What are the requirements for video conversion?

I’m experiencing difficulty playing video clips on my Sansa Fuze, despite using the required Video Converter…

Of the dozen or so different video clips of different formats (listed in Help) that I have attempted to process with “Sansa Video Converter,” only one has successfully upoaded to my Sansa Fuze v1.01.07 player, and it plays OK.

Must I firstly convert a video file to 220 x 176 frame size, 20 fps and a certain bitrate, must the upload be managed by Windows Media Player, anybody know the trick?

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/101/kw/fuze%20video%20converter

Or try some other converters:

http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/mp3/articles/102936.aspx

Thanks. Your kind response was very helpful.

Hi Djard. So which converter worked here if I may ask?

Sanza is utterly dishonest in advertising that Fuze supports the following file formats: "ASF, AVI, DAT, DivX(ver 6.0), DVR-MS, MOV, MP4, MPEG 1, QT, WMV, and 3gp/3gpp2.: It does not!

I loaded a large number of video clips in a variety of file formats, encoded with XviD, DivX, H.264 and many others. None are supported by Sansa Fuze.

I have over a dozen excellent video converters, like XMediaRecode that genuinely supports AVI, MP4, etc. My guess is that Sansa Fuze is a proprietary-based device requiring its own app and codec for converting media files. A more honest ad by SanDisk would be that owners of Sansa Fuze media players must firstly convert AVI files to Sansa AVI files.

After installing Quick Media Converter, a colorful GUI for FFmpeg, I batch converted about six video clips to 3gt format. They all failed to play. I think Fuze requires the ceation of a thumbnail file (*.thm), which is an image taken from the first frame of the video, before the associated video file can be played. Such restricting technology lowers SanDisk to the rank of a company like AOL.

I’ll play with the issue a little more before concluding that I need to be cautious when buying any SanDisk product in the future.

Yes, the video specs are VERY weasel worded, verging on if not crossing into dishonesty.

The idea was apparently that the Sansa Media Converter could squash all those formats into Fuze playability. You called it Sansa Video Converter–make sure you were using the right program and not somebody’s homebrew.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4431/~/downloading-and-launching-the-sansa-media-converter

Or maybe SanDisk figured that people would get pretty tired of trying to watch video on a 1-1/2-inch screen and go back to listening to music, which is what the Fuze is quite good for.

You seem pretty tech-oriented so maybe this post wil help–seems to have the numbers you were looking for.

http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Sansa-Fuze/Converted-video-without-SMC-successfully/m-p/72919

You can search the board for stuff like Fuze video specs too.

The Fuze came out about 5 years ago and is discontinued, and SanDisk gave up on video playback after the Fuze and the View (which was almost universally reviled).

People were using the free Any Video Converter back in the day–don’t know if that’s still around.  

Seems to be you have to take nearly all consumer electronics specs with a grain of salt, but the video promises deserved a shakerful.

Might want to try Video4fuze, a video converting program written by a former member here after he too encountered frustration in converting videos that would play sucessfully on his Fuze player.

I haven’t used it myself, but many, many people who have recommend it highly. :wink:

Thanks. I’ll give it a try.

Yep, it works nicely. Unlike the “Sansa Media Converter” that succeeds in properly converting any media file, “Video4Fuze” has converted every file type I have tried. I also tried using XMediaRecode to perform the same task but could not adjust the parameters low enough at level 1. Below are the specs at which “Video4Fuze” renders video, if anyone is interested. 

V   I   D   E   O  :
FORMAT: AVI/MPEG-4 (H.263)
BITRATE: 683 kBPS
CODEC: DivX5.0
RESOLUTION: 224 X 176
DAR: 1.273:1 (14:11)
FRAMERATE: 20
LEVEL: 1
BIT DEPTH: 8
BITS/(PIXEL*FRAME): 0.864
GOP: 15 (IPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP)

A   U   D   I   O   :
FORMAT: MP3
CH: 2 (Joint stereo)
BITRATE: 128 Kbps
MODE: CBR
SAMPLING: 44100 Kbps

Great that it’s working–and that it’s still around. Love the open-source geeks. 

I don’t know any requirement of that. The way for me to convert video is to use a DRM removal program. As crazy iTunes fan, I’m used to convert videos from M4V to MP4 and compatible formats with iTunes M4V video converter. Since all iTunes videos are in M4V which DRM protected, making it impossible to be played on Apple unauthorized devices like Google play, Samsung smart TV, Android phone, etc. Fortunately, now you can use tool to remove DRM protection and convert videos without hampering the quality at faster speed. See more details on HERE. Hope this tip is useful to you.