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PocketTV - Guides and Free Tools to make MPEG files
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20% OFF | On *all* mobile games and applications on MobiHand (Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry). Use Promotion code POCKETTV.
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Simple Guide for making MPEG's optimized for PocketTV
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That's probably the first thing you should try:
Simple Guide for making MPEG's optimized for PocketTV
This Guide assumes that you have AVI video files (or video files that you can play on your PC with Windows Media Player) or that you already ripped your DVD's. If that's not the case, you should learn how to rip your DVD's (see below).
If you are trying to convert your DVD into MPEG, look at:
The rest of this page will give you many pointers to more advanced guides and tools.
Make Your Own MPEG's!
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If you want to produce your own MPEG-1 files suitable for viewing with PocketTV,
we have put together a list of the best tools available including some freeware, and
guidelines about the encoding parameters that you should use.
Freeware MPEG Encoders
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Users have reported using the following freeware to create MPEG's that work well with PocketTV:
Commercial Software MPEG Encoders
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Users have reported using the following software products to create MPEG's that work well with PocketTV.
- ImTOO Ripper Pack Platinum
DVD converter and DVD rip software which can rip DVD and convert DVD to MPEG and many other formats. Sells for about $45.
- WinAVI Video Converter
Convert AVI and DVD to MPEG. Sells for about $30.
- Mainconcept MPEG Encoder
Convert AVI and Quicktime to MPEG (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 supported). Sells for about $150.
- MAGIX Movie edit pro
MAGIX Movie Edit Pro makes it easy to professionally capture & edit home videos. Import & export AVI (also with compressed sound), DV-AVI types 1 & 2, MPEG-1, 2, WMA, WMV (Windows® Media™ 9), MOV, MXV, MJPEG, YUV, JPG, BMP, WAV, MPEG 4* and DivX™* (* requires installed codec). Sells for about $99.
- Honestech MPEG encoder
Can convert AVI, DV-AVI, DivX & MPEG-4 files to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats - especially VCD, SVCD and DVD. Handles predefined profiles ranging from Internet Low Bandwidth (200Kbps) to HP@HL (100Mbps, 60frame/sec). Sells for about $49.
- Cleaner XL from Discreet (previously known as Media Cleaner Pro from Terran Interactive)
One of the best tools. Can transcode between almost any video formats, including MPEG-1. Includes resampling and VBR encoding. Not cheap: sells for about $550.
- Grafika Rainbow MPEG Encoder
Supports MPEG-1 video (data rate 96 - 9999 Kbits/s), MPEG-1 layer II audio (data rate 32 - 384 Kbits/s). Prince unknown. Home page in Tchek.
- Apple QuickTime Pro
Can convert many formats into MPEG, including QuickTime (.mov files). Has editing capabilities, too. Sells for $29.99. You may need to purchase the Heuris MPEG Export Engine.
- XingMPEG Encoder
Includes a transcoder to re-encode MPEG's with a smaller size and bitrate.
- Heuris MPEG Export Engine
An inexpensive, no-frill MPEG encoder plug-in for QuickTime. Heuris also has a more expensive professional encoder.
- Ligos LSX MPEG Encoder (unfortunately, not available anymore)
The stand-alone LSX encoder takes only AVI source. Ligos also have an Adobe Premiere Plug-in (with Premiere you can use many other source formats e.g. AVI, MOV, DV, WAV, TGA, BMP, and FLC/FLI).
- MGI VideoWave
Sells for about $50.
- ULead Media Studio Pro
A complete Digital Video Suite, offering Real-time MPEG capture, Real-time preview, as well as Real-time output. Sells for about $300.
- KDD MPEG Conversion Studio 1.2
Probably the best MPEG conversion tool on the market. Also quite expensive, and handles only MPEG-1/2 streams.
- Hitachi TinyPEG
Can transcode MPEG-1 streams to a smaller size and bitrate. Inexpensive but limited
quality. Japanese documentation only.
Hardware MPEG Encoders
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Users have reported using the following hardware products to create MPEG's that work well with PocketTV.
- Broadway
This is probably the cheapest MPEG hardware encoder, and a good value for the price.
- Sony DSC-S70 digital camera
Users reported using this product to create 320x240 MPEG's that play well on the iPaq.
Encoding Parameters Guidelines
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For those who want to generate/encode MPEG1 content optimized for PocketTV running on Pocket PC, Smartphone, Handheld PC or Casio Pocket Manager, we recommend the following parameters:
| Medium bitrate About 400 to 500 Kbit/sec (Recommended) | Low bitrate About 256 Kbit/sec (Half-SIF, Half frame-rate) |
Video MPEG1 | 320x240 (SIF) or 240x180 (Half-SIF), 24 fps or 30 fps, 350 to 450 Kbit/sec. Use 2, 3 or 4 B-frames between the P-frames | 240x160 (Half-SIF), 12 or 15 fps(*), 180 to 200 Kbit/sec. (*) Use 24 or 30 fps but repeat every other frame and use 1 B-frame between the P-frames |
Audio Layer-2 | 44.1 KHz, joint-stereo at 64 or 96 Kbit/sec | 44.1 KHz, mono at 56 Kbit/sec, or joint-stereo at 64 Kbit/sec |
Storage Space | More than 30 min on a 128 MB Compact Flash card, 4 hours on a 1 GB Microdrive | Up to 70 min on a 128 MB Compact Flash card, more than 8 hours on a 1 GB Microdrive |
Example | Video from PocketMovies.net | |
| Low bitrate About 256 Kbit/sec (QSIF, Full frame-rate) | Very low bitrate Less than 128 Kbit/sec (QSIF, Half frame-rate) |
Video MPEG1 | 160x120 (QSIF), 24 fps or 30 fps, 200 Kbit/sec. Use 2 or 3 B-frames between the P-frames | 160x120 (QSIF), 12 or 15 fps(*), 64 to 80 Kbit/sec. (*) Use 24 or 30 fps but repeat every other frame and use 1 B-frame between the P-frames |
Audio Layer-2 | 44.1 KHz, joint-stereo at 64 Kbit/sec | 44.1 KHz, mono at 32 Kbit/sec |
Storage Space | Up to 70 min on a 128 MB Compact Flash card, more than 8 hours on a 1 GB Microdrive | Up to 2 h 30 min on a 128 MB Compact Flash card, 20 hours on a 1 GB Microdrive |
Example | 30 sec Top Gun movie clip (1MB) at 256 Kbps | 2 mn Starwars movie trailer (1.7MB) at 114 Kbps |
We recommend that you try various setting allowed by your encoder to determine what works best for you. Those are just guidelines, you can try other parameters.
If you want to distribute your MPEG streams, we recommend that you check that
they play properly on the slowers Pocket PC models (e.g. Jornada 540 and Cassiopeia E-115).
You may have to adjust the parameters (size, bitrate) to ensure good quality on those
devices. Only the new ARM-based Pocket PCs (e.g. iPaq) will play properly MPEG files encoded in SIF size (320x240).
A good compromise between size, quality and support for all Pocket PC platforms seems to be half-SIF (240x180 or so depending on the aspect ratio), at a total bitrate of about 400 to 500 Kbit/sec, with audio in joint-stereo at 64 or 96 Kbit/sec.
These are the parameters used by PocketMovies.net, and the quality of their content is excellent and can be considered as a reference for quality.
A good preprocessing (including de-telecine) is very important, and the source should have a regular frame pattern (e.g. 24 frames/sec if it is a movie source).
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