Thursday, March 6, 2008

Using SUPER encoder with Nseries

Hello fellow Nokia users.

I want to spend some time with this post, I began working on it some time ago. The main idea is to provide a "fail safe" mode and setting to encode both VGA and QVGA resolution movies that will play in your Nseries device.

Before you begin check out my list of installed software. My setup

If you just want to know some settings that work for most Nseries devices then click on the pictures below. Just make SUPER settings look like this:
h264 settings
mpeg4 settings
If you want the more detailed walkthrough keep reading.

One thing that's important before you begin is to get codecs into your computer. The most important one that I recommend is DIVX codec since this one will allow you to use AVI files (xvid or divx) as DIRECT SHOW files. HERE

Direct Show is important as this enables the coder software to manipulate the stream (I don't think we need the technical details). Basically allows you to do advanced editing functions like rotating, cropping, flipping, mirror, etc.

You also need a player. Quicktime is quick and easy (pun intended). So go get it HERE
I know you could use the Nokia provided Multimedia player but I find Quicktime much more convenient and better.

Another good addition would be FFDSHOW mpeg4 codec pack but this is not necessary strictly speaking and it's a bit more complicated so I'll leave this one alone unless you feel comfortable messing around with advanced settings.

Ok once you have installed the codecs, now it's time to get the SUPER encoder. This is where some people have their first problem, they can't find the download link or it doesn't work. This is the direct link:

Click on the picture

If you have problems the help provided is pretty self explanatory. Use IE, turn on Java scripts, clear the cache and don't connect through a proxy. When ready hit the link "Start Downloading Super".

You should be able to save the file SUPERSetup.exe. Run the file and install SUPER. I believe it connects to the internet while installing, I've done my own checking and nothing malicious, but if you feel unsure about it, just don't install it.

With me so far?, ok, now an icon will be created in your desktop. Now you can start using SUPER. When you start the program it will connect to the internet and check that you have the latest version.

Once it starts you are at the main screen which can be rather intimidating at first. But once you know what the things are then it's actually not that hard. Once you set it once you pretty much don't need to touch it again as it will save the last settings you used to encode.


Ok now let me go over the main controls that are at the top numbered 1,2 and 3.

The first one is the Container. This refers to the extension or MIME type that the file will be output to. Like .MP4, .3G2, .3GP, .AVI.

For Nseries devices you can select mp4 or 3gp. Other settings MAY work but I haven't experimented with all of them. So feel free to try on your own time and share your results.

Now let's move to the next setting. The Codec.

The codec list shown will depend on the Container you selected in the previous screen. So for MP4 that would be the list of codecs. For Nseries devices you can use MPEG-4, H264 or H263.

Well now, it's time to select the audio codec. In this case it's simple. Just leave the AAC as the codec.

The next thing I want to touch on is DIRECT SHOW button.


When you will use an input file (the video you want to transcode), that's supported by Windows, then it's a Directshow file. Basically if Windows Media Player can play the video then you can select Directshow. There are some limitations though and it may not work 100% but that's the theory.

Why is this importat?, well as I mentioned before if you have Directshow then you can do more advance editing on the file like these options (press the Button):


So, you can join files to create looped version (multiple copies end-end) slow down playback, speed it up. flip, rotate, change colors, change to B&W, include fade in or fade out, add the clip info or a watermark.

Just remember that you should do just 1 effect per transcode. This is important, if you select multiple things then it will fail. Also Remember to press the RST (reset) buttons to CLEAR your settings after you are done, otherwise the next video you transcode will use this same settings.

If the video you are converting is NOT Directshow. Like a Quicktime movie or an FLV, then don't select DirectShow!

So now we have selected the Container, Codec, Audio and DirectShow settings (if applicable). It's time to select the video output details. Click on picture for bigger picture.

It's pretty self explanatory. I just want to point your attention to the H264 button. In some posts I've warned people about the different H264 types and why some H264 files don't play. Well hit the button.
And a new window will open (you can move the window location). Then here it's very important to select BaseLine. Otherwise the video will not play.
Now let's continue with the settings. The next area you see is the AUDIO section of SUPER:

As you can see you can select here the sample rate, number of channels, bitrate and Language track (for DVD video files but I've never used this feature). I recommend not going overboard with the Sampling frequency and bitrate. From my experience 64 or 96 kbps produce decent quality audio for most applications and sampling at 48 or 44.1 Khz is ok.

