PocketDivXEncoder: Free Encoder For PocketMVP

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.bde.enseeiht.fr/%7Egalloto/index.php?lang=en' target='_blank'>http://www.bde.enseeiht.fr/%7Egallo...dex.php?lang=en</a><br /><br /></div>"PocketDivXEncoder allows you to encode any video clip with optimized parameters for PocketPC (landscape mode, 240x320, low CPU usage, increased brightness, ...). The 2 video output standards (.ogm or .avi) are playable on the famous DivX player under PocketPC: PocketMVP."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20040316-PocketDivXEncoder.gif" /><br /><br />If you've got AVIs or MPEGs that you want to be playable by PocketMVP, you might want to check this free program out.

[ctitanic]

It's one of the best software out there that I have seen.
8)

[iPAQFanatic]

Windows Media Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx) will convert .asf, .avi, .mpg, and mp3 to WMA and WMV to play withing Windows Media Player. I have used it and I like it for converting my desktop avi's to Pocket PC WMV's.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

If this only converts AVI files, then it doesn't appear that any seasoned DivX user would benefit much from using this over VirtualDub.

[Boxster S]

If this only converts AVI files, then it doesn't appear that any seasoned DivX user would benefit much from using this over VirtualDub.

What's your point? This appears to be a nice interface with easy to use features that even a retarded monkey could figure out. Nothing wrong with that :lol:

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

If this only converts AVI files, then it doesn't appear that any seasoned DivX user would benefit much from using this over VirtualDub.
What's your point? This appears to be a nice interface with easy to use features that even a retarded monkey could figure out. Nothing wrong with that :lol:
Ease up my man... the emphasis in my statement was seasoned DivX user. I agree for a newbie, this could be helpful (assuming they had a larger DivX video file they wanted to re-encode for PPC) and agreed that the interface looks good, but if it's limited to converting AVI to AVI/OGM, then for me, it unfortunately doesn't remove any steps.

That's all I'm saying.

[ctitanic]

If this only converts AVI files, then it doesn't appear that any seasoned DivX user would benefit much from using this over VirtualDub.

This allows to convert mpgs, avis, ogms, vob files into avi (dvix) and ogm.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

If this only converts AVI files, then it doesn't appear that any seasoned DivX user would benefit much from using this over VirtualDub.

This allows to convert mpgs, avis, ogms, vob files into avi (dvix) and ogm.
Yeah... started playing around with it and realized that MPGs are included. I guess I misunderstood Janek's last remark to mean it only converts AVI files.

If it indeed does VOB files as well, then this could be quite a timesaver. I'll play around with this some more when I have more time.

[Janak Parekh]

Yeah... started playing around with it and realized that MPGs are included. I guess I misunderstood Janek's last remark to mean it only converts AVI files.
I misunderstood as well... I updated my post a little to reflect this.

--janak

[x999x]

For those of us who prefer PocketMVP over WMP, (it caches better for me), this is a nifty little companion application.

As a seasoned Virtual Dub user, I find this app to be right on the money. It's more of what Windows Media Encoder is to WMP, a catered one stop program.

[Wildelnab]

Hi ! I'm the French author of the soft...

- First of all, I thank you for your interest in my soft... I just wanted to raise a point : the soft is still in developpment, so if you find a bug, please let-me know : you have a button dedicated to send a detailed bug report (the "i" just near the input file selection...)

- For those people who use VirtualDub : I'm a great fan of VirtualDub and my soft will never have as much capabilities as this excellent freeware. But it is a bit complicated, and my soft uses an encoder that can encode a movie really faster (6 times for reencoding a DivX !!!!). So it worth a try I think...

- For those who want to know more about the soft, there is a thread on Brighthand ( http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=669143#post669143 ), but I will try to answer questions on this forum too.

A big thanks to the users that have try this soft !

