dinkybluebug&r&

I recently bough pocketdvdwizard to convert movies (dvd) so I can view them
on my Acer N30 pocket PC.

The file conversion works great, reducing the file to about 90mb. The file
is then moved to a SD card (128mb) that I insert in my PPC.

The movie plays in Windoes Media Pleyer 9 for Windows Mobile, but it keeps
crashing, if it is playing the movie on its own then it justs stops, if the
movie is part of a playlist it just moves to the next clip.

Its getting really frustrating, the only way to get it starting again is to
move the slider over to the right by a few minutes and then it movie will
start.

Can any one help, the movie plays fine on my PC????

alan smith

| I recently bough pocketdvdwizard to convert movies (dvd) so I can
view them
| on my Acer N30 pocket PC.
|
| The file conversion works great, reducing the file to about 90mb. The
file
| is then moved to a SD card (128mb) that I insert in my PPC.
|
| The movie plays in Windoes Media Pleyer 9 for Windows Mobile, but it
keeps
| crashing, if it is playing the movie on its own then it justs stops,
if the
| movie is part of a playlist it just moves to the next clip.
|
| Its getting really frustrating, the only way to get it starting again
is to
| move the slider over to the right by a few minutes and then it movie
will
| start.
|
| Can any one help, the movie plays fine on my PC????

what did the writers tell you when you contacted them? They should
support their program, and there's probably help on the web site.
Perhaps it only supports certain encoding or bitrates?

marc

Hi Tony,

thanks for your reply...

I carried out a test on my PPC and the read rate was 1.18mb/sec, and when
compared to other ppc's it did ok.

I am assuming then it probably has more to do with WMP.

I have downloaded the betaplayer, it looks realy good,

can I ask... what is the best way to convert a DVD film into a DivX encoded
AVI file format?

Its probably a really basic question, but any help you could give me would
be good.

Many thanks.

Marc

marc

Hi Tony,

I was hoping I was going to be able to work out how to use DivX 2.3
myself... I am not that computer illiterate, but I am stuggling to get my dvd
to the size of about 100mb.

Can you tell me which settings I need to tweak in the software to convert a
dvd to show on a pocket PC??? I am assuming that somewhere I can specify the
how much I want to compress the file to make it smaller, also what is the
best size to convert it too?? Confused..

Once again many thanks for your help, the services you provide are amazing.

Marc

tony a

No problem, though 100mb is a bit ambitious for a whole movie, it will be
poor quality, but it can be done. I generally expect around 200mb for a
movie to get watchable quality, but you can experiment.

The size of your avi is determined by the bitrates you select for audio and
video encoding. I generally use a video bitrate of around 200kbits/sec and
an audio bitrate of 80kbits/sec for PPC videos. The size of your output file
in kilobits is

(video bitrate+audio bitrate) x (length of movie in seconds)

so e.g. a 90 minute movie, using 200kbit for video, 80kbit for audio will be

(200+80)*(90*60) = 280*5400 = 1512000 kbits
divide by (8*1024) to get MB: 1512000/8192 = 185MB
To set your selected video bitrate in DVDx, under Settings->Output
Settings->AVI Specific, select the DivX 5.x codec from the drop down list,
tick "Enable Video", untick "Enable Second", then click "Pass 1 settings".
That will bring up the DivX codec configuration dialog.

On the "Bitrate Control" tab, for "Variable Bitrate Mode" select "1-pass".
Then simply type your selected bitrate in the "encoding bitrate" box (or use
the bitrate slider), then click OK.

For audio, select "Use Lame", click the "Audio Lame" button, and select the
bitrate you want.

That's it for the bitrates. Under "Export settings", you should set
Resolution to 320x240 (or 320x180 for widescreen movies), Zoom to Bilinear
SSE (SSE2 if you have a Pentium IV cpu), Max Frame - click "Whole" to do the
whole DVD.

That should get you going. You can always play with things like 2-pass
encoding etc later if you're trying to get a bit of extra quality etc.

Tony

marc

Hi Tony,

I gave it a go... it worked a treat..,. sadly I am still having problems
with viewing the video on my PPC.

It seems that the video will play for a while then it just stops (even in
betaplayer)

my guess is that is has something to do with the available memory on my ppc.

on average there is about 24 MB of memory free. it seems that the PPC is
fine until it has played about 24MB of the video from the SD card. Once it
gets to this point it just stops.

There are some settings within Betaplayer that refer to Slow video memory as
well as buffer size and microdrive mode... would any of these settings help
me?

Thankyou again for your help with this so far.

Marc

tony a

Not likely to be due to main memory, because a) betaplayer only uses around
3 or 4MB plus the buffer size, and b) all the memory it uses is allocated
basically at the moment you press play, it doesn't need more as it plays
because it just reads from and refills the buffer as it goes along. Sounds
more like a section of the SD card is corrupt or unreadable.


Unlikely - to be honest, from the fact that you seem to experience a similar
problem with WMP and betaplayer, I'd tend to go back to a problem with the
SD card, since that's about the only common factor. Have you tried
error-checking the card from your desktop? Also, a lot of people have
reported unreliable reading from SD cards due to insufficient pressure on
the contacts when inserted - apparently sticking a piece of tape on the back
side of the card to make it a bit thicker tends to fix that. See if you can
borrow a card from somewhere, preferrably a different brand, see if you have
the same problem.

Tony

marc

Hey... well I am getting closer to finally getting this sorted out... I
borrowed a MultiMedia card from a friend, used that in my pocket PC and it
worked a treat. No problems in WMP or betaplayer.

I checked my SD card for errors and it seems ok. It is a little weird that
it is only my PPC that has problems with this SD card as my PC and camera are
fine.

I'm wondering whether its the media I am using,

what is the difference between a SD card and a multimedia card?

tony a

Good, at least you know your PPC and software is fine.


You sometimes get mystery issues like that - if you were to stick a logic
****yser on the interface, you might find for example that the manufacturers
of the card and device have sailed a bit close to the wind on the timing
specs, while your PC card reader and camera have a bit more leeway. It's
impossible to say though, it could be any number of things.

SD is a newer version of the MMC (MultiMedia Card) spec - SD has DRM
features, write protect switch, higher maximum capacity (MMC is 512MB max),
uses two more connector pins, and is typically faster.

None of the differences should account for your problem though, chances are
if you tried a different brand of SD card, it would probably be fine, and
likewise you might find eventually find some MMC cards that had the same
problem. Just make sure you keep the receipt when you buy your next card
:-).

Tony

karl e moser

Try this player works great plays avi, divx etc

http://betaplayer.corecodec.org/