-!Divx/Xvid/Mpeg1->Zire71 Guide! -or how to watch Full movies in best quality on Z71

[junglemike128]

Hi Everyone!

In this thread I will try to guide you {except those, who knows it better than me how you can watch movies on your “our” Zire71.
What means - not converting small parts of video in some proprietary format, like Kinoma,
But viewing on Zire71 full-length 1.5 -2 hour movies which can be stored easily on 128mb SD-card. It means quality movies with mpeg-4 video (Divx / Xvid) and mp3- audio.!
In short words – regular Divx/Xvid movies which (some of you ) watch on Pc, just optimized for viewing on Zire71.
Q) Why not Kinoma?
A) Well, it seems from my post like I hate Kinoma . No, not at all, I will explain here. Kinoma has some advantages: 1)It is very fast – I played small clip in kinoma format on Palm IIIx, which is very slow {16mhz cpu versus 144mhz cpu of zire) from the point of video playback.
2) Kinoma is easy – You just drag your desired file in kinoma producer window , choose your palm model, press convert (or whatever this button called, too lazy to launch kinoma now) and in couple of minutes your video is ready.
But Kinoma (or other similar programs) is not suitable for viewing full hi-quality movies on zire. Why? Because Kinoma uses it’s own audio/video (a/v) format which has much smaller compression ratio than Mpeg-4 (divx/xvid).
In simple words, to store high quality 2-hour video on your pda – you need to use about 600-700 kbps bit rate with kinoma. Which will result in (600kbps*7200sec=4320000 kilobits =540000 kilobytes= 527mb. Very few of us own 512mb cards now, and even if is – those will probably not agree to sacrifice all space to 1 movie.
The major advantage of mpeg4 video is that you can compress video in very small size while still having good quality.

[junglemike128]

Before we start , I will tell more precisely the purpose of this guide. I planned to write 2 guides.
First guide, which you are reading now will deal with converting video from already existing Div3/4/5/ Xvid/mpeg(=mpeg1) source. In simple words – If you already have some movie on Cd (not DVD) or you have movie file on your hard disk.
Second guide, that I will probably write a bit later will deal with DVD->Zire71 conversion, which will also be much more complicated than this one.
All the programs that will be mentioned he are freeware open-source programs Except one – MMplayer (http://www.mmplayer.com/) – actually the player for palm which can playback mpeg-4 content in palm OS5.
This player is not free, but you can try demo. It seams like I trying to advertise this player. Well, actually, meanwhile this is the only one player which can do it - playback mpeg-4 content..(if anyone knows another such player, please tell me).
OK, you will need the following:

VirtualDubMod (http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/)
Xvid (http://www.roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml) or Divx (http://www.divx.com/) codec (better install both, cause you need decoder/filter to open file)
You may also need following programs depending on your source file (mp3/ac3) etc…{this may be updated}
Ac3 Decoder Filter (http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/)

Download and install above items unless you already have them.

[junglemike128]

Ok, here we start….
No, couple of things before we start :
• the settings described below are especially optimized for Zire71, it means they will also probably work with TungstenT /T2/ T3/ /C, Treo600/ some Sony models/etc because these devices have same or more powerful processor. And these setting will probably NOT work on Tungsten|E which has slower 126mhz cpu.
• Codec Choice. I don’t want to start war here telling that some particular codec is better than another . I chose Xvid and I will use it here, But you of cause can choose another codec (Divx4/5 / Div3=SBC). Another mpeg-4 codecs like Wmv9/rv9/vp6/nero digital/ffvfw/3vix are not supported, and even if they are, I didn’t test them. You can try if you want. For more information about codec choice you can go Doom9's last Codec Comparison page (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-203-1.htm) and chose better (for you :) ) codec

[junglemike128]

Ok, here we finally start.:
Open VirtualDubMod and open desired file. File-Open :p
It should look like this:

[junglemike128]

>> If you have all codecs/decoders installed , file will open correctly. Here are 2 separate parts: audio and video:
Audio: The initial file can be probably in mp3 format (in most cases) or as well in ac3 (2 or 5 channels) or in some less popular formats like Ogg ( the best one for me :D ) or Divx audio/ wma (windows media audio). Go to Streams->Stream list. Right click on stream , and choose Full processing mode.

[junglemike128]

Choose Compression-> Mpeg layer 3(mp3) (if you have more than one – better choose Lame mp3, but it doesn’t really matter. Anyway you should have at least one which comes with Win2000/XP.)
Choose preferred bitrate, and sampling rate. It better be 32k(22/24)khz/mono, or 22kps(22/24)khz/mono or 48k/(44/48)khz/mono. Don’t’ choose higher bitrates, cause zire’s cpu may not be faster enough to decode audio stream And resulting file will take more space.
You may also want to increase audio volume level in Volume context menu since some movies are already recorded with too low volume (which is not problem for pc. But is problem for palm) and because Zire’s output volume is too low.

[junglemike128]

Video Part:
Since palm palm cpu is slow compared to pc’s cpu, you will have to not only reduce resolution , but frame rate too. So here we go.
Video->Full processing mode. Video->Frame Rate. Set it to “process every other frame /2 “
No way zire will handle full (23.976/25/29.97) frame rate.

