[mythtv] Calling all (video) iPod users...

[Keith C]

On Jul 17, 2006, at 1:15 AM, Chris Petersen wrote:

> I've been fairly lax in developing support for iPod video in  
> nuvexport.
>  I only added basic support when people bugged me loud enough (and
> helped with some code) because I didn't have a video-capable iPod (or
> one with a battery that would last more than 15 minutes).
>
> Anyway, I now have a new iPod that can actually play video, so I'm
> curious about getting some real h.264 encoding set up (or just  
> improving
> the current mpeg4 stuff so that seeking works properly).  I've googled
> and encoded and googled some more, but have had NO luck in getting a
> file that plays properly.
>
> On top of that, I've had a friend capture the output from Handbrake in
> osx (it calls ffmpeg on the commandline), and run the exact same code
> through ffmpeg in linux, and was not able to play the resulting file.
>
> So, someone out there must be having SOME success, since I find it
> unlikely that I'm the only person out there who owns an ipod and  
> doesn't
> run windows or osx.  If you have any suggestions, please let me  
> know and
> I'll make sure the goodness gets put into nuvexport so it will benefit
> everyone.
>

I tricked ffmpegx on OS X into giving me the command line it uses to  
convert an ivtv mpeg2 video into an iPod h.264 compatible video.   
I've left it here in its entirety, even though there's a bunch of  
extra junk (and its hard to see the newlines).

date | /Applications/Media/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/pbcopy &&  
printf "Encoding started on " && date && /Applications/Media/ 
ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/ffmpeg -i /private/var/automount/ 
videohd/recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg -an -f yuv4mpegpipe - 
croptop 0 -cropbottom 0 -cropleft 0 -cropright 0 -s 320x176 -r  
30000/1001 -  | /Applications/Media/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/ 
x264 -v -A i4x4 --no-cabac -b 0 --qpmin 10 --qpmax 51 -B 200 --me hex  
--threads 2 --level 13 --fps 30000/1001 -o /private/var/automount/ 
videohd/recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.video.mp4 - 320x176  
&& /Applications/Media/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/ffmpeg -i / 
private/var/automount/videohd/recordings/ 
13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.video.mp4 -i /private/var/automount/ 
videohd/recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg -y -vn -f mp4 -acodec aac  
-ab 96 -ar 48000 -ac 2 -map 1.1:0.0 /private/var/automount/videohd/ 
recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.audio.mp4 && /Applications/ 
Media/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/mp4box  -fps 30000:1001 -add / 
private/var/automount/videohd/recordings/ 
13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.video.mp4  -add /private/var/automount/ 
videohd/recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.audio.mp4 -new / 
private/var/automount/videohd/recordings/ 
13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.mp4 && rm /private/var/automount/videohd/ 
recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.video.mp4 && rm /private/var/ 
automount/videohd/recordings/13296_20060712010000.mpg.ff.audio.mp4 &&  
printf "Encoding completed on " && date && printf "\a" && printf "\n"

This is using all its defaults for the conversion, except I turned  
off Quicktime decoding.  It also looks likes its doing 16:9 by  
default too, with a target bitrate of 200 Kb/s and AAC audio.

Keith C