encoding DVDs for PSP on Mac OS X with Handbrake

an old post i made shortly after my linux -> mac switch showed a Handbrake command-line interface script to encode a DVD for use on a PSP. that was successful but there's a simpler and smaller (in terms of file size) way to do something similar with the GUI:

* open Handbrake 0.9.2 (might work with other versions)
* choose the DVD you inserted as the source
* choose the PSP preset
* change the Output Setting: Codecs: to "AVC/H.264 Video / AAC Audio"
* change the Video tab Average bitrate (kbps) to 384 (i couldn't notice a difference between this and other higher bitrates)
* add "level=21" to the Advanced tab Current x264 Advanced Option String section
* rip it!

this worked for me with my PSP that has firmware 3.80 and saved space while keeping good quality given my 1 gig memory stick duo.

handbrake, dvds and the iPhone

got myself an iPhone after the price drop and a recent promotion/raise. didn't get it for video really (it can't even record video) but it's nice to see what it's capable of...

a friend of mine bought this portable media player device. 160 gig hard drive, something like a 3 or 4" screen. and at a great price.

he was asking me about ripping dvds into a compatible format so i mentioned mencoder for linux or handbrake for the mac (he's considering moving from linux with occasional dual boots into windows to a mac).

he struggled with getting a simple-ish solution on windows but finally found a two step rip/transcode type of process that worked.

well, after a long-ass day of work i decided to see if HandBrake might have been updated with easy iPhone support. sure enough...

popped in a dvd, launched HandBrake, chose Update Built-in Presets from the presets tools menu-thingy (i had an earlier version so my old pre-0.9 presets were there), chose iPhone and ripped it. synced it in iTunes and voila! easy-peasy.

this is definitely a mac success story...

p.s. you can customize HandBrake all you want. make your own presets (for mpeg-4 or h.264) for non-apple media players, etc.

photo slideshow blog test

how to show a sequence of photos on your blog? i'm not expert. i just exported a iPhoto slideshow to a quicktime then uploaded to YouTube...

replaced my ubuntu thinkpad with a macbook pro (glossy 2.4) so i tried HandBrake for the psp:

HandBrakeCLI -t 1 -e x264 -x level=30:threads=1 -p --crop 0:0:0:0 -X 480 -E faac -R 48 -b 768 -i /dev/disk2 -o premonition.mp4

and it worked quite well...

ripping dvd commentary and using dual core with x264

wanted to rip a movie for my psp and have the audio commentary. found http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=273635 which helped me remember one way to view what audio tracks are on a dvd:

mplayer dvd:// -v | grep "audio stream"

there's a way to do it w/o displaying the video too but heck, time is scarce these days and this did the trick.

then i just used the steps outlined in a previous post and specified the audio id instead of the audio lang (i also tried using multiple threads to see if it was still acceptable quality with a speed bump):

mencoder dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/cdrom -aid 130 -oac lavc -ovc x264 -of lavf -x264encopts bitrate=384:bframes=0:global_header:level_idc=21:threads=auto -ffourcc x264 -lavcopts aglobal=1:acodec=aac:abitrate=92 -af volnorm=1:.99 -vf scale=420:287,harddup -lavfopts format=psp:i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames -ofps 24000/1001 -o the_messengers_commentary.mp4

psp firmware 3.30 adds volume normalization for videos

the psp 3.30 firmware also now adds an option to do volume normalization - and not just for UMD discs. it seems to help when playing your own videos created from TiVo, etc.

very nice...

psp firmware updates allow full screen video!

according to the us playstation portable website the 3.30 firmware now allows videos that are the full size of the physical display:

New for 3.30: The following types of files can now be played in the "VIDEO" folder.
– MPEG-4/H.264 AVC Main Profile (AVC CABAC) video files of the following sizes:
720 X 480, 352 X 480, or 480 X 272
* Depending on the data type, some files cannot be played.

that last bullet point is a bit freaky...

strangely, i don't see a 4:3 aspect ratio size that takes full advantage of the full height of the display. maybe 320x240 is the best you can do? no 363x272? :)

have to test this stuff out when i get home tonight...