Author Topic: Encoding videos for the Dingoo  (Read 42729 times)

MickeyKnox

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Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« on: August 11, 2010, 03:33:41 pm »
I would like to encode some videos for the Dingoo.
I have some videos with low quality end low resolution,
however, they don't all play well on the Dingoo, so i guess
it's not obvious, what is the best solution.

I don't care about the native OS and its Video Player, but
just about Dingux with mplayer. To encode the videos i would
like to use mencoder.

Now my question is: which parameters are to use for optimal results?

Resolution: i guess 320x240 is fine.

Bitrate: If i don't care about space, what is the maximum bitrate the Dingoo
can handle? Or, if that's very high, what is the maximum bitrate that makes sense?

Codec: Which one delivers in your experience the best results?

And there is a zillion other options, filters and whatever i don't really know about.
Which of them could be used to tweak the video for better results?

eule

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2010, 03:58:46 pm »
Dingux mplayer doesn?t really give satisfactory results unfortunately...
I always encode with Xvid, 320x240, ~1000kbit/s, and watch those with the native video player.

madhatter

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2010, 04:18:10 pm »
as eule said, dingux cant handle videos yet. and if you wanted to ask a question about mplayer shouldnt this be in the dingux help section?

CJB100

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2010, 10:47:47 am »
Get your hands on CinemaForge and encode to .mpg format. Use 320x240, and any bitrate / quality should be good. As everyone has said, mplayer ain't all that good, especially the IPU free version.

My mplayer won't really play any other video format other than .mpgs, and even then, it's kinda a hit or miss. I encoded about 20 vids and all but 1 worked. However, mplayer is prone to inconsistent (but thankfully not mind-blowing or frequently-occurring) hiccups in the video stream. Unless you're wanting to watch videos that are over 5 min long, you should only get a hiccup like this every 3 or 4 video watches.

All in all, mplayer is great for short funny skits or youtube vids to show your friends, but sucks for watching, say, tv shows or music videos.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2010, 11:04:07 am by CJB100 »

SiENcE

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    • Crank Gaming (Dingux Apps)
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2010, 03:16:28 pm »
Now my question is: which parameters are to use for optimal results?

Take a look in my signature (->Dingoo Review->video codec analysis of dingoo).

MickeyKnox

  • Guest
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2010, 12:21:35 pm »
Oh.. i'm a little puzzled that mplayer is considered that bad.
mplayer was the main reason for me to bother with Dingux.

So what's it worth? Emulators run very well on the native OS
in my experience. Is it still merely a technology demo?
(serious question, i don't mean to offend anyone, nor start some flaming...)

Thanks for your tips anyway, i guess i have to stick with the native
player then.

@SiENcE:
Thanks for your link, i think i stumbled over it some time ago, but forgot
about it.

eule

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  • Posts: 889
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #6 on: August 16, 2010, 12:50:30 pm »
Err, just look at Dingux? emulator page at the wiki: http://dingoowiki.com/index.php/Dingux:Emulators...
Not to mention the lots of homebrew software.  ;) There?s some for Native too ofcourse, but the majority is ported to Dingux.
I like native, and never understand those who want to dismiss it in favor of having only Dingux, but i like Dingux more.  :D

Meneer Jansen

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2010, 03:37:36 pm »
Mplayer rules supreme on Linux. But on the Dingoo it's another story. A Dingoo is by no means like a PC so mplayer does not run well on it (yet?). I find the native player very good! It can zoom, resume etc. Its brilliant. Wanna encode video's for the Dingoo? I don't do that anymore w/ mencoder. I use the immaculate Avidemux. Just choose "lavc MP4" as codec (= xvid) a resulution of 320x240 or 384x288 and a video bitrate of about 800 ~ 1.000 and encode the audio to MP3 128 kbps. That way it even looks quite nice if you play the video on a TV or a PC.

Beware, however, the color depth of Dingoo's TV out is not 24 bit (= true color) but 16 bit. You won't notice that on Digoo's screen but on a TV you'll see some "blocking artifacts" i.e. it looks as though you encoded your video with a very low bitrate. The Dingoo is perfect to play single player classic games on your TV but for movie (clips) it's only suited as a portable video player or to give somebody a quick glance at your video's on a TV. :)
« Last Edit: August 16, 2010, 03:42:35 pm by Meneer Jansen »
Finally got me a new Dingoo after I Kentucky ~~::fried::~~ the other one. Yippee! [edit] And lost it!

