Optimal Motorola/Verizon Droid x264 format?

[valnar]

Does anyone know good parameters (& container & audio) to use to encode a video destined for the new Verizon Droid phone? I just bought one and it's a really nice device. I didn't want to go through trial & error if somebody knew the format it took.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Probably your device will not play anything above iphone/ ipod profile (Baseline)

[Dark Shikari]

Probably your device will not play anything above iphone/ ipod profile (Baseline)I'd be surprised if that was true, given that the Droid's direct competitor (iPhone 3GS) plays High Profile.

[valnar]

I looked at the MeGUI profiles for iphone, ipod 5.5g and the Android G1 as well as documentation from here (https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/39417/kw/h.264/p/30%2C6720%2C7155/access_id/37%2C1/r_id/138858). So far it's a work in progress, but here is what I have.

MP4 container. H.264 codec is okay.
AAC audio around 128K max.
--profile baseline --pass 2 --bitrate 1200 --level 3 --ref 1 --no-mixed-refs --bframes 0 --no-cabac
--subme 8 --trellis 0 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4 --no-8x8dct --qpmin 12 --vbv-bufsize 2400 --vbv-maxrate 2400
--me umh --aq-mode 1 --aq-strength 1.0

What I don't know is how the device (re)sizes video. Sure, I can figure it out with a test encode, but I like to do my homework first. Based on some of the droid forums, you want to encode it 1:1 pixel at the highest screen rez possible. I'm not sure this is true yet though.

The screen rez is 854x480 which is perfect for a 1.77 video. But if the video is 1.85, do I want to do 854x460? Or 854x364 for a 2.35 video? Or 640x480 for a 4:3 video? All those would involve the minimal amount of Droid scaling possible.

This is what I have to figure out. Does it scale, not scale (at all), allow anamorphic, use 1:1 pixel only, etc. I didn't want to be the guinea pig on this, but that's what I get for being the early adopter.

[Dark Shikari]

--profile baseline --pass 2 --bitrate 1200 --level 3 --ref 1 --no-mixed-refs --bframes 0 --no-cabac
--subme 8 --trellis 0 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4 --no-8x8dct --qpmin 12 --vbv-bufsize 2400 --vbv-maxrate 2400
--me umh --aq-mode 1 --aq-strength 1.0Everything I've bolded is redundant and everything in italics is pointless.

[Inspector.Gadget]

https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/64773
http://forum.androidcentral.com/motorola-droid/1367-how-convert-video-droid.html
http://androidforums.com/how-tips/14610-put-videos-droid.html

Look around here, see if it helps.

[valnar]

Yep, saw all those threads too.

[valnar]

I found the iPod-Legacy preset in Handbrake works great, which is pretty much my profile I listed above. It needs to be tweaked a bit (1500 bitrate is too high for 848x480 material), but otherwise works fine.

[kosmonaut]

You can find some more information on how I developed the old G1 profile for MeGUI here (http://digitalwerks.org/?p=245). I'm glad to see things are progressing nicely with the new Android based phones, just wish I had a Droid myself to play around with! ;)

[homerpez]

You can find some more information on how I developed the old G1 profile for MeGUI here (http://digitalwerks.org/?p=245). I'm glad to see things are progressing nicely with the new Android based phones, just wish I had a Droid myself to play around with! ;)

I was wondering if someone could help me with this one, since the problem seems to be minor (I'm almost there, in other words...)

I tried this very profile in MeGUI for the Android G1, and encoded a video for my HTC Droid Eris phone (very similar specs to the Motorola, which is inferior IMO)... but there's a minor glitch.

24 minutes long or so
272x480 Resolution
x264 Video ~350k average @ G1 Profile, "Level 3"
AAC Audio ~96k
.MP4 container

Here's what happens: The video and audio seem to play just fine. However, if I seek anywhere past half way, it skips back to the start of the video again - with the timecode showing the time I seeked to (over 14 minutes). I can pick anywhere in the movie past 1/2 way, and it will always skip back to the beginning again.

What's weird is, if I let the movie play through, it makes it to the end just fine. This problem only happens when I seek. Also, none of my other movie files (also encoded on MeGUI several months back) have no problems at all, and I can seek through them at will.

Is my problem with the muxer?... are there special settings I should be using there? Or do I just have a fluke here?... thanks in advance, if someone can help me.... :thanks:

[mariush]

Maybe it uses a counter with the seconds of playback or an array with keyframes and someone forgot to use unsigned instead of signed

2 bytes = 65535 unsigned, 32768 signed, which is 32768 frames / 30 fps = 1092 seconds / 60 = 18 minutes

So maybe when you go over 18 minutes, it goes over 32768 and overflows going back to start..

just a thought..

[homerpez]

I'm not totally sure what that means... where would I be able to check/modify signed/unsigned frames?...

As it turns out, things just got even worse... now I can't get any new encode to work on my phone.

I've now tried the G1 profile, as well as the Iphone profile, and at the exact screen size for the Eris (320x480 when looking "landscape" at it). Both these profiles are Baseline "Level 3" and should play... but they don't. They do play on the PC just fine, just not on the phone. Old encodes still play fine, so it's something in the new settings.

The only change I made from the default profiles was to change the avg bitrate to 350, and I moved the presets slider from "Medium" to "Slow". I wonder if this could be the cause? (I don't remember this being in the x264 dialog before...)

In any case, I seem to be totally unable to use MeGUI to encode for my HTC Droid Eris... if anyone has a success story, I am eager to hear...

EDIT: I'm very close to thinking MeGUI is broken in the most recent release (as of this date)... or one of the components is. I've now tried Iphone, G1, and other profiles, as-is, muxed them to .mp4 in each possible way (Standard, Iphone, Ipod, etc). The best I can get now on the phone is playing audio, and a green screen. Videos play on the PC, but NOT ON THE PHONE. Something broken with x264, mp4 muxer? Or am I missing something here?...

[Dark Shikari]

EDIT: I'm very close to thinking MeGUI is broken in the most recent release (as of this date)... or one of the components is. I've now tried Iphone, G1, and other profiles, as-is, muxed them to .mp4 in each possible way (Standard, Iphone, Ipod, etc). The best I can get now on the phone is playing audio, and a green screen. Videos play on the PC, but NOT ON THE PHONE. Something broken with x264, mp4 muxer? Or am I missing something here?...Just because it won't play on the phone doesn't make it broken; a lot of handhelds tend to be vastly more picky about what they will accept than is otherwise reasonable.

[homerpez]

Just because it won't play on the phone doesn't make it broken; a lot of handhelds tend to be vastly more picky about what they will accept than is otherwise reasonable.

This I realize... however I do find it particularly odd that old encodes with MeGUI worked perfectly... yet these don't...

Add to the mix that I tried Handbrake, using the Iphone profile. The file produced plays perfectly on the phone. Makes me even more suspicious that something in the x264 encoder is off (that MeGUI decided to update to). I wish I had it in front of me now, but it's on another machine.

At least now I have a working solution, though I prefer MeGUI when it works. I'll poke around some of the other threads - I can't imagine I'm the only one having this problem...