Sage Transcoder settings for widescreen display

[laurenglenn]

This is for iPod Anamorphic display:

transcoder/formats/iPod-Anamorphic=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-maxrate 1250000 -vcodec xvid -croptop 60 -cropbottom 60 -cropleft 0 -cropright 0 -s 320x240 -vol 640 -g 300;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1000000;fps\=29.97;w\=320;h\=240;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=44100;ch\=2;br\=160000;]

transcoder/formats/iPod-Anamorphic\ HDTV=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-maxrate 1250000 -vcodec xvid -s 320x240 -bufsize 33554432 -g 300 -aspect 4\:3 -vol 640 ;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1000000;fps\=29.97;w\=320;h\=240;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=44100;ch\=2;br\=160000;]


For those with a DVD player with an iPod dock that want to have the video show up in widescreen. For regular iPod playback, it will stretch the video vertically.

Lauren

[sleonard]

Didn't I see some for the Creative Zen Vision W this morning? Did you edit to remove those, am I in the wrong thread, or maybe I'm just losing it?

Scott

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Didn't I see some for the Creative Zen Vision W this morning? Did you edit to remove those, am I in the wrong thread, or maybe I'm just losing it?

Scott

There was.... but for some reason, the transcoder in Sage either didn't pass the crop settings off to FFMPEG, or it overrode them.

Either way, I have these new settings:

transcoder/formats/Divx-Widescreen=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace -ab 128000 -acodec\=mp3;[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=500000;w\=480;h\=360;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;f\=mp3;br\=128000]

It turns out that unlike the iPod, you can encode a 4x3 video and then have the Vision W zoom into it to show just the 16x9 section of it (cropping off the top and bottom). If you want to zoom back out, there's a setting for that also.

The only thing about the Vision W is that you may have to change the FourCC from FMP4 to XVID to make the Creative software able to copy the videos to the device. Otherwise, it will say that the codec is incompatible. The argument for that in FFMPEG is "-vtag" but it doesn't seem to work in the transcoder settings for some reason.

The color quality on it beats the iPod 5G hands down, IMO.

Lauren

[sleonard]

Thanks,

I copied the settings into my SageClient.properties file but it doesn't show up as a choice. I've never messed with transcoding before, is there something else I need to do?

Scott

[Opus4]

Since the server does the transcoding, try putting it in sage.properties on your server PC.

- Andy

[sleonard]

Thanks Opus, I'll try that as soon as nobody's watching anything. It'd be real nice if there were built-in transcode settings for the Creative Zen line. Hint, hint.

Scott

[sleonard]

Sage.properties on the server was the ticket. Thanks.

Where can I find documentation on these transcode properties and how to set up my own?

Scott

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Sage.properties on the server was the ticket. Thanks.

Where can I find documentation on these transcode properties and how to set up my own?

Scott

Anyone who's using this and needs a higher quality level AVI file can use this:

transcoder/formats/Divx-Widescreen=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace -ab 128000 -acodec\=mp3;[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=1150000;w\=480;h\=360;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;f\=mp3;br\=128000]

The FFMPEG parameters I got from http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=166608 , if that helps.

Lauren

[sleonard]

Thanks, that's a project that'll take a while.

BTW, I tried a conversion last night and then tried to play it in both Sage and WMP but all I got was audio. I have the latest DivX installed. My son isn't home and he has the Zen W. I'll try to play it with that when he gets home.

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Thanks, that's a project that'll take a while.

BTW, I tried a conversion last night and then tried to play it in both Sage and WMP but all I got was audio. I have the latest DivX installed. My son isn't home and he has the Zen W. I'll try to play it with that when he gets home.

OK. I ran a few last night with Xvid installed because Divx doesn't work in Vista. Once I changed the FourCC to XVID, it seemed to play fine. Did you try to download Xvid (the open source version of Divx)?

http://www.winremote.dk/fourccchanger.php (to download a FourCC changer)

Lauren

[sleonard]

I forgot to change the FourCC.

Anyway I experimented a little bit using the built-in mpeg4 good quality deinterlaced settings. First I converted a recording using the default menu choice and it played really well on the Zen W. The -vtag worked properly so I didn't have to manually change the FourCC. It was too big however, so I tried some variations.

I copied the transcoder/formats line and changed the title to MPEG4-Zen Quality and experimented with the size and bitrate and ended up with:

transcoder/formats/MPEG4-Zen\ Quality\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=750000;w\=480;h\=360;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;]

This produced a 480 MB file from and hour long 3.2 GB DVD Standard file, it looks great on the Zen and if its a 16x9 inside a 4.3 frame the Zen zooms perfectly to it.

Scott