Monthly Archives: September 2013

UltraProjector (v1) and Mac and ffmpeg

I have previously been able to convert video files to work with the UltraProjector using an old (2006) copy of “mencoder”. I now have been able to do it using the standard “ffmpeg” command. Here are the options, and I will try to clean them up and explain later:

I downloaded the “ffmpeg” command line utility from here:

http://www.evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/

And these are the options I was using to convert an MPEG4 video file to an AVI file that plays on the UltraProjector:

ffmpeg -i creepy.mp4 -c:v libxvid -vtag XVID -r 24 -b:a 128K -ar 44100 -acodec mp2 -b:v 512k -s qvga creepy.avi

  • -c:v libxvid … use the xvid video converter
  • -vtag XVID … put “XVID” as the video tag inside the file (not sure if this is necessary)
  • -r 24 … 24 fps (higher frame rate may work for simple videos, but may play slower)
  • -b:a 128k … audio quality 128kbits
  • -ar 44100 … audio sample rate 44khz
  • -acodec mp2 … audio codec MP2 (not sure if it handles other formats or not)
  • -b:v 512K … max video bitrate. Experiment with larger numbers for better video, but at some point it will break.
  • -s qvga … output size to 320×240