Now that we've looked at the main settings. Let's encode a file.
The first thing you need to do is right click on the SUPER window to bring up the menu.
Then from here you might want to change the output destination folder so that you manage where the encoded files end up (by default they end up in c:\program files\erightsoft\super\output).
Now select Add Multimedia Files and select the files you want to convert.
Once you select a file it should look something like this:
The files will be listed there with a checkbox next to it. The file has to be checked to be converted. Please check that it's checked.
From here you can also play the file using the Play button, or Encode.


Then sit and wait.
Encoding times vary greatly depending on the settings, the input file type, your CPU and memory and what you're doing. But on average expect the transcoding to take 1.5-2 times what the file is. So for a 2 hour movie expect 3-4 hours. conversion time.

Ok, congratulations!, you've successfully transcoded a video. Now it's time to put it into your phone.

Easiest way:
  1. Connect the USB cable to phone
  2. Select File Transfer or Data Tranfer or Mass Storage as USB mode
  3. Once Windows completes adding the device open the File Explorer in your PC and locate the new Drive that represents your phone
  4. Copy the video file to this drive under My Videos.
  5. If you don't know how to copy a file in Windows then maybe video conversion is too advanced for you.
If you want to add a thumbnail to your video. Get a picture that represents your video. Or capture a frame from you video (SnagIt or similar program can be used) and then follow my instrauctions as here.

TIP: Remember to always stop your USB devices before unplugging them from your PC to avoid data corruption. Press this button:

This is not a be all, end all guide to using SUPER but I hope that with this information you are able to use it for video convertion into Nseries devices. For more detailed instructions and features go to the Erightsoft pages HERE

I welcome your comments.

Until next time,

Cheers!

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, very useful.

EdirolX said...

Informative.

I have a Nokia 6500s.

I found that the best settings for super are:
MPEG4
320x240
HQ encode

I find that playing videos at full framerate (ie. 30/24fps) is slightly choppy on complex scenes. Going half fps 15/12 gives a more consistent experience.

Setting the bitrate to something ridiculously high doesn't seem to make much difference, since it seems to max out at a certain point in filesize.

All AAC bitrates work fine for me (highest bitrate, etc).

El_loco said...

Hi William,

Usually each phone model will have a limit of bandwidth it can process (CPU is able to handle).

The bandwidth of a video file is affected by:

1. Resolution
2. Bitrate
3. Framerate
4. Codec

So if you use high bitrate (HQ) then you may have to lower the framerate.

Usually I don't want going lower than 18 fps, as I get tired of watching a movie with low fps. I get a headache :)

So in many cases I prefer to lower the bitrate or the resolution to keep a high fps value.

Anonymous said...

Hi. Other than this freeware Super(c), I'm also using Peer Guardian 2 for added online protection. However, ever since I'm using Super(c), Peer Guardian's block list became jam-packed with websites "looking" into my system. Is this software actually safe?

El_loco said...

Hmmm, interesting. My firewall has never shown any weird stuff.

I also have Norton Internet Security and have no warnings but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

If you are worried about it, don't use it. I recommend you buy from a local software store. Maybe Nero Platnium or Roxio Encoders may be good from a more formal vendor.

There are always risks when using freeware or shareware or any warez. So again, just follow your intuition.

Anonymous said...

Thank you el_loco. I will make further observations.

Anonymous said...

Hello, el_loco. Despite my paranoia about Super(c), I'm still using it up to now. :)

Anyway, I have a question about RMVB because it was stated that Super(c) supports this format. However, after converting it to mp4, it only plays audio and no video. Any ideas?

El_loco said...

Sounds like you have a problem with the MPEG-4 or H264 settings.

Can you send me the properties of your converted video? as they show on SUPER?

Anonymous said...

I have just converted a movie & it has come up as 5 different files/segments. The movie had 5 different files when I added it to Super.

How do I get these to play as 1 file?

