Neszis' Definitive Guide

for Capturing and Compressing Videos for the Pocket PC

A Presentation Of

Tutorial Map:

-Introduction

-Explanation
-Assumptions made
-Uses for the tutorial

-Part One

-Part One A : CAPTURING DVD VIDEO WITH A DVD-ROM DRIVE ON YOUR COMPUTER
-Part One B: CAPTURING VIDEO FROM A VHS TAPE, DVD (IF YOU DON'T HAVE A DVD-ROM DRIVE), OR ANALOG VIDEO CAMERA

- USB CONNECTION
- DV FIREWIRE BRIDGE
- DAZZLE VIDEO CREATOR
- IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A DIGITAL VIDEO CAMCORDER

-Part One C: CAPTURING DIGITAL VIDEO FROM A DIGITAL VIDEO CAMCORDER

-Part Two

-Part Two A: Basic Intro into compression
-Part Two B: Getting your footage into a common format
-Part Two C: Compressing

- For PocketTV
- For PocketDIVX
- For Pocket Windows Media Player

-Wrap Up

-Appendix

There will be 2 parts to this guide, with an appendix. The first part will be divided in 3 parts, dealing with how you will get the video onto your computer, assuming it is not already there. Much of this is not as much of a tutorial is it is simply outlining your options. This is all assuming you don't have it on your computer already. If so, skip on down to part 2. The second part will deal with compression. Stick with this, and I suggest you read through the entire walkthrough. The reason for this is that you will get a better grasp on compression and capturing video in general, or at least the processes of it.

This is also an informal tutorial, written primarily in first person and designed to feel more like a topical conversation. In addition, before you yell at me for adding extra steps or being incorrect on something, etc, please read all the way through. I generally show my reasoning for presenting information this way. If I did make a mistake in reasoning or leave out a step, which I very likely have done, please email me (address in the wrap up section) and point out my mistake so it may be corrected quickly. In addition, some of this tutorial is copied and pasted from other parts of the tutorial. This is because some may only read one section of the tutorial that applies to them, so they may need knowledge from a section they didn't read.

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT YOUR PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE

- You have a computer

- You have a pocketPC running Windows CE

- You know how to install programs on your pocket PC and can browse your pocket PC

- You know basic math

- You know how to use a computer relatively well

- You know very little about compression

USES FOR THE TUTORIAL

- You want to put a home movie on your PPC

- You want to watch short films available on the internet on your PPC

- You want to watch full movies on your PPC

PART ONE: CAPTURING VIDEO

PART ONE A

CAPTURING DVD VIDEO WITH A DVD-ROM DRIVE ON YOUR COMPUTER

This, you will find, is the easiest way to get video onto your computer. There are myriad programs to put DVD video on your computer. I honestly do not know if it is strictly legal or not, but I belueve that if you own the video you can do what you want with it except distribute it. So, here we go.

We will use a program called SmartRipper, which you can get for FREE at http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/smartripper.cfm/. If the installer is in German like mine was, don't worry, just press the regular buttons. The program is in english.

Hopefully you can figure out how to use this. If not, read the documentation. After all, this is a compression guide, not a ripping guide, eh?

Once you have ripped your .vob files, use DVD2AVI (at http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/) to convert your .vob files into AVI files. Very simple. If this is the method you used, skip on down to part 2.

PART ONE B

CAPTURING VIDEO FROM A VHS TAPE, DVD (IF YOU DON'T HAVE A DVD-ROM DRIVE), OR ANALOG VIDEO CAMERA

There are many ways to accomplish this. First, you will certainly need simple A/V cables to connect your video source to the computer. These can be bought at any electronics store, or any department store. Second, you will need to ascertain your method of getting it on your computer. There are a few ways I am familiar with.

