, so you can easily fit a movie on a 64 MB memory card, along with an hour of music. (I haven't actually tried this myself, because I haven't aquired a bigger memory card as of yet, so the numbers are estimates, but pretty good estimates... :-)

Commuting will never be the same.

One little note, I just tried to encode a DivX, and it seems fine, do the problems incur later on in the process, or in the very beginning? I would love to hear from people who have managed to successfully watch a movie on their phone. And if I am the only person on the planet who would actually do that, I will make sure you all hear about it... :-)

sina

[Guest HelloDave]

All the videos i've got to play back so far have been encoded at 33Kbps! They use the following settings -

Audio

Audio bandwidth: 10 Kbps

Audio codec: Windows Media Audio V8

Audio format: 10 kbps, 11 kHz, mono

Video

Video bit rate: 19.3 Kbps

Video codec: Windows Media Video V8

Video size: 160 x 120

Buffer size: 5 seconds

Video stream 19.3 Kbps:

15 fps, 10 seconds per key frame, Quality: 75

This profile was edited from the 56Kbps modem one in WME; I'm assuming it's using CBR, but i'm not sure. I'll try encoding with VBR and see what happens! I see you're using WM audio v9 - I thought the SPV only supported versions 7 and 8?

The DiVX problem happens as soon as you start trying to encode - it begins encoding and a few seconds later pops up the illegal data message and stops. I did read on a MS newsgroup that WME7 doesn't support encoding from DiVXs.

I haven't watched a movie on my SPV yet, but a 128mb SD card is in the post... Having said that I think i'll stick to TV shows - pausing the SPV half way through a movie and then finding it starts again from the beginning when you press play could turn out to be slightly frustrating! And don't get me started on the lack of fast forward/rewind...why MS, why?