Pandora Video Encoder

[CronoTriggerfan]

Is there one in development yet? I've got a lot of movies that are going to need trimming down! :lol: If there's nothing official yet, how are you all planning on doing this? And if anyone like myself is planning on using MediaCoder, any chance you could start messing around with settings to see what will work best?

 

[gruso]

I'm going to enjoy not re-encoding videos. I got a new iPod last Christmas, and as much as I enjoyed it, having to convert all my video to mp4 drove me up the wall. The search for an alternative is what led me to the GP2X, and Pandora. All I want to do is drag and drop from my existing collection (which is primarily ~700MB divx files).

 

[bigtruck]

I really doubt there's going to be any "official" Pandora video format. It will likely have either mplayer or VLC (I vote for mplayer, but VLC is certainly also a very good media player), and should be able to play just about anything you can throw at. So it's mostly just a matter of picking the format with the best compression and setting the resolution to one you're comfortable with.

 

[Kings]

Avidemux for everything.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

I really doubt there's going to be any "official" Pandora video format. It will likely have either mplayer or VLC (I vote for mplayer, but VLC is certainly also a very good media player), and should be able to play just about anything you can throw at. So it's mostly just a matter of picking the format with the best compression and setting the resolution to one you're comfortable with.


That's more or less what I'm talking about.

 

[Tinnus]

Something like 400x240 or maybe 600x360 (of course, correct aspect ratio) should be good enough if the video is blitted with a filter (which it should be). Apart from that, good encoders (seems like h.264 is going to be supported) that go at the lowest bitrates your eyes like

Personally, I *will* be re-encoding stuff because I only have one 1GB and one 2GB card

 

[kloplop321]

MP4 is easily supported on almost all devices, in fact it is the main official-firmware video available except for movies on UMD's on the PSP.
We don't need to make a specific codec for it, as linux already has open source stuff like that under the GPL license. But if a video has a higher resolution and I want something smaller, well heck-yeah I would convert it to the res or a perfect ration downscale that will be upscaled; maybe like a true-coler bink video codec or XviD with ACC audio, that would be fine with me.

 

[Tom`]

Avidemux for everything.

Isn't Avidemux a little overkill for this? Unless you want to do any editing or apply filters, you're probably better off with just using mencoder...

 

[javaJake]

With all the room we'll be getting, I almost want to create ISO dumps of my DVDs.

 

[magicman5421]

^
kinda overkill don't you think?

 

[bnolsen]

The x264 encoding for the PSP has been fine for videos for my daughter to watch on the plane. Seems to perform better than baseline MP4 for small devices. Movie sizes normally 150-250MB each.

With the pandora screen supporting essentially 720p this could go either way. It supports the high res, but for video use are users going to be holding it so close that the resolution will even be visible?

Edit: Oof I screwed this one up..only 480p screen. OMAP3530 is advertised to do 720p/1080i decodes at 30fps.

 

[Karel Jansens]

The x264 encoding for the PSP has been fine for videos for my daughter to watch on the plane. Seems to perform better than baseline MP4 for small devices. Movie sizes normally 150-250MB each.

With the pandora screen supporting essentially 720p this could go either way. It supports the high res, but for video use are users going to be holding it so close that the resolution will even be visible?

It does if you're watching subtitled material, especially when the subs are hard"coded" in.

Trust me, I know; the difference between full res on my Pepper Pad 3's screen and 400x240 on my Nokia N800 is striking, taking into account that the Pad has a 7" screen and the Nokia 4.1", both with a 800x480 resolution (and forgetting for the moment the Nokia's cr*ptastic stutter-playback).

 

[javaJake]

^
kinda overkill don't you think?

Oh, definitely.

 

[CandidStan]

I'm hoping for a VLC type all in one wonder media player on the pandora.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I'm hoping for a VLC type all in one wonder media player on the pandora.

If VLC was ported, I reckon my boyfriend would be buying a 2nd Pandora just for watching vids

 

[PSyMastR]

I'm hoping for a VLC type all in one wonder media player on the pandora.

Ugh... I hate VLC. Especially for styled subs and multi audio stream handling VLC just rots in the dust.

 

[AireTamStorm]

I'll just recompile ffmpeg for ARM and transcode on the Pandora itself. Or just use the file on the Pandora, since having flexibility to play odd encapsulation types like matroska and ogg (as well as getting video to run at native resolution) exists on it unlike my PSP. What a terrible handheld for video.

 

[PoisonedV]

VLC sucks. I used to be a real fan of it, but I hate the weird encoding that makes it all bright and rainbowy for a few seconds whenever you skip, the audio problems, the skipping problems, and all the other stuff. I now prefer just installing the codecs and using MPC

 

[sindbad]

Try SMplayer.

 

[majamee]

Yeah!!! SMPlayer definitely rules!

It's my favorite player for Windows and for Linux.

It plays nearly everything witout a hassle (I stumbled not yet over any file it could not handle) and it has a absolutely *never-wanna-miss-it-again* feature:

it remembers the settings of all files you play (including the time when you have stopped watching. So if you start the same sometime again it continues to play at the time/position where you have stopped )

Greetings,
Majamee