RE: HOW TO: Convert DVDs and Videos for use with Droid

[Big Fate]

Whats strange is the movies I converted over as HQ2 didnt have much lag as compared to the Standard. Its not a big deal on the lag, its just weired how it lags a bit then speeds up... I doubt its the HDMI, because thats an expensive cord, not a cheap one that ive seen on the market.

Do you think it could be the phone? Sometimes my phone stalls a bit, and has froze on me twice... Which is weird because its barley a week old?
I'll try switch over from 1080 to 720p and see if that makes a difference

Oh, I wasn't talking about the cord. the actual HDMI part (chip) on the phone that could be causing it. All the components in a phone are low-power components, and while they continue to include new features, HDMI is fairly new, so it might be just a limitation itself.
I also recall a post from the dev of RealHDMI (I think thats what it was called) who stopped development due to severe bugs on Froyo related to the HDMI output. This might be related as well.

The lag and speedup issue could indicate an issue with the datarate not being constant (power management maybe?) as well. Similar issues arise if you use a constant quality (2-pass for example). With constant quality, the bitrate fluctuates, and for faster scenes, the bitrate can exceed capabilities of the device, resulting in lagging. When a slow-scene comes up, the player might try and catch up for a few seconds, which would explain a speed up.

Note that all the conversions done with dvdcat (unless you use 2-pass) are constant bitrate, which would point towards datarate issues in the hardware.

Did you root/overclock your phone? Some people have reported weird issues with video playback when they overclock.

Nope, neither of the two.

When I get home I'm going to try again, I highly believe it was the phone. Today I was playing music off the music player and it froze up, not allowing me to shutdown properly so I had to physically remove the battery to re-boot. Than 2 hours later the same. So I'm thinking strange, thats the third time its happen within a week of having the phone -- not to mention the battery dies by 2pm. So I decided to start fresh and take it in to swap for a new Droid X before I run into more issues later down the road. Just got my new one and charging now, so once I get home i'll try again to test and see if possibly the HDMI chip is whats causing it.

 

[timrock]

i installed dvd catalyst on ubuntu thru wine. it installed properly, but when i try to convert an mkv movie, it only converts 6.5mb of it. but when i try an avi, it converts properly. i have the full version. and i am using the droid x hq2 preset.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

i installed dvd catalyst on ubuntu thru wine. it installed properly, but when i try to convert a movie, it only converts 6.5mb of it. i have the full version.

While I did test it once on Ubuntu to see if it works, I haven't done anything else with it (which is why ubuntu/wine is also not mentioned on the tools4movies website). When I did test it, the black border removal process was incompatible, so I suggest to turn that off first.

Here is the (old) original post related to dvdcat on ubuntu. Since then I haven't done anything else to make it work better, mainly because of the terrible performance.

My own post with screenshot:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...nvert-dvds-videos-use-droid-5.html#post158302

 

[timrock]

i installed dvd catalyst on ubuntu thru wine. it installed properly, but when i try to convert a movie, it only converts 6.5mb of it. i have the full version.

While I did test it once on Ubuntu to see if it works, I haven't done anything else with it (which is why ubuntu/wine is also not mentioned on the tools4movies website). When I did test it, the black border removal process was incompatible, so I suggest to turn that off first.

Here is the (old) original post related to dvdcat on ubuntu. Since then I haven't done anything else to make it work better, mainly because of the terrible performance.

My own post with screenshot:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...nvert-dvds-videos-use-droid-5.html#post158302

black borders is turned off. the issue is that mkv's dont fully convert, while avi's convert properly. i went into the settings an checked "fix mkv", but that didnt do the trick. Well i guess if this doesnt work properly, i'll have to see about a refund. i downloaded the trial, and it converted the mkv partially, which was expected, since its only a trial. but after purchasing the full, it converted the same amount.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Do you have access to a Windows-machine to see if that works?

Some recently created MKV files have some issues in regards of a change in mkvtoolnix. The 4.x versions have "compressed headers" enabled by default, which causes complications with many conversion tools as well as HD media players such as the WD TV. The MKV Fix option tells DVD Cat to regenerate the MKV file without compressed headers, but as I mentioned earlier, I have not done anything with wine or ubuntu since the beginning of this year.

I am working on an updated "boosterpack" which can handle the "compressed-header" MKV's directly, but I have no idea if it would work on ubuntu.

If you are interested in giving that a shot, please send me an email.

 

[timrock]

im aware of the issue with hd media player (i own one) and with the new mkv's, i have to mux them with MKV Files Creator, before attempting to play them on the media player. I tried to convert a muxxed mkv just now, and got the same result.

i dont have access to windows, only a virtual box (i couldnt even get the movie to start converting within the virtual box).

sending you an email now.

 

[valnar]

New HandBrake 0.95 instructions

HandBrake 0.95 is out. Please see this thread for instructions and attached Droid profile.

