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LOVE this tool! Use to convert to mp4 for iTouch as well as Sony Walkman Video Player (NWZ-S544). Wonderful, wonderful converter! Very easy to use. Visit author's webpage for how-to's/tips/guide. There are also guides on Videohelp site to get you started. I rip DVD movies to my hard drive first using freeware portion of DVDFab. Handbrake works perfectly for iTouch just choosing the Handbrake iPod Touch preset. The Sony Walkman, on the other hand, was a bit of a trial. Long story short, THANK YOU for your posts "frim fram sauce" on "anythingbutipod.com" forum "Walkman H.264 avc Video Encoding Tips"....Not a lot of help out there for the Sony Walkmans. All of the info is actually in the "manual" that is loaded on the Walkman that you install on your computer, but you have to be able to interpret it (end of manual under Specs for video format AVC~mp4).In handbrake, CHOOSE THE IPOD PRESET (same max screen width of 320 pixels~for Walkman to view videos horizontally). Then the only things you HAVE to change are under Picture tab, make sure Keep Aspect Ratio is checked. Under Video tab, Sony is serious about the max 30 fps, so change the framerate to 29.97 in Handbrake. (My TV DVD shows from the 80s and 90s worked fine without changing this, but everything else froze my player and was glitchy 5-6 minutes into the video.) Also under Video tab,Average Bitrate can't be greater than 768 kbps (much smaller bitrate will still give excellent video quality on this small screen). Under Advanced tab in the bottom commands/input window, change "level=30" to "level=13" (for level max 1.3 on the Walkman). I also usually under the Subtitles tab will check "forced only". My walkman doesn't recognize chapters, fast forward is all I can do. I also make my videos under an hour to help prevent audio/video going out of synch on the Walkman, easy to do by selecting only certain chapters at a time under the Source section in Handbrake.Don't bother with 2-pass, just a waste of time with this new version of Handbrake for my 2.4"-screen. Once you've changed everything, do yourself a favor and under the presets on the right, click Add button and follow instructs to make a new preset for the Walkman. The important stuff will save in the preset, like level=13 and 30 fps (check "store cropping values" option when adding the preset).Anyway, after a LOT of frustration with the Sony Walkman, YIPPEE! Handbrake is a great program! Conversion takes a bit longer than the video playback time on my old computer running WinXP(AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.07GHz 1.5 Gb RAM WinXP, Radeon 9200SE 128Mb) and is very quick (about 16 mins for 1hr video) on my notebook running Vista 32-bit (AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core 3 Gb RAM, ATI Radeon x1250), depending on source file and output. Thanks Handbrake! |