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

For those people who use VirtualDub : I'm a great fan of VirtualDub and my soft will never have as much capabilities as this excellent freeware. But it is a bit complicated, and my soft uses an encoder that can encode a movie really faster (6 times for reencoding a DivX !!!!). So it worth a try I think...
Definitely! VDub is the ultimate tweaking utility but for more straightforward conversions, this could be of major help, especially to those who have no desire incur the learning curve associated with VDub.

I haven't had time to really test this, but the app itself looks great. And I love that it runs as a standalone *.exe!

[David C]

Great program. I'm an avid WMV user. Now, I might consider doing some of my video in divx as well.

[jlp]

Wildelnab,

Salut voisin (hi neighbor), what would you recommand to convert DVDs to prepare them to be used by your program; i.e. an app to process a DVD to vob or AVI?! Can VDub do that as well?! Any other suggested program?

[Toshi]

Fantastic program! Very easy, and I use VDUB faithfully. Good job!

[IIIsynthtaxIII]

Wildelnab, and others:

I just wanted to say that I tried the program, encoded only part of a movie (so I could check it out without waiting for 30 mins) sent it to my PPC, tried to open it up from PocketMVP and it froze up my PPC - not a big deal, sometimes you can't watch a partly encoded video.

So then, I SOFT reset the device, and when it came back it turned out that it HARD reset itself instead (don't ask, I know that I didn't hard reset it thinking I soft reset it)... All my programs and data and settings that was on the device are now gone, it's actually quite surreal. I tried soft resetting it again, and it was just a normal soft reset, so I doubt there's a problem with the PPC...

I'm using a 2210. Can anyone out there try and reproduce what happened? I was only 3% into encoding Kill Bill, canceled it, the file was about 12 MB, I opened it from a compact flash card, it froze, I reset, and it came back hard reset. I was running the newest version of PocketMVP.

So, I'm actually quite upset right now, and I don't know if the program is to blame or not. I've have tried to open/play partly encoded files before, and sometimes it works, other times videos (partly encoded or not) have frozen PocketMVP a soft reset was always just a soft reset... Either way, I'm not going to take the chance again. From now on, I'm sticking with VDub, and I recommend anyone who is really serious about watching videos on your PPC invest in learning how to use it.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I thought I would let everyone and the developer know about it.

lllsynthtaxlll

[Janak Parekh]

lllsynthtaxlll, I'm sorry to hear about your hard reset, and I'll be interested to hear what solves it. Nevertheless, any wrongly-encoded video (if indeed that was the case) should not trigger a hard reset -- PMVP should have "spit it out" and complained. That part is a bug with PMVP, that perhaps the encoded video you have demonstrates.

Or maybe it was a coincidence. 8O

--janak

[IIIsynthtaxIII]

Janak,

Thanks for the reply.

I do a lot of encoding and experimenting with different video formats on my PPC, mostly in conjunction with PMVP, and many times PMVP freezes up, but nothing like this have ever happened before.

If the reset was a result of PMVP than of the times PMVP has hard reset as a result of freezing due to video is something like 1/100+.

I'm going to install PMVP again, and play the same video file and see what happens...

Okay, so I did it, and here's what happened:

I purposely hard reset the device, synced up my PIM data with my computer, installed PMVP (nothing else) and tried to play the same file from the same location as before... It froze as happened last time, I pushed the reset button, and....

.....

It came back fine. I repeated 3 times, and the same. So, the hard reset was probably a result of the wrong thing at the wrong time. Although it is the only time I've heard of a hard reset happening as a result of a soft reset, I can't accurately attribute it to either the video file or PMVP - when installed on a fresh system. But, perhaps after time, as you accumulate bugs/glitches/reg errors on your pocket pc (as naturally happens after time) it would happen again. So, I just want to warn those out there that if it's been a while since they've hard reset their pocket pc, to be careful with partly encoded files from this program and I suppose in general.

