Itouch mp4 settings

[Andy Bircumshaw]

On 23/12/2010, at 11:51am, Don Rossie wrote:

> Hi, I have managed to download programs from iplayer and then they are
> automatically converted to mp4 from flv (by using ffmpeg I assume). The
> trouble is they won't load onto itunes so that I can play them on my itouch,
> however, they will play on vlc.
> 
> It must be something to do with the conversion tool ffmpeg and the settings.
> Camn anyone please help me with getting the downloads suitable to play on my
> itouch.

I would guess it's the h262 level at which the video is encoded.

Loosely speaking these translate to the level of performance required to playback the video.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H264#Profiles (scroll down to "Levels" subsection)

An iPod might be able to play back level 1.3, but if the video is marked as level 2 (the scale starts at 1 and goes to 5.1) then it knows it won't have the horsepower, and won't even try to decode it.

Obviously higher-resolution videos require a more powerful processor to decode.

There are tools with which you can change the level with which the video is marked, but if the bitrate is too high then the playback will stutter (at best).

See, for example:
http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2006-June/003218.html
This is first hit in this search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mplayer%20levels%20h264%20ipod

The easy answer is probably that you've been downloading with `get_iplayer --tvmode flashhd,flashvhigh` and you need to use `get_iplayer --tvmode flashstd,flashnormal`. If you want the high-quality flashhd,flashvhigh to watch on your 50" TV but maybe want to take the video on your iPod, in case you're stuck in traffic and want to watch it whilst you drive, then you can transcode from the higher resolution to the lower one yourself. But it is CPU intensive to do so, and you're probably just better off downloading two copies (use `get_iplayer -o /a/different/dir --force`).

HTH,

aB.