zilla31

Kim - i've been having similar problems but only on SOME movies/shows. usually the target will hit pretty close - but every once in a while i try and agk a movie/show that ends up over by 10-15% (but never usually more than that). the way i've gotten around this is to lower the target - for example: if i set it to 75mb (target) and it gives me an outputted file 85mb, then i just lower it to around 65mb (target) and then i'm pretty close to the 75 i originally wanted :) i've encoded about 20 movies/shows so far and this has only happened on one (the samurai jack episodes i mentioned a few posts above). hopefully they'll fix this in future releases of AGK (or maybe it is just something weird about certain movies??)

Jayjor

Originally Posted by zilla31

Kim - i've been having similar problems but only on SOME movies/shows. usually the target will hit pretty close - but every once in a while i try and agk a movie/show that ends up over by 10-15% (but never usually more than that). the way i've gotten around this is to lower the target - for example: if i set it to 75mb (target) and it gives me an outputted file 85mb, then i just lower it to around 65mb (target) and then i'm pretty close to the 75 i originally wanted :) i've encoded about 20 movies/shows so far and this has only happened on one (the samurai jack episodes i mentioned a few posts above). hopefully they'll fix this in future releases of AGK (or maybe it is just something weird about certain movies??)

Have you all been using the latest beta update to AGK? I think it's 2.02. Anyway, I've encoded four full length movies (all close or slightly over 2 hours in length). I specified a size limit of 485mb. Each encoded file came out at 485mb on the nose. Could be luck? Who knows.

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Jayjor :hide:

56xdriver

Thanks for the replies. After posting last night, I took a closer look at AGK. It turned out that I only had version 1.95, so I am thinking my problem was that the audio was recording at the default of 6 channel. So I downloaded the latest version today(ver. 2.02b). So after installing that on top of version 1.95, everything looked good. I transfered a sitcom over at the 2 channel setting and everything looked good. My latest problem is that when I go to transfer a movie over ( or anything else for that matter ) I only get the option of 6 channel ( AC3 6 ch ). I tried reinstalling the program, and even downloaded a new version, but I only have a 6 channel option. Any help appreciated, I am really looking forward to getting this resolved, Thanks

56xdriver

Me again, I should have looked a little closer before posting a reply. I looked at my sitcoms that I had burned to my hard drive, and they come up as 2ch. When I pull up the Bourne Identity, that comes up as 6ch. Maybe I will try and reburn it onto the hard drive and see if that makes a difference. I think that I am slowly coming closer to figuring this out, try and have a little patience with me.

Jayjor

Originally Posted by 56xdriver

Me again, I should have looked a little closer before posting a reply. I looked at my sitcoms that I had burned to my hard drive, and they come up as 2ch. When I pull up the Bourne Identity, that comes up as 6ch. Maybe I will try and reburn it onto the hard drive and see if that makes a difference. I think that I am slowly coming closer to figuring this out, try and have a little patience with me.

Don't worry about it. That's what these forums are all about - spreading the knowledge.

It took me three or four times to get comfortable with AGK but the results have been great. I've been able to squeeze four movies onto my 2gb CF card. The quality is pretty decent at 485mb per film. Now all need is the time and decent battery life to watch them all.

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Jayjor :hide:

zilla31

yeah speaking of battery life - how much video can you get through on your device? i have an axim x50v - seems like a need the extended battery :)

chasgood

jayjor. If your hooked on using DVD Shrink try Fair Use to encode the movies. Fair Use uses a iso file and dvd shrink can do that.
I used to use dvd shrink but it has not been upgraded in a long time. The movie industry is always upgrading their copy protection. I read that something new is being used that dvd shrink cant get around. whatever it is will likely become more wide spread making dvd shrink useless unless updated. untill it is upgraded I started using dvd decrypter.

__________________
x50v and 1 extra 1,100 battery
Rino-skin aluminum case
1 gig Lexar SD card (programs and data)
2.2 gig Magicstor CF drive (multimedia files)
512 mb Sandisk CF card (looking for a use)

Jayjor

Originally Posted by chasgood

jayjor. If your hooked on using DVD Shrink try Fair Use to encode the movies. Fair Use uses a iso file and dvd shrink can do that. I used to use dvd shrink but it has not been upgraded in a long time. The movie industry is always upgrading their copy protection. I read that something new is being used that dvd shrink cant get around. whatever it is will likely become more wide spread making dvd shrink useless unless updated. untill it is upgraded I started using dvd decrypter.

