After 2 days of working on this I think I might have finally got it. So far so good. I have downloaded 3 movies and converted them and imported them to the fuze and they are playing. This is what I did.
I downloaded avs4you the video converter. Just go to avs4you.com. You can try it for free first and that is what I did to make sure it worked. I also downloaded directx, dvd-43, ffdshow and klitecodec. Since I am not computer wizard, I am not sure that you need to download all of these but I was getting so frustrated with this that I was trying just about anything. Then what I did was first converted the dvd to avi using avs4you and just adjusting the settings. Edit profile to custom then put the width at 224 and the height at 176. I put the codec at mp3. It does take a long time but when that is done converting, I then converted it again with the sansa media converter ( if you don’t have this, you will need to download that too.) When that was done, which didn’t take long at all, I plugged my fuze in and it automatically downloaded into the fuze and it worked perfect.
Heh, wish this had been around when I was looking for answers. I ended up doing a lot of experimentation as well before coming on what I think the core of the problem is. The basics are that I found that the converter would not convert files with a high bitrate. But if I used another application to lower that bitrate the converter would work. I have not experimented to find out the ceiling bitrate, I found a file that converted and looked fine and I adopted that as a standard. So far I have not had a failure.
The software I used to drop the bitrate is mediacoder, a free application that can be found on the MediaCoder homepage. They are looking for donations so if you like the app please keep that in mind.
The bitrate that Im using as a safe bitrate is 267 Kbps. Im converting down from bitrates exceeding 1000 Kbps typically. But this dramatically reduces the filesize and like I said, the quality still looks and sounds good. Speaking of sound Im using 24000 Hz as the threshold for the downconversion.
I too have and use the AVS software and it has been good. It has enough flexibility and customization in the settings that I feel that, given the right options, the step of using SMC shouldn’t be necessary at all. The SMC causes audio/video sync issues that could be avoided if it wasn’t used. Because of this I have been splitting all video into chunks of <30 minutes (so a typical movie is split into 3-4 files). I have yet to be able to figure out what all of those specs are, but your post ktaltos has given me a few more of them, thanks. Any more details about your settings is appreciated.
I have had great success using winavi to convert my videos. I use 224x176 @ 20 fps with 44000 audio sample rate and it works great. The default codecs are what work the best for me. Using Winavi I have been able to just D&D my vids onto my player with no issues. I came accross this solution after a month of not being able to get SMC to launch, let alone convert vids.
I struggled relentlessly to get vid on the Fuze. What a pain. I stumbled upon this thread and wala! Headaches are gone.
I used avs4you, dvd43, and winavi. Painless now really. I am wondering now if winavi could be used to do the whole process. Or do you need to convert the dvd first with another program (avs4you)? Would be nice, but for now I can live with just finally getting a vid to work. Thanks fellas for sharing all your info. Helped tons!
Well, syn is still off. Not terribly. But still off with full length movies. Is there any solution to this? I was hoping not using smc would eliminate this problem.
Winavi has some codecs and whatnot on their download page, and it should support a lot of the more popular formats. I know that a fresh install of Winavi supports xvid, so if you can confrim that your vids are in xvid, or rip from dvd into xvid, you should be able to eliminate an extra step. I like Magic Video Converter myself. If winavi won’t convert a file type, I just convert it with magic, and then run it through avi. The only times I have had issues with a video playing, or with a vdeo having bad sync, has been when I use a converter on a file before I convert with Winavi. A direct rip into xvid, then converted to mp4 with winavi, should produce pretty good results nearly 100% of the time.
Edit: I just ran some test conversions and compared them to the original file, it seems that Winavi doesn’t cause a sync problem. I watched the original file, then watched a converted file, and everything seems to be fine. It could be one of the other programs being used to convert prior to winavi, or it could be the player itself. Not really sure at this point.
Message Edited by boburanus on 01-03-2009 02:54 PM
I am converting the dvd with avs4you. Then with winavi. Wonder if avs is root of the sync issue? The entire process is very simple once you have it fingered out.
Watch a file after you rip it from DVD. If you notice anything is off sync, then I would rip it again, and make sure you don’t have anything else running at the same time. I would also cheack each output file after every conversion, even after you use Winavi. If you don’t see anything go off sync up to that point, but then notice it once you watch it on your player, then that is the problem. Not really sure of a fix to that problem yet, maybe converting vids in a lower audio sampling.
um hi you said avs works good and it does but i don’t know what bitrate to chose and if i leave the bitrate alone it won’t go on my fuze so could you tell me which bitrate to chose that would help me alot