MickeyKnox

  • Guest
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2010, 01:37:13 pm »
Allright, so i guess i'm going to use the native player too.
I don't want to have my games distributed on both systems,
are there any considerations to use only Dingux for games?

All suggestions for bitrates goes to ~1000kb/s. What about
higher bitrates, like 1500 or even 2000? Is that too heavy for
the Dingoo? Any experiences?

eule

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2010, 01:51:47 pm »
I think for Xvid @ 320x240 even 1000kbps are overkill. If you look at SiENcE?s video comparison, you?ll see that some files run fine up to 6000 kbit, so i guess it should be not much of a problem. Depends on the codec probably, experiment a bit.  :P

axiomprime

  • Guest
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #10 on: September 05, 2010, 04:36:51 am »
I use Handbrake with the ffmpeg encoder so it makes an mp4 that'll play on most handheld devices. I set the height ti 240 but let the width take care of itself, then you have the option of watching in widescreen if you plug your Dingoo into a TV.

I usually set Handbrake to aim for a target size rather than set a bitrate. That way I can easily tell how many episodes/movies I can fit on my card. 100mb for a half hour show, 200mb an hour, 400mb for a movie. Everything looks fine on my Dingoo or on a small TV, it looks pretty ratty on my 42inch LCD but I don't use it for that. Anime comes out great and usually doesn't even take up the full amaount of memory.

grumpus

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #11 on: December 09, 2010, 11:54:45 am »
I've had no luck so far. I used Handbrake to make 320x240 mp4 files (NOT H.264) with MP3 audio; 100 mb for an hour, or 50 for half an hour episodes...
While it plays back well on my computer, on the Dingoo it will show one of the first frames, make horrible, loud noises and then proceed to fast-forward the video (60 video seconds in like 5 seconds) while continuing to make horrible noises.
I tried it with another AVI file with DivX encoing, and it was the same behaviour. The Dingoo would either crash or fast-forward till the end and not react to any input :(
MPlayer on dingux would not even recognize any video files i had on the card.

Axiomprime, Would you care to share your Handbrake profile?

edit: I also used ffmpeg directly - unfortunately, with the same result.
Code: [Select]
ffmpeg -i Life\ on\ Mars/Life.On.Mars.S01E02.WS.DVDRip.XviD-SAiNTS.avi -ac 1 -ar 22050 -s 320x240 Life.On.Mars.S01E02.dingoo.mp4Perfectly playable on every player other than the Dingoo.
The only video that played at all was an .flv file. Nice, but I prefer to watch "educational movies" on a bigger screen :D
« Last Edit: December 09, 2010, 03:07:48 pm by grumpus »

Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #12 on: December 09, 2010, 05:26:07 pm »
Try Xvid encoded AVIs.

I've had no problems with playing videos on my Dingoos. But I've only ever encoded and watched old cartoons on them. So far, I have about 220 minutes each of my favorite Rocko's Modern Life, Home Movies, and Freakazoid episodes. :D

I use VirtualDub to do a two pass encode with the Xvid codec at 320x240 resolution, 175 kbps video bitrate, and 128 kbps MP3 audio into an AVI container. About every 22 minutes (the standard episode length) amounts to a 50 mb file. And they are perfectly watchable and enjoyable on the A320.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2010, 05:31:24 pm by Jesse »

clach04

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #13 on: December 20, 2010, 04:36:29 am »
Kudos to SiENcE on the excellent codecs research and web page for the Dingoo!

I did not expect to watch video on my Dingoo, I thought it was a cool but not useful feature.  However I've not been sleeping much so I've found myself watching stuff in bed :-)

Xvid as been the best option for me (as per comments). wmv9 was ok, but I couldn't rewind/fastforward.

A good place to get vids from in different formats to see how they behave (without needing to re-encode) is http://revision3.com/ I'm not sure what vids they have but I was watching the Ben Heck Show, http://revision3.com/tbhs which is how I found the place.

As for conversion software, I've had some good luck with the following software

Meneer Jansen

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #14 on: December 20, 2010, 05:33:39 pm »
Apart from the audio and video codec used in a movie there's also, what I believe they call, the "container format". I.e.: AVI, WMV, WMA,  Mov, etc, etc, Aforementioned container formats ALL contain an mpeg4 encoded video part and an MP3 encoded audio part. DVD (mpeg2) and bluray video is something different. Of those container formats Mov, WMV, WMA and all other (semi-)propritary formats suck big time. Use AVI. Almost all video's you download (legally!) from usenet (newsgroups) or your neighbor are AVI.

