December 20th, 2008 by Rolf
I found a ne recipe for encoding the video. I think it’s much better in quality – but is it playing on your device? Please download the new encoded version of Episode 80, test it, compare and leave a comment. I can say it plays on Ubuntu, so no Ubuntu testers needed. 
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seems fine to me MPlayer Portable (MPUI 1.1.10 b 33 & core 1.0rc2-4.2.1)
Hi Rolf,
plays fine on WinXP with VLAN, RealPlayer and QT.
Greetings
Harald
Hey Rolf,
I just tested the video on XP SP3 at the school where I teach and it played fine in Quicktime. Quality looked good.
Hi Rolf,
it’s working fine with Win XP SP2 / Media Player Classic.
Also on my portable Archos 504.
And yes, the quality is really better.
Have a nice x-mas time,
Andreas
Thanks! Someone witg one of these sensitive Apple gadgets here?
Looks and sounds great, Rolf.
Ubuntu Intrepid:
VLC
Mplayer (GMplayer, SMplayer, KMplayer)
Totem
Rolf, you are now using more standardized codec (h.264) then before. I am able to play it on bunch of STBs as well (unfortunately many of don’t like MP4 envelope, but that is a different story).
BTW thanks for nice podcasts.
Works fine in Linux Mint. I know it’s just Ubuntu under the hood but still…good to know. At least with Mint these codecs are included out of the box. I watched it in Totem without installing VLC or Mplayer.
Perfect!
I can see directly from my Firefox, or open with VLC, Dvix, Zoom player and WMP.
Only with Winamp do not work well, only the audio is available but i believe that is a general problem of winamp with mp4
It looks great in Ubuntu + VLC and it also looks great in Firefox.
Looks great on a “very sensitive” Mac (Macbook; 10.5.6 (Leopard)) using VLC (0.9.8). Even less artifacts (especially visible with black text on white background)!
Alas, I have no “extremely sensitive” iPod to call my own.
peterson.
Apparently you doubled the audio bitrate and reduced the video bitrate by the same amount. The video would be better if you would use the same bitrate on test.mp4 as on meetthegimp080.mp4. Instead of increasing the audio bitrate you could change it to mono and thus get more bits/channel.
Am testing installation of openSUSE 11.1, Fedora 10 and Debian Lenny here. The video works fine on all.
@Marcus: Actually I followed a recipe ( http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9005 ) that I stumled over. No real idea what I am doing there up to now.
I just wanted to check compatibility before I get into the details.
Rolf
I do have an iPod but my wife keeps it in her clutches at all times. If I can get a hold of it I’ll pop youR your test.mp4 on it and I’ll also check compatibility in iTunes.
Awhile ago, Richard Querin and I thought me might take the Screencasters to iTunes but our viewers weren’t interested in the end. However, we did figure out the steps required to make iTunes/iPod compatible MP4 videos (h.264/aac). All you need is mencoder, faac, and mp4box. I can send you my bash script if you would like to review it. You probably don’t need it at this point but maybe you would like to review it anyway.
Really, all you have to do is hint the same MP4 video and you can use it for streaming using the latest flash player. Handy.
Hi!
I tested it with Vista Home Premium and
AVS
RealPlayer
QuickTime Player
It looks fine.
Merry Christmas to all!
Frohe Weihnachten!
cu
Volker
@heathenx: Exactly what I am looking for! Thanks!
We should start a screencaster’s knowledge exchange.
I tested the new format with my LaCie LaCinema, and it doesn’t work, I only get audio. The LaCie LaCinema Premier is still being sold today, it’s not discontinued.
I noticed you changed to video codec from plain MPEG4 to H.264(AVC), which is not support by slightly older hardware players.
Only the newest generation of hardware players supports H.264…
the exif data wasnt in the file so itunes did not know what to do with it, would not sync it even as a movie, but nero 9 liked it , btw vista pro and all the window crap…back to a ubuntu duel boot
ghk
@Pascal de Bruijn
AVC is “plain mpeg4″. Maybe you mean ASP, which is also “plain mpeg4″.
@lostgeorge
If iTunes reqlly requires there to be EXIF data in a video file then iTunes should be considered broken. Or maybe just adding some hinting to the file (e.g. with mp4box) will make it playable in iTunes.
“We should start a screencaster’s knowledge exchange.”
That sir is a good idea. Now I have something to ponder over the holidays.
Me too.
Thank you for your website, it has been a very happy discovery for me.
Echoing what Marcus Sundman says, the sound is a bit too high-quality. Mono would
be a very good option; the stereo motion while you re-locate from one place to another
is distracting. Perhaps a head microphone? I can hear the keyboard springs as well as
background sounds – you might get less of these artifacts with a headset (but I expect
there might be a slightly ‘breathy’ quality to it).
I use MPlayer on OpenSuSE 10.3 and the quality is pretty good.