Macintosh Users
Until recently, the Macintosh user community did not have any tools to create DivX™ simple profile MPEG4 video files. There is now a free tool available at the DivX™Networks web site which will allow you to create DivX™ simple profile files with your Macintosh that are playable on the AV300. Attention: As of the writing of this manual, the MP3 encoder (which is necessary if the original file is not encoded with an MP3 CBR sound track) is not free. There is a small charge for this.
9.1Installing the PC Software
If your video file is not an MPEG4 Simple Profile .avi file of the proper size, you will need to re-encode it using the following utilities. For the AV300, you will need to create an AVI file that is MPEG4 Simple Profile with a resolution of 640x480 (depending on frame rate) or smaller and a sound track that is stereo MP3.
Please install the programs in the following order.
DivX™ Codec
This software will install the DivX™ Compression/Decompression onto your PC. You should shut off any anti-virus programs when installing this or other codec software. This is not a program that is run by itself. Rather, it installs background software which allows your computer to do high quality video compression. This is the MPEG4 compressed video type that the AV300 knows how to play. You can find this codec software, as well as an application that allows you to play DivX™ videos on your PC, at the web site www.divx.com. There are three versions of the software found at their web site. You can choose the basic “free” version. This will give you the codec that you will need. For Macintosh users, DivX™ re-encoding software is just in its infancy. Currently DivXnetworks has released only a QuickTime™ decoder component, not an encoder.
Virtual Dub™
A utility for transcoding one video file into another. This is a general purpose transfer and cleanup utility which has many options allowing for even the most difficult video translations. When you install it from the CD-ROM, it will automatically unzip. It will prompt you to save it to C:\Program Files\VirtualDub. You should use this default directory location. Otherwise you will have to instruct the Mpeg4 translator program where to find it.
MPG4 Translator
This program, developed by Archos, is a “Front-end” for the Virtual Dub program. It has a simple interface which you use and it then tells Virtual Dub how to process the video file. It sets all the parameters for Virtual Dub specifically to create a video file in the right size and format to be read by the AV300. When you run it for the first time, the Mpeg4 Translator will need to locate the Virtual Dub program. If you did not install Virtual Dub in the default location, you will have to show the program where Virtual Dub is.
Creating MPEG4 Video Files
