Making AMV files for the Uxcell UX-Mirage

[RoadRunner]

Hi there.
I'm really glad I found your forum and I have found the info really helpful so far.
Firstly... I'd like to chew the ear of the person who has been berating the Chinese and calling them a load of communist pirates.
My wife is Chinese and I was somewhat saddened by the post which painted the Chinese folk as a bunch of con-artists and communist pirates.

There are con-artists and pirates of all nationalities and political persuasions. Many of them send us spam telling us we're about to receive untold fortunes and many others set up shops on eBay selling non-existent or fake goods.

I'd like to point out that many of the Chinese people are honourable, helpful and work very hard to adapt to the rapid 'Westernisation' of their homeland - Many of them are very successful and stand to gain huge financial rewards from their honest work selling cheap goods to the rest of us materialistic capitalists.

Sadly, of course, there ARE many who just want to make a quick buck and don't care who they hurt in the process, but please, let's not tar them all with the same brush.

Okay - 'nuff said !! I've had my quick rant on that topic.

Now, on to my main issue.

I purchased an MP4 player from Uxcell on eBay.
(UX-Mirage - 2Gb)
Firstly, I feel a little cheated that it doesn't actually play MP4 files !!
Rather, it plays these AMV things... Poooh !!
(Or do I have the wrong end of the stick ??? Is AMV just another name for MP4 ?? No ??? I don't think so.)

However, I do consider myself relieved to find that the Uxcell product I purchased appears to be a genuine 2Gb unit - Given the horror stories I've spent this-morning reading, I consider myself to be exceedingly lucky (although I am going to double-check my unit just to be sure).

Yes - Mine came with the 'do not format this device' warning.

As previously mentioned, my wife is Chinese and as a result, we have the Chinese input method installed on our laptops.

The AMV conversion utility has been driving me potty !!!
It refused to operate in English, instead everything displayed was only in Chinese.

Reading this site has helped me to find a solution that I would like to share with anyone else who finds themselves in this unfortunate position.
(As I am sure that there must be other users out there who are learning Mandarin or Cantonese and have installed the Chinese input methods on their machines.)

I read a few posts which talked about ini files in the software's directory.
So, I went hunting and found the culprit !

Use a semicolon ( ; ) to comment out the offending lines, like this:

[LanguageMap]
default=English,movieconverttoolen.chm,dialog_en.b mp
409=English,movieconverttoolen.chm,dialog_en.bmp
;804=Chinese(P.R.C),movieconverttoolcn.chm,dialog_ cn.bmp
;404=Chinese(Taiwan),movieconverttooltw.chm,dialog _tw.bmp

Now, run the software and hey-presto... English !

Whilst digging around in there, I also decided to correct a spelling mistake.

Video is spelled V-I-D-E-O...
Not... V-E-D-I-O
See the line which reads :
UIInfo55=Vedio frames per second:

Okay, so that's what I've learned and I am happy to share my new-found knowledge, but I am really hoping that someone can tell me how on Earth to format video to a satisfactory standard.
This unit comes supplied with two video files for demonstration.
Some random female singing a cover of a Madonna song (La Isla Bonita), and an advert for a rather beefy looking car called the Koenigsegg CC.

Both of these are produced at 160x120 and play in landscape mode on my ipod-alike... Or is the accepted term 'Chipod' ??

No matter what I do, I cannot duplicate this format.
Instead, I get a tiny little 4:3 aspect, displayed portrait on my 3:4 aspect screen with a black border and title, top and bottom.
Not good !
As a video-player - Totally worthless. Unless I want to spend the rest of my days watching someone singing a Madonna song and then drooling over a beefy sports-car with a top-speed of 'somewhere between here and supersonic' !!

I actually went so far as to edit the line in the ini file to read:
VIDEOSIZE=96X64(8;10;12),120X160(8;10;12),128X96(8 ;10;12),128X128(8;10;12)
- adding the bit which reads : "120X160(8;10;12),"
- I even tried the same line with 160X120... All to no avail.

Any clues ?

Thanks..

The RoadRunner..

[HymenBuster]

hey i like ur lil talk about chinese ppl, i havnt seen that kinda stereo-typin on this forum yet but i know the truths cuz i am chinese.

now lets get w/ helping u. i just went to uxcell mirage page and it says it has a 1.5 inch screen. how does a 1.5 inch screen have 160x 120 videos? well if it does, maybe u need to tilt ur videos sideways w/ the filter "tilt horizantally" (maybe its vertically) on virtual dub. and then use the amv converter to convert it to 120x160, i dunno if it has that option though.

im relatively new to this forum also, but i learn quick and like to help.

peace

[RoadRunner]

你好 HymenBuster.
(For those unfortunates who can't see the Chinese characters - It means 'hello' - approximately).
The post was in one of the sections where some members of this forum have bought players which have been hacked to show that they have more memory than they actually have. They only find out when they cross the boundary of their 'real' memory and find that anything else has become corrupted. Sadly, this seems to be an ever-growing con - especially on eBay - So for those who are unaware - BEWARE !

