Crunchie: Expression of Interest (Portable devices).

[arkay]

Hi guys,

There's been a little discussion about varying some of the options of Crunchie in order to specifically support certain mobile devices. I've had a bit of a play with this today and found that I can churn out some quiet nice looking small resolution frame rate modified video. Of course any modification to the framerate results in less than smooth playback but if a device only does 15 fps then that's what it does.

At any rate could those of you that have these devices please supply me with:

a) The make/model of the device.
b) The resolution video must be at to be displayed.
c) The framerate the device is limited to.
d) How the files are copied to the device.

With that information I can begin to formulate a plan to support direct dvr-ms to "the mobile device of your choice" encoding.

Thanks and Cheers!

-Arkay.

[frenzz]

Ahh... so that back is starting to feel a little better... either that or you're bored silly... OR BOTH!

Anyways, sounds like a good plan Arkay... I have been looking at the My TVtoGO product - http://www.mytvtogo.com...

For me - I'm currently using PocketPC and SmartPhone platforms... so support for the following;

- VGA displays (640 x 480)
- QVGA displays (320 x 240)
- Smartphone displays (208 x 160)

Using HP iPAQ's (4150/4750) and SmartPhone (O2 XPhone II).

The PocketTV team suggest the following (http://forum.pocketmovies.net/viewtopic.php?t=977);

- Smartphone portrait 176x136 is for portrait video that plays at full framerate. The average bitrate should be around 120 Kbit/sec, i.e. about 100MB for a 2h movie! (not sure I'd want to watch an entire movie on my phone, though...)
- Smartphone fullscreen 224x176 is for fullscreen video (lower fps). The average bitrate should be around 160 Kbit/sec.
- Smartphone widescreen 224x128 is for widescreen video. The average bitrate should be around 140 Kbit/sec.
- Pocket PC portrait 240x196 is for portrait video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 270Kbit/sec.
- Pocket PC fullscreen 320x240 is for fullscreen video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 420Kbit/sec.
- Pocket PC widescreen 320x176 is for widescreen video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 330Kbit/sec.

Frame rate wise, depending on the device they only seem to be able to support 12-25 fps...

Hope you are doing better arkay...

frenzz.

[TRHR]

Great Idea, Arkay.

Would be nice to get it working for some of the iriver mp3 players. Be great for watching a missed tv show the next day on the bus to work. There might not be too much work to get it going as someone has alreadly made an open source converter using mencoder. You might want to check it out here:

http://iriverter.sourceforge.net/index.shtml

These are the video's specs for the H300 series mp3 players and most of the other iriver players:

[Video]

File format AVI
Codec XviD MPEG4 (recommend XviD 1.0.2 codec) Resolution 220 x 176 only
Frame Rate 10fps at Maximum
Bit Rate 500Kbps at Maximum(recommend under 450Kbps)
Click here to download sample movie.

[Audio]

Codec MP3
Bit Rate 128Kbps, 44.1KHz

- SRS function is not supported during video playback.
- FF/REW, AnB functions are not supported.
- H300's video codec has been developed based on XviD codec, so there might be some
!!playback problems with other codecs (screen stutter, out of sync, etc).
- Does not support TEXTVIEW function during video playback.
- Video files longer than 1 hour cannot be played. The file should be split before playback.
- Subtitle files are not supported.
- Maximum video playback is about 4 hours.

Just make sure you're feeling fully recuperated before you start on anything. Hope you're feeling better.

Damon

[arkay]

Thanks for the info guys

Crunchie is already set to go for mobile stuff. It's just a matter of letting people specify the output resolution and frame rate. Only need to add 2 more controls to the gui to make that happen. What I'm hoping for is an easy way to allow people to set it up. Hopefully out of all the specs a pattern will emerge.

It's already getting more cluttered with options than I like so I'm thinking about creating profiles that can be downloaded for a specific device. That way people can make a profile for a particular device and upload, others can then download and install it then all they'd have to do is pick the profile for their device in the gui. That way advanced users can make their own new ones and people who don't want to (or need to) know the ins and outs of a ducks bum can just select the profile for their device. Whether it's a PSP or iriver etc etc..

Implementing profiles will also allow people to do say a batch run to convert all their video for the HTPC then a second run to convert certain shows for their portable etc etc..

Cheers,
Arkay.

[bella]

I know you are used to dumb questions coming from me but what about crunchies mp3's or wav's?

[arkay]

Well. Had never thought of that though there is more than enough tools around to do that job already

Let me know if you want a list of the ones I used to use.

Cheers,
Arkay.

[bella]

Yes Arkay, I would like to have that list. Would the compressed files still be playable on my Ipod?

[arkay]

Damn... I knew you were going to make me come up with a list

I used to use:

1. Audio Catalyst (not freeware but a great app).
2. Besweet
3. Lame.
4. Kazaa. (ooops... That's not an encoding tool is it?)

If you'd like a good list of tools available for free you can check out these.

I'm sure there are many many more freeware tools available these days. I haven't made an mp3 for years now.

Cheers,
Arkay.

[bella]

I have most of those programs on a PCuser magazine disk. But all files are already converted to mp3. Do these pog's give you an even better compression?

[arkay]

I wouldn't think so. mp3 is mp3 as far as I know. The bitrate determines the size and the quality. Essentially all imlpementations of the format should be the same as it's a set standard.

Cheers,
Arkay.

[mrees]

I 2nd the request for the Iriver H-Series Support

It would be sweet to have it as a seperate program too, so you can (for example), run Crunchie for the usual kick ass crunchin for MCE and NOT delete the source, THEN run the Crunchie-portable app for dumping to the portable device, which also deletes the source.

EVEN RADDER (remember that awesome word from high school? RAD!), would be to have an option in both Crunchie's to allow a program to run before and after crunchie starts. That way you can run both crunchies back to back.. or run a form of Xcopy batch file before crunchie starts, then run crunchie, or run a batch file after crunchie completes... etc.. blah blah blah... ramble ramble ramble...

Cheerz again Arkay !

[arkay]

I 3rd the request for iRivier H