Good video converters/editors like Avidemux (for Linux) and Vrtualdub (Windows) (I've yet to find a good one for MakoSS, and no: even avidemux don't work fine on a Mak) save your video in a perfectly watchable AVI. Those AVI's can be fast forwarded and rewinded just fine. Don't use bling-bling alternatives! Especially not those that you have to pay for. They suck too.

Divx and Xvid are compatible as for decoding (i.e. playback). I've renamed the "four CC code" from divx to xvid once and it did not change a thing for playback (they're both mpeg4!).Divx and Xvid use a different method of encoding to mpeg4.

I don't know how y'all succeed in producing a video that is not watchable on the Dingoo.... Try re-encoding to xvid/mp3 both constant bit rate in an avi container. (see my reply here in No. 7)
« Last Edit: January 01, 2011, 04:19:43 pm by Meneer Jansen »
Finally got me a new Dingoo after I Kentucky ~~::fried::~~ the other one. Yippee! [edit] And lost it!

hexed6

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #15 on: February 18, 2011, 07:57:29 pm »
I also am finding success with handbrake. MP4 file container, MPEG-4 video codec, AAC audio codec. I use a two-pass encode, target size of 400MB for a normal movie. Works flawlessly for me.

darkborn

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  • Posts: 49
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2011, 10:06:39 pm »
Some about tools (again), all free, windoze & kinda easy:
Handbrake, Avidemux (@Windows, I'm using GTK version) are imho some of the best solutions. Settings are... difficult & different for each program. New version of Handbrake won't work anymore at my XP, don''t know why. There are few more tools:
Format Factory is last I try. It is not kind of tool I like, but I have admit it is easy and did a good (and fast!) job, but I don't remember settings I put.
AllToAVI is proven to be ok, but I find it too much annoying for me.
Any Video Converter should be a good tool too (e.g. for subtitles):
I take my words back about eTeSoft converter. Found another program that is much better, less buggy and is free.

Any Video Converter (yes, that's how it's called). It supports many formats, can include subtitles on the video, allows to choose audio track and has many other options. It also has a very user-friendly interface. And more importantly - the free version doesn't lack any critical features that pro version has.

I highly recommend it. http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/
karma +1        works great with .mkv with subtitles
« Last Edit: March 06, 2011, 10:12:07 pm by darkborn »

SilverhawkBR

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #17 on: March 10, 2011, 11:44:48 pm »
AVC works with subtitles, but bware of the format you choose. Sometimes, audio desyncs so you have to mess around until you find a format that fits well on the dingoo.

bigdavebear

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  • Posts: 338
Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #18 on: March 24, 2011, 05:09:53 pm »
Thought i would add to this thread rather than make a new one....

I am new to Dingoo, and taking mine on Holiday (9 flight) so have on order some tfsd cards (inc mini adaptors).

I notice that although xvid play fine they do get a bit blocky at times, mainly dark scenes where there is no video date i.e black.

So i thought while the Dingoo does not play a 624X352 xvid as well as say a PS3 or DVD Player etc does,as far as quality. I may aswell compress video down to reduce file size to get more movies/tv on cards.

So my aim is to say reduce a 350MB 640 res Xvid to about half its filesize and res i.e 320x 175MB file.

I tried downloading Super Video but when installing it cant download files.

Handbrake downloaded fine, i have tested this would Super Video be better for the task?

Settings i have used in Handbrake are.

320x Video (aspect makes 320x172) MP4 Container, MPEG4 Video, default AAC audio 160 bitrate

Then i mess about with video settings such as filesize 175MB

Would you reconmend any better?

What advantage does 2 pass encoding make?

Should i try the constant quality setting instead or maybe set a bitrate if so which is best?

Thank You

hexed6

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Re: Encoding videos for the Dingoo
« Reply #19 on: March 24, 2011, 06:36:43 pm »
I wouldn't recommend going much lower than 400MB. Quality is pretty questionable even at that rate. You'll have to experiment though, and see what you can live with. Also a 8gb microsd card can be had for a very reasonable price, and could hold more video time than battery time.

 

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