Also, the audio is slightly out of sync with the action when I play it back on the PC. There is a 1 second difference.

How can I sort this out?

El_loco said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
El_loco said...

Short answer to how to link multiple files is that it's not easy.

At least none of these tools will allow you to do it properly. You need something else like Nero Platnium Video Editor to first create a movie that includes all the videos. This process takes a long time. Then you need to convert this single file movie into a phone format.

Best option is to get the movie in a single file already, I'm sure you can find many places where to find other versions of the movie ;)

About audio video sync. Well what settings did you use?, what's the source video properties?,

It can happen that the audio and video is out of synch due to a number of issues but I'll need more information before I can help.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I used the audio settings you posted up for MP4 at the top of this thread.

I have winAVI which converts dvd to 1 file but even on this, the sound is out of sync.

Any idea's?

El_loco said...

Ok let me see if I understand.

You use winAVI to create 1 single file in AVI format correct?

This AVI file plays correctly? audio is in synch?

Assuming that the AVI file plays correctly. Are you setting DIRECTSHOW In SUPER?, you should try with directshow.

IF you are already using DIRECTSHOW and the problem happens. Uncheck it. This will force the program to transcode directly from the encoded file instead of from the decoded stream. It may fix the problem.

Other than that I have no other ideas. You can play around adding key frames or changing the framerate to see if you get better results.

Good luck!, let us know what you learn.

Anonymous said...

Hey man,
Thank you very much for all that. Now I can finally watch full movies on my phone.
The only thing is that the original movie is in wide screen and in my phone it's not so the picture is mushed in.
What do you suggest?
thank you again,
Ad

El_loco said...

I already made a post about that topic.

Go here:

Link

stargazer said...

hi!

i have a little problem. if i use the settings you said, the movie plays smoothly on the phone but the picture is always messed up. the lower 2/3 part of the picture becomes something like greasy colorpalette. have you any idea why and how can i fix the problem?

thanks

El_loco said...

Hi stargazer, what type of video is your source file?

What's the resolution before you encode and what is the resolution after encode?

Also post the framerate before and after, that may help.

I've never came across the problem as you described, it could be something in the source video.
Does the video play correctly on the PC?

stargazer said...

hi El_loco!

thanks for the reply! it's a MOV file and that's what Super says about the source.

Format : M-JPEG
Codec ID : jpeg
Duration : 48s 0ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 478 Kbps
Width : 320 pixels
Height : 240 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 15.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.151

I made no changes to the resolution, neither to the framerate. The video plays correctly on the pc. I use the latest divx mobile player i've downloaded and installed it just minutes ago.

thanks

El_loco said...

When using SUPER use these settings for that video:

Codec: MPEG-4
Container: MP4 or 3GP or 3G2
Bitrate: 1000 kbps
Framerate: 15
Resolution: No change or 320x240
Audio: 2 Channel AAC @ 64 kbps 44.1 Khz sample rate

See if this works.

stargazer said...

hi El_loco!

i was thinking. can it be because of the VBR? with your settings it's OK now, but i would like to make it a divx, because i would like the files to be able to play on a tabletop divx player and i'm not sure an mp4 format is good for that, but hopefully i'm wrong.

El_loco said...

If you want to use it in AVI. I recommend the following.

1. Get COREPLAYER for S60 this is better than the mobile DIVX player. Although it's not free.

2. Encode into AVI container, DivX or Xvid codec @ 320x240 resolution, use VBR if you want and about 500 kbps. Audio use MP3 @ 128 kbps

These formats should play correctly in Coreplayer and also in another player that supports DIVX.

Still MPEG-4 and H264 are the codecs more supported by Nokia devices. these are the ones that will yield better results in a Nokia device so if your desktop can play MP4 that would be better.

Tales From The Cript. said...

Hey Thanks for putting this topic up, i followed the procedure that you wrote but the problem is that the converted video which i copied to my n95 got video but it has got no audio!

then i checked on my computer, i played the same converted file on windows media player and there too sound was absent then i tried playing it on quicktime player and on that player it worked perfectly fine with audio as well as video, so tell me where did i goof up?

El_loco said...

So what format of audio are you encoding to?

Can you post the audio properties you have on your converted video?