1. USB CONNECTION

Belkin makes connectors for about 40 - 100 dollars that will capture video at 320x240 from your analog video camera, DVD player, or VCR. This resolution is very low for standard editing and such, but since most PPC screens are only 320x240, that resolution should be just fine. Basically, it will capture anything that can be connected through audio / video cables. Buy a USB VideoBus, the one I have is from Belkin. Now, this method is not practical for editing video, because one, it is too small resolution to effectively edit and distribute, and two, the USB VideoBus will not transfer back to your camera (it is only one way). So, buy a videobus, install the needed software, and capture your video. If you do not like this method, read on.

2. DV FIREWIRE BRIDGE

These types of capture cards are extraordinarily expensive. They will capture your video at larger resolutions than the USB connector, but do not expect to get off cheap. Since Pocket PCs are generally 320x240 resolution, capturing at a higher res than that would be useless unless you plan to edit. Again, though, this can connect to anything with an A/V output. Simply buy the card, put it in your computer, install the software, and plug in your A/V cord and record to your computer.

3. DAZZLE VIDEO CREATOR

I have no experience with these, but it seems that it works just like the last two. They aren't too expensive, either.

4. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A DIGITAL VIDEO CAMCORDER

Simple. Plug in your A/V cords to the DV camera (more likely MiniDV) and play your analog tape, record onto your DV camera. Then, when you have all the video from your analog camera on your DV camera, simply move to PART ONE C (below) in which you capture your video using MiniDV FireWire.

PART ONE C

CAPTURING DIGITAL VIDEO FROM A DIGITAL VIDEO CAMCORDER

Chances are, your camera came with some cheap software that will capture video from your firewire card for you. If you know how, use that. Let's assume, for a moment, that you don't have a piece of software you can use, simply for the sake of the thoroughness of this tutorial. You can get free firewire capturing software in many places. An odd, free, full editing suite by Thugs at Bay called Zwei - Stein is available (http://www.thugsatbay.com/) which has a free video capturing utility.

Technically you COULD capture with Windows Movie Maker, but the problem is, WMV is such a horribly incompatible format with any other program. It seems Microsoft wants you to ONLY edit WMV files with their editing software, which is Windows Movie Maker, which sucks. I highly recommend against it, but you can use that if you'd like. I cannot guarantee results with the rest of the tutorial unless you go to Part Two C Compression for Pocket Windows Movie Maker, in which WMV is the target format as it is so it wouldn't make any difference.

Many people don't completely understand what firewire is. In the layperson's terms, it's simply a very very fast way of transferring data. It is not only applicable to digitl video, but for the sake of simplicity we will only speak of that. Firewire requires:

- A computer

- A firewire card INSTALLED IN YOUR COMPUTER. That is, in an AGP or PCI slot of your computer. Firewire cars run between 60-200 dollars, so it shouldn't be difficult to pick one up.

- A firewire cable. They normally come with your card. They plug into the firewire card in the back of your computer.

- SOMETHING TO PLUG INTO IT. In our case, it is your camera. There should be a little slot for your firewire wire that hooks into your camera. If you don't have one, your camera is not digital and you should refer to the part of the guide about capturing from an analog video camera.

If you are intending to use Firewire to capture video to your hard drive, there are a couple of things that you need to know. I am not much of a firewire tech mogul, so the best place to ask is probably your firewire card's manufacturer.

1. You will need a large hard drive that runs at 7200 rpm. You can get away with something less, but you may drop frames. Be prepared for this.

2. You will need to download video capture update for DirectX from Microsoft.com.

3. If your software still refuses to work, or recognise the capture device, then go to the bottom appendix of this tutorial and look for another option of FIREWIRE capturing software.

Attempt to capture your footage with no dropped frames. Dropping frames means that a frame (one single picture of the footage) was lost during transfer, and it will appear that the footage will skip at that section where the frame was lost. Dropped frames aren't the end of the world, but it is generally best to avoid them.