Thanks,

lllsynthtaxlll

[Wildelnab]

Hi ! As Janak Parekh said, a bad video file can't be responsible for a hard reset. Even PocketMVP can't be responsible for that. I know that PocketMVP can freeze when watching movies, and it can oblige you to do a soft reset, but I think it's a problem of your PPC : are you sure you were not running out of battery ? Perhap's your battery indicator was reporting a wrong value....
I really don"t know how to help you, but it's definitly not a problem of video encoding... Sorry :?

[IIIsynthtaxIII]

The battery was fine. It had been charging for a long time, and worked after the hard reset without being plugged in. It has soft reset fine the dozens of times since that I have tried to reproduce what happened. It also hard resets fine.

I'm sure the video didn't contain some kind of secret, miraculous code saying to turn a soft reset into a hard reset (or even if such a code exists), but of the hundreds of other times that's happened (PMPV freezing), a soft reset was always a soft reset.

I am sure that the video isn't solely to blame, and that PMVP isn't to solely blame, but somehow, a combination of those two and the state of my PPC (only 3 weeks since it's last hard reset) caused that to happen, and that the results could perhaps be reproduced if someone else did the same thing as me.

I just wanted to warn others, and let it be known - it was a strange occurrence, and I didn't know what to make of it.

lllsynthtaxlll

[ctitanic]

Well, I suffered once a hard reset in my old iPaq 3635 in the same way, I mean, I did a soft reset and what I got was a Hard Reset. I got scared because I thought it was something wrong with my ipaq but after that I used for almost one more year and it never happened again.
After that I have seen people reporting Hard Reset for no reason very often and I think that it could happen just becuase of a conflict between programs and the way they are trying to use the RAM. Keep in mind that in the same way you can do a soft reset by software you can do a hard reset by software no needing to press 3 keys at the same time or any hot keys ;)
So what happened to you will be very hard to reproduce again and I´m afraid that it wont happen to you again in a long time. ;)

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Let me be the 3rd person to say that a video file, whether corrupt or not cannot possibly cause a hard reset. It is a data file, which means that it's interpreted... not executed... thus it's technically incapable of doing anything to your machine (like write to your registry, install or delete DLLs, create startup files, etc), that would ever impact your system stability.

IF the video playback is what definitely caused the hard-reset, then it would have to be PMVP or some combination of programs running in conjunction with PMVP.

[IIIsynthtaxIII]

Let me be the 3rd person to say (and I was also the first and second person) that I KNOW IT WASN'T THE VIDEO FILE!!!

I said it was some combination of all three, the file, PMVP and the state of my PPC (I was running no other programs).

Seriously though, look at my posts, I never said the video was at fault, I simply reported what I had done, and what had happened, and that I just wanted to warn others, I was not accusing anything.

Also, if I have said that it might have been a combination of the different things going on at the same time (video/pmvp/ppc), I don't need other people to repeat that exact same thing back to me. I didn't post asking for help, or clarification - I understand that it was a freak thing, and I wanted to inform others about it. But I can't help but feel somewhat patronized now. That's why I don't often post, beacuse people love to feel smart, and post things afterwards that are either obvious, or already said.

Let me ask you this: What's the point of making a post that starts with "Let me be the 3rd person to say that..." (Don't say now: "well, your post started off like that" beacuse I did it to make a point)

I don't mean to seem rude or insulting, but this has happened all sorts of times, and I've seen it happen to many others. Please don't post just for the point of it. We all have our pet peeves, this is one of mine - so please don't judge. ;)

Thanks,

lllsynthtaxlll

[Pat Logsdon]

Thought I'd put in my 2 cents here. I've used Virtual Dub for quite some time, and I've encoded many of the DVDs I own for use on my PPC. I'm a habitual tweaker, and I think I do a pretty good job of squeezing the best video and audio out of my files.

I downloaded and tried this program last night, and I am VERY impressed with the output. There's one thing that blew me out of the water, and I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet. The SPEED of this program is phenomenal. What would normally take me 2+ hours of encoding time with Virtual Dub takes ~20 MINUTES with this program, and the output is within a hair's breadth of what I'd be able to do myself with all of my tweaking.