Most likely something is off with the audio settings. Check that the audio format is indeed AAC and not something else.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I have this problem with SUPER.
When ever I am openning the program it gives me an error 04/04/XXXX is an invalid date and time.
I can only select OK.
I checked everywhere and could not find any solution.
Any of you guys having this issue?

El_loco said...

Sorry I haven't seen that problem.

May I suggest you get in touch with eRightsoft?

or try another video solution either from Videora, AnyVideoConverter, Red Kawa or other.

Anonymous said...

"I have this problem with SUPER.
When ever I am openning the program it gives me an error 04/04/XXXX is an invalid date and time."

Maybe check your system time? It isnt April anymore...

abhijoyful said...

I converted to mp4 using super with profile: mp4 > MPEG4 > AAC LC > 320:240 > 288 kbps video > 112 kbps audio
Q1.
On my N73
I hv 2 problems:
1.) video is laways stretched to screen...& so long faces
2.) sound is choppy...
I changes 4:3 to 16:9 & unchecked stretch it...but no boon
I changed video scale to 'no change' & but video wont play..
pls tell straightforward settings for cinemascopic videos
Q2.
For 4:3 videos I m using default mp4 > MPEG4 > AAC LC with only change of reducing video bitrate to 288...& was perfect in all aspects..on my phone
Is it really perfect for size v/s quality tradeoff?
Thnx

abhijoyful said...

pls tell me settings for cinemascopic(16:9) video in super encoder..as i always get vertically stretched video output with long faces...
also tell me settings for such videos...for viewing them with full screen coverage(increased video image size) without any stretching...
thnx

El_loco said...

abhijoyful,

Please check my post about anamorphic video. HERE,

abhijoyful said...

let me check....

abhijoyful said...

what hi quality checkbox video setting is for?....as I m setting the bitrate manually to 192....
do any of them override each other...

El_loco said...

,Link

It turns on the high quality mode of the decoders. I can't really see much difference.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I hate "SUPER".

It has the worst GUI I have ever seen in my life, it is slow, crashes frequently w/o explanation and produces junk.

IMHO I would recommend you check out "XMedia Recode". It has an intuitive GUI, a bunch of nice target profiles, is quick and stable, produces what it says and supports batch conversion. Moreover, it is well maintained and updated regularly.


Best regards,

THN

El_loco said...

I guess everyone rates something depending on how it works for them.

I've not had issues with Super, and have had a lot of issues with Handbrake (as an example), so I don't feel good recommending Handbrake even though a lot of people swear by it.

If Xmedia Recode works well for you, then I'm glad for you. Maybe some other people that also don't like Super can give that a try.

Like I've said on many of my posts. I haven't found a single solution that works in ALL circumstances.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I have installed SUPER without any issue, the problem is whenever I opened it it gives me a pop up window saying '04-Aug-2005 05:00:00' is an invalid date and time and I only have an option to click ok. When I do that it closes and I will be able to access the application but when I am done I am unable to close it. I am not sure what is the issue, anyone have experienced this?

El_loco said...

That's odd. I've heard of people having problems installing the program but not running it.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

berillio said...

Hello El_loco,
First of all thanks for all your posts in various forums with all the infos on movie conversions. But before I start talking about MY problems, let me just point out something about SUPER.
The first time I used SUPER, it was INCREDIBLY slow (compared to WinFF, I mean 10 times as slow) and it seemed unstable (although it did not really crash and it DID produced a working file out of the Makrowska original), so I did not really use it again, and I continued using WinFF until I hit a brick wall. So i reopened SUPER, but this time (pure fluke) I read what I thought it was ONLY a splash screen which says at the bottom "Disable the 'Heuristic' AntiVir Scan on Laptops and slow PC units" at the bottom. So I opened AVG, and unchecked the Heuristc box in the "Resident Shield".

Since then, SUPER has been working faultlessy, it is stable and as quick as it could be expected to be.

I am mentioning this because I missed that screen the first time around - and like me, probably quite a few people who tried it and discarded it because of its instability/slowness - and even posted flaming comments about a "worthless piece of junk".

TY again, I'll post something about my probs after some further experimenting. Cheers!

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