MP4Cam2AVI with Sanyo HD1 support for testing

[Graham Jones]

The MP4Cam2AVI crowd today e-mailed me a pre-release of the next version, asking that I and any other HD1 owners test it.

If anyone else wants to give it a try, just e-mail me and I will forward it.

I'm going to test this evening, Europe time.

[Graham Jones]

Okay, I tested this. It works fine now. You have to have divx codec installed, version 5 is better according to them.

[Chris Wells]

Hi Graham,

Did you test all modes? I'm downloading it from their site now, and will test it for use with the 640X modes this evening if you haven't already. I know you would have given the 720p modes a good workout! ;)

I'm also curious what Windows versions you tested on. I have access to XP SP2 and Win 98SE. The Win98 system is painfully slow, but I'm sure it's cabable of handling a 5 or 10 second clip for testing purposes.

Thanks for this great news!

[Graham Jones]

No, I only bothered with the best mode. I just wanted to see whether it would convert the format. Since discovering Vegas, I don't have much interest in inital conversion to AVI!

[Chris Wells]

Reported the following issue:

1. When converting either 640X or 720p clips and removing audio, there seems to be a glitch right at the end. If I set Media Player Classic to repeat the clip, it gets stuck bouncing between the last two frames. Happens with all clips.

The following video is good as a test clip http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/sany0182.mp4

[Marc Louis]

Originally Posted by Graham Jones Senior

The MP4Cam2AVI crowd today e-mailed me a pre-release of the next version, asking that I and any other HD1 owners test it.

If anyone else wants to give it a try, just e-mail me and I will forward it.

I'm going to test this evening, Europe time.

THANX FOR the news Graham, i sent u an email to get it but actually it's available here :

http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=554254

[Marc Louis]

Well i just tested it and i got a few observations :

-there is a bug of what i call the "jumping car effect": indeed the newly obtained .avi files are not smooth when i read them with windows media player 10 or another player (with Divx player the picture is smoother but the audio part just disapeared by the end of the video)

and i have the Divx codec 6 installed in my system !!

plus in both cases (WMP and Divx player) the .avi video is darker than the original mp4 file

anyone noticed this ?

Then i found out that those .avi files can't be read in my archos portable video player (a kind of ipod video in better :)) , it says that the video (1280 x720) is too large to be read...


so i guess i will have to convert my mp4 files into 640 x 480 format before putting them into MPACAM2AVI

someone here told me that the pro version of QuickTime allows to change easily the format of HD1 files to convert them into 640 x 480 for instance...

did anyone try to do it ? and is there any loss of quality by doing it ? cause as there is no trial version for Quick Time pro , i don't want to buy it and then find out i can't do that...

Thank you all !!


Edit : wow Quicktime pro seems to be getting a lot of bad reviews (8 out of 10 reviews are bad) !!!! and it's on the apple site forum by the way !!!
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....7.7.1.2.0#rev

[Marc Louis]

and don't hesitate to post your feeling about this new programm on the sourceforge forum, so they could upadte things up:

http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.p...orum_id=554254

[Chris Wells]

The easy convert program I'd recommend is PocketDivXEncoder. It's free, it's fast, and it supports your slower devices. I have used it to directly recode MP4 files from the HD1 and have been pleased.

Some things about your observations:

1. Your 'jumping car effect' will vanish if you encode without audio. The reason is the lowered bandwidth that results. You either need more power in your computer or less data in your stream. Shrinking the video will also work.

2. Darker video isn't something I've noticed. I use Media Player Classic though, perhaps your players are applying different effects to various formats.

3. Your Archos doesn't have the oomph to push 720X1080... that's 2.5X the resolution the Archos is made to handle. The recommended encoder (above) will optimize your re-encoded files specifically for the Archos. Choose the image of the Archos on application startup.

4. Quicktime Pro might work, and it might not. But why use it if better apps are free?

Finally, you will get one bogus warning message when working with MP4 format. It's meaningless, but here's the deal.

When you choose the file you want to re-encode, you will get a prompt that says the new file will replace the old one. It won't... the new one is saved with _Archos at the end. Just ignore this prompt.

The prompt doesn't come up for me on any other file format. All files convert fine.

Here's your link to the program: http://divx.ppccool.com/

[Marc Louis]

Hi Chris and thanx for your explanation

about PDE, yeah it's great i've been using it for years to convert .wmv and MPEG2 files into .avi...regarding the treatment of MP4 files , PDE was part of my process to get videos working into the archos...but not exactly in that way


usually , from MP4 files obtained out of my digital camera, there were 2 types :

1) the ones i didn't want to edit, then the process was very simple : mp4file > MP4CAM2AVI = new .avi file > work direct in archos

2) the mp4 file i wanted to edit, for those the process was more complex : mp4file > MP4CAM2AVI = new .avi file > Edit in Windows Movie maker = new .wmv file > encode in PDE = new .avi file that works in archos

now as MP4 files from HD1 converted directly by MP4CAM2AVI won't work into the Archos, as you advised i will encode them with PDE , but the bad point i guess is that PDE, contrary to MP4CAM2AVI give you an less good quality .avi file...even if you choose double pass


but that's better than nothing , i never thought about using PDE to convert MP4 files befre you mention it...i will try that now


thanx

[Marc Louis]

hi i manage to convert my MP4 files with MP4CAM2AVI, but when i try to play those avi files into Windows media player it says "error when dowloading the codec", then windows media player will eventually play the file but it's not smooth

can someone tell me which codec i have to download for WMP (i have version 10) to play my files correctly ?

and where should i find this codec ?

because of this codec problem i can't import the new .avi files into Windows movie maker neither, so i can't edit files

the last codec i installed on my system for WMP is that one from the microsoft site, there is no newer codec available :Windows Media 9 Series Codecs Installation Package

thank you

[Graham Jones]

divx 6 - do a google!

[Marc Louis]

Ok thanx, but i have already divx 6.0 (i got it with Divx converter some months ago)

[Chris Wells]

I have DivX 6 too, and I also get that message. It's annoying but the files play fine for me. I can manage 640X at 30 or 60fps without my system bottlenecking.

I think your rough playback might relate to system capabilities. What are the specs of your machine? My Centrino 1.4Ghz 512MB 80GB XP laptop can just barely manage the 640/60.

An easy way to resolve the codec warning message is to use "The Playa" to run a clip. It'll give you an error code if there is a codec issue. Simply pop this into Google and it'll tell you precisely what to do. I should do that soon, just haven't bothered yet.

[Marc Louis]

my system cap are 2,80 Ghz and 704 mo of ram , so i think it's pretty good
but today it seems to work better, so i just gonna wait & see

(later i will do a google search as u suggest)

thanx