The sound is great, it's in sync, and the video is very nice. I noticed a bit more artifacting than I'd like to see around figures in fast motion, but it's very minimal, and I wouldn't be able to do much better myself.

So let me be clear here - if you've used VirtualDub in the past, you owe it to yourself to try this program. I'm fairly sure that I'll be using it myself from now on.

Thanks, Wildelnab! :way to go:

[iPAQi]

I'll have to echo what Pat said.......the speed is incredible!!

I encoded a 1 hour program last night in about 18 min. (avg. 91 fps)

One thing tho......after encoding....I used the post-encoding option to "correct audio-video syncro" and the resultant file would not load in PMVP. When I tried to play it on my desktop.....it locked up WMP.

The original file (before the syncro step) played fine on my PPC and I too agree that the quality was very good. I used a bitrate of around 250.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Seriously though, look at my posts, I never said the video was at fault, I simply reported what I had done, and what had happened, and that I just wanted to warn others, I was not accusing anything.
You didn't say the video was at fault but in your 1st post you wondered if the program creating the video somehow led to your hard-reset which in essence assumes faulty video could be to blame. And in your 2nd post insinuated that the video may have played a partial role.

I was only looking to explain from a technical perspective why video would have nothing to do with this.

Also, if I have said that it might have been a combination of the different things going on at the same time (video/pmvp/ppc), I don't need other people to repeat that exact same thing back to me. I didn't post asking for help, or clarification - I understand that it was a freak thing, and I wanted to inform others about it. But I can't help but feel somewhat patronized now. That's why I don't often post, beacuse people love to feel smart, and post things afterwards that are either obvious, or already said.

Let me ask you this: What's the point of making a post that starts with "Let me be the 3rd person to say that..." (Don't say now: "well, your post started off like that" beacuse I did it to make a point)
Because I was only trying to provide an explanation as to why the video itself would have nothing to do with the hard-reset. The first 2 folks to say it only stated that video wouldn't be to blame. So my post was only to explain WHY video wouldn't be to blame.

I don't mean to seem rude or insulting, but this has happened all sorts of times, and I've seen it happen to many others. Please don't post just for the point of it. We all have our pet peeves, this is one of mine - so please don't judge. ;)
...and being told that I'm posting just to post or just to "feel smart" is not very gratifying either.

Thanks and my apologies for insulting you. I sincerely was only trying to explain what might not be understood by all.

[Fishie]

Excellent and userfriendly program and blazing speed.
Awesome thanks man.

[eugchen]

is anyone besides me having the problem of no SOUND when using this program to convert an mpeg to the avi? not sure what the problem is here.

[Wildelnab]

:mrgreen: Thanks a lot !! I'm very happy to see that the software is helping some people. I will add a special thanks feature on my soft, but let me say that the incredible speed is done thanks to the great open source Linux project "mplayer" and thanks to the great work Joey Parrish made in order to port it to Windows...

So I will add a link to the related sites on my soft, because I think these programs must have been better known since they are incredible...

So thank you all, I will continue working on the soft (and the bugs it still contains :? ).

[ctitanic]

I think that you should post your software at www.Handango.com or www.PocketGear.com in that way more people will know about it.

[Wildelnab]

Well... I don't know if I can do it by now : there are a lot of people downloading the soft at the moment (since the last 2 days...) and the webhost of my site has warned me about this (I should consider getting a non-free webhost in order to supply the needs !!!). So I will wait a bit until telling this... I will perhap's consider a PayPal thing for donations or some advertising banners.... I don't know... Don't worry, I will try to keep the soft downloadable on the internet as far as it is possible for me (and to keep you informed if the site address changes)

[Fishie]

is anyone besides me having the problem of no SOUND when using this program to convert an mpeg to the avi? not sure what the problem is here.

Yeah same here it appears.

