help needed making valid 3gp videos

[MemeX]

Since I got my new mobile phone, the Nokia 3650 I have been trying to encode video's for it. At the resolution of 176x144 and a bitrate of approx 90kbs and AMR-NR@12kbs, you can't expect much but it's cool anyway. And with two pass encoding you'll be quite surprised with the result.

The only 2pass program that makes 3gp vidoes that work on the phone is Helix Mobile Producer 2, which suports a range of codecs which work on the phones, RM8, H263 and some sort of MP4 codec. It give pretty nice results. It's only a trial verson tho and puts a fat logo of like 40x30 pixels on the videol.

Helix Producer 9 Plus also makes compatible rmvb files for the RealOne Player Mobile, so I've hear.

I thought the H.263 codec from ffvfw should be able to make the valid video for the 3gp or mp4, but it won't do the trick, i think the h.263 doesn't even work properly, only the h.263+ makes 2pass video.

Then I've tried encoding with GraphEdit and the 3ivx codecs, also no luck..

Anyone out there who knows a way to make a 3gp video with h.263 and AMR-NB with 2pass encoding? possibly a legal and free way ;)

Thanks in advance,
MemeX

[The Shemeta]

i think you might be interested in this site, i am not sure, but i think you are talking about something like this:


3GPP (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/)

[bond]

i guess you have to be carefull about the settings you use in the mpeg-4 codecs (no b-frames, qpel, gmc...) also the correct resolution
i wonder why 3ivx didnt work? :(

afaik 3gp files are pretty much the same as mp4 ones (only with a different extension) not 100% sure tough
i think maybe the 3ivx mp4 muxer and qt (via passthrough) should be able already to mux 3gp files

sorry i dont know an amr encoder :(
does the nokia 3650 support aac?

[MemeX]

unfortunatly the symbian phones like mine don't support AAC in their Media Players, as far as I know, but i think its only a software problem..they might not want to have to buy the rights for AAC audio.

Quicktime worked great by the way, the audio quality isn't as good as the other ways I've tried i thought, videos ok..too bad it doesn't do 2pass encoding..

[shitowax]

If you really want 2pass encoding in your 3gp file, you can encode in dual pass using your favorite mpeg-4 encoder and avs filters to .avi, then remux your video to .mp4 using the 3ivx muxer. After that, you can add the AMR audio and pass through the video in qt6 to 3gp ... almost easy ;)

[MemeX]

I've tried what you suggested to do, although without a working result. I muxed a real simple DivX5 (also tried a simple Xvid and ffvfw) into mp4 with the 3ivX muxer without audio, but the file didn't want to play either..

kind of releated: in GraphEdit I can't seem to find the "file writer" filter in the DirectShow section anymore, or any other section, how can I get it working again?

[shitowax]

It didn't play ... in qt6 ?!?
Try not using qpel, Apple mp4 splitter doesn't like it.
Indeed, if I were you, I would avoid all ASP features (qpel, mpeg quant, b-frames, gmc) as your phone probably doesn't support them.

[MemeX]

I meant it didn't play on the phone, I did the muxing with GraphEdit i think, I've also tried mp4U with the old GUI..no luck either. If I load the video into qt6 it can't export the video as direct stream copy as far as a know...so it will re-encode the video file.

qt6 has the "pass through" option disabled, so i guess the non-free version can do it.

[MemeX]

It worked! I encoded the video 176x92 with the newest XviD, Simple Profile..and then muxed it into a mp4 container using the 3ivX muxer. The file played excellent on the phone, even at the original frame-rate of 23,97 fps, I was quite surprised.

Pass-through is disabled in QT6.5 so I'll have to find an other way to encode the audio correctly. I though, why not just encode a 3gp file in quicktime and then load it into graphEdit, take the audio from one file, the video from the other. But it doesn't load into GraphEdit unfortunatly, I don't know why, anyone know how I can encode AMR-NB 12kbs audio?

MemeX

[shitowax]

There is currently no way to mux AMR using the 3ivx muxer. And AMR is not MPEG-4 compliant, it's a pure 3GPP mess.

[MemeX]

oh, sad but true. I wonder why they don't have AAC supported on those phones..better quality and lower bandwith usage.

[Stux]

Originally posted by MemeX
oh, sad but true. I wonder why they don't have AAC supported on those phones..better quality and lower bandwith usage.

Are you sure they don't?

[MemeX]

yes, I'm pretty sure. To double check earlier today I made one with a low bandwith AAC at like 12kbs or so, my phone can't play it..the video shows but the audio doesn't work. I can encode AMR-NB audio with the Helix Mobile Producer trial version, but I dont have a way to mux it...

[bond]

afaik gpac's mp4box (http://gpac.sourceforge.net/index.php) should be also able to produce .3gp files (dunno about amr muxing, but it already supports amr decoding so perhaps it works!?)

grap a compile of mp4box on rarewares (http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/mp4.html)

[SeeMoreDigital]

It think it would be a real step backwards for cell phones not to support aac audio! Maybe the 3gp container does'nt like stereo (2Ch) AAC audio!

Not having one of these phones myself I would be interested to know if you can use them to store audio files. And if so, what format(s)?

Cheers

[MemeX]

AAC would be great, like having your phone as a mp3 player, some like the N-Gage Nokia Handset have a stereo chip and is built to play mp3s but I haven't been able to quality check the sound. 3gp is pretty much like an mp4 container from what I've heard by the way.

support to play mp4 video and audio is probably a thing of the near future, the next generation phones will have it i would think. Nokia probably dont give a damn about the old phones..i would think that the RealOnePlayer pre-installed would play compliant mp4+aac videos, but it doesn't..I dont think it can even play mp4 with mp3 audio. It doesn't even play back rmvb video files smoothly when there are pans for example. There's a solution tho, the picture quality is a little lower (probably because realOne has an optimised post-processing for the colours which the screen can display) but it can play much higher bitrates smoothly, thats PvPlayer which even has a fancy full screen option!

2pass encoding for a compliant 3gp "mess" is only play..I found that the quality of the encode that Quicktime6.5 made was good enough, free and easy, done with a few clicks and probably even the most configurable program of the ones I've tried out.

Now, to answer your question SeeMoreDigital:

My 3650 can play mp3, amr (thats what it records sound as natively), ogg (need to be down-sampled to some 12000Hz or so), it plays special compressed wav files..and real audio i think.

MemeX