Archos 402 9.1 , VIDEO - Creating MPEG4 video files with your computer

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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.

VIDEO - Creating MPEG4 video files with your computer