[Wildelnab]

Sorry, I've forgotten to tell you that you have found a major bug of this release : audio sometimes won't work with MPEG files. I've fix this and I will post a rectifying release in a few hours.

I'm sorry for not having seen it before, but it didn't happen on my PC !

[torgamm]

Because it's GPL, wouldn't it be better to put it on Sourceforge?
But I don't know how...

[jeffmd]

widel, try source forge and file depot's like download.com.

[iPAQi]

I just download the latest update with the mpeg fix and it worked great. The video looks really good........the A/V sync is good at the beginning but as the movie progresses the A/V gradually goes out of sync.

I tried the post-encoding option to correct the A/V sync but the file it generates will not load in PocketMVP......or play on my desktop. I've tried it with both AVI's and Mpeg's and get the same problem.

Has anyone tried the A/V Sync correction option and did it work for you?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have.

[Wildelnab]

Hi ! For the out-of-sync problem, if you encoded with mencoder, it doesn't really help. I'm planning to stop proposing the "VirtualDub" option, because I think that :
- the EXE size is too high !
- it generates too much bugs that are not correctible (out-of-sync problems, etc...)
- I prefer aiming my efforts at programming a graphical user interface to mencoder only.
- I will try to add a little utility to correct out-of-sync problems with mencoder. To figure out what I'm talking about, just try the little useful utility "Avi Framerate Changer"... If your video goes progressively out-of-sync, it could repair that : if your video goes too fast compaired to audio, then lower the framerate of the video. Else, higher it ! That's it !

[elbarto]

Congratulations for your excellent work Wildelnab - this tool is a real help and a time saver.

I have some suggestions to make:
1. Please allow drag&drop support.
2. Is it possible to set a certain framerate for the output video?
3. Two-Pass encoding would be a cool feature.
4. Just a minor issue: at the moment the program allows multiple instances. sometimes when i start the program i forgot that there was already one instance running.

I can translate your program into german if you like.

Keep up the good work!

[Wildelnab]

Hi !

1. Please allow drag&drop support.
> I'm working on it, and I will also add the Program on the Right-click menu on movie files...

2. Is it possible to set a certain framerate for the output video?
> In the next release !

3. Two-Pass encoding would be a cool feature.
> Sorry, I'm not planing to do that since it is a really difficult thing to set up when you want a soft to remain simple (accessible for beginers...). It is also a difficult thing to add with mencoder, but I'm working on it too.

4. Just a minor issue: at the moment the program allows multiple instances. sometimes when i start the program i forgot that there was already one instance running.
> OK, you're right, I will fix this !

I can translate your program into german if you like.
> Sorry, but I have already received a translation file by another german guy... I hope I will have time to add it soon !

Keep up the good work!
> OK, thanks a lot ![/quote]

[pderathe]

Wonderful

I appreciate the wonderful simplicity and effectivness of this SW.

Thanks to its developper

[VanHlebar]

I am having difficulties getting the converted files to run on my Axim X3i. I have encoded a few episodes of my favorite HBO show and then I ran them thru this app to watch them on my X3i while at my daughters Volleyball tournament tomorrow.

The problem is that whenever I put them onto my X3i and open them in PocketMVP and then hit play, it locks up the X3i. The same files will play just fine on the desktop but not in PocketMVP.

I am running the lates version of Wildelnab's software and I am running PocketMVP ver .8.072703. I have the episodes installed on a 512MB SD Card and I have over 24MB of program memory free when I start PocketMVP.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
-Eric

[Wildelnab]

Hi !

You should download the LATEST version of PocketMVP ! It's 01182004 I think and it is hosted on Mark Dukette's site... The link appears on my download page if you want... I think this should solve your problem.

[VanHlebar]

Thanks for the help. I downloaded that release and now it won't open the files at all. It give me two different error messages on each file. One is that the file contains an incompatible audio format and the other says the file contains an incompatible video format.

Are there other codecs or anything that needs to be installed on the ppc also? All the files are avis.

