Linux peeps have it easy. The tools used (mencoder, fuzemux) are commandline tools especially suited for shell scripting. If you can do scripts–and why are you using Linux if you can’t?–then here’s all you need to get videos onto the Fuze:
mencoder -msglevel all=0:statusline=5 -ofps 20 \ -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vqscale=3:keyint=15 \ -vf field,scale=224:-2,crop=:176,expand=:176,harddup \ -srate 44100 -af resample=44100:0:1,format=s16le \ -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 \ input\_file -o temp.avi fuzemux temp.avi output\_file.avi
If you want to change the video aspect ratio (AR) to better fit the Fuze 4:3 screen, do a case statement and swap out the -vf parameter above with these:
Pan-n-scan: -vf field,scale=-2:176,crop=224,expand=224,harddup Forced 16:9 AR: -vf field,scale=224:126,expand=:176,harddup Forced full-screen AR: -vf field,scale=224:176,harddup
Ewelot’s old script has a image-scaling bug with ‘tall’ videos. If the video AR < 224/176, you get garbage on the right-side of the screen.
Don’t use the mencoder bundled with your system. Download/compile latest SVN. This may not apply to the Fuze, but for anything that deals with H.264, you’d want the latest compile, as x264 is in active development and change almost on a weekly basis:
mencoder: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
fuzemux: http://code.google.com/p/fuzemux/
I’m finding mencoder to be a useful front-end for x264, since it can do automatic image resizing, which x264 can’t do at the moment. I can do the same thing in AVISynth, but it’s a Win app, and requires more tech savvy in install and use. The flip side is that mencoder is more limited. I’m trying to find a way to do auto-IVTC and auto-deinterlace w/ mencoder, which probably can’t be done w/o external tools.