I have a large collection of AVI movies converted, using FairUse Wizard 2 (there is a free “light” version), from my personal DVDs and they are mostly widescreen. I passed a few of them through the Sansa Media Converter and viewed them on the Sansa Fuze; they come through as widescreen, but on such a small screen they are not really viewable. My next step was to figure out how to reprocess them to fill the Sansa Fuze screen, which meant converting them using a pan-and-scan 4:3 ratio. So I went looking for an appropriate video converter; after testing quite a few, I decided that XMedia Recode was the best and easiest to use (and its free). Here is the process and settings that I’m using to convert my AVI movies for use on the Sansa Fuze (Note: Based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t recommend even trying to convert and play any movies with fast movement, the video gets very jergy).
- Start up XMedia Recode
- With Movie highlighted, drag-and-drop a movie into the File window
- Select the Format tab, within the Ouput Format screen, select Profile: SanDisk/SanDisk Sansa Fuze (avi); the Video Codec settings should be MPEG4 and Audio Track 1 and 2 MP3
- Select an Output of Save to folder and Browse… to the Destination folder where you want to store the converted movie
- Click on the movie listed in the File window and select the Video tab
- Verify that the settings are: FourCC: XVID ; Framerate: 20 ; Rate control mode: Average bitrate ; Bitrate: 6 00 ; Number of B-Frames: 0 ; Threads: 0 (Auto.); GOP length: 15 ; Color mode: YUV 4:2:0 Planer ; no other selections. Note: Don’t need a bitrate above 600. SanDisk Sansa Fuze video specifications: Container: Fully interleaved AVI; Codec: MPEG-4 Simple Profile level 1 or 2; Bit rate: up to 512 Kbps; Resolution: QCIF+ (224x176); FPS: up to 20 fps.
- Click on the Filters/Preview tab
- Select Resolution and set: Video Size: 224x176 ; Scaling mode: Lanczos ; Aspect ratio: 4:3 ; Zoom: Pan Scan
- Optional settings. From the Resolution pull-down menu, select Denoise and click on Enable Denoise ; then select Deblocking and click on Enable Deblocking
- At the top of the window, click on Add Job and then on Encode
- After about 30 to 40 minutes you should get the converted movie in your Destination folder. I’d recommend you verify that the movie plays well, especially audio synchronization near the end of the movie
- Connect your Sansa Fuze to your computer and then start up Sansa Media Converter
Note : You can download the Sansa Media Converter via Sansa Updater (after installing Sansa Updater and connecting your Sansa Fuze it will be listed in the Downloads window) - Click on Add Media and select a movie converted by XMedia Recode
- Select the Sanza Fuze icon or the microSD icon
- Click on Convert to start the conversion and transfer to your Sansa Fuze
- After about 10 to 15 minutes you should get the converted movie on your Sansa Fuze
Note : The movie will be between 10% to 70% bigger than the Xmedia Recode version - Disconnect the Sansa Fuze from your computer and play the movie
Update : A simpler approach is to download and install FuzeVidz. To resize and convert a movie for your Sansa Fuze, drag-and-drop your movie onto the required FuzeVid CMD file (I use CONVERT_PanScan.cmd ); after conversion, just drag-and-drop directly onto your Sansa Fuze; for more details_,_ see http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=sansafuse&thread.id=39242)
Message Edited by writedoc on 03-08-2010 03:16 PM