Media Converter
 

Now that quite a few people have their Nokias up and running, I thought to make a small and easy to use media converter for it. It was built yesterday in a few hours, but works pretty nicely at least for me. I would have uploaded it as an attahcment, but the limit has been set to 2 MB.

http://www.helsinki.fi/~konttori/MediaConverter.zip

Comments, bugs and suggestions are welcome.


Usage is simple:
1. Unzip the folder
2. Open folder Media Converter
3. Double click on the butterfly -icon or the mediaconverter.jar
4. Select any .avi files using the add files to queue (you can multiselect)
5. Select proper resolution, bitrate for audio and vide and then click on the convert videos button
6. Wait until Total progress is 100%
7. Check on the source files folder and you should see new files with .nokia770.avi at the end of the file names. These are your converted files.

If nothing happens when trying to open the media converter, then you may need to install java runtime to your computer. You can get java runtime from java.sun.com. http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_automatic.jsp

Thanks Konttori, it works like a charm.

For those, like me, who couldn't find a barebones, none SDK, java runtime on the page you linked:

Try the following link for Win32:
http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_automatic.jsp

Thanks for letting me know that it works on other computers beside my own. I'm glad that you like it!

A suggestion
 

I would think that the right place for this is in the software and the Wiki HowTo areas here at ITT. If you just leave this info here in the forum the number of people who will actually see it after a few days will be very small in comparison to the info as an entry in both of these two areas.

What a splendid idea Remote User!

I added it to the software section and made a Wiki entry for that.

Bill: I updated the link to java as you recommended. Thanks for that.

Thank you very much for this! It's excellent. Just the right amount of settings available.

Thanks, Konttori
 

You're comfortable with creating new entries so I hope you have some time to look through the forums for useful things that others have mentioned but didn't put in the Software or Wiki sections like they might have and can do it for them, to benefit us all. I think there are a lot of very useful bits & pieces all around the forums.

By the way, do those bat files that you mentioned earlier have any relevance to this?

Tiger
 

FYI

Just download and ran the app on my PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It ran. Couldn't actually convert anything, but it ran. I'm updating to the latest Java release from Apple right now to see what happens next.

divxz:
I'm certain that it won't make the conversion on your tiger, even after installing latest java, as the mencoder component in it is windows specific. Did the user interface work on your apple?

On the bright side, there exists a version of mencoder for osx as well. Alas, as I don't have a mac, I cannot easily make a version that would do the trick on an apple. I can try to have a look at it tomorrow.

Remote user:
Well, the bat files that I mentioned earlier are pretty much the same thing as this, but require a bit of tweaking with a notepad to get them to work. As you can see, this 0.10 version actually uses a bat file (encode.bat) to make the call to mencoder. I should be able to drop the need for the bat file pretty soon. That would also allow me to try to make an osx compatible version of this.

The UI looked perfect and behaved very well. But, knowing that the encoder is win-specific explains why the app didn't do anything for me! :)

If you feel like playing around with any Mac stuff, I'd be happy to help you test.

divxz:
There is now an osx version that *may* / *might* work if stars are in correct positions and gods willing. So, if you have the interest to test it out, you can do so here:
www.helsinki.fi/~konttori/MediaConverterOSX.zip
Ok, if that isn't working, then I'll try to get access to a mac somehow and test it out there. I've bundled OSX mencoder there, but without a mac, well... No way to be even sure if the mencoder works, let alone be sure if I have modified the call to the encoder in a correct fashion. ;)

Just tried it. The app loaded and looked good. Tried a couple of files but no output resulted. I ran the encoder directly and this is what I saw:

AltiVec found
Reading /Users/divxz/.mplayer/codecs.conf: can't open '/Users/patrick/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: can't open '/usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Using built-in default codecs.conf
File not found: 'frameno.avi'
Failed to open frameno.avi
Reading config file /Users/divxz/.mplayer/mencoder: No such file or directory

Might I need additional components installed?

Try installing that. I thought the mencoder would be standalone as it is for windows. Perhaps it isn't.
You can download full mencoder from:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/m...7.sit?download

Thanks!
 

I'd been planning how to get a media conversion setup running, and lo, you came through for me!

I used it on a short xvid of mine, worked beautifully! Gonna try 'Lost' tomorrow when my 512MB RS-MMC gets here.

Thanks again!

Nice to hear that. If you guys have any ideas on how to improve it, just let me know.

OSX and Windows versions have both now been updated.
New in this release:
- OSX version ;)
- Windows installer
- Minor fixes

Can someone try installing the windows version and confirm that the installer is working?

I just made the installer and I have no clue if it only works on my computer or if it actually works on others computers as well.

Oh, feedback is very welcome!

Special thanks to Mikko Kiesilä and divxz in getting the OSX version up and running!

konttori's Media Converter is working (Windows) but there was (for me) a wrong path in .bat file. After correction OK.

konttori is using in his Converter an adjustable videobitrate but with max 300 kbps. Mpeg1-video which is about 1150 kbps as standard is supported by the 770. There is unfortenately some annoying extra softness on 770 display because all videos (e.g.
352x208) are stretched to 800/600 x 480/360 which make comparisions quite subjective.

