Topic: Video Ipod anyone?

[animecyberrat]

Ok I have had this thing for over a year, and I have been reading every conversion guide I can find on the net, and so far nothing has come close to helping me. Here are my questions anyone with knowledge or experience please reply thanks.


First off, I want to know what is the best program to use to get GOOD QUALITY videos on my i-pod for when I play back videos on a Standard Def TV set. I have tried using Sony Vegas, Quicktime Pro,  Total Video Converter, and WinAvi. For some reason when I use Vegas and QT Pro it takes FOREVER to convert the files and they always come out HUGE, if i use Total Video Converter, I get a steady converstion and decent quality but it always stretches the picture, even the ones in widescreen, and I always set aspect ratio to 16:9.


Now I know that the stpid thing is made for viewing movies on the tiny screen, but since it has the option of watching videos on a TV, why can't I get decent quality videos? I mean they always looked worse than a 20 year old VHS copy of the films. Now granted I am not watching these on the newest of TV's, it's either the dads set which is a Sony Trinitron SDTV, or the tv I have in my room, which is an older Panasonic Tube TV. For some reason they look better on the older TV, but always look ugly no matter what.

Is there a way to get DVD quality videos on an Ipod? Or am I just being too hopeful here? Also has anyone ever downloaded videos from the I-Tunes store? What is the quality of those videos like? I am tempted to create an Apple Account and just download the movies I want. For now I have been converting either DVDRips or Blu Ray Rips, or any avi I can get my hands on.


I was hoping someone here, Pro maybe, would have an answer for me. I mean Vegas does good quality .mov videos that *sometimes* work, but it always outputs the files anywhere from 2GB to as much as 8GB for .mov files! I tried rendering .mp4 but Vegas takes forever to do those. Do I just need a newer computer, better codecs, different software? Or am I just trying to do something that isn't possible? If I have to resort to buying the videos from Apple themselves, well that is an option but I really don't want to have to do that, not for movies I already own on another format.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Sony Vegas is not good for converting video.

Quicktime is just bad, slow software.

Converting between MOV/AVI noticeably degrades video quality.

Converting something SOMEBODY ELSE already compressed noticeably degrades video quality.

Widescreen videos need to be letterboxed before displayed on an SDTV.

mp4 is "ok" but still below DivX/Xvid.

Converting TV shows in decent quality takes forever.  Just encode overnight.

Decent quality DivX/Xvid SDTV half-hour shows should only be 200-350MB in size, assuming the encoder/author is competent.

If Ipod supported DivX-AVI from the get-go, you would've avoided all this.  But it's Apple's generic format hogwash, which demands either Itunes purchases or your own personal conversion, so it sucks.

I personally like the sansa TakeTV better

[animecyberrat]

Using the software I have, what would be the best settings?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I wouldn't know.

What you have will not give you the results you want.

[animecyberrat]

Ok so what do I need then? Vegas does ok but takes forever and a day.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Depends on the results you want and how much work you want to put in.

[animecyberrat]

well so far you're the most  knowledgeable person I have spoken to. Apples Technical dork wads all tell me to use QTPro and the settings they suggest aren't even available so I don't know what kinda crack they're on.

I am not too particular about quality, it doesn't have to be DVD quality or anything, just ok I watch the HULK, and when he is in a white room, you cannot tell the difference between people and objects in the background, their faces are all distorted and ugly.

I don't know how best to describe it but it's like watching a video through a glass bottle, the colors are all off, theirs ugly splotches of dull gray all over the place and their faces are all, weird looking. At first i thought it was just because the ipod is stretching the video to display on the TV, but the picture looks like crap even on the ipod screen AND on my PC after conversion.

I tried using different codecs, I tried different bitrates, I tried manually adjusting the aspect ratio, everything. I have seen videos on the I-tunes store that look 1000 times better than what I am getting. And I now I am not the only one, my friends ipod videos are all worse, he downloads already converted mp4s and they voices are always off.


