Messages

1

General Discussion / Encoding Video for Zaurus...

« on: May 22, 2004, 11:59:42 am »

audio only works with MP3. I have 4 encoders on my machine and I encode all the time. It isn\'t the a simple matter of encoding... it\'s getting the very picky combination of codecs, bitrate, and size. In fact, the ONLY version of MPEG 4 it supports is Microsoft\'s MPEG 4... BUT Microsoft doesn\'t let you use the MP3 codec when exporting, and Zaurus doesn\'t recognize Microsoft\'s audio codec...

Just for the record, besides MP3, certain settings of Microsoft\'s IMA ADPCM audio you can tweak Windows Media Encoder into outputting videos with work fine (and use less CPU ^^) on the built in player (on my 760 anyway).  Also Sharp\'s G.726 ACM audio works, although I had to use Pixlab (the encoding app Sharp sells for making MPEG4 video for the Z) to make videos with that.  

Re MP3, MS probably didn\'t have much choice about cutting out free official encoding in it from WME.  Once MP3 became as popular as it did Fraunhofer started acting Draconian about using it/charging more/etc.

2

General Discussion / Which program freeware or cost is best for Video?

« on: May 14, 2004, 05:58:30 pm »

I bought TkcVideo for my 760 and it was crippleware.  Couldn\'t do fullscreen at all, had these crappy borders.  When asked tkc said fullscreen was impossible due to something or other which was bullshit.  Dr.Z and mplayer-w100 (the one with the ati w100 chip driver) as well as the packed in Sharp MPEG4 player all do fullscreen no problem and I\'ve toyed with them a lot.

It\'s been a few months, but I\'d look carefully before forking out change for tkcVideo for one of the VGA units (considering those crooks even refused to admit having a fake, crippled fullscreen mode was a problem).  

Of the other players I mentioned I prefer mplayer with MPEG2 (which lets you pump the bitrate up since it\'s easier to decode).  The Sharp player does really nice as well, although it requires encoding in MS ISO MPEG4.  The colors are really vivid, but I haven\'t figured out if that\'s due to overlayed playback or something the Windows Media Encoder does beforehand.

Dr.Z performed well, handily beating mplayer at some more normal MPEG4 trials before I got my settings down for mplayer.  Dr.Z can\'t play MPEG2, though, so once I figured out that was superior for such underpowered devices I didn\'t finish comparing those two.