In configuring for capturing, try to pick the highest quality format. What you should pick is a format called "NTSC DV AVI" (or, if you are in Europe, "PAL DV AVI") because that is the native digital format. This will easily lead you into part 2:

PART TWO A

INTRODUCTION

I cannot tailor this tutorial to everyone, so I am going to keep it relatively simple. I am assuming currently that you know that you have to compress to make things small enough to put on your device, but you still don't know what a compressor or compression itself is. Let me explain:

A compressor is also known as a CODEC, which stands for compression/decompression...see it? COmpression/DECompression? When you export, or make your project into one movie file that you could watch in a certain media viewing application such as PocketTV or Pocket Windows Media Player, the size of your file is naturally HUGE. This is because video is displaying about 30 pictures (or FRAMES) on your screen every second, which will be addressed later on. Since you are using a pocket PC, your files may easily be too large to be manageable on your small storage space. So, here comes Mr. Codec. The codec can be applied to your footage like a vice. It compacts your footage so it is easier for people to download. So, you apply it to your footage as you export it. When it is exported, it is a much smaller file size than an uncompressed file size. It is very similar to WinZIP but without the Unzipping (its all packaged in the DECompression part of the CODEC, see?). Compression may take off some of the video's quality, but that is something that you will have to sacrifice to get your movie on your pocket PC. It is possible to compress with high quality, but that also leads to large filesizes (which defeats the point) and also frame skipping in your video playback program, which is very unfavourable to viewing.

Note: this tutorial does not say how to compress for PocketMVP. That is because PocketMVP plays most of the file types you see here (DivX, MPEG-1), and it is not necessary to reiterate how to compress into the same format. If you want to compress for a different PocketMVP playable format, simply follow the steps in Part Two C - Compression for PocketDivX, except change your CODEC when it comes time to select one.

PART TWO B

GETTING YOUR FOOTAGE INTO A COMMON FORMAT

This applies to anyone that does not have their video footage already in a common, AVI format. In many cases, you could probably use just this one step to compress your footage (instead of putting it in a common format, you directly compress to your preferable pocket PC format), however, it is not applicable in all cases so I will deal with it this way only.

This step is NOT NECESSARY if you captured your footage from a camcorder or something like it. It should already be in this common format called "NTSC DV AVI" (or, if you are in Europe, "PAL DV AVI"), the native digital format. It is also not necessary if you are converting to DivX. If you are converting to DivX, go to Part Two C - COMPRESSING for PocketDivX.

First, I am going to dispel a common idea. Most people think that .avi format is as deep as it goes, and any .avi file should play on your pocketPC. This is entirely incorrect. AVI is a file format, not a CODEC. There are many CODECS that can encode to AVI format, such as the popular DivX, HuffYuv, Indeo, and others. So, being in AVI format does not mean that it will work on your pocket PC.

Let's begin.

For the purpose of this tutorial we are going to be using a freeware program called Virtual Dub. This is available at http://www.virtualdub.org/. If you do not yet have it, please download it now. Now, open it up.

Go to File > Open video file... and browse to your video file. Open it.

Go to Video > Full Processing Mode. What this does is allows VirtualDub to modify the structure (including CODEC) of your video file.

Go to Video > Compression... Select Uncompressed (RGB) or something similar to that, and click OK. This sets your video CODEC to a completely uncompressed format. This format is generally universally accepted by video editing and compression applications, so this is a necessary step. This help especially in getting your video file out of "wierd" compression formats.

Go to Audio > Direct Stream Copy. This will make your audio stream that comes through your sound card be directly copied onto the AVI file.

Go to File> Save as AVI...

Didn't that feel good? Now your file is in a nice, versatile format instead of an icky, compressed, hard-to-use-in-any-respectable-video-editor format. However, due to the fact that we used VirtualDub, there is no batch converting. So, if you have those 50 episodes of Family Guy you want to put on your PPC, you'll have to do them one by one or find a different tutorial.

