Appropriate settings for the Creative Zen?

[wenglish]

I have been encoding for a Creative Zen 8GB with CloneDVD Mobile using the settings for Creative Zen Vision, which I believe uses the DivX codec (if I'm reading the Devices.ini correctly). This has worked pretty well, although I am getting some A/V sync problems (they are off by a couple of seconds).

Creative says the Zen supports the following: "MJPEG, WMV9 and (with transcoding - MPEG1 and 2, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD)", and has a screen resolution of 320x240.

Would I be better off using MPEG-4 simple profile instead of DivX? Or are they synonymous?

Can anyone suggest the best device to choose in CloneDVD Mobile to encode for the Creative Zen? I'd ask in the CloneDVD Mobile Format Extention Thread thread, but we're not supposed to post requests there.

Thanks ... Mike

 

[KnoWei]

It doesn't hurt to experiment. Try a couple different profiles that match up with your device's specs. But instead of doing the entire movie use the scissors tool to pick just one chapter. Personally I avoid chapter one because that's usually titles and stars vs. any real action or dialog.

Also - use single pass for your tests. You should be able to convert a chapter in 5 minutes or less. Take notes on what profiles and settings you use and put something clever in the file name so you can tie it back to your notes. In this way you can churn through a lot of tests in a relatively short time.

If you find a profile that gives you the picture quality you want then for audio/video sync you have at least two options:
Play with the "-delay 0.1" parameter in the "mopts=" line in the Devices.ini (assuming it exists in the profile you end up using - which btw it does for Zen Vision).

You can also force the audio to be converted at a constant bit rate which has helped me in some A/V sync situations. I use this line in the Generic DivX profile when I need it. Always make a clean back-up copy of your Devices.ini before you start mucking about!

SLYSOFT ORIGINAL
mopts=-audio-preload 0.8 -delay 0.1 -lameopts br=%abrate%

KnoWei's CONSTANT BIT RATE FOR AUDIO MOD
mopts=-audio-preload 0.8 -lameopts cbr:br=256

You can use a br=192, 128, 64, etc. (but only one at at time!) based on your player recommendation. Note that my mod also takes out the 100 ms delay. That was put in by SlySoft after a long painful thread earlier this year on a slight sync problem introduced by MEncoder. I still get occasional A/V sync problems. Fortunately I use a player that let's me adust for audio delay on the fly so as long as the delay is constant I can adjust once for the movie and leave it alone. I'm still tinkering with A/V sync trying to figure out what triggers it for my environment. But that's another thread...

~KnoWei

 

[profcolli]

KnoWei's CONSTANT BIT RATE FOR AUDIO MOD
mopts=-audio-preload 0.8 -lameopts cbr:br=256

Thanks KnoWei - the cbr setting was just what I needed to finish my Samsung YP-P2 devices.ini profile - it only accepts constant bit rate so that was the last step for my pre-Samsung Media Studio conversion

 

[KnoWei]

@profcolli,

Glad that CBR was helpful. It was a good trade for "threads=2". :clap:

~KnoWei

 

[profcolli]

@profcolli,

Glad that CBR was helpful. It was a good trade for "threads=2". :clap:

~KnoWei

The beauty of forums...

Happy New Year!!

 

[wenglish]

Thanks KnoWei and sorry for the slow response.

I'll try playing with the settings when I get a chance, although I had been hoping someone with a Zen had already done the legwork, ah well.

Mike

 

[max53]

I received my ZEN 8Go yesterday and tried simply Generic (DivX) in 320x240 and it works very well with no problem of A/V sync.

Max

 

[wenglish]

Thanks Max, I'm trying Generic DivX now. It doesn't look like there are any differences between Zen Vision and Generic DivX that might affect a/v sync, but we'll see

Mike

 

[wenglish]

The Generic DivX profile didn't help. The synch problem is more noticeable the further along you go in the video, so by the time you fast-forward to 1:54:00 it's off by ~4 seconds (I haven't tried letting it play to that point rather than fast-forward to it). So this means I can't experiment by only encoding a single chapter.

I have a suspicion it may be a bug in the player, since when I play the same AVI (created using the Zen Vision or the Generic DivX profiles) on my PC, there is no synch issue when I seek to the same point.

I am trying WMV now, but I notice that it uses the WMV8 codec, not WMV9, and also Windows Media Player insists on converting the file before synching it to the player, which takes a long time.

If WMV doesn't fix the A/V sync problem, what are the chances that taking out "-delay 0.1" will help, or is that a constant delay throughout the video (remember the difference between audio & video gets greater the further you go in the video, so a constant correction isn't going to help?)

I'll also try KnoWei's suggestion of using CBR for audio.

Thanks again,

Mike

 

[wenglish]

Well, using the WMV (experimental) profile worked a lot better.

Slysoft folks - what are the chances of you updating CloneDVD Mobile to use the WMV9 codec? I am assuming that the reason Windows Media Player 10 is converting my file is because it's encoded with the WMV8 codec (FourCC = WMV2) rather than the WMV9 codec (FourCC = WMV3).

Thanks ... Mike

 

[profcolli]

Well, using the WMV (experimental) profile worked a lot better.

Slysoft folks - what are the chances of you updating CloneDVD Mobile to use the WMV9 codec? I am assuming that the reason Windows Media Player 10 is converting my file is because it's encoded with the WMV8 codec (FourCC = WMV2) rather than the WMV9 codec (FourCC = WMV3).

Thanks ... Mike

Yes, that would be really nice (would save me one step in the conversion process for my WMV9 capable Samsung YP-P2).

I also have to have files converted by WMP10+ from the generic WMV8 (non-DRM) format produced by CloneDVDMobile. Because this then sets up a DRM "synchronization partnership" I prefer not to use that method and go through a conversion using the Samsung Media Studio to its own SVI (modified AVI) format.

 

[JV1]

Use The "Convert" File in the Zen Software

I had the sync problem too but found a way to fix it (at least on the 3 videos I tried it with). Simply use CloneMobile DVD to produce a full length video, then when your Zen is connected to the computer via the USB, open the Zen software and go to "add media", choose your video, :agree:from there keep clicking and it will come to a spot where it tells you the video needs to be converted. Use the Zen conversion software and wait 20 or so minutes for it to do the conversion. Check the results - so far all the previous out-of-sync problems I had were fixed by this method. So, yeah, there seems to be a fix but its pretty time consuming and ideally you don't need to do it twice to get it right. Can't Slysoft come up with a method for getting it converted with just one pass?