I am willing to put in as much time and effort as it takes because I paid quite a bit of money for this piece of SH*T and I want a hell of a lot better quality than what I am getting. I start with good quality avi files usually or sometimes divx or even mpeg2 dvd files but nothing seams to work. I tried downloading some Blu Ray Rips and they look WORSE than when I start with DVD Rips.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Setting the aspect ratio doesn't help in the case of SDTVs.  The TV doesn't care.  It's the DVD player that actually pays attention to the aspect ratio, and adjusts the picture to your TV.

If you have a video that's already in widescreen aspect, you have to add the letterbox borders using Vegas.  Say if you have a 640x360 movie, you need to add black bars top/bottom to make it 640x480 (do the necessary math).  Then encode the movie.

For a 640x480 movie, you might use 1000-2000 kbps  (the Ipod Video supports up to 2500 kbps MP4 at most, i think) as your encoding bitrate, as typical MPEG-4 bitrates go.  If Vegas w/ MP4 gives you the option of something like "2pass encoding", use it.  If 3 or more passes are allowed, try that as well.  But do your tests on a 1min long segment, not the whole dang movie.

High quality, small file size video takes A LONG TIME to encode.  Especially MPEG-4.  A multi-core processor helps reduce encoding time.

Itunes movies look way better cuz they encode directly from the source, and they KNOW what they're doing.  Using "good quality AVI" isn't good enough; try a high-definition master copy, or a properly converted DVD stream.

Video encoding is not for your average computer user, because achieving a predictable range of results requires RESEARCH (constant testing on video encoding settings).  If there was a free, easy-to-pickup guide on this stuff, more people would be messing with video and getting good results; I haven't had the time to write such a guide, yet, and the research that companies have already put into this apparently did not come cheap.

[animecyberrat]

Well I do appreciate your comments, like I said so far you've told me more than I've been able to find anywhere else.

What I mean by adjusting the aspect ratio is, when I use Total Video Converter, it takes the widescreen picture, letterboxed, and stretches it to fill the whole screen. No black bars. It basically screws them up.


Edit: I forgot to mention that when I start with an HD source, the picture always comes out worse. Why is that?

[BranDonk Kong]

Because the iPod's resolution is 640x480. I use a program (for PSP, but it does iPod as well) called XviD4PSP 5.0 (made by some dude on a forum named Winnydows) - it makes beautiful videos. I believe you need to have FFMPEG installed too. If your iPOD does AVC (sorry I'm not to familiar with iPod video), then that's probably what you want to use - very small filesize, moderately fast encoding (completely dependent on your PC's specs, of course), and fantastic quality. The program has tons of options. Just take a small video, try several setups, and use which one works best.

[animecyberrat]

I have the 80GB version, and so far Apple says it can only do 320 x240, maximum. I decided to bite the bullet and just go a head and use the "convert Selection to I-Pod" inside I-tunes it self, it took TEN HOURS, made a 5GB file and WAS NOT PLAYABLE on my I-POd, ITUNES SUCKS!


SO far the best results I have gotten are using Total Video Converter, but I have to manually set up each video every time I convert and the problem is sometimes the files are compatible and sometimes they aren't. Oh well I guess there just isn't anyway to do it. I re-watched Transformers on it last night on an older TV, it doesn't look so bad on the older tube TV's, but my dad's flat screen Sony Trinitron (still SD but flat), the picture looks like ass.

[RABicle]

Get a Mac.
Get a program called Handbrake.
It has a setting on it "iPod Video High Quality"
It just works.

I dunno maybe you can get Handbrake for PC, probably not.

[animecyberrat]

I have  a hacked Max OSX that runs on a PC but I don't have a spare hard drive to install it on at the moment.

[Shift Key]

I dunno maybe you can get Handbrake for PC, probably not.

http://handbrake.fr/?article=download

Win/Mac/Linux versions