PART TWO C

COMPRESSING

For PocketTV (http://www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/)

PocketTV plays MPEG-1, my favourite of all PocketPC video formats. I like this because, mainly, how fast it plays. MPEG is dependable, compressible, and plays well and in fullscreen. It's probably mainly just because I love the features of the program, and best of all, it's FREE. Well, I know none of the other players cost money, but come on, this one has so freaking many features, and it works so well. So, those are my arguments for PocketTV. On to the true compression.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we are going to use a program called TMPGEnc (http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html). This is a program used simply for compressing (you guessed it!) MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video files. It is very simple to use, especially with its wizard, but the wizard seems to make the versatility a little less "at your fingertips." So, as soon as you open TMPGEnc, press "cancel" on the wizard.

Where it says "Video Source," press browse and browse to your uncompressed video file. Once you select it, the program will automatically assume that you want the audio stream from your video file to be the audio source. If you don't know what that means, ignore it. Where it says output file name, browse to where you want to put the file and name it what you want. I recommend changing the filename from what it was because while the files will be different (one will be MPG and one will be AVI) they both open with Windows Media Player on a PC and look exactly the same as an icon.

Now, we're into the meat of the tutorial. Select Setting. Make sure your stream type is MPEG-1 Video. Your video size should probably be 320x240, since that is the size of a sideways PPC screen, which is how you will view it fullscreen. Aspect ratio should be 4:3 525 line NTSC (625 line PAL for our friends in Europe).

These next two parts are critical, and will effect your filesize vs. quality on your pocketPC. I refer to this entire section within all of the compression tutorial sections.

Framerate. A few thoughts here. A normal NTSC video camera plays video at 30 frames per second. That is, it displays 30 (technically, 29.97) pictures of the film every second. This gives a very smooth look, and is one of the differences between home video and film. Film is shot at 24 (technically, 23.976) frames per second. This gives a distinct film look. Depending on what your video was is how you decide this. I recommend that if you do not understand the next section, you should probably go over the rest of this part of the tutorial and come back to it. Here's the facts:

A higher framerate will give you less quality, because it is spreading out your allocated bits of memory over more pictures. If you were to say that you will give 40 kilobytes to 30 pictures, the pictures would be lower quality than the same 40 kilobytes to 15 pictures. Each picture (frame) is being given more memory to display, so it can have a higher quality of image. That's probably insanely confusing, but trust me on this, the point is that if you raise the framerate, either also raise the bitrate or be prepared to have a lower image quality.

Now, why wouldn't you want to lower the framerate? The only downside of doing so is that your film will appear SLIGHTLY more "choppy" than before. This is not a huge sacrifice. It is probably a good idea to chop your framerate in half. Also, don't raise the filesize past 30. The human eye can't really detect many more frames than 30 per second and also the video was only shot at maximum 30 frames per second, so you'd just be wasting quality.

CONCLUSION ON FRAMERATE: So, if you want to keep the perfect framerate and don't mind the drop in quality / boost in filesize, then make it 24 fps if it came from a film and 30 fps if it came from a home video. Now, if you DO want higher quality, then if your file came from a film, then I recommend that you chop the standard 24 frames per second (fps) framerate to half that (12 fps). If your file came from a home video camera, change the 30 fps to 15. You could even go to 10, but that would make it rather choppy and a little irregular.

Make sure your Rate Control Mode is already set to Constant Bit Rate (CBR).

And this next step is what determines your filesize. For this, you will have to do a little math with me. I can thank some of the more tech-savvy people at the pocketmatrix.com forums for clarifying this:

Decide how many megabytes you want it to be. To get reasonable quality at 12 fps, a good idea is about a megabyte per minute. So, do the math:

I want 1 megabyte per 1 minute. 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes, and 1 minute = 60 seconds. Therefore, I want 1024 kilobytes per 60 seconds. However, it is being measured in kilbits, not kilobytes. There are 8 kilobits in a kilobyte, so it's..

(filesizeMB * 1024 * 8 ) / (Length of movie in minutes * 60 ) = bitrate

1 (megabyte) *1024 * 8 / 1 * 60 = 136.5 kilobits / second.

What I just showed you was simply how to do it for a megabyte per minute. If you want to add quality, simply increase your allowance of filesize. Give all the filesize you can spare and you will have a higher quality movie.