[junglemike128]

Now we will resize. Go to Video->Filters->Add VDMod_resize (or other resize filter). Resize it to 320x???, or to 304x??? , where ??? depends on your aspect ratio, which you can see on the right. Note! Both resolution MUST be dividable of 16. So It will be mostly 320x144/320x160/320x176/320x and so on.

[junglemike128]

Than go to Video->Compression-> Choose Xvid mpeg4 codec (or Divx5 if you prefer)

[junglemike128]

Click Configure -> press on “…” button near profile, Check “BVOPs”, check Closed Gov, and put 1 in “Max consecutive BVOPs” aka – B-frames. In Quantization type choose h.263, Uncheck rest. Click OK.

[junglemike128]

Click Advanced, Set “motion search precision” to 6, “VHQ mode” 0 , you may also check “Turbo” , Click OK

[junglemike128]

Choose “TwoPass-First Pass” click OK, OK once more, go to File->Save As (f7) and save file ( you can call it temp) anywhere , where is enough place (up to 500mb). . Check “don’t run this job now”

[junglemike128]

Note, Although, this file is pretty watch able ,maybe even on Zire, THIS IS NOT YOUR RESULT FILE. Go back to Video->Compresson-> Xvid-> Configuration, And choose
“TwoPass- Second Pass” Now you have to set desired output size. Couple of notes here:
I don’t know what SD-card you have ( I believe you have some :D ) but you have to consider following.:
a) This is video only size, so take it into consideration. Audio part takes space too. Sum of your video+audio~ will give you desired output size) (for example, 1h30min 32k22khz_mono audio will take 21 MB.
b) Don’t try to compress it too much, For my conception of quality on palm :confused: don’t go below 1 minute of movie in 1 megabyte. Otherwise quality will really drop.
c) Don’t try to compress to few. Bitrate shoud be not more than 250kbps. ( you can choose bitrate there as well instead of desired space) , otherwise Zire will not handle it. , I have about 180mb on my 256sd left for movies – it is more than enough for even very long movie.

Click OK->OK->OK. … no, too much OK’s :) go to File ->Save as-> type desired name. This will be your result file. , Keep ckecked “don’t run this job..”

Now go to File->Job control-> Press Start . You should see

[junglemike128]

Now The conversion/compression process begins, which will probably take some time, depending on your computer specs. On my Celeron 1700mhz/512mb Sdram 133mzh/ Win 2000 It takes about 1.5-3 hours for most movies.

At last, when file is ready, you can put it on sd with card-reader. I really really hope you have one. Because if not – you will have to wait about 1min per 1mb of file (in my case before I bought cardreader) Which means – About 1.5-2.5 hours of Hotsync process.
Now you have about 2 hours of really cool high quality video to watch, you must see it to believe it. Quality on Zire71 is awesome !!!
How to use/install MMplayer you can see in Mmplayer's Forum (http://mmplayer.com/forums/)

[junglemike128]

The result should look something like this, Well, Palm's screen is not that good to taking shots of, but i will assure you , you will love the result
{edit, BTW, someting important, before you transfer file to SD-card - first chedk it on PC. The file should be playable correctly on pc. If not - no way mmplayer will play it correctly

[junglemike128]

HI, It's me again.
Just made a small test with the EXACT settings above - to make sure i wrote evething correctly.
I encoded 10 minutes of video and compressed it to 20 mb. <actually , as i said berore you can put them on 10mb but not less> The result is absolutely playable on z71. By the way, with this settings (1min=2mb) you get EXCELLENT, KI&& MY A$$ Quality, Try it , and you Won't believe you Zire can produce such sharp good picture.

[HuMpS 97 DoHc]

What version of virtual dub mod are you using???

cause i downloaded the newest and it doesn't look like the screen shots you have and I can't find some of the settings you talk about in this version.

Thanks

[junglemike128]

I use VirtualDubMod ver 1.5.4.1
http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/

[Lwrdrmdnss]

Awesome work, I will have too try it as soon as I get a big enough sd card.

[onebadbaluga]

maybe i missed it in your description but how many megs is a regular 1.5 hour movie gonna take up on my SD card. By the way I cannot wait to go home tonite and try this. I almost want to go play hookie from school and work right now!!!!!!

[abid786]

Thank you for posting:D

It is appriciated:D

Abid

[junglemike128]

For acceptable "good" quality, 1.5hour movie can be compressed to , say, 70-80mb, Of course ;you can compress more to 40-50mb, but it will look badly (blocks, artifacts), same thing with regular divx/xvid cd's If you have seen 3 hour movie on 1 700mb cd - you know how ugly it looks.

[abid786]

We all know of the ugly 3 hour movie on one VCD.:(

Abid

[Pride Of Lions]

We have a similar one (http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7298) over in the Tungsten forums.

But, the real $64Million is...can yu do it on a Mac?
The Mac constituency wants to know.
Do so and we'll elect you President.

Of movies on the Palm. That other job is too hard.
POL9A