Converting videos for portable devices (including softsubs)

[mirkosp]

Checking back, it seems that the filename had an & in it. Might be the cause. I know that mp4box doesn't like filenames with # in it, & might just be another character that's no good while muxing.

[Corran]

I thought that was the case, but I'm fairly certain I had previously processed files with ampersands. Also, in the batch file that zarxgui generates the ampersand is still present and unescaped. The zarxgui batch runs without error for me.

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"G:\Program Files\Zarx264gui\MP4Box.exe" -fps 23.97604 -add "F:\Video\Anime\[SZN & I-O] Hajime no Ippo New Challenger - 01[720p][1B50A5AA] v2.mkv-zarx264gui-temp.264" -add "F:\Video\Anime\[SZN & I-O] Hajime no Ippo New Challenger - 01[720p][1B50A5AA] v2.mkv-zarx264gui-temp.m4a" -new "F:\Video\Anime\[SZN & I-O] Hajime no Ippo New Challenger - 01[720p][1B50A5AA] v2.mkv-zarx264gui.mp4"

The only difference between Zarxgui's mp4box line and mine that I can think of is that I was using a "/../" to move back to a parent directory. If this is the cause then I'm not sure why there was no problem prior to this specific file...

[fobboy]

Awesome Corran. I came back from holidays and finally had the time to test out the fixed version. All the problems I had before are now gone. Just 1 point though. I was wondering if it was possible to change the height of the converted file as well?

The skewing of the video file isn't very noticeable to me, but the black bars on my itouch is very noticeable.

[Corran]

The aspect ratio of the video is maintained based on the output width provided. This should prevent skewing but can result in black bars if your display's aspect ratio is not the same as the videos aspect ratio. I don't plan to add an option for setting the height but others are free to do so.

However, from what I understand, the ipod touch and iphone have playback settings that allow the video to be stretched to fill the screen. I assume this based on testing I had a friend of mine perform. I do not have an apple device myself and can not verify.

[fobboy]

the option to "fill the screen" doesn't work well...it actually fills up more than the screen which results in a part of the outside picture being cut.

Can you direct me to a place where I can find out more information on editing the commands? What did you use to actually create the program?

[Corran]

You can right click the batch files and select Edit to open them in Notepad.


The way I currently have it, you can create a height variable in encode.bat at the top of the file. I recommend making a variable called targetheight next to the targetwidth variable.

To alter the command that actually does the encoding you need to edit encoder.bat in the tools directory. Specifically, you will need to edit the two lines that start with %mencoder%

Here are the mencoder docs:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/en ... guide.html
Scaling output:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/me ... put-aspect

The part of the command that you would need to edit is

Code: Select all

-vf scale,harddup -zoom -xy %targetwidth%

Keep in mind that by changing this to use a specific height and make the video fill the screen of your player, you are altering the video's aspect ratio to something different than the original file.

[Enigma]

Sticky nao

[KuriYokan]

Hi. I must say, your program is fantastic! I would like to ask if there's a way to increase the volume of the audio in the converted videos. I find the sound a little too soft.

[Corran]

I would like to ask if there's a way to increase the volume of the audio in the converted videos. I find the sound a little too soft.

The audio of the resulting file should match the original with the exception of files with more than two audio channels. I'm not sure how to best handle these types of files right now. (Maybe I shouldn't mess with channels at all...? Not sure how portable devices handle 2+ channel audio off the top of my head..)


It may be possible to adjust the audio volume via the mplayer command in "\tools\encoder.bat", but the batch files are not currently written to make such changes. The line that deals with mplayer audio extraction is the one that starts with %mplayer%.

Mplayer command line documentation can be found here if you wish to try and figure it out.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mpl ... %20FILTERS

[carnivorous]

Marvelous job! It works perfectly, with .ass softsubs and all. There is one thing that I can't figure out though.

For some reason the converted file ends up without ED or OP. As in, the whole chapter is fine, but the OP and ED are trimmed. And if I check the length of the video it lacks around 3 minutes compared to the source file (OP+ED). It might have something to do with the softsubs maybe? The karaoke?

For the record, the files I tried converting were 2 episodes of Toradora by the group Coalgirls ([Coalgirls]_Toradora(704x480_DVD_AAC)).

And sorry for bumping for such a stupid reason, but maybe someone else has the same issues as me. Once again, thanks for the hard work.