Wait! Come back here, that's not all! We didn't figure our audio into the equation. Audio takes up space too. Now, on a PPC almost all movie audio is easily heard even at the lowest bitrates. So, to save space, go to the Audio tab, put the frequency on 48000, and change the bitrate to 64 kbits/sec. Now, subtract that 64 kbits/sec from your 136.5 kbits/sec and you get about 72 kbits/sec! THAT is your bitrate for roughly 1 megabyte per minute.

Note: For some reason the process is not 100% exact. You will notice discrepancies between your expected and your observed filesizes. It seems that Windows will report your filesize, and it may appear or be larger than your compression. My prognosis: This is either because of an inconsistency within TMPGEnc, or Windows has a flaw that incorrectly reports filesizes in some video. Either way, always leave plenty of room for error. I would recommend that you bump your bitrate down another 12 or 20 kbits, even. This will almost guarantee you a nice compact filesize, while not making a huge difference (since it's only 12 or 20 kbits / sec) in video quality.

Now, BEFORE you export, don't forget to save your template! Press Okay to the Setting menu, and press the Save button adjacent to the Setting button. I recommend you save this in the Templates folder inside your TMPGEnc folder. This will allow your Pocket PC setting to be applied inside the wizard, so you don't have to deal with the messy settings all at once. Next time you begin TMPGEnc, your settings should show up on the wizard. Careful! Sometimes it appears that it won't save some settings correctly, and you may have to readjust your video resolution / framerate / bitrate. This will set the grounds for you, though.

All saved? Good. Now, in the top left part of the window, press Start. This will begin your encoding! Watch the video preview as it compresses your file. It is NORMAL that it will be jumpy, because it is compressing (normally) faster than thirty frames every second, and giving you a full framed video preview would simply slow down the process. What you need to pay attention to is this: is the quality satisfactory? Yes, during periods of large movement it will probably be a little blocky, but that is a sacrifice you may have to make for small filesizes and smooth video. If your quality is NOT satisfactory, press STOP and bump up your bitrate. If you bump it up too high, however, your pocket PC might not be fast enough to play so many bits every second, and will begin to drop frames, so you have to find a good balance. When your video is done exporting, simply move it onto your pocket PC (probably your storage card) using File Explorer and open it in PocketTV. YOU ARE DONE! CONGRATULATIONS!

Here is a test file from an upcoming Star Wars fanfilm of mine Echoes Of Injustice.

CODEC: MPEG-1
Length: 5 seconds
Size: 134 kbs
Resolution: 320x240
Framerate: 15 fps
Bitrate: 72 kb/s

Download here

For PocketDivX (http://www.projectmayo.com/projects/detail.php?projectId=9)

PocketDivX is a truly sorry program, but since many people are fooled into thinking that since DivX is new it must perform 100 ba-illion times better than the antiquated MPEG-1, I must write a tutorial for those that want to compress to DivX.

First, if you wanted to compress to DivX in the first place, you could have followed this tutorial instead of going through the "GETTING YOUR FOOTAGE INTO A COMMON FORMAT" segment. This tutorial will be a combination of "GETTING YOUR FOOTAGE INTO A COMMON FORMAT" and "COMPRESSING for PocketTV" because of the nature of the CODEC. Let's begin.

For the purpose of this tutorial we are going to be using a freeware program called Virtual Dub. This is available at http://www.virtualdub.org/. If you do not yet have it, please download it now. Now, open it up.

Go to File > Open video file... and browse to your video file. Open it.

Go to Video > Full Processing Mode. What this does is allows VirtualDub to modify the structure (including CODEC) of your video file.

