xvid-files: encoder settings?

[bamboozle]

Hi everybody.

I’m trying to encode my own xvid-files for the P3 and can’t seem to find the "right" encoder settings. What really baffles me is that certain files work while others don’t although I used the same settings for all of them. The error message that I get is "Not supported format. Video only".

Here’s what I tried:
video: xvid
audio: mp3 (48khz, 128kb/s)
container: avi
resolution: tried different settings including 320x240, 640x480, 480x272

The only thing that differs between the video files is the resulting bitrate which (depending on the video) ranges from 400kb/s up to 1000kb/s. I encoded about 15 files and only three of them work on the P3. Oddly enough the videos that work were the ones I got an error message for when I transferred them to the player (I use MTP mode).

I use AviDemux2 to encode my videos and all the encoded files work flawlessly on my divx-certified DVD-Player.


So, my question is: Is there anything wrong with the encoder-settings that I use? Do you guys encode your own videos and if so what settings do you use?


~ Regards.
bamboozle

[bamboozle]

Is nobody encoding their own videos here?

I'm just looking for some hints as to what could cause the playback problems.

The main parameters (xvid, mp3, avi) apply to the P3-specs so there must be something wrong with the "fine-tuning". I played around with the B-frames settings, turned "packed bitstream" on/off and tried different bitrates... But again, some videos work while others (encoded with the same settings) don't.


Any advice? Anyone?

[electron]

hmm, I recommend using Handbreak to convert/encode videos. most people only think about handbreak as a DVD ripper, but it is actually also the best video converter I can think of. usually, the iPod Touch pre-set works best. but I have successfully used xvid in handbreak.

[dfkt]

Handbrake.

[bamboozle]

Hey guys, thanks for pointing me to "Handbrake". I will give it a try.

I wanted to get "AviDemux2" to generate P3-compatible files though since it is my main program when it comes to encoding videos (it's very powerful, free and available for Win/Mac/Linux).

Judging by the 230+ views for this thread I suppose that there is some interest in the topic. So I'm just gonna post a small tutorial with the settings that work for me. Maybe it will help other posters in the future. Here goes...

• Download AviDemux2 for your platform and run it.
• Open your video file.
• In the dropdown-boxes to the left select "MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid)" for video, "MP3 (lame)" for audio and "AVI" for format.

• Click on the "Configure"-button below the video-dropdown and enter the following settings in the different tabs.

• In the "Main"-tab the encoding type "Single Pass - Quantizer" is what you want if you're going for a definite quality-level - the quantizer. 3 is a good value to use. Go lower if you want better quality. Go higher if you want smaller file size.
  If you want a specific file size or a specific average bitrate select the appropriate "Two Pass"-encoding type and enter your target value. As the name says two encoding passes are needed to generate the target value thus it will take approximately twice as long to encode your file.
• The settings in the other tabs should give you maximum compatibility with DivX-Certified players (see note below).
• If you want to change the resolution of your video file click on the "filter"-button below the video-dropdown and select the appropriate filter. "Resize" and "Crop" are the filters that are being used more common and should be self-explanatory.
• The default values used for audio are just fine. Feel free to click "configure" and change the bitrate if you want more/less than 128kb/s.
• Click "Save" and enter a filename including the ".avi" ending.
• Done. Now wait for your video to be encoded.

Note: Using the above settings I encoded many files that playback without problems on several standalone DVD-players with DivX-support. However, the Samsung P3 seems to have a problem with some of the files encoded this way. Fortunately there's an easy solution for this: Just set the audio-/video-dropdown to "Copy" reopen your encoded file and save it again. This step (it only takes a few seconds) forces AviDemux2 to rewrite the AVI-header which seems to fix whatever it was that caused the P3 to choke. The video file will now play flawlessly.