Using MPEG-4 in Video Studio 8

[stevedineen]

Initially posted this under video, so apologies if you've seen it before...

Well, basically is this possible? The VS8 manual mentions MPEG-1 and 2 but can it cope with 4? And will the software be able to extract files from a personal video unit, specifically an Archos AV700 and if it can, is this format (MPEG-4) the best way to work with them in VS8 ?

Really appreciate help & advice, guys.

Steve

[DaveO]

Initially posted this under video, so apologies if you've seen it before...

Well, basically is this possible? The VS8 manual mentions MPEG-1 and 2 but can it cope with 4? And will the software be able to extract files from a personal video unit, specifically an Archos AV700 and if it can, is this format (MPEG-4) the best way to work with them in VS8 ?

Really appreciate help & advice, guys.

Steve

I don't know about VS8 but I have just tried it with my Archos AV440 and VS9 and it works.

If you buy VS9 you get the MPEG4 capability as a free download.

Archos AV440 video files are MPEG4 but in an AVI wrapper so you must save an AVI file that carries an MPEG4 file inside it. Don't know if the AV700 uses the same format. If you can get VS8 to work with MPEG4 the following might be useful.

You create AVI files like this in VS9 by selecting AVI as the file type at the share stage but for compression choose MPEG4.

The Archos is fussy about what it will play and the audio must be encoded as MPEG3 128Kbs with a constant bit rate (CBR). The audio and video must be set to be interleaved as well. All these options can be set from the various options menus and advanced buttons in VS9.

You need to set the resolution, frame rate etc to match your device and so on.

What I did was look at the properties of an AVI file already encoded residing on the Archos to determine the settings, including the overall bit rate. I then experimented to determine the settings above.

It works like a treat

Dave

[Telgaladhion_Greyskye]

AFAIK, you would have to buy the plugin from Ulead, though I have no idea where. Well, if you're gonna spend money anyway, why not just upgrade to VS9 - you'll can get the free MPEG-4 and HDV plugins, plus tons of other new stuff like AC3 support.

[heinz-oz]

Yeah, and the upgrade to VS9 wouldn't cost you much more than the mpeg4 plugin either (if it is available for VS 8 that is).

[stevedineen]

Thanks very much for that - I knew this was the place to come!

I couldn't find an option for an MPEG-4 plug-in on the Ulead website for VS8 and anyway, a short trawl over the features of VS9 had already made me hungry. Looks like it's an upgrade for me!

Cheers for taking so much trouble, Dave especially.

Steve