This is an excellent free alternative to commercial software. (You still need a decrypting program though, like AnyDVD.)

 

[rustylee]

I've always been impressed with Handbrake. Glad to see it has been updated. It seems like it has been a couple of years. Dvd43 is another decrypter you can try.

Sent from my ADR6300 using DroidForums App

 

[bsteph10]

XBox360 and Droid

Hello,

I'm very interested in your DVD Catalyst software. I have a question regarding converting my DVD library to play on both my Xbox 360 and Droid. I've tried several different file formats to play on my Xbox and as far as I can tell, if I want to keep Dolby Digital sound I have to rip as a HD-WMV file which results in an 8 GB file for a movie. The sound quality is more important to me than the file size, so I'm ok with that. Does DVD Catalyst convert to this format and preserve the Dolby Digital track? Out of about 6 converters I've tried so far only one does it (called Pavtube).

Next question relates to video on my Droid, I've looked into your MP4 Streaming server solution. Will it be possible to "transcode on the fly" my HD-WMV files to MP4 files that will play on my Droid? Or will I have to have two files for each movie, one for xbox and one for Droid?

Thanks for your help.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Hello,

I'm very interested in your DVD Catalyst software. I have a question regarding converting my DVD library to play on both my Xbox 360 and Droid. I've tried several different file formats to play on my Xbox and as far as I can tell, if I want to keep Dolby Digital sound I have to rip as a HD-WMV file which results in an 8 GB file for a movie. The sound quality is more important to me than the file size, so I'm ok with that. Does DVD Catalyst convert to this format and preserve the Dolby Digital track? Out of about 6 converters I've tried so far only one does it (called Pavtube).

Thank you for your interest in DVD Catalyst,

The current version of DVD Catalyst has a setting to convert the audio to 5.1 surround for MP4 files, and it also has a few conversion formats that would actually copy the original audio stream into the created video file rather than converting it (divx5_copy and xvid_copy). The XBOX should be able to play these formats.
You can also use the Experimental > Filecopy VOB/MPG profile, which will backup a DVD without making any changes to the video and audio (aka streamcopy). While similar to conventional DVD rippers such as DVDfab and DVDshrink, this format actually rips the movie/episodes per track, rather than vob files, so a movie would actually end up in a single file rather than 4.

Next question relates to video on my Droid, I've looked into your MP4 Streaming server solution. Will it be possible to "transcode on the fly" my HD-WMV files to MP4 files that will play on my Droid? Or will I have to have two files for each movie, one for xbox and one for Droid?

Thanks for your help.

MP4 Streaming Server is simply a webserver that you don't need to configure. It basically generates a website that provides links to the video files you already have, and as long as they are converted using the proper format and have the streaming flag enabled, the files will stream. It does not have a transcoding engine build-in. When I started development for it, I wanted to incorporate that, but unfortunately I was never able to make that work.

There is another streaming-guide on these forums (using Tversity) that might help, but it takes a bit of configuration to make it work for the Droid phones.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...quality-video-android-tversity-nswplayer.html

 

[bsteph10]

Xbox 360 and Droid

Hi DVD,

Thanks for the pointers. I'll run some test rips and check for file sizes, functionality, quality, etc and post them for posterity.

Thanks,

Bryan

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Hi DVD,

Thanks for the pointers. I'll run some test rips and check for file sizes, functionality, quality, etc and post them for posterity.

Thanks,

Bryan

You are welcome,

If you want a bit of a head-start on quality settings, have a look here:

DVD Catalyst 4 – Quality difference between different profiles | Tools4Movies - Home of DVD Catalyst

It contains some (streaming) samples created using a variety of different quality settings, as well as estimated file sizes for movies for example.

While not specifically created for your XBOX, it might help with your testing.

 

[bsteph10]

Xbox 360 and Droid

One other thing, what settings do you recommend for display on the Xbox? I'd like as close to DVD quality as I can get and of course keep the Digital audio.

Thanks,

 

[bsteph10]

Xbox 360 and Droid

Awesome! Thank you.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

One other thing, what settings do you recommend for display on the Xbox? I'd like as close to DVD quality as I can get and of course keep the Digital audio.

Thanks,

A few more tips:

The way DVD Catalyst works is that if you specify a resolution that is higher than the resolution of the source video/dvd, it will keep the video at its original resolution.

Why is the resolution different than what you have selected? | Tools4Movies - Home of DVD Catalyst

so just select something higher than what the source resolution is (DVDs usually run at 720x480/848x480 (NTSC) / 1024x576 (PAL) or so) 1280x720 would be a safe choice.

Video quality, depending on the video codec you use (h264/divx) at least use a bitrate the same as the width of the video, but preferably a bit more. For DIVX, add a bit more to that as well.