Alleluja! Xvid days!

I’m happy. I have discovered WHY the avi files created with VisualHub and Handbrake (with XVID codec) cannot be played by my table DVD player (look my old post for more infos).

The AVI container created by these two programs are not compatible with my DVD player and the resulting video freezes/trigger and jumps continuously.

By CHANCE I converted a file and then used VirtualDub to do a DIRECT pass-through of  both audio and video parts (loss-less). The target file was 1MB smaller in size. Why? I have decided to test it and, surprisingly, it played smoothly in my table DVD player. These videos are now played perfectly!

Alleluja! Now I can use the multicore power of HandBrake for my encodes (the only OSX program that REALLY uses it!).

Same video source and conversion parameters.
Avidemux : 8fps.
Handbrake : 30 fps!

No frames dropped on all recent projects (good but I don’t know why, maybe osx updates changed something), fixed video size limitations always present but I’m overcoming it.

I hope that coders will update Handbrake with the latest xvidcore as soon as possible and remove these video limitations

 

Mac video conversion

I have video conversion issues with Mac software. Damn!!

I’m sorry to say that NOTHING beat VirtualDub … (;o;) … I continue to run it on a virtual machine.
(Author or someone with a wonderful hearth (and mind) … compile/create it under Mac!!) Onegaishimasu!!

Since I need to convert huge video files (1280×720 or H264) to a lower resolution (704×396) with Divx/Xvid codec, recognized properly by my Pioneer home DVD player, I have played a bit with the most common video converters. My home DVD player is recent, works very well, it detects even subtitles but new formats are not recognized. It’s a pity. The producer claimed an upgradable firmware but… well until now no updates are available.

FFMPEGX convert the file. The conversion must be made with mencode engine (ffmpeg engine corrupts always mp3 audio, also if you do a direct copy of it). I don’t know why. Conversion with fixed quantizer does not work,  it converts always with the specified bitrate, also if you set Qmin and Qmax at the same value (to have fixed quantizer, as documentation explain). It’s old and buggy. Crashes often. Even watched on computer the result files are damaged.
So I have abandoned it.

VISUALHUB makes great conversions with a good speed but if XVID codec is used, the result file is not compatible with my home DVD player (video trigger and jump always). And I do not use any Qpel or advanced options.
Played on computer they are OK. I must force the use of MPEG4 codec to produce a readable file for my home DVD player. With MPEG4 result file is smaller, compatible, but it has a little lower quality. However the difference is very small. At least it can be used.
Currently I convert with it only the 1280×720 version of Tokyo Shojo because they cannot be converted converted on Windows, the PC crashes always when start to read these types of files (on 4 different machines!). I think it’s a codec incompatibility. Strange, they are played correctly… With Visualhub instead the conversion goes well. A good point of Visualhub is that it can read nearly everything.

HANDBRAKE is completely buggy, crashes 8 times over 10. Its conversion engine is the fastest, it’s true, nearly 3 times faster that other programs but the converted files have the same unreadability of these produced with Visualhub, but this time with both XVID and MPEG4 codec. This is bad. As Visualhub files, they can be played well on the computer but not on my home DVD player. I have analyzed the log files, the converted videos and I have found a lot of dropped frames during conversion, videos trigger always. At this stage Handbrake with XVID/MPEG4 codec cannot be used to convert decently a video. Add that it can resize only at FIXED resolutions and you will trash it immediately. With this program is NOT possible to convert a 1280×720 file to 704×396. Bad.

AVIDEMUX is very promising. It have a lot of options that other converters does not do. It’s a sort of Virtualdub “clone” for Mac. But as Visualhub and other progs, it’s based on these ffmpeg/xvid conversion engines so the results are the same as Visualhub. Avidemux have all the options that other converters misses. It works very well but it’s a lot slower than VisualHub.
EDIT: Version 2.4.4 produces XVID compatible files for my home DVD player! Hurrah!!

MPEGSTREAMCLIP is a good jewel in the panorama of converters. It’s the only one that can convert files using DIVX codec (forget applications based on QuickTime!). As Visualhub have a lot of options (resize, adjust video, etc.). It misses (in my opinion) the direct pass-through of MP3 audio (copy without re-encode). It’s available for AC3. This force the user to convert the video without audio and mux the audio in the final file with Avidemux. It’s a pity. I abandoned it because files converted with DIVX codec are bigger than those created on Windows.

Currently XVID codec for OSX exists but it’s an old version, until today the v1.2.1 XP version is not available on Mac. But the old codec works. With the above limitations. I use the updated version on Virtualdub until new version will be available for Mac. Divx6 also exists on Mac. But, for unknown reasons, with same conversion parameters (quantizer, quality, optimizations) the result file produced on Mac is about 1,5 times bigger than the file produced with Divx6 for Windows (320Mb on Xp and 458Mb on Mac). It’s lame. After I have noticed this I have stopped the use of Divx for Mac.

