-!Divx/Xvid/Mpeg1->Zire71 Guide! -or how to watch Full movies in best quality on Z71

[junglemike]

Hi Everyone!

In this thread I will try to guide you {except those, who knows it better than me how you can watch movies on your ?our? Zire71.
What means - not converting small parts of video in some proprietary format, like Kinoma,
But viewing on Zire71 full-length 1.5 -2 hour movies which can be stored easily on 128mb SD-card. It means quality movies with mpeg-4 video (Divx / Xvid) and mp3- audio.!
In short words ? regular Divx/Xvid movies which (some of you ) watch on Pc, just optimized for viewing on Zire71.
Q) Why not Kinoma?
A) Well, it seems from my post like I hate Kinoma . No, not at all, I will explain here. Kinoma has some advantages: 1)It is very fast ? I played small clip in kinoma format on Palm IIIx, which is very slow {16mhz cpu versus 144mhz cpu of zire) from the point of video playback.
2) Kinoma is easy ? You just drag your desired file in kinoma producer window , choose your palm model, press convert (or whatever this button called, too lazy to launch kinoma now) and in couple of minutes your video is ready.
But Kinoma (or other similar programs) is not suitable for viewing full hi-quality movies on zire. Why? Because Kinoma uses it?s own audio/video (a/v) format which has much smaller compression ratio than Mpeg-4 (divx/xvid).
In simple words, to store high quality 2-hour video on your pda ? you need to use about 600-700 kbps bit rate with kinoma. Which will result in (600kbps*7200sec=4320000 kilobits =540000 kilobytes= 527mb. Very few of us own 512mb cards now, and even if is ? those will probably not agree to sacrifice all space to 1 movie.
The major advantage of mpeg4 video is that you can compress video in very small size while still having good quality.

[junglemike]

Before we start , I will tell more precisely the purpose of this guide. I planned to write 2 guides.
First guide, which you are reading now will deal with converting video from already existing Div3/4/5/ Xvid/mpeg(=mpeg1) source. In simple words ? If you already have some movie on Cd (not DVD) or you have movie file on your hard disk.
Second guide, that I will probably write a bit later will deal with DVD->Zire71 conversion, which will also be much more complicated than this one.
All the programs that will be mentioned he are freeware open-source programs Except one ? Mmplayer ? actually the player for palm which can playback mpeg-4 content in palm OS5.
This player is not free, but you can try demo, or you can.............
No, No, you thinking wrong, It's not what i ment, I ment..... you can NOt use mmplayer and ,,,, well,,,so do something else on your zire, like ,... practicing Graffiti2(1) and not messing with this movie stuff. . It seams like I trying to advertise this player. Well, actually, meanwhile this is the only one player which can do it - playback mpeg-4 content..(if anyone knows another such player, please tell me).
OK, you will need the following:

VirtualDubMod
Xvid or Divx codec (better install both, cause you need decoder/filter to open file)
You may also need following programs depending on your source file (mp3/ac3) etc?{this may be updated}
Ac3 Decoder filter

Download and install above items unless you already have them.

Ok, here we start?.

[junglemike]

Ok, here we start?.
No, couple of things before we start :
? the settings described below are especially optimized for Zire71, it means they will also probably work with TungstenT /T2/ T3/ /C, Treo600/ some Sony models/etc because these devices have same or more powerful processor. And these setting will probably NOT work on Tungsten|E which has slower 126mhz cpu.
? Codec Choice. I don?t want to start war here telling that some particular codec is better than another . I chose Xvid and I will use it here, But you of cause can choose another codec (Divx4/5 / Div3=SBC). Another mpeg-4 codecs like Wmv9/rv9/vp6/nero digital/ffvfw/3vix are not supported, and even if they are, I didn?t test them. You can try if you want. For more information about codec choice you can go to Doom9's last Codec Comparison page and chose better (for you ) codec.

[junglemike]

Ok, here we finally start.:
Open VirtualDubMod and open desired file. File-Open
It should look like this:

[junglemike]

>> If you have all codecs/decoders installed , file will open correctly. Here are 2 separate parts: audio and video:
Audio: The initial file can be probably in mp3 format (in most cases) or as well in ac3 (2 or 5 channels) or in some less popular formats like Ogg ( the best one for me ) or Divx audio/ wma (windows media audio). Go to Streams->Stream list. Right click on stream , and choose Full processing mode.

[junglemike]

Choose Compression-> Mpeg layer 3(mp3) (if you have more than one ? better choose Lame mp3, but it doesn?t really matter. Anyway you should have at least one which comes with Win2000/XP.)
Choose preferred bitrate, and sampling rate. It better be 32k(22/24)khz/mono, or 22kps(22/24)khz/mono or 48k/(44/48)khz/mono. Don?t? choose higher bitrates, cause zire?s cpu may not be faster enough to decode audio stream And resulting file will take more space.
You may also want to increase audio volume level in Volume context menu since some movies are already recorded with too low volume (which is not problem for pc. But is problem for palm) and because Zire?s output volume is too low.

[junglemike]

Video Part:
Since palm palm cpu is slow compared to pc?s cpu, you will have to not only reduce resolution , but frame rate too. So here we go.
Video->Full processing mode. Video->Frame Rate. Set it to ?process every other frame /2 ?
No way zire will handle full (23.976/25/29.97) frame rate.

[junglemike]

Now we will resize. Go to Video->Filters->Add VDMod_resize (or other resize filter). Resize it to 320x???, or to 304x??? , where ??? depends on your aspect ratio, which you can see on the right. Note! Both resolution MUST be dividable of 16. So It will be mostly 320x144/320x160/320x176/320x and so on.

[junglemike]

Than go to Video->Compression-> Choose Xvid mpeg4 codec (or Divx5 if you prefer)

[junglemike]

Click Configure -> press on ??? button near profile, Check ?BVOPs?, check Closed Gov, and put 1 in ?Max consecutive BVOPs? aka ? B-frames. In Quantization type choose h.263, Uncheck rest. Click OK.
{edit} Oh no, what do i do now? I posted the wrong attachment, So i wanted to replace it, started to edit this very replay, but i don't see an option to add a new attachment? And if i make another reply, it will be in the end.