Walkman H.264 avc Video Encoding Tips:)

[frimframsauce]

since i had to bash my head against the desk a bit to get this to work i figured i might save some people from that trouble...

heres what i know.. so far

To get h.264 encoding to work in Handbrake paste "level=13:bframes=0:cabac=0" without the quotes.
into the the advanced tab
the rest of the settings are pretty normal. 320x240 and lc aac audio. with video compression so good you can give it good quality audio bitrate without a big file size.

for encoding other files mediacoder works
set the level to 1.3, b-frames =0 predictor frames =0
in "advanced" b-frames used as for prediction = false
use cabac=false
neroencoder for lc aac audio. file format is m4v or mp4
i use quality based mode at 50 and the bitrates are quite low with good quality, but just fiddle around to see what works for you.

after that one can get away with pretty low bitrates knocks about an hour or two of battery life off the playback for h264 though

[lightsout565]

Any tips with Super?

[frimframsauce]

dont use it. bloated, slow to startup and to encode..and its spazzed on some videos i've thrown at it. theres no reason to use it. media coder does both mpeg4 h264 fast wiht plenty of customizable options. check the media coder site and they even have custom optimized executable packs for different cpus. jodix free ipod converter also works for mpeg4 if you need something dead simple, but its single threaded only. and handbrake handles dvds far better than super and does both h264 and mpeg4.

[ksh9394]

Frimframsauce
can u put a file of the preset for Mediacoder for me to load? I try ur setting on the 1st post and the cut and paste ofn the folder but it say file format not supported

[frimframsauce]

i find that bitrate setting is pretty artifact free with low space usage, you can fiddle with it if you like.

you can use less or more or other settings for audio, i find this is good enough for tv shows and stuff. it ends up slightly less than 128kbps or so. in handbrake i use slightly more for film material. no sacrifice is really needed for audio on these devices.

very important...it must be 320x240 in the picture tab, the device will accept nothing else.

click the advanced button in the video panel



and theres a cpu optimization pack for specific cpus on the media coder site as well.

[ksh9394]

Thank you for the screen shots.
1 question does the Sony NWZ A720 support VBR audio and to the extent of how much for the bitrate for video file.

[frimframsauce]

the audio is vbr if you choose constant quality/quality based or whatever in mediacoder.
there is a max bitrate for each file type yes. but its pretty far above anything thats necessary to get a decent video file without artifacts. i don't remember the exact figures. but i've never had to go above 256-300kbps video for a good artifact free h264 video image and generally can get by with even less. not much higher for mpeg4 either. if you are going to encode at 600+ or whatever its mostly a waste of space.

the screens on these units aren't full 24 bit color anyways.

[ksh9394]

TQ for your quick reply/info. I would like to rectify my question.

Actually what i want to ask is for video file, I set my audio in the video currently is CBR 192kbps.
Can I set to VBR 256kbps for audio in the video?? For e.g. music video - good to sound & video.

Remarks - Previously i won Samsung P2 - The video file can play only CBR 128kbps audio. So whan I play the Music video the sound is terrible even the video is crisp.

[frimframsauce]

? video and audio bitrates are separate. you can set a high video and high audio bitrate if you please. the max bitrate is probably over 600 for video. for audio...its pretty high as well depending on file format. just try it out. that being said, 256kbps audio is about as far as you should ever go lol, higher is unecessary

[babya]

I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio to create and convert-it's a commercial software but has a H264 render setting when exporting.

[valmorel]

Winff is a great little video converter which will convert most video formats to suit most players. It uses pre-sets so you can just select your player from the lists and go. The download does not include pre-sets for the Walkman, so I figured them out and posted them here http://www.biggmatt.com/forums/index.php?topic=222.0
Its dead easy to use too. Versions for Windows and Linux. It sure aint bloatware, its tiny :-)

[frimframsauce]

handbrake .9.3 is out. more settings in the advanced tab now. if you select ipod encoding profile as the standard and modify from there all you have to do now is edit the "level=30" to "level=13" cabac and b frames are already off.
then save the profile to whatever you want and then you'll never have to set it again. nice and convenient.

the encodes quite fast as well, 77~fps on an e2200 doing h264 constant quality 53.
the constant quality rate setting has improved by quite a bit, the handbrake site will explain it, basically two pass is no longer necessary so transcoding now is incredibly fast. also nice is volume normalization is built in now

[bigd2525]

Hello,

When using Handbrake for Sony Walkman, what file format and codec do you select?

