junkjof

Hi,
Initially the only converter that I could get to reliable work with the C260 (Latest Firmware) was the shipped AVIConverter 3.0. It not a bad batch conversion utility but had very little options for tweaking the output. High, Normal, Low quality options and Full, 4:3, Widescreen options.
Unfortunately, I wasn't that happy the the output results, so I thought I would have a look see if there was a configuration file with this utility. And I found a Converter.ini file. Looking inside this file you can see that there are 9 different "command line" parameters for the mencoder utility. Mencoder is a standard video conversion tool, used in the background by many other utilities.
So, anyway, 9 configuration = 3x3 configuration settings. So basically you can change any setting related to the each of the High, Normal, Low, and the Full, 4:3, Widescreen etc. settings.

The 3 things I didn't like about the default settings where:

1. 22 fps for all encodings
So, I changed it to 25fps. I did notice some issues with larger bitrate settings at 25fps so I don't think the latest firmware solves everything, but by picking a lower bitrate it seemed to be ok. So, basically the low quality setting now has 25fps which seems to work fine, but the normal and high quality settings need to be kept at 22fps. Hopefully, this can be fixed with firmware updates. I will experiment over the next few days with other options to see if there is a better way to get to 25fps.

2. The file size versus quality options
I looked at the bitrate settings and lowered these (so high is now 400kbps, normal is 300kbps and low is 200kbps), these options will lower the output quality but also save lots of space so I though these worthwhile, I increased the quality setting from 4 to 6 which means it takes longer to encode the video but the results should be better quality, hopefully partially making up for lowering the bitrate. I also lowered the medium audio bitrate to 64kbps.

3. The scaling produced seemed to completely mess up the aspect ratio
The normal and 4:3 seemed to produce the same result and the widescreen just forced a widescreen option. So, with a little playing around with mencoder options (for an hour or 2) I decided that I would make:
a) the "Full" option keep the original aspect ratio but if the movie was widescreen it would show the full width with black lines on the top and bottom.
b) The 4:3 option maximize the content, so that if it was widescreen the borders would be cropped, but again maintaining the aspect ratio.
c) The widescreen option I left as it as it basically forces widescreen which can be useful in some cases.

So, if anyone is interested in using these settings give it a go. By the way, I am no expert in mencoder and I just thought it would be useful for some other Teclasters. So use these settings:
1. Backup your existing Converter.ini file
2. Open Converter.ini (make sure AVIConverter is not running)
3. Replace the [parameter] Section with the following:

******************* BEGIN CUT HERE ****************
[parameter]
1-1-1=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add dsize=320:-2 -vf-add scale=320:-3 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=400:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=128
1-1-2=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add dsize=-2:240 -vf-add scale=-3:240 -vf-add crop=320:240 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=400:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=128
1-1-3=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add scale=320:180 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=400:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=128

2-1-1=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add dsize=320:-2 -vf-add scale=320:-3 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=300:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64
2-1-2=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add dsize=-2:240 -vf-add scale=-3:240 -vf-add crop=320:240 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=300:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64
2-1-3=-priority idle -ofps 22 -vf-add scale=320:180 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=300:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64

3-1-1=-priority idle -ofps 25 -vf-add dsize=320:-2 -vf-add scale=320:-3 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=200:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64
3-1-2=-priority idle -ofps 25 -vf-add dsize=-2:240 -vf-add scale=-3:240 -vf-add crop=320:240 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=200:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64
3-1-3=-priority idle -ofps 25 -vf-add scale=320:180 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=200:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quali ty=6 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=64

******************* END CUT HERE ****************
4. save file and restart AVIConverter.

Hopefully, someone who know more about mencoder settings can also contribute and we can get the best possible conversion settings.

By the way,

Jerome