Go to Video > Compression... Select the most recent (the one with the largest number next to it) DivX compressor in the left window. This sets your video CODEC to DivX from whatever format you had it in, and will allow it to be played on PocketDivX. Click Configure... in the central right part of the window. DivX CODECs all have different interfaces for their configuration, sadly. Some have sliders to control bitrate and framerate (although some don't even call it framerate, it's just a slider there you can move it between "smooth" and "crisp") and some are directly editable. Pray you have a directly editable one. If not, try to approximate the figures all that you can. The following is an explanation of bitrate and framerate, copied and tailored from the PocketTV section.

These next two parts are critical, and will effect your filesize vs. quality on your pocket PC. I refer to this entire section within all of the compression tutorial sections.

Framerate. A few thoughts here. A normal NTSC video camera plays video at 30 frames per second. That is, it displays 30 (technically, 29.97) pictures of the film every second. This gives a very smooth look, and is one of the differences between home video and film. Film is shot at 24 (technically, 23.976) frames per second. This gives a distinct film look. Depending on what your video was is how you decide this. I recommend that if you do not understand the next section, you should probably go over the rest of this part of the tutorial and come back to it. Here's the facts:

A higher framerate will give you less quality, because it is spreading out your allocated bits of memory over more pictures. If you were to say that you will give 40 kilobytes to 30 pictures, the pictures would be lower quality than the same 40 kilobytes to 15 pictures. Each picture (frame) is being given more memory to display, so it can have a higher quality of image. That's probably insanely confusing, but trust me on this, the point is that if you raise the framerate, either also raise the bitrate or be prepared to have a lower image quality.

Now, why wouldn't you want to lower the framerate? The only downside of doing so is that your film will appear SLIGHTLY more "choppy" than before. This is not a huge sacrifice. It is probably a good idea to chop your framerate in half. Also, don't raise the filesize past 30. The human eye can't really detect many more frames than 30 per second and also the video was only shot at maximum 30 frames per second, so you'd just be wasting quality.

CONCLUSION ON FRAMERATE: So, if you want to keep the perfect framerate and don't mind the drop in quality / boost in filesize, then make it 24 fps if it came from a film and 30 fps if it came from a home video. Now, if you DO want higher quality, then if your file came from a film, then I recommend that you chop the standard 24 frames per second (fps) framerate to half that (12 fps). If your file came from a home video camera, change the 30 fps to 15. You could even go to 10, but that would make it rather choppy and a little irregular. NOTE FOR SOME DIVX COMPRESSORS: As was previously mentioned, some CODECs have a slider instead of directly editable framerates. Just so you know, Crispness brings the framerate down, Smoothness brings it up.

And this next step is what determines your filesize. For this, you will have to do a little math with me. I can thank some of the more tech-savvy people at the pocketmatrix.com forums for clarifying this:

Decide how many megabytes you want it to be. To get reasonable quality at 12 fps, a good idea is about a megabyte per minute. So, do the math:

I want 1 megabyte per 1 minute. 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes, and 1 minute = 60 seconds. Therefore, I want 1024 kilobytes per 60 seconds. However, it is being measured in kilbits, not kilobytes. There are 8 kilobits in a kilobyte, so it's..

(filesizeMB * 1024 * 8 ) / (Length of movie in minutes * 60 ) = bitrate

1 (megabyte) *1024 * 8 / 1 * 60 = 136.5 kilobits / second.

What I just showed you was simply how to do it for a megabyte per minute. If you want to add quality, simply increase your allowance of filesize. Give all the filesize you can spare and you will have a higher quality movie.

Wait! Come back here, that's not all! We didn't figure our audio into the equation. Audio takes up space too. Now, on a PPC almost all movie audio is easily heard even at the lowest bitrates. So, to save space, go to the Audio tab, put the frequency on 48000, and change the bitrate to 64 kbits/sec. Now, subtract that 64 kbits/sec from your 136.5 kbits/sec and you get about 72 kbits/sec! THAT is your bitrate for roughly 1 megabyte per minute.

