[MEncoder-users] Ipod Video

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 00:52, David Shay wrote:
> On 12/26/05, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <dominik at rangers.eu.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Monday, 26 December 2005 at 23:52, David Shay wrote:
> > > On 12/26/05, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <dominik at rangers.eu.org>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Monday, 26 December 2005 at 19:44, David Shay wrote:
> > > > > Has anybody out there had success encoding files for the Ipod Video
> > > > > (5G)? I have gotten ffmpeg to work, but haven't yet seen any sample
> > > > > mencoder commands to try yet.  I'm going to try a few options, but
> > > > > was looking for a head start...
> > > >
> > > > What was your working ffmpeg command?
> > >
> > > It was a two pass conversion with the relevant bits being:
> > >
> > > /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i $directory/$file -comment '$file' -title
> > '$title'
> > > -author 'MythTV - myth2ipod' -timestamp '$rightnow' -y -cropleft 10
> > > -cropright 10 -croptop 8 -cropbottom 8 -deinterlace -vcodec xvid -s
> > 320x240
> > > -r 29.97 -b 384 -qmin 2 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -acodec aac -ab 96 -g 300
> > > -pass 2 -passlogfile /tmp/myth2ipod_log -f mov
> > $feedpath'$filename'.pass2
> > >
> > > same options for pass 1, but with -pass 1
> > >
> > > these are from myth2ipod at http://www.myth2ipod.com.  I was just
> > looking
> > > for a mencoder substitute since it is usually faster.
> >
> > Well, it may be impossible to do all of the above in mencoder. You can
> > definitely encode the video as usual (with either xvid or lavc), but I
> > don't think AAC encoding is supported. And MOV/MP4 container output
> > support is flaky at best.
> >
> Thanks for the response.

You're welcome, but I made a mistake. AAC encoding is supported, actually.

> There are 2 options for ipod video -- H.264 and MPEG-4:
> Here are the specs from the apple site:
> 
> H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile
> up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v,
> .mp4 and .mov file formats
> 
> MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile
> with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file
> formats

So your only constraints seem to be the resolution and the bitrate (not
exactly a problem, as 2500kbps is far too much for 480x480 MPEG-4 ASP
video. As is, I suspect, 768kbps for 320x240 H.264 video).

Just crop and scale your input properly and you shouldn't have any problems
using the examples in MPlayer's docs.

> From what I can tell, the ffmpeg above is using MPEG-4.

XviD's implementation of it, but yes. You can also try libavcodec's MPEG-4.

> Not sure if the H.264 would be any easier (I already have installed the
> libx264 from svn).

There are some examples for H.264 in MPlayer docs.

Regards,
R.

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