Davideo or Moviejack or something else for dvd->ppc

[Mitchybums]

I have been messing around a little with different programs to easely get my dvd's converted to PPC format. So far the only thing that works good is Davideo for Pocket PC. It has the features I need, but I keep wondering if there is something better out there.
A lot of people keep raving about DIVX for Pocket PC, supposedly better than windows media and on and on.
I encoded The Fast and the Furious DVD through Davideo and also through MovieJack, and I did it manualy through some guides from pocketmatrix and even doom9.
The filesize I needed was to fit on a 128mb card, so due to a lot of usage of davideo, i set it to 100mb filesize (as usual).
I didnt benchmark or whatsoever, but I use a pIII 700 laptop with 512 mb, so it's not realy fast.(usualy 6 hrs for a 2hr movie)
Anyway, the Movie Jack file (divx) i encoded with a lower audio setting as default (mono instead of stereo, since I dont use headphones) and still the quality was a lot worse compared to Davideo. The manual encoding to Divx went better, but still it couldnt match the quality I got on windows media player.
Is there something that can provide better quality through a simple process ??

Also, does anyone know how to set the audio setting in Davideo to mono instead of stereo? it's greyed out to change when encoding on wmc9

[Falstaff]

Do you speak German or ahve you been able to find a guide for DaVideo? I'd like to try it, but I can't find the download and my German isn't that great. As to other methods of ripping, here are some sites with pretty good DVD -> PPC guides. They both use Smart Ripper to rip the DVD, but the guides are different in some respects.

http://www.pocketmatrix.com/guides/dvd2divx/

http://www.pocketmovies.net/dvdrip.php

[freakygreek]

Like you I have tried to find the best way/method in ecoding my movies for my PDA. I primarily used the software and guides posted on bidgdvd's website. The players I used were WMP,PocketMVP,and PocketTV. I just finished encoding a movie Dark City and I must say the quality is excellent.

The long part is the ripping which I use smartripper and then DVDX2.2 once that is done the actual formatting for my PPC takes less than 20mins.
I only use one program to encode it and that is VirtualDub with Divx codec 5.05. In my latest attempt I used a bit rate of 300kbits/sec with a frame rate of 20fps. The file ended up being 188mb and as I said it was quite good my best effort so far.

http://bigdsvideo.com

Check the above link for some guides and software.

Cheers

[Mitchybums]

I understand a little bit of german, but the program is quite easy to change settings in. (Actioned_>einstellungen and there is basicaly all you need to set up.)
I used to encode just with MediaEncoder, and that also seems to work decently (on a filesize for a 128mb memcard, what do you expect)
Media Encoder has the advantage of being able to select the audio quality (my mono option), but it's basicaly just guessing for the filesize by using calculator. Davideo is usualy right on filesize if you use the 100mb (manual) setting. That wasnt the case last night when I did Star Wars Eps2. This one ended up on 138mn unfortunately, so I have to try again.

[freakygreek]

Just a thought why are you using such a small card for movies. You are basically putting one movie per card so why not get a bigger card and you won't have to worry if it's going to fit in the end you're more likely to increase the quality of your movies. The quality of my latest effort far exceeds everything else I've done.

Cheers :D

[Mitchybums]

OK, I'm convinced.
I have been messing around with some codecs and programs, and I have found the best solution.
I have been reencoding some 1cd DivX movies to the 120 mb size for watching on the Ipaq, and it works. I have full control over the sound and the picture quality, and encoding on 22khz mono audio and DivX 5.05 on around 100-150 kbs, rendering every other frame, the quality is superb.
The framerate of 12-15 isnt hardly noticable, and soundwise, since I dont use headset, is good.
Quality is far better then Media Encoder due to the fact that Media ENcoder itself doesnt have a good way of trimming the size (remove blackbars from encoding process)
Davideo is easy, very easy to use for ripping dvd's, but the fixed audio on stereo is a big limitation for me. I rather have a better picture then stereo sound on my mono speaker.
I use VirtualDub for reencoding.

Anyone have good (=fast) ideas for dvd-> avi conversion without to much hassle?

[Falstaff]

The speed of the ripping is not as much based on your software as it is on your hardware. If you have a 1x DVD and 400MHz CPU, it'll take longer. If you want to rip movies, there are 3 links in this thread to DVD => PPC guides. DaVideo I think is the only program that goes in one step from DVD to a PPC format. The others require Virtual Dub or something else to convert the output to something that the PPC can play. So if you want the easiest solution, put down the $45 and buy DaVideo. The URL is in this forum somewhere, just do a search.

[Mitchybums]

Any one have any clue on how to get the sound sync in pace of the movie ?
When Encoding on VirtualDub, the video tends to fall behind more and more while watching the movie

[Falstaff]

What kind of computer do you have? I never had any problems like that using Virtual Dub.

[Mitchybums]

it's a pIII with 512 mb mem that I use for encoding (either 700mhz laptop or 933 desktop)
It happens when playing back on the Ipaq.
Usualy encoding settings are between 110-150 divx5.05 pro for video and mp3 24kbs 24khz mono audio.

And another one for ya. When I rip Star Wars Eps2 dvd to harddrive and try to convert it with dvd-avi, it gives me the 3 languages in one file. It's weird. It plays the intro. First english with the scrolling text and the like, when done, it starts over again, only in different language.
It does this 3 times, and it's anoying, lol
any idea's?