I haven’t run into this issue although admittedly I rip very little video for such a tiny screen as the Fuze, mostly I wanted to learn the process.
From what you have said it appears that one option would be the WinX DVD Ripper Platinum upgrade (assuming this works for you) or choose different free DVD ripper software. Getting the DVD video converted and installed on any of the media players (not just the Fuze) does require this initial ripping process so you have to discover the tools to make this work for the DVD sources that interest you.
Here’s more of a step by step using WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. Start WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. Put a DVD in your computer’s CD/DVD drive (close any extra windows like WMP or windows explorer that come up). In WinX, click on ‘DVD Disk’ to load the disk into the ripper. Sometimes WinX will recognize the DVD without you doing anything, especially if you put the DVD into your computer after you’ve launched WinX. To the right of the little viewing screen in WinX, select the ‘Title’ you want to rip in the title column. Hint, it’s usually the longest title on the DVD, WinX should find the right one. Just below that but still to the right of the screen, select the Output Folder for where you want to put the ripped video file so you can find it later. WinX will name the file based on the Title you selected in the previous step. Below the little screen in WinX, click on the ‘To MP4’ tab and enter the following settings:
Audio Quality: 128
Audio Sample Rate: 44100
Volume: + 2 db
Format: aac
Video quality: 700 Kbps
Video Frame Rate: 23.97
Format: MPEG4
Output Image Setting: Custom Size and Keep Aspect Ratio
Video Resolution 320:240
Click ‘Start’ Another window should open indicating WinX is ripping. Once it’s done, the main folder should open. Click on the appropriate subfolder and find the new file WinX just created. The file name should look something like the name of the title you ripped.
Open video4fuze. Click on ‘Add Files…’ and locate your ripped video file from the location you entered in one of the above steps, a double click should add it to the list in video4fuze. Click on the ‘Select output folder’ in the next button, locate the folder where you want to put the Fuze video file and click OK. Press the ‘Convert’ button below the picture of the Fuze and wait. video4fuze will open a couple of windows while it’s doing it’s thing, some of them will say ‘skipping frame’ over and over again. Ignore all of those. Once video4fuze is done, you should be able to find a file with the same name of the video you want converted except ‘_fuze’ has been added to the file name. Drag/drop or otherwise relocate this file to your fuze and it should play.
i run on vista and dont know how to “run it under Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode”, can someone explain this to me? i have had my fuze for over a year and have yet to figure out how to run videos on it, but i am determined to learn how…
Hi, I downloaded this to help put my movies onto the sansa or a memory card and all I get is error messages. I have tried so many ways to do this and have failed at all! I must be missing something…
What have you tried (which apps, what steps) and where did they fail? Since I use two steps when I convert, I can verify the first step (DVD rip) worked by playing the video in WMP. For the second step (convert to fuze), the converters are a little quirky but the resulting video can also be played in WMP to test them out. I guess there’s a third step too - loading into the fuze.
You’ll have to provide a little more info to figure out what’s not working.
Hi there all! Thank you so much for the help and words of wisdom! I haven’t had the time to sit down and go through the process yet, but I am eager to try! I will give it a go this Friday and let you all know how it turns out. Again thank you all, I am sure others who were in my position find all your kindness very helpful too! Most sincerely- momz
Speaking as a guy with little understanding of codecs and video coding, and program coding, I have several .flv music videos… will V4F convert those? And will it keep the aspect ratio?
Maybe. Mencoder, the actual tool which V4F is a front-end for, can handle FLVs and most every other container and codec known to man. But V4F’s implementation is very limited, probably only to AVIs. It didn’t work with VOB when I tried.
No. V4F by default will stretch widescreen vids vertically to fit Fuze’s 4:3 LCD. Typically, 16:9 is handled on 4:3 screens w/ letterboxing. The mencoder command for this is
I have also experimented a bit with different number-of-frames-per-index settings in AVIMux GUI. Sometimes a value lower than 4000 prevents the seek crashes, but sometimes not, and sometimes a lower value also causes the video to appear shorter on the fuze with the end cut off. Apparently this depends on the source video.