Note: For some reason the process is not 100% exact. You will notice discrepancies between your expected and your observed filesizes. It seems that Windows will report your filesize, and it may appear or be larger than your compression. My prognosis: This is either because of an inconsistency within TMPGEnc, or Windows has a flaw that incorrectly reports filesizes in some video. Either way, always leave plenty of room for error. I would recommend that you bump your bitrate down another 12 or 20 kbits, even. This will almost guarantee you a nice compact filesize, while not making a huge difference (since it's only 12 or 20 kbits / sec) in video quality.

Done with bitrate.

If you have the option, put in a large value (like 999) for "keyframes every....seconds." No need to explain keyframes to you, just do it.

Press Ok.

Go to Video > Filters > Resize. This will save you compression and space and playback ability by making the video size the same as the screen of your PPC. For New width, put 320, and New Height, put 240.

Go to Audio > Full Processing Mode. This will allow you to edit the DivX audio.

Select Audio > Conversion and select 22050 Hz. Press OK.

Select Audio > Compression... and select one of the DivX sound options. In the right windows, select one of the compression scenarios that is between 32 and 64 kbps, because if you go lower than that the sound quality will SUCK and if you go higher you will take up more space than you want. Press OK.

Go to File> Save as AVI... and choose a name and destination. Click OK, and when it is exported, place it on your pocket PC and open it with PocketDivX. YOU ARE DONE! CONGRATULATIONS!

Here is a test file from an upcoming Star Wars fanfilm of mine Echoes Of Injustice.

CODEC: DivX 5.1 (note: DivX 5.1 has been reported to not work on some PPCs. If this is the case, play your file with PocketMVP, at http://home.adelphia.net/~mdukette/downloads.html)
Length: 5 seconds
Size: 158 kbs
Resolution: 320x240
Framerate: 30 fps
Bitrate: 72 kb/s

Download here

For Pocket Windows Media Player

This is a fairly simple one. I dislike the limitations of Pocket Windows Media Player in terms of its versatility, but I love it's filesize vs. quality ratio. I very much dislike the WMV format on the PC, because it is nearly impossible to convert to other formats (for our viewers on the Mac, for instance). However, it is nice for compression for the pocket PC, so let's get busy.

Assuming you have Windows Me or later, you should have Windows Movie Maker. We will (sadly) be using that, because it's just so darned simplistic. Open that up (it should be in Start > Programs > Accessories). Go to File > New > Project. Right click in your workspace, and press Import... and browse to your video file. Now, when your video is analyzed, drag your video onto the timeline (or storyboard, whichever you have selected).

Go to File > Save Movie...

Change the setting to Other... so you can (more or less) configure your video.

When you select the profile, watch your video profile and your expected file size. These will determine the quality of your video. Get it as near to the filesize you want it to be or think it should be (I'd say decent quality is 2 megs per minute, which is close to Video For Broadband NTSC(384 kbps)". Try to stay within 15-30 fps, and 320x240 video size.

Press OK, export your film, put it on your Pocket PC using File Explorer, and open it in Pocket Windows Media Player. YOU ARE DONE! CONGRATULATIONS!

That is quite simply all there is to WMV compression. There are many other ways to do it, including manually variable bitrates, frame sizes, and framerates, but that is the way I do it. I hate WMV so much it's not really worth putting any more effort into it than that.

Here is a test file from an upcoming Star Wars fanfilm of mine Echoes Of Injustice.

CODEC: Windows Media Video
Length: 5 seconds
Size: 174 kbs
Resolution: 208x155
Framerate: 30 fps
Setting: Video For Broadband NTSC(256 kb/s)

Download here

WRAP UP

Was video compression as hard as you thought? After reading this tutorial I would be surprised if you weren't completely confused because of my bad writing, but at least you have a nice looking product, right? Comprehension should come with practice. I apologize for the tardiness of this tutorial, but I hope that it didn't disappoint in being at least halfway definitive. If you have any questions reguarding this tutorial, or even want to tell me how bad it sucks, drop me a line at Neszis (at) tampabay . rr . com. If you want immediate answers, and you use AOL Instant Messenger, my screenname is Neszis.

Best of luck to you in your compression needs.