The main problem is Sony itself, and getting information on what the device will play.
For a video (and the audio) to play on your device you need to know what video and audio codecs and what containers are supported by it
The codec is the way in which the video bitstream is encoded and compressed. (Eg MPEG4) The container is the structure of the file containing the compressed video and audio bit streams (eg Audio video interleaved AVI). The problem I found is the names can be similar as the term "MPEG4" is often used as a codec and a container (mp4).
The Sony site says it will be play MPEG 4 and AVC.
AVC is a codec "Advanced Video Coding" (or MPEG-4 Part 10 or H.264), so what "MPEG 4" above is implying I'm not sure.
Audio is less clear: Sony are wedded to ATRAC, I don't know if this device can recognize any other audio compression (eg MP3).
From the website it's difficult to tell what audio codec is supported. One of the core MPEG-4 audio codecs is Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). So you could try using that.
CloneDVDMobile is an easy to use interface to the open source Mencoder application, and mencoder supports AVC (h.264) and AAC.
To see what video codecs you have installed, at the Windows command prompt: change the directory to the <drive>:\Program Files\SlySoft\CloneDVDmobile\apps
then type
mencoder -ovc help
and you should get something like:
MEncoder dev-SVN-r21190-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ (Family: 6, Model: 10, Stepping: 0)
CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Available codecs:
copy - frame copy, without re-encoding. Doesn't work with filters.
frameno - special audio-only file for 3-pass encoding, see DOCS.
raw - uncompressed video. Use fourcc option to set format explicitly.
nuv - nuppel video
lavc - libavcodec codecs - best quality!
vfw - VfW DLLs, read DOCS/HTML/en/encoding-guide.html.
qtvideo - QuickTime DLLs, currently only SVQ1/3 are supported.
xvid - XviD encoding
x264 - H.264 encoding
I have the codec available - if you don't, then you'll need to download and install the codec (I think it should be part of CloneDVDMobile)
To check audio codecs type
mencoder -oac help
You should get something like
MEncoder dev-SVN-r21190-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ (Family: 6, Model: 10, Stepping: 0)
CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Available codecs:
copy - frame copy, without re-encoding (useful for AC3)
pcm - uncompressed PCM audio
mp3lame - cbr/abr/vbr MP3 using libmp3lame
lavc - FFmpeg audio encoder (MP2, AC3, ...)
twolame - Twolame MP2 audio encoder
faac - FAAC AAC audio encoder
So you could try editing devices.ini and insert the following
[NW-A 800]
Manufacturer=Sony
ScreenRatio=4:3
Res1=320x240
ResAna1=320x180
AllowNativeTVResolution=1
lavcopts=aglobal=1:vglobal=1:vcodec=h264:coder=1:acodec=aac
lavfopts=format=mp4
VCodec=h264
ACodec=aac
ARate=48000
MVolume=20
MLVolume=15
Format=lavf
FileType=mp4
Quality=23
useMencoder=1
SubTitle=1
MaxVBitrate=768
This will give you Sony as a maunfacturer in the list of devices. Encode a short dvd track, copy it to the device and try and play it.
If you need more or less volume change the value of MLVolume
Make sure the deinterlace option is unchecked
(I'm not an expert - this is just what I've picked up over time)
Let me know if it works!
Archie
Either profile works just fine. Tested with several conversions of edits from a music DVD in OA as well as letterbox zoomed full screen. In sync audio, smooth playback.