-Eric

[VanHlebar]

Ok.. so I have encoded some additional files and I made sure that I downloaded the latest PocketDivx. I still am getting the same errors that the encoded files have an incompatible audio and video formats. Again, these files still play just fine on my desktop. Is anyone else getting these types of error on thei ppcs when playing the files?

-Eric

[VanHlebar]

Well I found out part of the problem. Someone over at AximSite gave me a link to download a new codec for PocketDivx and that cleared up the video part of the application, but now I don't get any sound. When I play the file I still get the incompatible audio format and then the file plays with not sound.

A different issue has also come up. When the file plays, it goes into full screen mode, which is fine, but the picture cuts off the entire left hand side of the movie.

The only difference that I have selected on the encoding of the files is I changed the video quality to around a 12 and I changed the audio quality to around 4 or 5 I think. Then I changed the output dimensions to 320x292. I was attempting to get less black bars and more screen usage. I previewed the file at the new dimensions and I verified the new dimensions and all was fine.

I love the app and it is really nice for a novice like me to be able to quickly encode avis, I just wish I could figure out these last two minor issues and then maybe I could watch some movies and such next weekend at my daughters Volleyball tournament. :D

-Eric

[Wildelnab]

Sorry, it seems I can't help you with your problems... :oops:

However, if you find the answers, I'm interesting in adding them to a FaQ... So, could you continue telling us what you are experiencing on your PocketPC ?

Just a little information : Normally, the video dimensions can't exceed 320*240, so perhaps there's a bug here (you got 320*292)... I will work on it.

[VanHlebar]

Wildelnab,

I will re-encode a file this morning at 320x240 and see if that helps at all. I will post back with my results. :)

-Eric

[VanHlebar]

Sorry, it seems I can't help you with your problems... :oops:

However, if you find the answers, I'm interesting in adding them to a FaQ... So, could you continue telling us what you are experiencing on your PocketPC ?

Just a little information : Normally, the video dimensions can't exceed 320*240, so perhaps there's a bug here (you got 320*292)... I will work on it.

Sorry that was a mistype. :( It should have read 320x192! That was my mistake. I am going to try reencoding a different file today and see what happens.

-Eric

[VanHlebar]

Well I just encoded yet another file and I came up with the same error again. This time I left the defaults to whatever the program came up with and let it go about its business.

When I ran the file on my device it gave me the same "This file contains an incompatible audio format" message. When I play the file anyway, the screen goes to full screen mode, but the picture is moved left. I only get the right side of the screen.

Well thanks for all the attempts at help and I will keep an eye on the software as I really like the concept and it works great for a novice like myself. If I could get the files to work on my ppc anyways :D

-Eric

[VanHlebar]

Sorry, it seems I can't help you with your problems... :oops:

However, if you find the answers, I'm interesting in adding them to a FaQ... So, could you continue telling us what you are experiencing on your PocketPC ?

Just a little information : Normally, the video dimensions can't exceed 320*240, so perhaps there's a bug here (you got 320*292)... I will work on it.

Ok.. this will be my last post in this thread I hope :lol: I am sure everyone has heard of the old addage, Garbage In Garbage Out.. well I must have had something funky going on with my ppc with having the two different version of PocketMVP installed. I tried creating an ogm file and it still didn't work. So I thought I would uninstall, softrest and then reinstall the latest version of PocketMVP. Well when I did that the ogm file played just fine, sound and all. So then I encoded the same file again with all the defaults except I changed the picture size to 320x240. I played it on my X3i and all is well.

So, just so that you know, this software works as advertised, as long as you the user don't screw it up. :D I really love the software as it is a much simplier way of encoding the files, especially for a novice like myself.

Using Robot4Rip, GNot and then PocketDivxEncoder, I am able to very easily and fairly quickly covert my files to use on my X3i. Looks like this weekend won't be so boring now at my daughters Volleyball match after all!

Thanks again for all the help and for a great piece of software!

-Eric

[Wildelnab]

Great ! Happy to know it works !