I've just verified that my unit is indeed a true 2Gb unit.
I'd already filled mine up (and I've had it less than 48 hours).
So, I plugged it into the laptop and pulled everything off it into a new folder. Then, just to be sure, I checked the size of the new folder. Yup - Just slightly short of 2Gb.
If I had a hacked 1Gb or 512Mb unit, I would have expected it to fail during the process of copying onto the laptop. It all seems to check out correctly.

And... More good news. Using the procedure described at this link:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/full-scre...or--vt449.html

after downloading the 3.57 version of the MP3 utils, I sucessfully created a 160x120 which when loaded into my Mirage, automatically played in landscape-mode and filled the screen Yeeeeehaaa !!!

Sadly... I am back to having to put up with running it in Chinese as my 'force to English' hack will not work... Boohoo !!

As for the actual resolution of the Mirage, I have no idea at the moment.
All I know is that the demo files supplied play in landscape and they have been created in 160x120. However, when I play them in the AMV player on the laptop, they play 'unrotated'. IE - in their correct orientation.

So... This led me to believe that the way to create 'full-screen' video was to engineer myself a 160x120 clip and have spent the past couple of days trying to do exactly that.

Finally - Using v3.57 of the utils and following the instructions posted on this site - I have achieved exactly what I was hoping for.

Bingo !

Why the later versions of the software won't allow a 160x120 conversion, I have no idea. That seems totally daft to me, but there we have it.

So, my choice is postage-stamp video with English software - Or full-screen video and Chinese software.

I guess I'd better practice my Chinese, eh ??

The RoadRunner..

[tadad1]

RoadRunner, What version of MP3 Player Utilities do you have installed? For 160x120 I tend to use 3.57 HERE as you can adjust frame rate. I have posted configuration needed for 3.57 HERE. Version 3.68 will not convert 160x120. Version 4.0 will but is a little buggy and you can not adjust frame rate, you may have to edit the AmvTransform.ini to CHIPTYPE=1 if the 160x120 settings are not visible. Versions 4.03 & 4.05 have a setting for 160x120 but will actually convert to 176x128 which will crash your player.

I found AMV quality can be furthur enhanced by converting all video to .avi format then pre-processing through VirtualDub to make the following adjustments
Resize to 160x120 and cropping to remove black letterbox areas and keep video centered.
Change frame rate to 16fps to match my amv frame rate to prevent visible skipping.
Increase saturation , brightness and contrast to improve definition on the small screen.
Deinterlace and sharpen to improve clarity.
Adjust audio sync as I find their is a slight lag in my amv conversions.
I also save as a segmented .avi to break full movies into 4 to 5 pieces so that I can resume watching a movie at different stages rather than have to sit and slowly fast forward to the middle of a movie.

There is a guide on using VirtualDub HERE

[RoadRunner]

Originally Posted by tadad1";p=&quot

RoadRunner, What version of MP3 Player Utilities do you have installed?

The Mirage came with v3.70
Apparently no ability to produce full-screen video.
I was somewhat peeved at the Uxcell folk - Great product - software rendered the unit unusable for video.

Now that I've spent some time researching and experimenting, I'll follow up my email to them with a link to this thread for their future reference.

For 160x120 I tend to use 3.57

Yep. I've just spent some time experimenting with the various versions - including v4.00 which seems to create clips which are a little jumpy.
(the 16fps maybe doesn't quite mesh with the original frame-rate whereas 12fps is a little smoother - The files are jumpy even in the player on the laptop)

Versions 4.03 & 4.05 have a setting for 160x120 but will actually convert to 176x128 which will crash your player.

Ouch ! I'll not bother wasting my time with those then.

I found AMV quality can be furthur enhanced by converting all video to .avi format then pre-processing through VirtualDub to make the following adjustments...

I downloaded VDub a little earlier on this evening (following the recommendation found in one of the threads on this site).
I've not bothered installing it yet, as I found that the v3.57 successfully created full-screen clips.

I also save as a segmented .avi... ...rather than have to sit and slowly fast forward to the middle of a movie.

Aha... Good advice - Thanks.
(Or as the Chinese say... 谢谢)

Thanks for your help.
I'm getting much better results now than I was this time yesterday - that's for sure.

I hope that my trials and tribulations will be of some help to others finding similar difficulties.

I'm investing a couple of hour's CPU time in crunching a full-length movie to see what sort of results it yields.

v3.57 - 160x120 - 12fps.

We'll see how it goes.

Thanks again.

The RoadRunner..

[RoadRunner]

YEEEEEHAAAAAA!!!!


SUCCESS !!!!!

Yes, there does appear to be a slight lag with the audio, although, in my infinite wisdom (or should that be 'infinite stupidity' ??) I happened to pick a computer-rendered movie as my first test-subject (Hoodwinked) - So it's not really that easy to notice the lag.

Further experimentation needed.

I'll continue to post the results of my experimentation, but at least now my sweetheart has a full movie on her Mirage

Many thanks.

The RoadRunner..

[admin]

RoadRunner

Glad to see you had good result!

I have a 1.5" player and full screen for me is a mere 128 x 96 .

Hope to see you posting in the forum more as it seems to me you have a real keen interest in MPx players like the rest of us