Watching Videos on Palm Pre

[Agent K]

Questions for those of us who convert our own videos:

-What format are we going to watch videos in
-What software/freeware are we going to convert it with
-What resolution (easy answer)
-What frame rate

Please post more questions and Answers if you can come up with them

[AKITAYO]

ANSWER FOR YOUR FIRST QUESTION on Palm Pre launch manual page 20

"What types of e-mail and attachments can I view with the Pre?
View richly formatted emails and full fidelity attachments
View emails with full HTML support, including in-line images
Media attachment support
– Images – jpg, gif, bmp, png
– Video – mp4, m4v
– Audio – wav, mp3"

[Agent K]

So as far as video goes:

-convert to mp4 or m4v
-convert with http://handbrake.fr/
-conver to resolution 480x320
-Framerate I'm not to clear on what a decent spec is, maybe 25-30

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/downgrading.php

Any objections or additions?

"What types of e-mail and attachments can I view with the Pre?
View richly formatted emails and full fidelity attachments
View emails with full HTML support, including in-line images
Media attachment support"

I hope the email can do all of those things by the way

[.plaid]

Questions for those of us who convert our own videos:

-What format are we going to watch videos in
-What software/freeware are we going to convert it with
-What resolution (easy answer)
-What frame rate

Please post more questions and Answers if you can come up with them

The complete list of file formats is over at Palm's website (AKITAYO was referring to e-mail attachments).

Media formats supported

Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
Image Formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP

chris and I talked a few weeks ago about doing up a brief article about converting video for viewing in the Pre. I did a test conversion of "Hot Rod" using Handbrake but have no Pre on which to confirm that everything worked as expected. Here is where I landed:

File Format: AVI with XviD codec
Target File Size: 250MB
Frame Size: 320x(blank)
Audio: mp3 @ 48KHz/56Kbps

The frame rate worked out to be ~24fps and, for this movie; the resolution was 320x144 (both stats via GSpot).

Handbrake is nice in that it will read directly from a DVD and do the conversion in one package; the only problem is that users would likely need a DVD encryption decoder and I'm not sure that chris is comfortable with recommending that folks steal (their own) movies. That's kinda where we left it. I would have tried converting one of the 'included' digital copies of a movie, but all of mine are on Blu-Ray and I don't have a BD-ROM just yet.

Hope this helps somewhat,
.

[e1allen]

Not sure what is up, but I tried converting some videos to play on the Pre, and it is not working even if the videos are encoded in the supported format. I am using Adobe media encoder. Anyone have any luck with another program or setting?

[.plaid]

I wrote a little blog entry about it here. .mp4 files with the FFmpeg codec are the only ones I've confirmed so far. There is talk of folks using their iPod videos but nothing has been said about what those formats or decoders might be.

Best,
.

[e1allen]

I followed the settings but when I hit start, it encodes for about 1/2 a second then finishes, and it leaves me with a 100kb file that does nothing.

[.plaid]

I followed the settings but when I hit start, it encodes for about 1/2 a second then finishes, and it leaves me with a 100kb file that does nothing.

If you click the Activity Window button, you should see some commented information like

### Windows GUI 0.9.3 2008112300
### Running: Microsoft Windows NT 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1

blah blah blah

### Data Dir: C:\Users\.plaid\AppData\Roaming\HandBrake\HandBrak e\0.9.3.0
#########################################

and possibly some more info. Can you either post or PM me the activity log?

Some immediate thoughts:
· Try it with another file and see what happens.
· HandBrake is iffy on Vista
· Source file matters; it doesn't do WMV for example

Best,
.

[e1allen]

ok, so as long as it is coming from a movie it seems to be working

[MarcoC2]

The easiest way I found to convert my porn is to use the firefox extension videodownload helper.

If you search around in the options there is a covert video plugin.

From in the browser choose convert video by righ clicking on a webpage and it will ask you to choose a file from your hd. When it asks about the outpu format just choose iphone (same screen res). Worked perfectly for me.