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icruise · Oct 23, 2005, 02:25 PM

I read somewhere that videos with a resolution bigger than that of the iPod look worse than 320 x 240 resolution videos when viewed on the iPod's screen, because the iPod has to resize them. I guess the person who said this said that they were less sharp. Has anyone done a comparison? While it might be nice to have bigger resolution videos for use with the TV out or for viewing on the computer, etc, I wouldn't want to have them look bad on the iPod's screen.

TerryJ · Oct 23, 2005, 02:27 PM

I'm using Handbrake, the newest version 0.7.0-beta3, to rip Strangers With Candy - Season One and it's running just fine on my iBook 1.42/1GB. I am using 2-pass encoding at 320X240 and it's taking around 35-45 minutes per episode and averaging around 23.55 fps. Not bad and much better than any other solution I have seen yet. It makes your rip ready to add into iTunes then right on to your iPod and the audio and video quality is excellent!

wilsonng · Oct 23, 2005, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

I read somewhere that videos with a resolution bigger than that of the iPod look worse than 320 x 240 resolution videos when viewed on the iPod's screen, because the iPod has to resize them. I guess the person who said this said that they were less sharp. Has anyone done a comparison? While it might be nice to have bigger resolution videos for use with the TV out or for viewing on the computer, etc, I wouldn't want to have them look bad on the iPod's screen.

I believe it could be the case. If the encoder does the work of reducing your videos down to 320x240, then the results should be bettter (especially with 2-pass). But if iPod has to do the downsampling, perhaps its decoder chip isn't as good because it has to do this on-the-fly. If the video was already optimized for 320x240 then the iPod decoder chip wouldn't have to work so hard and maybe start losing fps.

For me, it is a small price to pay.......

Cadaver · Oct 23, 2005, 05:54 PM

I've ripped several DVDs (yes, ones I own) down to my iPod.
About 15 minutes to rip a typical DVD to the HD via Mac The Ripper on a Pioneer DVR-108.
Dual-pass encoding with HandBrake at 400Kbps, 320 pixels wide, runs about 150 fps on my DP 2.5GHz G5 (I'm doing Batman Begins now, and its running at 157 fps). Say about 18 minutes for 1st pass, 15 for second. HandBrake's encoder crunches both processors at near 100%

The resulting mp4 files play without modification on the iPod. Works great.

nycdunz · Oct 24, 2005, 12:10 AM

there's no point in doing 2pass encoding if you're gonna rip at 320x240 and play on the ipod video, its a waste of time...

icruise · Oct 24, 2005, 01:13 AM

I'm not so sure. I know I said above that there wasn't much difference between one and two-pass encoding, but after doing some more tests, I can see that the one-pass encodes sometimes exhibits some clear pixelation when scenes change. Not always, but often enough to be annoying. It just lasts for a fraction of a second -- sort of a blurring effect. I haven't tested it on my iPod (which is currently en route from Memphis TN) but I imagine that it would be noticeable on the iPod screen as well.

Cadaver · Oct 24, 2005, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by nycdunz

there's no point in doing 2pass encoding if you're gonna rip at 320x240 and play on the ipod video, its a waste of time...

I was actually able to see less false-contouring between color shades on 2-pass encoding vs. 1-pass. But yes, overall probably makes little difference. My machine is fast enough, however, that the bit of extra time (maybe an extra 15-20 minutes) doesn't bother me at all. I'd use single pass if I were encoding at a high bit rate (768k), but at 400-450k, I'll do a double pass. Can't hurt.

noreturn · Oct 24, 2005, 03:04 PM

I'd hate to rain on this lovely parade, but ripping DVD's is most certainly NOT LEGAL. Even if you own said movie. Circumventing the security on a DVD (yes, kids, there's security) is against the law.

I know that's not going to stop most of you, and that's fine. But people do deserve to know the truth.

icruise · Oct 24, 2005, 03:21 PM

Given the way the law is at the moment, you are correct, but don't think for a second that I'm going to lose any sleep over copying a DVD that I own for my own private use.

Also remember that this information is just as useful for non-copyrighted works such as DVDs you create with iDVD.

wilsonng · Oct 25, 2005, 07:41 AM

well, here's a couple of articles about making movies on your iPod. I just wanted to include it in this post to help the rest of us learn more about movie-making...

Playlist
http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/ipodb...sons/index.php

iLounge:
http://ilounge.com/index.php/article...-not-so-clear/

jocker · Oct 25, 2005, 07:55 AM

I haven't found this information anywhere yet:

If I've got a movie on the iPod at 640 x 360 resolution (say) - I realise the ipod resizes to 320 x 180... HOWEVER, if viewed on a tv screen, I wonder if the resolution remains at 640 x 360.. Any ideas? Or should I always size my files to 320 x 240

icruise · Oct 25, 2005, 09:42 PM

Here is a post I just wrote on the Ars Technica forums:

The iPod is actually a much more competent video player than Apple says it is. I just used Handbrake (on the Mac) to rip a DVD to MPEG4 at 720 x 304 resolution, 1300kbps and it plays fine on the iPod. This is approaching DVD quality, and it does look better on the iPod than the same video with a width of 340 and a lower bitrate.

