I think you nailed it. I own a Sansa e260v2. Just when I was ready to quit on videos because of the dreaded sync issues, I stumbled on your post. It looked serious enough, so I tried it with a couple of avi movies.
The first challenge was setting up WinFF with the preset you provided. Click Edit/Presets, enter a name (Sansa), a label (e200v2 AVI), copy the string into the command line and enter “avi” in the extension. Save the preset. Add the source avi in the list of files to convert, select Convert To… the preset name (Sansa) and label (e200v2 AVI), set the output folder and press Convert. Watch the DOS window (ffmpeg) carefully for error messages (see below).
The first movie had a standard 128bit mp3 audio stream. It looked like a very straightforward job, but it wasn’t. I first ran it through WinFF. The ffmpeg window was giving messages about “sync errors”. I loaded the source in a freeware called AviDemux which warned me right away that the index had to be rebuilt and offered to do it for me. I accepted and saved a corrected copy of the source avi. I ran the corrected source in WinFF and this time, the ffmpeg log was clean. I ran the converted output through SMC and watched portions of the movie on my Sansa. Everything (video, audio, sync) was perfect.
The second movie had an AC3 audio stream (48000 Hz, 192 kb/s). I first tried running it through WinFF but ffmpeg was giving me errors (header and sync messages). So I decided to first convert the ac3 stream to a standard 128bit mp3 stream and remux it into the avi container. This is how I did it:
- With virtualdubmod: Demux ac3 audio stream.
- With headac3he: Convert ac3 to wav 16/44.
- With syncview: Find video/audio alignment adjustment required, if any. With Wav Export Tool (syncview), export to corrected wav. Reconfirm alignment.
- With lame: Convert wav to cbr mp3: lame -b 128 -h -m s <infile.wav> <outfile.mp3>
- With virtualdubmod: Replace ac3 audio with cbr mp3. Compress video with xvid, highdef, single pass, 700 kbps, uncheck B-VOPs (packed bitstreams).
In the last step, it was important to uncheck the B-VOPs box in the xvid configuration to eliminate some ffmpeg messages about “vfw-avi packed b frames”. I ran this corrected avi source through WinFF with my Sansa preset. The ffmpeg log was clean. I ran the converted output through SMC and watched portions of the movie on my Sansa. Everything (video, audio, sync) was perfect.
There may be a more direct route, but this one works. I should also mention that I used G-Spot a few times to find out exactly what was in the work-in-progress avi, understand the messages given by ffmpeg and figure out the next step. The obvious conclusion is that this is far from straightforward and may be above the capabilities of the vast majority of Sansa v2 owners. Once you’re setup with the required software (winFF, avidemux, virtualdubmod, headac3he, syncview, lame, g-spot), knowing a consistently good procedure is half the work.
Message Edited by ArsenoLupino on 02-04-2009 07:08 AM