[frimframsauce]

mkv or mp4 or m4v
h264, ipod
aac 160kbps stereo... you can use less or more, i like 160kbps, theres no reason to compromise on audio qualityon this device
in advanced you do have to change the "level=30" to level=13
save as a new preset
should work.
i use constant quality rate

[MC Hampster]

I am trying to get video from a DVD to a Sony Walkman NWZ-E435F. I am using Handbrake 0.93 and can't seem to get it working. I tried following your advice and selecting "iPod" from the preset under Apple, and then switching the profile under the Advanced tab. The options after changing look like:

level=13:bframes=0:cabac=0:ref=1:vbv-maxrate=768:vbv-bufsize=2000:analyse=all:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1

I've also changed to an MP4 file (since there are two MP4 files on the player that came with it and work) and set the width/height to 320 x 240.

No matter what other options I've tried (different file formats), the video plays extremely slowly while the audio plays at the correct speed. Because of this, the audio/video is immediately out of sync. Any ideas?

[frimframsauce]

aac audio right?
~160kbps?

video bitrate not too high?
i use around 256kbps or cqr
no need to manually set 320x240, perhaps you messed something up by fiddling with that. leaveit alone

its h264 encoding right?
you decryoted the dvd using dvdfab or slysoft software right

[MC Hampster]

Originally Posted by frimframsauce

aac audio right?
~160kbps?

video bitrate not too high?
i use around 256kbps or cqr
no need to manually set 320x240, perhaps you messed something up by fiddling with that. leaveit alone

its h264 encoding right?
you decryoted the dvd using dvdfab or slysoft software right

Yeah, didn't mess with the audio at all. I left the video bitrate to what the iPod setting was, which was 700. I'll try 256. Do I change that under "Video->Avg Bitrate" setting? I did change it to 320x240, I can remove that (by default the iPod preset sets the width to 320, leaving the height to change).

It is h264, and I decrypted the DVD using AnyDVD from SlySoft. I'm able to play the file no problem on my PC, the video is just way slowed down when playing it on the Walkman. I have no idea if this will help, but I copied the MP4 file that came on the Walkman and ran mp4box -info on that file, plus my generated file to see if I could see any differences between the two. Here are the two runs (the first is the file copied from the Walkman, which works, the second is the one I made from Handbrake):

D:\Tools\MP4Box>mp4box -info UEFAforWalkman.mp4
* Movie Info *
Timescale 90000 - Duration 00:02:28.715
Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
File Brand MSNV - version 16777260
Created: GMT Wed Jul 02 00:00:00 2008

File has no MPEG4 IOD/OD

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:02:28.715
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:mp4v" - 4457 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x20
MPEG-4 Visual Size 320 x 240 - Simple Profile @ Level 3
Pixel Aspect Ratio 1:1 - Indicated track size 320 x 240
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 24000 - Duration 00:02:28.608
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "soun:mp4a" - 3483 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 24000
Synchronized on stream 1

D:\Tools\MP4Box>mp4box -info GeneratedFile.mp4
* Movie Info *
Timescale 48000 - Duration 00:02:29.098
Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
File Brand mp42 - version 0
Created: GMT Sat Feb 07 17:29:30 2009

File has root IOD
Scene PL 0xff - Graphics PL 0xff - OD PL 0xff
Visual PL: Simple Profile @ Level 3 (0x03)
Audio PL: High Quality Audio Profile @ Level 2 (0x0f)
No streams included in root OD

iTunes Info:
Encoder Software: HandBrake 0.9.3 2008112300

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 48000 - Duration 00:02:29.098
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:mp4v" - 3574 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x20
MPEG-4 Visual Size 320 x 144 - Simple Profile @ Level 1
Pixel Aspect Ratio 1:1 - Indicated track size 320 x 144
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 48000 - Duration 00:02:28.970
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "soun:mp4a" - 6983 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 48000
Synchronized on stream 1

[MC Hampster]

Well, after seeing this post, I tried those settings and they worked fine. After going through each of the settings separately, I (stupidly) realized that it was manually setting the frame rate to 29.97 that fixed the issue. I am able to encode in MPEG-4 & H.264 now without any issues. Thanks for your help!

[MC Hampster]

Ok, so maybe I spoke too early. It appears that things are ok at first, but as the movie gets further in, the audio/video progressively get out of sync. Seems to be the same regardless of whether I'm doing MPEG-4 (ffmpeg) or H.264.

[frimframsauce]

try another dvd and sees if it goes out of sync. perhaps its some weird film thta changes frame rate or something part way through, idunno. i've encoded loads without ever a sync error.

700kbps might be beyond spec for h264 for the walkman, its certainly way excess of whats required for 320x240 encoding. my guess is it couldn't keep up decoding such a bitrate anyways, its a stressful codec.

audio should be aac. as said. my guess is you have a strange dvd. try another and see if it works.

the video that came with it isn't that great an example, it was bitrate starved.

anyways most of the time handbrake detecst most things right. did you try 25fps?