Best format for dvd video on pandora?

[Middo]

Hi all, just wondering what you guys thought was the best format, settings, res etc. if I wanted to BACKUP copies of my DVD collection, ready for uploading onto SD cards for viewinf on the pandora etc. I would like to start converting some DVD's in advance without waiting to TEST the movie etc. Obvously I want FULL SCREEN etc.

Is it as simple as 800x480, Mp4, select compression based on my desired file size etc., or is there more to it? Thanks!

PS - What software for Windows XP/Vista would you use. I allready use DVD Shrink 3.2 with success for ripping.

 

[truekaiser]

at the screen size of 800x480. anything above xvid would be overkill in quality. hd quality is also a non-starter since it's vertical res is not high enough for the min of 720. though at this res and the right encoding one can get ~200mb files for half hour shows.

 

[gruso]

Personally (and this may not answer your question, I just wanted to talk about me me me for a second), I'll be sticking with the "standard" ~700MB divx. I don't have the time or inclination to re-encode my collection; one library for both XBMC and Pandora is all I want. I assume Mplayer will give us the usual zoom/stretch/crop options if anything needs to be adjusted on the fly.

Tangent (more fascinating stuff about me): This very issue was one of the main things that got me into the gp32x community, funnily. I had an iPod, and maintaining a second video library for it drove me nuts. In my search for an alternative, I came upon the GP2X. And here we are.

 

[phrosty]

I've been reencoding some of my movies for 800x480, x264 512kbps (MeGUI DXVA-HD-HQ profile), AAC 160kbps. They come out looking fantastic and don't take much room -- about 750MB for a 2hr 30min movie.

I'm a quality nut, I know some people will question 512kbps. Using a 1080p source, bilinear resize, and MVDegrain2 - it takes like 6hr to complete, but it really does look great.

 

[eksasol]

I'm not sure how the performance of H.264 for the pandora will be right off the bat until it is further developed. I used the free software Staxrip to convert all my dvd to H.264 (mp4) format, there are other good softwares like MeGui and Automen. I used to use Xvid and mp3, but H.264 and aac are really a step ahead in quality per size, so that's my recommendation. At 700kbps triple pass and 64kbps vbr aac is very acceptable to me, but you'll want to go higher for backup purpose. To my ears, AAC encoded at lower bitrates ranges can sound as good as mp3 at a little higher bitrates so you don't need to waste too much space on the audio if the movie is consisted of mostly speeches. Even at 70kbps it sounded very good if it utilized the aditional SBR technology. I only use double pass encoding at 512kbs when backing up my music.

Anyway H264 from my experience require more cpu processing and drains a bit more battery, so XVID could have an advantage there, but both are excellent formats.

You shouldn't be upscaling your dvd to 800x480, but leave it at the native resolution, and let the playback software do the scaling.

 

[javaJake]

Can anyone confirm that ffmpeg doesn't seem to take advantage of each codec's unique features but just uses a one-size-fits-all method? I noticed that MSMPEG and MOV formats both came out the same size, same visual quality, on ffmpeg with just a change in format type.

If it gives me problem on Day 1, it's mencoder for me. It's harder to figure out, but boy, is it powerful.

 

[fischju]

Re-encoding movies to 800x480 is just a bad idea for quality. Leaving it at the original and having the Pandora display it at 1:1 saves a lot of trouble and quality.

I will be using automkv, x264, original resolution and audio, output size of 900mb.

 

[phrosty]

indeed, never upscale. if you can downscale though, you'll get a much better encode.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Right now, I think I'll just be using the same XviDs from my GP2X. However, if the support is good enough and doesn't suck battery, I'll be reencoding in H.264.

 

[Chip]

If you're encoding specifically for the Pandora, then h.264 is not recommended. We don't have an optimized codec yet, and even when we do, it will still require significantly more processing power to decode than Xvid. We could be talking as much as a 50% difference in battery life between the two.

 

[truekaiser]

If you're encoding specifically for the Pandora, then h.264 is not recommended. We don't have an optimized codec yet, and even when we do, it will still require significantly more processing power to decode than Xvid. We could be talking as much as a 50% difference in battery life between the two.

well on the things i encode h.264 is overkill anyway, and besides at the small size of the screen the codec is also not needed.

 

[javaJake]

Xvid is definitely going to be my choice of codec. It's open, and it works very very well.

The only thing we're missing here is a good starting point on what options to set when re-encoding to such a codec. *hint hint*

 

[Yigguth]

Will avi play? I have quite a few movies and shows on my hd and most of them are .avi

 

[joa]

Ofcourse, assuming it's just divx/xvid under the hood, avi being the container. put it this way...

your 175 MB cartoon episodes, and your 700 MB movies. Both .avi extensions will work no problem. Which will be cool actually, I live in a shared house and my housemates love my Original xbox with xbmc, emu's, etc...

It's not on our network though so no streaming, I look forward to plugging the pandora into our old sony crt, and streaming cartoons from the fileserver.

 

[Chip]

The only thing we're missing here is a good starting point on what options to set when re-encoding to such a codec. *hint hint*

"Optimal" encoding settings are totally subjective. As we've seen in this thread, some people insist on flawless video and audio, no matter how big the file. Others are less picky about quality and care more about file space. There's no right or wrong way to do it. It all depends on your personal standards and whether or not you'll be using the encodes exclusively on the Pandora, or if you might also use them on a large TV. The source material and format are also something to take into consideration.

If I were going to convert a 90min DVD solely for playback on the Pandora, I'd probably go with 2-pass encoding, 2/3rds resolution (480x320, or 480xwhatever if it's widescreen), 128Kbps MP3 audio, and set a target file size between 350MB and 500MB depending on how many action scenes the movie contained. That will look pretty damned good on a 4.3" display, at least by my standards. Your standards may vary.

 

[Username]

I think I'm gonna downscale my videos so I can fit more of them.

 

[joa]

I'm just going to leave things the way they are, i.e. cartoons left at 175MB.. 700MB for films.

Even both of those look 'fine' in my opinion on my 40" sammy lcd. When i want to show it off i usually stick to 720p/1080p x264 encoded at a silly bitrate.

I'll have a 32GB card dedicated to said media anyway, So a few favourite toons, and 5 or so unseen 700MB 'things' will do me fine. That's if i could pull myself away from playing some emu's

 

[ish420]

I have maxed out my HDDs with DVDs
I'm sure a few of you here have experience in encoding DVDs. I recently began encoding my DVD collection, to save space, but notice each movie I have encoded gradually looses sinc. What could be going wrong? I have an old amd64 3700+ and am using AVS converter. I don't touch my computer during the time of encoding but still get this slight out of sinc. Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong. I would really like suggestions to creating perfect encodes. Size is not an issue. I rather have 1400MB movies than 7000MB. I'm thinking I have conflicting codecs and would be willing to go as far reformating my comp and start from scratch. Although I would like to avoid that.

edit: I will ask this same question at the off topics section.

 

[PSyMastR]

Most of the movies i have are in 720p. I'll just have to downscale encode them as they are about 5-9gb a piece haha.

 

[pstudio]

I haven't done much ripping and encoding in my time so I would like to know, if it's possible to rip and encode dvd movies so that they're still divided in chapters? And does mplayer support subtitles?