ARCHOS 402 - Manual (Page 16)

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basis. There are so many standards and formats that it is very possible
that the video fi le you download from the Internet will not play right away
on your device. Due to certain “variations”, even when video fi les are
formatted in “MPEG-4” they may not play right away.
If you have some video fi les that do not play directly on your Gmini ™ 402,
they will have to be converted fi rst. Windows Media ® Player 10 (Available
only for Windows XP) will convert your video fi le automatically when you
sync the fi le that is on your PC to the Gmini ™ 402. It will display a little
message ‘converting’.
You can also use the software MPEG-4 Translator included on the
Gmini ™ 402 hard drive to re-encode your video fi les into the proper
MPEG-4 SP format that the Gmini ™ 402 can play. See the chapter
Video – creating MPEG-4 video fi les with your computer for more
details.
* MPEG-4: ISO standard by Moving Picture Experts Group ; AVI: audio/video fi le
container by Microsoft . MPEG-4 SP with B-frames AVI up to 704x480@30f/s NTSC
or 720x576@25f/s PAL.
** Microsoft WMV9 SP up to 352x288@30f/s and 800 kb/s ; supports WM DRM.
How to create an MPEG-4 video fi le
Please understand that video re-encoding is not always a simple one button
process. Video segments that come from your digital camcorder or which
are freely available on the Internet are encoded in many different ways. If
not already in the proper MPEG4 Simple Profi le format, transforming these
videos into this format readable by the Gmini ™ 402 requires use of the
below mentioned software tools. This is due to the relatively new nature
of the ISO (International Standards Organization) MPEG4 video format.
Unlike its predecessors MPEG1 and MPEG2, there are a number of levels
in this format and thus not all MPEG4 video fi les will work on all MPEG4
players, and older MPEG1 and MPEG2 fi les must be re-encoded into this
format. Although you may have a bit of a learning curve in the initial re-
encoding of video fi les, once you have the process down, it is just a matter
of letting your PC or Mac go to work and create video fi les for playing on
your Gmini ™ 402.
PC Tools
The Gmini ™ 402 is delivered with two Windows ® based programs that allow
you to create “MPEG4 Simple Profi le .AVI” video fi les. They are the MPG4
Translator and Virtual Dub ™ . The MPG4 Translator will call the Virtual Dub
program and give it the correct parameters to encode your video from its
original format, .avi or .mpg (mpeg 1), and then encode it into an MPEG4
SP .AVI fi le. The fi le will be scaled in order to be played back properly. If
you would like to have your sound track in MP3 format, you may have to
download this audio codec (available freely on the Internet) if it is not
already on your computer.
9.1 Installing the PC Software
If your video fi le is not an MPEG4 Simple Profi le .avi fi le of the proper size,
you will need to re-encode it using the following utilities. For the Gmini ™
402, you will need to create an AVI fi le that is MPEG4 Simple Profi le with
a maximum resolution of 720 x 576 (depending on frame rate) and a
sound track that is stereo MP3 or WAV. Run the program SETUP.EXE (the
ARCHOS ™ Installation Utility) found on the Gmini ™ 402 hard drive in /
Data/PC Installation. Please install the programs in the following order.
9
VIDEO - Creating MPEG4 video files with your computer