Is 300 kbps some kind of practical/theoretical/official max. videobitrate for the 770?

Media converter uses mpeg 4, which nokia 770 can decode at tops 300 kbps.
I got the info from here:
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/VideoEnco...ht=%28video%29

Somebody have used mpeg 1 as well, but then you have to use bigger bitrate to get good results -> bigger filesize -> less videos mmc.

Has anyone tried mpeg 4 with higher bitrate than 300kbps? If so, how have the results been? I'm not much around the computer for the rest of the day, so I can't test now.

Minor question:
fast moving objets in video are generally problematic, because in some parts of video the display needs then more bits/sec and frames/sec to maintain video quality.

Does Mencoder or/and konttori's Converter produce a variable (VBR) or constant (CBR) videobitrate?

Mencoder can do it for mpeg1, but apparently not for mpeg4. However, with two-pass encoding, the encouder should be able to make a nice version that should smooth out the problems in the fast moving parts. Mencoder supports this and it shouldn't be too hard to add to Media Converter.

Although, apparently there may also be problems in nokia 770 itself in decoding fast paced action.

So, I have successfully encoded a video using Media Convert on Mac OS X.

Thank you, sir.

New version available for Windows!
 

Media Converter 0.3 has been released.
New in this version is the ablity to encode usinng two-pass coding, which gives much better quality results. It is well worth the extended encoding time. However, I felt it was still nice to leave it as an option. What do you think? Option or as default and not changable?

Oh, and some people have been asking about the file formats, according to mencoder site, it supports the following formats:
* MPEG-1 (VCD) and MPEG-2 (SVCD/DVD/DVB) video
* MPEG-4
* MJPEG, AVID, VCR2 and ASV2
* DivX
* 3ivx
* Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/2)
* Windows Media Video 9 (WMV3) (using x86 DLL)
* RealVideo 1.0, 2.0 (G2)
* RealVideo 3.0 (RP8), 4.0 (RP9) (using Real libraries)
* Sorenson v1/v3 (SVQ1/SVQ3), Cinepak, RPZA and other QuickTime codecs
* DV video
* Intel Indeo3 (3.1, 3.2)
* Intel Indeo 4.1 and 5.0 (using x86 DLL or XAnim codecs)
* VIVO 1.0, 2.0, I263 and other H.263(+) variants (using x86 DLL)
* FLI/FLC
* HuffYUV
* various old simple RLE-like formats

Most of these should work on media converter, but if not, please let me know!

You can download it here:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/so...info.php?id=16

I'll try to release OSX version of 0.3 later today.

Very nice work. Can't wait to get home and test it.

I think option is better. I at least like the fact that you can sometimes encode videos with faster speed, even though you loose some quality.

I have some home "videos" made from still pictures (slideshow) where changing the picture to next one is the only movement. I experimented with Mencoder and decreased framerate down to 8 fps: no visual difference against 15 fps. So, it should be useful to have adjustable framerate too in konttoris' Converter.

BTW, does the two-pass encoding produce variable videobitrate (VBR)?

Works great. Thanks!
 

I'm running Windows 2K Pro and it works like a charm for my MPEG4 movies. Man , I love this device. :)

Is the Mac version ready? :D

Small Issue
 

Just downloaded and tried to run the latest version- it does its job, but the file it generates doesn't have the .nokia770 suffix, nor does it include the whole filename, at least with 2 pass encoding checked. Any ideas?

well, osx version might work, but i haven't tested it yet.
windows installer had a bug and i've updated the setup.exe just a few mins ago.

AzM: what windows version do you have?

reggie, i can maybe be able to test 0.3 ver for osx tomorrow. i'll let you know if it works.

Thanks, Kon.

XP Pro.

0.3 version added for OSX!

Ther exists a bug for both windows and osx versions that you cannot process files that have a space character in the path. This will be hopefully corrected later today.

Just to let you guys know what's going on.

I had a short DVD sent to me that had several files (PLS, BUP, IFO and the main file VOB). I tried to convert it to 770 format using Media Converter and the only thing that seem to convert was the Audio? Any ideas?

Tony

it doesn't support dvd ripping yet. i'll let you guys know as soon as it does.

Thanks for the feedback!

I made small update that fixes the issue with filenames (/paths) containing spaces. Should be quite a relief for those who have had problems converting files.

Running on OSX
 

Konttori,

do you have any hints for those of us running OSX? I've tried to get this to work with various versions of Java 5.0 installed and each time, the Jar Launcher has a problem with launching.

Kontorri,

Sorry to add to your workload but I've just downloaded and run ver.0.35 for the first time but it doesn't seem to output a file.
The File Progress and Total Progress bars zoom to 100% in about 2 seconds - is that right?

thanks!

Same problem here. Just downloaded the King Kong trailer (.mov) and when converting it, it just goes straight to 100%.

Hope this gets fixed soon.

Thanks.