Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > Encoding video for iPod touch?

Encoding video for iPod touch?
Thread Tools
~bash $
Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 2, 2007, 11:34 AM
 
I presume the new iPod touch can deal with anything that iTunes and other iPods can play. What are the optimal settings for resolution, etc. for encoding H.264 for it?

Not that I have one, yet, or will get one, but ... just curious ...
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 2, 2007, 12:39 PM
 
There are lots of guides online for both H.264 and MPEG-4 encoding, do a search or two!
The formats have different benefits, see below (courtesy of Apple):

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
I generally encode using MPEG-4, but I'm still using a 5G iPod, do some experiments with your source video, if you're ripping from DVD then Handbrake is your friend. VisualHub rocks for everything else, but costs a little bit of mula.
     
~bash $  (op)
Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 2, 2007, 12:45 PM
 
Right, so my qnd search didn't turn up anything immediately obvious (always a first step before asking), but I've never really been clear about how widescreen aspects play into this. I remember it being somewhat of a small nightmare to get it right on the PSP for awhile. Handbrake presets make it pretty easy. I use H.264 on the 5G iPod. ffmpegx is a great solution for transcoding between formats, in my experience.

But that still doesn't answer the question regarding highest quality.
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 3, 2007, 04:53 AM
 
Umm, quoting from above, your quality options would be:

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.

H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.

MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

It seems as if there's less of a difference between H.264 Baseline and MPEG-4 than there was when encoding for the 5G, so do some tests using last two encoding settings and see which you prefer (test extreme blacks, fast moving imagery, etc) or just use MPEG-4 encoding as it's faster?

Widescreen aspects play into it just the same as before, so on my 5G (for example) I seem to be able to get away with 320 high by 'whatever' width DVD rips, I'm not sure how far you can push the 640 x 480 res on the touch, but you could always encode at 480 wide and take a hit on the height in a worst case scenario?
     
macintologist
Professional Poster
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Smallish town in Ohio
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 3, 2007, 02:16 PM
 
Ok here's how to judge what resolution to uset:

If you DO care about quality and will potentially play iPod touch movies on the TV:
For widescreen videos, make the vertical resolution 320, for non-widescreen videos, make the horizontal resolution 480.

If you DONT care about quality and would rather be able to fit more movies on the iPod touch, like when you're traveling, and won't be playing them on a TV:
For widescreen videos, make the horizontal resolution 480, for non-widescreen videos, make the vertical resolution 320.


Resolutions are HxV, H is horizontal, V is vertical.
Of course, keep the aspect ration the same. Whatever software you use should do this automatically.
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 4, 2007, 04:43 AM
 
If you DO care about quality and will potentially play iPod touch movies on the TV:
For widescreen videos, make the vertical resolution 320, for non-widescreen videos, make the horizontal resolution 480.
You're encoding for a 5G there surely? You're well below the limits of an iPod touch IMO.
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 4, 2007, 04:56 AM
 
Ok, here's the lowdown!

Widscreen ratios:
1.85:1 and 2.39:1
Standard ratios:
4:3 and 16:9

Your max resolution (supposedly) is 640 x 480, so:
1.85:1 video max would be: 640 x 385
2.39:1 video max would be: 640 x 267
4:3 video max would be: 640 x 480
16:9 video max would be: 640 x 360

I was wrong above as their post is fairly accurate, oops! You can still encode bigger than the above resolutions as you're only really limited by the total number of pixels (or macroblocks), I'll work this out for you later as I don't have the time at the mo, heh.
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 4, 2007, 05:41 AM
 
16 x 16 pixels = one macroblock, max macroblocks for the touch = 1200 (res dimensions must be divisible by 16)

So your super-max-fantisimo resolutions would be:
1.85:1 video max would be: 752 x 400 with a slight crop off the source height to 1.88:1 (1175 macroblocks)
2.39:1 video max would be: 864 x 352 with a slight crop off the source height to 2.4545456:1 (1188 macroblocks)
4:3 video max would be: 640 x 480 (native)
16:9 video max would be: 736 x 416 with a slight crop off the source width to 1.7692308:1 (1196 macroblocks)

Most folks seem to be encoding to 720 x 400 for widescreen (1.8:1 and 1125 macroblocks) but you should be able to push that slightly further as above!
     
~bash $  (op)
Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 4, 2007, 02:19 PM
 
Haha ... thanks all - I was just hoping for personal experiences but that's all very interesting nonetheless. I was secretly hoping someone would say: "Encode all of your 16:9 videos at n pixels by m pixels with H.264."

So I wonder if someone's field tested whether or not those higher resolutions in fact are supported by the iPod 5th Gen and the iPod touch.
     
vertigociel
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 5, 2007, 02:57 AM
 
I encode my 16:9 videos at 640 x 352 pixels, 800 kbps, with H.264, and they look fantastic on my iPod Touch. All videos with 640 width will work - 640 by 480 for 4:3 videos, 640 by 272 for 2.35:1 videos, and 640 by 346 for 1.85:1 videos. I generally encode at 800 kbps H.264. The videos look great, and are small enough to stream without it pausing in the middle to buffer.
15" MacBook Pro C2D, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Matte Display.
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 5, 2007, 04:11 AM
 
All videos with 640 width will work
As will wider videos that don't use over 1200 macroblocks as posted above.
     
threestain
Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: London/Plymouth, England
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 8, 2007, 03:13 AM
 
for some reason, video encoded by ffmpegx for ipod (at 640 in xvid) won't work at all - itunes won't let it be added - is there anything special I have to do?
     
JonoMarshall
Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 8, 2007, 04:15 AM
 
^ Because you're using the xvid video codec.

You can use a .m4v .mp4 or .mov container and either H.264 or MPEG-4 encoding as posted above.
     
threestain
Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: London/Plymouth, England
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 8, 2007, 04:37 AM
 
fine, thank you! does seem strange that ffmpegx would use xvid as a codec for it's ipod protocol surely?
     
OwlBoy
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Madison, WI
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 10, 2008, 11:22 PM
 
Seems like the Touches and other ipods and different generations of ipods are different kinds of picky on the subject.
     
mkerr64
Senior User
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 10, 2008, 11:28 PM
 
i find iSquint very easy to use and fast
R.I.P Steve Jobs
     
Simon
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 11, 2008, 02:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
i find iSquint very easy to use and fast
QFT.

Handbrake for DVDs, iSquint for everything else. Both are free.
     
ajprice
Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 11, 2008, 04:48 AM
 
iPod touch screen resolution is 480x320 pixels.

It'll be much easier if you just comply.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 06:45 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,