Convert Videos to phone (.3gp) and Visa Versa

[TREOdeJaneiro]

As many of you know, to watch streaming videos, so far, Kinoma is the way to do that on your Smartphone. At least it's that way for me and my 700p.

When I bought the software, there was an option to buy Kinoma Producer 4.0 bundled with it. This is a program that resides on your PC and allows you to convert your videos to 3gp videos.

I have to say that I really like this program. I recently got married and had most of it videoed with a miniDV camcorder. Not only was I able to create a nice video for home with Windows Movie Maker, but with the Kinoma PROducer 4.0, I was able to convert it to a file that I can play on my Treo 700p Smartphone. Talk about handy! With my 2G SD smart card I am able to carry tons of wedding photos and now videos with me to bore the crap out of all my friends and associates who I couldn't invite to the wedding!

The quality is actually really good. The only draw back I see is that when the videos are played back there is no pause, fast forward nor rewind. (This is a drawback of the phone's playback capabilities.) It's all or nothing. (That's why I opted to make smaller video sections of my wedding too. So you can go, here's the ceremony, here's the cake cutting, here's the bouquet toss, here's the honeymoon... [oops...]).

[*Update 4/11/2008: There are pause, stop, play, fast forward and rewind buttons. You just five-way-button down while playing back your video and the progress bar and control buttons appear on your screen.]

Now I am going to talk about another product called River Past Video Cleaner. This product converts just about any type of video file (3gp, 3g2, asf, asx, avi, dat, divx, dv, flc, fli, flv, gif, ivf, mkv, mov, qt, m4v, mp4, mpg, mpeg, mp1, mp2, ogm, rm, mvb, rpx, smi, smil, vob, wmv, xvid) to WMV, AVI, AVI (quicktime Engine), AVI-DV, DivX, DV, DVPRO, OGM, WMV or XviD formats.

This is handy because, you can then add in video that you took with your phone to your existing video projects.

Both of the programs I have discussed here cost money to own, but in my opinion, if you want to play with creating videos, it is WELL worth it.

[forgot]

Hey, moved this here so everyone would see it. Thanks for the great info!

[TREOdeJaneiro]

Okay... But I was thinking it would be best suited for the "Entertainment" sub-section because it fits that genre, but whatever.

Thanks for the thanks!

BTW, I just converted some old quicktime movie clips (with River Past Video Cleaner) that I had taken years ago with my olympus camera and some clips were actually filmed sideways. Once I converted them to windows video files, I was able to paste them together into one video and even rotate the clips that were filmed sideways with Windows Movie Maker editing. That was a very cool thing to do.

[VMS]

What's the approximate time/GB usage for converted videos, in the various formats?

I haven't gone the video on the Treo route yet, just because I've had no need, but I'm thinking about doing it for a trip to China in a few months. Thinking of converting "The Wire" entire series, putting it on a storage DVD, and then putting it onto SD cards, but I'd like to know what kind of storage space would be required for an hour's worth of converted DVD.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[TREOdeJaneiro]

Good Question!

It seems as though the videos that I have taken with my TREO are 2.4MB/Min but the ones that I have converted to play on my Smartphone are approx 1.1MB/Min.

If I'm not mistaken, my 2G SD card says I have 13 hours of video left to record. So if the ratios are correct, that means over 26 hours of converted video.

These are just guesses based on what the information on my current videos on my SD card say.

I'll try to convert some larger videos and see what I end up with.

[TREOdeJaneiro]

Short version:
Converted an approx 34min DVD clip to a treo-ready MP4 file.
Total size of the MP4 was 38.7MB, for a 34:39 Minute file.
(approx 1.12MB/Min.)
Two hours to convert 34 mins!

Long version:
In order to answer your question, I decided to try to convert a DVD I had to MP4 format (which is playable on the TREO).

My problem is that I didn't know how to convert a DVD into something I could work with.

To solve this problem, I asked one of the system admins at my work how to solve this problem. He suggested a program called FairUse Wizard. This program allows you to convert DVDs to XviD. (After my conversion, it said it was an AVI file.)

I downloaded the trial version of this program (which has limitations) and proceded to try it out.

I went with the defaults and auto detection throughout the setup process and in the end ended up with an approx. 34 min behind-the-scenes video from the DVD converted to a 716,466KB avi file. (I think the problem lied in the fact that I had the trial version, with limitations, so the full movie wasn't available to me to convert because of file size limitations.)

According to the website, the full version allows you to convert straight to "iPod" video (which should be MP4, btw). I wasn't ready to spend another $19.99 yet, so I explored some other options.

And BTW, it took 90 mins to convert the 34min DVD video to "XviD" (avi)!

Then I used the Kinoma Producer 4.0 as I talked about earlier in this thread, to convert the avi to MP4. (This took another 30mins or so.)

The converted file was now 38.7MB. Again, this is for a 34:39 min video. So do the math... Again it's about 1.1MB/Min. But TWO HOURS to convert 30mins... That seems silly to me! But of course I did it in the name of science just for you guys!!!

I am now testing out the River Past Video Cleaner to convert the DVD to avi files, which I also talked about earlier in the post, to see if it can convert straight to TREO-Readable format.

Seems so far that it is, but I have no idea how to understand the "VTS Cells" (which are the files it sees as convertable on the DVD, so it's a crap shoot as far as I can tell. But it seems to be doing the conversion much faster, so that's a plus... so far.

P.S. The FairUse Wizard stimied me too with what it calls "chains". I couldn't tell what "chains" meant what part of the DVD, so if I where to try the full version, I don't know that I would select the correct chain to convert. Perhaps in the full version, the larger one available would be the correct one, but I'm not going to spend the US$19.99 to find out.

[LotusLord]

Originally Posted by TREOdeJaneiro

This program allows you to convert DVDs to XviD. (After my conversion, it said it was an AVI file.)

Xvid is the codec, AVI is the file format. There are several codecs that could be used (Divx and Xvid to name a few) where the end result is still an AVI.

[TREOdeJaneiro]

Originally Posted by LotusLord

Xvid is the codec, AVI is the file format. There are several codecs that could be used (Divx and Xvid to name a few) where the end result is still an AVI.

AHA! Cool! Thanks for the info!

[comiken205]

emily2007,

You are not trying to pull a fast one are you? This is the second post and each has led the that exact website. Mmmm.......

[skoenig]

Well if you search the forum a little you'll find a few posts on a great and FREE video convertor called AutoGTK.

AutoGK Homepage - THE tool for XviD / DivX conversion

Its take input from almost anything including dvd vob files and runs a sequence of the best seperate bits of software to create an avi in DIVX or XVID format thats compatible with the Treo and a bunch of other things including special settings for all those great and cheap DVD players that also play XVID/DIVX.

Tutorial is here and worth reading:
AutoGK Homepage - THE tool for XviD / DivX conversion

The more you understand that better it gets but frankly in about 4 clicks with not much previous knowledge my dad was ripping his collection of the Office [for personal use of course, and so he can store the dvds in the attic].

I leave the videos at farily normal resolutions 512x384 for 4:3 aspect sources so that I can watch them with my MediaGate on my TV.

Search the forum for more info.

A regular WS movie is perfectly watchable on a TV in about 800Megs but near DVD quality at 1.3GBs.

For treo resolutions a movie gets down to about 300megs but why bother when yo cn buy a 8GB SD card for $50? Or at least you could when the ADATA 8GB was in stock (with a $15 rebate!).

Just leave them at noraml xvid/divx resolution and let TCPMP or Core Player resize them for you.

AutoGTK - free, one shot install with everything you need
TCPMP - free, but you must also install the correct codecs (search the forum again)

~ Steph