From this point of view the Mac software is again a step behind the software for XP.

Create a virtual XP machine in Virtualbox, install Koepi XVID codec, MP3 acm codec, Virtualdub with AC3 and MPEG2 fcc-handler plugins and you can have a system ready to create compatible files for most of the home DVD players. All freeware.

Many thanks to the authors.

 

Google Picasa for Mac

After the initial version of Picasa for Windows and Linux machines, finally Google released the beta version of Picasa photo management software for Mac OSX some days ago.

Picasa 3 beta contains virtually the same features as on other operating systems. More features will be added soon.

The suite lets users manage photos and either manually upload or sync them to Picasa Web Albums. It’s also possible to share photos through Blogs or to create slide show movies. Minor non-destructive image editing is possible.

Picasa manage your database of pictures without duplicate it. Also other suites do it but with very complicated procedures.

Currently Picasa requires an Intel-based Mac with OSX.

 

iMac is arrived!

The iMac is finally arrived. My first impression is very-very good !!!

• The 24″ flat screen is very bright, colors and lines are are reproduced faithfully and it’s a 1920 pixels full HD monitor. The Bose sound system is excellent. Movies can really be enjoyed at full on it, it can even be commanded with the included remote control.
• The Apple mouse is a bit slow. At the maximum speed selectable by OSX is always too slow. The screen resolution is too big for the resolution of the optical mouse (Apple should give a better mouse).
• The keyboard is nearly flat, maybe I need some time to get used to it. The two on-keyboard USB ports are very comfortable.
• A strong point is its quieten. It’s hard to hear rotating fans or hard disk heads movements at distance usage. My old Intel PC with 10 squared cm fans on the  processor, power supply and graphic card is really a tractor, if compared (it’s located in a small very quiet room).
• Start up time is 23 secs from the push of on/off button. Shutdown time is 3 sec.
• OSx appears at first sight more efficient than Windows (I hope also more stable and secure).
• The design of all parts is good (even the eye wants its share
• I paid for it a lot of money, compared to PC hardware it’s very expensive.

It’s conceived as a different system from the common PC’s. If you have a chance go to an Apple showroom and try to have a look and judge yourself.

OS features later, when I have experienced it more

 

PC is dead. Viva l’iMac !

I have decided to change my “computer” life.

I have abandoned the Windows platform to enter in the more user-friendly Mac world. I hope to not have done the wrong choice. After looking the heaviness of Vista I have decided upon Mac OS X.

I have bought an iMac. However badly things go I can always run a full Windows XP on my Intel iMac. But what a big expense!!! I hope that iMac deserve all that amount spent on it!!

For these first times I will install both OS’s native or in a virtual machine, at least until I have found all drivers for my external devices and a replacement for software daily used. I already have managed a substitution for all these but I want to check it in deep.

 

Filtering Flickr photos

Photo filtering in Flickr site is limited. And also very buggy.

Filtering by user name is nearly impossible and the setup filters cannot be memorized. So it’s not possible to prevent photo display of unwanted users with photos not interesting.

A solution can be offered by AdMuncher, a program to filter Internet pages, by Hurray Mups. It’s very small compared to other products, efficient and fully customizable.

This is a rude method, you remove ALL that user photos, also good ones … but there are plenty of other good photos on Flickr and with this method you can gain time browsing photo pages (you will spend all your life viewing them without showing all files present on their Internet servers).

Other filter programs (Foxy, AdBlock, etc) have limited options, are not customizable and does not work properly (for example in Flickr). AdMuncher is ALL worth buying and using.

I’m surfing photos from Japan, I’ve done a search in TAGS sorted by date only for the “japan” word and between all results i have filtered subjectively what I dislike. Just add unwanted user photo links in AdMuncher to remove the photos from the browsing pages.

Example:
Add link ————–> photos/wallsandafrown/
With action ————> Remove links to URL

With this program I filter very well:

• users with smaller photo (less than 1024 pixels) that cannot be visible, even with external script support
• users with a high percentage of bad lighted, blurred or incomprehensible photos
• users that mainly post photos of monotonous things (ex. dolls, flowers, birds, people using flickr as an on line catalog)
• users with dozens of photos of evening concerts (mainly all blurred 8o)
• users that post a torrent of photos all together filling dozens and dozens of pages on the same day (flicker filter does not always work)
• users with extremely modified photos (ex. HDR)
• users with wrong photo tags (ex. tagged with china and japan together)

Just try.