There isn't actually a 480 x 480 res maximum for MPEG video as Apple says. It's actually a limit on the total number of pixels that the iPod can display (230,400, since 480 x 480 is 230,400). This means that any aspect ratio that's under 230,400 should work (720 x 304 comes to 218,880 so it fits).

I've played widescreen videos with bitrates of up to 2500kbps with no problem. If you go that high with fullscreen video you can run into "tearing" issues with video, but the ones I've tried have still played on the iPod.

These high res/bitrate videos look very good when played on the computer and pretty good when played on a TV. It's not as sharp as a DVD if you look at it from 2-3 feet away, but from a normal viewing distance it might be indistinguishable from DVD (although it won't be anamorphic, so it will look "wider" on widescreen TVs than an anamorphic DVD would). Obviously, these will be significantly bigger in terms of files size (the movie I mention above is 1.18GB).

If you're watching things exclusively on the iPod it might not be worth using such high resolution, but if you want to create a video library that will still be useful with future higher-resolution devices, or if you want to view your videos on the computer or on a TV often, it seems to work well.

The only thing I don't know is what effect higher res/bitrate videos will have on battery life. It might require a lot more disk access, thus reducing battery life. I don't know.

mduell · Oct 25, 2005, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

There isn't actually a 480 x 480 res maximum for MPEG video as Apple says. It's actually a limit on the total number of pixels that the iPod can display (230,400, since 480 x 480 is 230,400). This means that any aspect ratio that's under 230,400 should work (720 x 304 comes to 218,880 so it fits).

I've played widescreen videos with bitrates of up to 2500kbps with no problem. If you go that high with fullscreen video you can run into "tearing" issues with video, but the ones I've tried have still played on the iPod.

The iPod screen only has 76,800 pixels (320x240). You can play higher resolution video, but it won't do anything for you, and the iPod will scale it down to fit on the screen (which sometimes looks worse than properly sized video.
Video tearing issues doesn't sound like "no problem" to me.

icruise · Oct 25, 2005, 10:43 PM

I mentioned the "tearing" issue only affects some full screen video with higher res/bitrate. It does not affect all higher res/higher bitrate files. You just have to know what settings to use. The widescreen movie I mentioned above does not exhibit video tearing *at all* and looks better than the low res/low bitrate version on the iPods screen (yes, I did multiple encodes and compared them).

wilsonng · Oct 26, 2005, 03:59 AM

For more info on the Ars Technica forum and Icruise's post, visit:

The Ars Technica guide to iPod videos:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars

The Ars Technica forum post that Icruise is referring to:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/grou...m/361000995731

Originally Posted by Icruise

Here is a post I just wrote on the Ars Technica forums:

The iPod is actually a much more competent video player than Apple says it is. I just used Handbrake (on the Mac) to rip a DVD to MPEG4 at 720 x 304 resolution, 1300kbps and it plays fine on the iPod. This is approaching DVD quality, and it does look better on the iPod than the same video with a width of 340 and a lower bitrate.

dwishbone · 09:35 AM

i have had great success getting MPEG4 videos running on the iPod. No problems there with handbrake, ffmpeg, or any other encoding software. H264 is just a pain in the butt.
I have tried making H.264 files using both Handbrake and FFMPEG (which i believe uses mencoder) and the video files never will transfer to the iPod. all of the specs are within the supported range of the iPod. it just refuses to play it. if i make a H264 in quicktime it works just fine. i dont want to have to convert something from a DVD then convert it again when there are utilities out there that should work just fine with a single encode.
since all of the settings are inline with the iPod specs...could it be something as simple as apple is locking out video files not created with Quicktime Pro by checking the meta creator data? has anyone checked that? i am just completely stumped...and so is the rest of the web seems like...as to why the iPod won't play anything but Quicktime created H.264 files. it just seems that all the programs that work use Quicktime as the encoding engine. none of the ffmpeg/x264/mencoder based stuff seems to work. all i can think of its either a lockout of non quicktime created content or apple's H264 uses some setting that the others either don't support or don't use by default which needs to be adjusted.

GORDYmac · Oct 26, 2005, 10:23 AM

Handbrake...MPEG4...M4V...480x368...SUCCESS!

wilsonng · 07:16 PM

The handbrake forum suggests that the official release makes Main profile h.264 mpeg-4 movies. The iPod won't play Main profile h.264, only Baseline profile.

There have been people tweaking the source code to make it into baseline profile h.264 mpeg-4 movies. Check out the Handbrake forums as someone posted a link to download the "modified" version of the program with Baseline encoding capabilities. They've reported success with this version:

http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewt...r=asc&start=75

This is not the official released version but just a modification provided by folks who have modified it. I'd expect an official update soon....

dwishbone · Oct 26, 2005, 01:31 PM

nice. downloaded and will try it once i get home. are there ways to switch from main to baselin in something like FFMPEG?

Cadaver · Oct 26, 2005, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by noreturn

I'd hate to rain on this lovely parade, but ripping DVD's is most certainly NOT LEGAL. Even if you own said movie. Circumventing the security on a DVD (yes, kids, there's security) is against the law.

I know that's not going to stop most of you, and that's fine. But people do deserve to know the truth.

Yes, we know...

But with the MPAA going after peer-to-peer movie pirates, I don't think they are really going to care if I put a DVD I've paid for on my iPod at one-quarter fidelity.

I never pirate software, music, or movies, but I will move content I've purchased from device to device without (moral) guilt.