I think the problem is that AVIMux can’t create the OpenDML indexes in the same way SMC does. SMC inserts index chunks before the frame chunks that are referenced in it (the first two chunks in the movi list are video and audio index chunks), and each index chunk has exactly 4000 entries. AVIMux creates the indexes later in the file, with backward references. And the video index chunks have only roughly the 4000 entries you set. The audio index chunks are inserted together with the video index chunks, which means they have only half as much entries.
Even videos encoded using SMC and then remuxed using AVIMux cause seek crashes, which means there is definitely something wrong with the container format AVIMux creates, and not (or at least not only) with mencoder’s mpeg-4 encoding.
I’m trying to write a new remuxer now, but i don’t have much time for this next week so it might take a while. Or does anyone know an AVI muxer that gives you more control over where and how the OpenDML indexes are created?
Message Edited by earthcrosser on 02-15-2010 12:41 AM
I don’t think AVIMux is at fault. The cause lies squarely on SMC. Considering that the SMC package itself weighs in at over 100MB, that it can’t keep AV in sync, and that it uses a ‘proprietary’ container format that nobody else uses, you’d have to conclude that the coders are a bunch of clueless noobs that cobbled stuff together to satisfy their contract requirement, and nothing else. It’s not a surprise that no other commercial transcoder supports the Fuze.
I’ve no desire to dig into the hoary AVI file structure. If you can whip up a new muxer, great, but I don’t think you’ll find much in the way of better tools than AVIMux. AVI is a dying format, and most hardware players have moved onto MP4.
Hmm, if you have SMC installed, see if it’s monolithic app, or smaller discrete apps with scripting glue. If the latter, then maybe there’s a muxer in there to salvage.
Another possible workaround is to try a shorter keyframe interval.
The program works well after installation, i only have one problem.
The video after the convertion, plays in mono sound instead of stereo. I had the same problem with SMC. The original videos that i add to the converter are stereo, but for some reason the output is mono.
ssorgatem, you are the MAN! (or WOMAN, if that’s the case ) As a Ubunta/Fuze user, this has been killing me! I downloaded your app, tried it, and it worked like a charm. You made my day!
I have also experimented a bit with different number-of-frames-per-index settings in AVIMux GUI. Sometimes a value lower than 4000 prevents the seek crashes, but sometimes not, and sometimes a lower value also causes the video to appear shorter on the fuze with the end cut off. Apparently this depends on the source video.
I think the problem is that AVIMux can’t create the OpenDML indexes in the same way SMC does. SMC inserts index chunks before the frame chunks that are referenced in it (the first two chunks in the movi list are video and audio index chunks), and each index chunk has exactly 4000 entries. AVIMux creates the indexes later in the file, with backward references. And the video index chunks have only roughly the 4000 entries you set. The audio index chunks are inserted together with the video index chunks, which means they have only half as much entries.
Even videos encoded using SMC and then remuxed using AVIMux cause seek crashes, which means there is definitely something wrong with the container format AVIMux creates, and not (or at least not only) with mencoder’s mpeg-4 encoding.
I’m trying to write a new remuxer now, but i don’t have much time for this next week so it might take a while. Or does anyone know an AVI muxer that gives you more control over where and how the OpenDML indexes are created?
Message Edited by earthcrosser on 02-15-2010 12:41 AM
earthcrosser:
Wow- this is the first post I have seen that specifically addresses video4fuze output vs. SMC output. I am no expert at video technology but if there’s ANYTHING I can do to help, I will.
I always get video crashes when using video4fuze for the longer shows I convert. Otherwise I would consider video4fuze the full solution.
This should produce exactly the same container format as SMC does. I have tested it with a few videos and didn’t notice any problems during seeking so far, and running it over a video already converted using SMC seems to produce exactly the bitwise-same file (except for the info tag and the the legacy index which it doesn’t create)
It doesn’t encode the video of course, i.e. the input file already has to be encoded using mencoder or similar with the correct setting. I have written a small Windows batch file that does the complete conversion (calling mencoder first and then fuzemux), or it would have to be integrated in video4fuze as a replacement for AVI-Mux GUI.
) As a Ubunta/Fuze user, this has been killing me! I downloaded your app, tried it, and it worked like a charm. You made my day!