Thanks for the info. Where can I get Fair Use?
I like DVD Shrink because it allows me to get rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff from my original DVD (addititonal languages, subtitles, commentary tracks etc.). Could I do this manually with DVD Decrypter or Fair Use?

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Jayjor :hide:

Vexorg

I've started using this, and I'm getting very good results out of it so far. I do have a couple of questions though:

-Is there a good way to do a batch rip of .VOBs off the DVD? I have several cartoon collections that have up to 20 7-minute cartoon shorts on a single DVD. DVD decrypter seems to only allow these to be ripped one at a time, and I have to put each one into a separate directory to have the appropriate files to feed into AGK. I have as many as 150 cartoon shorts I'd like to rip and encode this wa, and I get the impression it's going to take a while...

-Second, what file size would you recommend for cartoon shorts? I'm using 45MB right now, which provides excellent quality on my X50v and is streamable over LAN without interruption. I tried 25MB and it worked, but this degraded the video quality

chasgood

jayjor
Here is the fairuse site. http://www.fairusewizard.com/lang_en/

I am new to this program. It really impressed me the first use.
you may not need anything other than fairuse. It can rip most movies itself. Some my give it trouble so a good ripper is good to have on hand. Downloaded dvd's if not in iso will need to be converted to it before fairuse can work.
In fairuse you can select the audio track you want. I have it use the main audio and convert it to mp3. Subtitles can be used if wanted.

Vexorg
I came up with my own gauge for sizing a video for the X50v. 2.5 to 4.5 megabytes per minute of video. this is if you use 640x or 480x res. At 320x res 2 megabytes per minute is plenty.
Cartoons can be a pain to encode so I hear. You may want to bump up the mb per minute from what I use. 7min x 5 = 35meg. Try it. If it doesnt look as good give 7 x 6 = 42mb a try.
As for the vobs Im not sure. Never tried it.

__________________
x50v and 1 extra 1,100 battery
Rino-skin aluminum case
1 gig Lexar SD card (programs and data)
2.2 gig Magicstor CF drive (multimedia files)
512 mb Sandisk CF card (looking for a use)

Vexorg

I'll mess around with this some, but so far, my best results seem to be at 45MB, with no discernable artifacting on my X50v screen, and they stream over Wi-Fi without interruption too. I'll see if I can bring that size down some, but I think that'll work for my purposes.

zilla31

this may be a dumb question but how do you stream video over wifi to your x50v? i've got a ton of video on my laptop i'd love to stream to my x50v when i'm in bed or loundin' on the couch!

HouTex1

Originally Posted by Bradish

Duly noted and fixed, and now that I look at it, it does appear tacky. Thank you for pointing this out. ;) -Brad

I like your style Bradish! :approve: Thanks for the turorial!

coflyer

I have traced back through most of the posts but couldn't find any thoughts on the WideScreen movies. While encoding, my log at the beginning from AGK states that Source aspect ratio: 16:9 and Source resolution: 720x480; however, it looks like after the first set of AGK plugins get loaded the log reads
Duration was: 4 minutes 38 seconds
[4/12/2005 11:23:38 PM] Speed was: 32.41 fps.
[4/12/2005 11:23:38 PM] Compressibility percentage is: 37.13
[4/12/2005 11:23:38 PM] Using softer resizer.
[4/12/2005 11:23:38 PM] Chosen resolution is: 640x272 ( AR: 2.35 )

When I play this on the X50v in horiz mode, I get a band across the top and one across the bottom. Using betaplayer I don't see a way to increase the screen size and that makes sense since it was originally in WideScreen format. Anyway to change the parimeters so that I get a full screen on the X50v from a WideScreen film?

chasgood

A lot of movies are done using a aspect ratio wider than 16:9
16:9 is used by the tv industry. the movie industry calls this ratio 1:85:1
The widest movies are 2:35:1 Some are in between. Cant think of that ratio right now.

The black bars are put in the dvd for showing wider than 16:9 movies on 16:9 tv screens. For computer or ppc use you can crop out the black bars. Fairuse and I think AGK can do this. But you will still see black bars when viewing unless you zoom in and cut off the sides.
All DVD's I buy are widescreen version.

__________________
x50v and 1 extra 1,100 battery
Rino-skin aluminum case
1 gig Lexar SD card (programs and data)
2.2 gig Magicstor CF drive (multimedia files)
512 mb Sandisk CF card (looking for a use)