Use SUPER to convert DivX video for your mobile
Suppose someone sent you one of those "funny" video clips that circulate on the Internet - for instance the one with the DUI guy who is being finger printed at the police station. Let us further assume you would like to have this video on to your mobile phone so you can show it off to your friends…or something.
How will you do that?
Well, you can do as I do in this brief guide where I use the free tool, »SUPER« - quite the Swiss Army Knife when it comes to video conversion.
SUPER will hog your system's resources but make up for it because of its ability to convert back and forth between virtually every known video format. For instance, SUPER converts from/to .3gp (works with most mobiles); .mp4 (H.264, actually - works with newer S60 handsets) and finally .avi (i.e. divx, which works with the free DivXPlayer). In other words, three video formats that are particularly interesting with regards to mobile phones.
In this post I describe how to convert to .avi - that is DivX - to enable me to play the video using DivXPlayer on my Nokia N95. I will not just cover how to convert the video into DivX - I will also cover how to make sure the converted video is particularly suitable for "mobile" playback.
First, here is the video I will be converting to DivX, as shown on YouTube:
As you can see in the video, you really should not mix beer and wine - it is the one or the other!
I have the video clip in Windows Media Video (.wmv) format, taking up 2.6 MB. Here is how to convert the video:
- Install SUPER, if you have not done so already - see download link near the end of this post.
- By default, SUPER stores all converted videos in the 'OutPut' folder, located in the SUPER install folder (typically 'C:\Programs\SUPER\OutPut'). To use a different folder, right click the SUPER window and select "Output File Saving Management" in the menu.
- Drag and drop the video clip to convert into the lower part of the SUPER window - see screenshot to the right.
- Video (see settings in the screenshot below):
- Choose .avi as Output Container.
- Choose ffmpeg or MEncoder as encoder.
- Choose 320:240 pixels as Video Scale Size.
- Choose 4:3 as Aspect.
- Set Frame/Sec to 15.
- Set Bitrate to 336 kbps.
- Audio:
- Set Bitrate to 56 kbps.
Leave the rest of the settings at their default values.
Finally, press the button labeled "Encode (Active Files)", at the bottpm of the SUPER window. Hereby opens a small window with FourCC options - choose XviD. This starts the conversion process.
On my machine SUPER converts the .wmv video to a 2.6 MB .avi video.
It is of course nice that SUPER can be used to convert small-scale videos like the one featured in this post. However, SUPER can also handle larger files. I have used SUPER to convert a 915 MB TV show, downloaded from The Danish Broadcasting Corporation web site, into a mobile "friendly" 354 MB .avi. This means that longer videos, feature film and TV programs can be stored on the phone - clips which for instance can be viewed on a TV set by using the TV-out function available on the N95 and other phones.
Link: Download SUPER. Here is a direct link to the installation files. Because this link is likely to change, here is also a link to the SUPER download page. I am afraid this page is very messy and you have to click through several pages to get to actual download page. The messiness is caused by a combination of unfortunate (french) web design and a desire to expose visitors to as many ads as possible.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
January 4th, 2008 at 21:54
[...] a read on this site mate, it has walkthroughs on how to do it pal. Use SUPER to convert DivX video for your mobile __________________ If you appreciate help from a member, then show it by clicking on the [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 03:08
Hello,i enjoyed your lesson on super for cell phones.If only now I can figure out how to the same for my daughters mp4 player-lol.Thanks,the help is always appreciated–Grant
March 10th, 2008 at 23:27
The quality is great but not as good as it should imo.. Can I change any settings for better quality, w/o any lagg or something like that..
Cheers
March 18th, 2008 at 00:23
WOW again well done …. keep up the excellent work. super works great.thanks for the walk thru—cheers Bob
November 6th, 2008 at 11:22
how come when i encode the file it works fine but when i play it on my phone large pixels appears and does not display the clip properly
plz help me
November 6th, 2008 at 13:07
@jaejoong: Maybe because it is “Best to use FFmpeg with SUPER and DivXPlayer Mobile v.0.90″?
January 13th, 2009 at 23:04
Hej,
Jag har använt SUPER(R) men hittar inte de färdiga filerna, inte ens i Output-mappen. Var kan de finnas (om de finns)?
Jag skulle bli tacksam för svar.
Med vänliga hälsningar
Olivier Löfgren, Halmstad, Sverige
In english, if needed… :)
I have used SUPER(R) but do not find the finished files, not even in the Output-folder. Where can they be found (if they exist)?
Thanks in advance!
Yours sincerely,
Olivier Löfgren, Halmstad, Sweden
January 13th, 2009 at 23:20
Nu fungerade det, men jag får nästan alltid “ERROR” när jag vill göra MP-4-filer till min Nokia 6220 Classic.
(In eng.: I almost all the time get “ERROR”…)
January 14th, 2009 at 01:00
Hello Olivier,
I can decipher your comments in Swedish , but I cannot give you replies in Swedish - I will stick to Denglish.
Re: location of outputted files, see #2 in the above walktrough (but you fixed it yourself).
I honestly have not used MP4 as an output format with SUPER and I have little idea what causes the errors you are getting. I basically use SUPER for converting to DivX. I do get errors from time to time, I think they are caused by something in the input files?
February 3rd, 2009 at 22:33
Avoid SUPER and any other software that claims to create “DivX” files but is not actually certified by DivX or does not use the DivX encoder. There are lots of free converters out there, many based on FFMPEG, MENCODER, and/or Xvid that do not use the fast, high-quality DivX encoder or adhere to the DivX profiles. I only use DivX Converter, Dr. DivX, StreamClip or VirtualDub. I avoid ffmpegx, handbrake, etc.
The author wisely recommends limiting the average bitrate to 336 kbps however, SUPER does not allow you to adjust the peak bitrate which could surge over 4 Mbps and cause your video to stutter on your phone. Using DivX software you can simply select the “Mobile Profile” which limits both the average and peak bitrates to reasonable levels. You can also use VirtualDub and the DivX encoder in “unconstrained” mode to fine tune the peak bitrate to suit your particular phone.
May 16th, 2009 at 20:09
I converted (big) movies into mp4 with Super. At the beginning all is fine. After a while audio is getting slower than video. After 1 hour the difference is about 5 sec - bothering.
Any idea what I do wrong?
Thanks