DVR To Zen Solution?

[Digital Assassin]

I'm not in front of my PC to check the profile but I remember right framerate was set to 29.97, which is correct for TV isn't it?

What's the suggested max video bitrate again? Should I be targetting ~900 for video AND audio combined? The Creative specs say 1000 if I remember right but I didn't know how close to that I should go.

[CrowdAds]

[kevo777]

Max video bitrates are different for MPEG-4 and WMV.

MPEG-4 --> ~1000 kbps for video and ~320 kbps for audio (AAC and MP3)
WMV --> ~768 kbps and ~160 kbps for audio

The guideline even says that WMV container bitrate should max out at 800 kbps (video and audio combined) so if you want to max out the video bitrate to the recommended 768 kbps, you should lower your audio bitrate to a ridiculous 24 kbps. And keep in mind that with a stereo audio track, each will only get 12 kbps in that case. That may not be acceptable to most ears. I've gotten great results keeping the video bitrate between 400 ~ 500 kbps and allowing my audio bitrate as much as 128 kbps. Windows Media was engineered to perform better at lower bitrates than MPEG-4 SP and MP3. But everyone's mileage varies.

These days I'm beginning to think that Creative didn't see video as a priority for the Zen. I think the reason for the great LCD was to enhance the great UI that Creative is famous for (it certainly got Apple's attention back in the day). AVI support has an obvious sync bug and WMV suffers from blocky dark and black areas. Occasionally I still get choppy audio with my WMV files whenever there's fast movement. It's like the decoder chip can't keep up with both streams so it's drops audio cycles and crunches what it can with the video stream. I'm looking towards the horizon for Creative's next portable video player like the Zen Vision W.

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by kevo777

These days I'm beginning to think that Creative didn't see video as a priority for the Zen.

Obviously not. They should have never taken a step backwards since the ZVM in terms of video capabilities.

Originally Posted by kevo777

I think the reason for the great LCD was to enhance the great UI that Creative is famous for (it certainly got Apple's attention back in the day).

...and to show off pictures for posses. The Zen always seems to have a really bright colorful picture on the screen when shown for sale on sites.

Originally Posted by kevo777

AVI support has an obvious sync bug and WMV suffers from blocky dark and black areas. Occasionally I still get choppy audio with my WMV files whenever there's fast movement. It's like the decoder chip can't keep up with both streams so it's drops audio cycles and crunches what it can with the video stream.

I think you just most accurately described the video playback and its issues on the Zen as good as it can be. I think a lot of this may be due to Sigmatel. With their SoC in the Zen, it is like they were more concerned with feature-set more so than video playback capbilities.

Originally Posted by kevo777

I'm looking towards the horizon for Creative's next portable video player like the Zen Vision W.

Yeah, I believe many are too.

[owlmark]

Having read various threads on the "getting video onto the zen" and having tried various software, I am also reaching the conclusion that a "one software to suit all" solution is not available to match with the zen software.
Even when we have thought we have cracked it, something seems to not quite work at a later stage.
I think each to their own method, but fwiw my current method is (once I have the video):-
1. Get the Creative software to convert it, if not
2. Use Microsoft Movie Maker (Vista), if not
3. Call it a day and do something more useful

[Digital Assassin]

Attached are my current settings. Any tweaks suggested?

[BobbyRS]

Looks good. I would just try it and see if any tweaks are needed afterwards.

[Digital Assassin]

The process detailed in this thread seems to be working OK, but I'm wondering for those of you that use other programs to convert to WMV (are there any), how long does it take?

I have a P4 2.66Ghz, 2GB RAM and it's taking roughly 90 minutes for a 60 minute SD recording. Any way to speed it up?

[BobbyRS]

WME and AVC are about the two I use anymore for WMV conversions.

You aren't converting from the SD card are you? I would make sure to copy the file to the hard drive before doing any conversions of the file. You can also maybe look into adding more system memory to 3GB or even 4GB. If running a dual core setup, dedicate one core for the process; even try raising the process to high priority may help speed it up a little.

[Digital Assassin]

I'm converting the show directly from the hard drive, no SD involved. My system is just a single core system so it's probably just the slowness of my hardware. Do you notice any perceptible difference between WME and AVC as far as conversion time? I'm not opposed to trying AVC if it's noticeably faster.

[BobbyRS]

I believe it is more based upon the hardware behind the conversion more than the software.... WME and AVC seem to be about the same for me. The only thing I could say is to just give AVC a try once and see which you prefer.

[Digital Assassin]

Can AVC be run command line? The nice thing about Windows Media Encoder is I can run it as a scheduled task since I found some custom stuff for it. So, my shows record and then are automatically converted overnight.

I'd like to try AVC to compare results but if it can't be run via command line as a scheduled task then it may not be worth testing, as that's what I need for my current situation.

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by Digital Assassin

Can AVC be run command line?

I don't believe so.... Not sure about the full version though.