vB Easy Archive - Quicktime Pro does 3GPP Movies

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Quicktime Pro does 3GPP Movies
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Posted by: gene9

FYI, I purchased Apple Quicktime Pro for Windows and installed the 3GPP component; more info can be found here...

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/3gpp/

I tested this out on two Quicktime movie files (Punchie, and Gollum at the MTV Awards), both were orginally 320x240.

I first performed a high-quality QT-Movie export to resize the movies down to 192x144; audio uncompressed.

Then I did an export to 3GPP Release 5.1

The results can be seen in the following movies...

Gollum at the MTV awards (1.83MB)...
http://kronan.home.mindspring.com/gollum_mtvawards.3gp

My favorite dog Punchie...
http://kronan.home.mindspring.com/punchie.3gp

Any tips on improving quality would be appreciated.

Posted by: aadamian

Gene9,

Did you try MP4 export ? and played it on P800 ?

Can you specify all the QT setting used.

I'm having problems getting lossless playback on the P800 after converting DV to MP4 using QTPro.

Cheers.

Posted by: gene9

Be sure to...

1) update your QTPro to version 6.3,
2) install the Quicktime 3GPP component.

New versions of this were release on or around June 6th.

More info can be found here...

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/3gpp/

Can't provide settings at the moment although here's some things off the top of my head...

After you install the QT 3GPP component, you will be able to export movies to 3GPP and adjust the settings (video, audio, 3gpp text, etc.). The sizes allowed are "current," 176x??? and 160x120, so if you want 192x144, you have to first do an export to that size, then export to 3GPP using "current size."

The default 3GPP settings are pretty close to what's recommended in the SE P800 White Paper. One can make improvements to sound quality and sacrifce file size (like I used better sound settings in the Gollum video, otherwise the default sound settings would garble his already garbled voice).

I tried to improve the quality of the video and noticed what looked like dropped frames, like the P800 can't handle higher frame rates with higher image quality without dropping frames. I've been sticking with frame rates around 12 to 15 FPS and video bandwidth ranging from 64kbps (recommended) to 96kbps with positive results.

More later....

Posted by: gene9

P800 Recommended Settings from the P800 White Paper (page 41)
( http://www.ericsson.com/mobilitywor...00/docs/p800_wp )

Audio Support is AAC and GSM-AMR according to 3GPP ( http://www.3gpp.org/ )

The following video codec support is provided according to 3GPP:

MPEG-4 Simple Visual Profile Level 0
H263 Profile 0 Level 10
H263 Profile 3 Level 10

Recommended Settings for Video + AMR:

Video Bandwidth: 64kbps
Video Size: 192x144
Audio Sample / Bit Rate: 8kHz / 12.2kbps
Audio Channels: Mono

My own comments / findings…

Video Bandwidth can range up to at least 96kbps without noticeably affecting the playback performance of the P800; I’ve yet to test the absolute upper limit. I wish I had a test video to try messing with (one with a countdown, colors and flashing numbers).
Video Size of 192x144 is fine for the P800, but not good for other devices with smaller screens. The 3GPP standard specifies sizes of 176x144 and 128x96.
Audio Channels: I think for AMR you might as well always do mono, mono or stereo with AAC depending on the quality of the source audio and what you really need for your final 3GPP video. Stereo for movies or music, mono for news and interviews, etc. Personally, I prefer better sounding mono over crappy sounding stereo on a handheld unit.
AMR vs AAC: I think AMR is good where phone-quality is ok for the audio track, AAC for movies and music audio tracks where better sound quality is needed.
Audio Sample / Bit Rate: Sample rate is really a judgment call; take the high frequency of interest and multiply by 2 for the minimum audio sample rate, generally. The defaults listed above for AAC and AMR are fine for most uses considering the P800 is a handheld device and not audiophile equipment. I try to minimize the bit rate to a point where the audio doesn’t sound like crap (no horrible echoes, whooshing, etc.). Go with the recommended settings to start with and adjust according to your preferences.
Frame Rate: not discussed in the P800 white paper, I try to stick to either 12 or 15 depending on the source file. If the source is 30 frames per second (FPS), I export to 15 FPS. If the source is 24.## FPS, I export to 12; this should minimize jerky looking video on the P800. If the source is already 12 or 15 FPS, I don’t change it.
The P800 is a great phone but is still lacking for video playback. The screen can only display 4,096 colors, the processing power is limited to how much real-time rendering of compressed content can be performed without displayed losses. In one case I was doing a test on exporting Fischerspooner’s “Emerge” video, set the video bandwidth to 96kbps, set the audio to AAC/22kHz/32kbps, stereo in one export, mono in another export. The mono version actually sounded better and the video was less lossy when played back on my P800. The give away was the rain in part of the video, staggered in the stereo version, smoother in the mono version. Both versions look fine on my desktop so I think my videos are bumping up against the upper limit of what the P800 can handle. Anyway I’ve been hacking along with tests as I’m writing this and feel that the defaults given in the P800 White Paper are generally optimized for the P800. The defaults for 3GPP on QT Pro are pretty close to the settings recommended for the P800.

If you go to http://kronan.home.mindspring.com/ you’ll find a couple of 3GPP videos and screen captures from QT Pro of my “Export -> Movie to 3GPP” settings (general, video and audio); they follow close to what’s in the P800 White Paper. Remember to adjust the video frame rate to be exactly that of the source file, or close to some multiple of it; Gollum is 15 FPS and Punchie is 12 FPS based on the source files.

I got the 192x144 size by doing two exports. The first being “Movie to Quicktime Movie” where I adjusted the size, used Sorenson 3 (Best quality) and passed the audio uncompressed. The next export was “Movie to 3GPP” with the settings in the screen captures mentioned previously.

I’m interested to see how this works on Bladerunner, my next export.

Posted by: Lepton68

Your movies look good! I downloaded the add-on for QuickTime but haven't made any movies with it yet.

Is there an advantage to using this format over MP4 like smaller files or better quality? I've made a lot of MP4 movies for the phone and they seem pretty good.

Posted by: gene9

Thanks for the compliment. :-)

3GPP is a mobile video standard that specifies MPEG-4 or H.263 compression for video, and AAC or GSM-AMR compression for audio. So 3GPP can be MPEG-4 video with AAC or GSM-AMR audio (what I use for my videos).

The advantage of 3GPP is really in its support of AAC and AMR audio compression, as well as MPEG-4 for video.

A phone stated to be 3GPP-capable is supposed to be able to handle MPEG-4, H.263, AAC and GSM-AMR. If a MPEG-4 video has audio in something other than AAC or AMR (like mp3), a 3GPP phone may not be able play the audio unless it supports audio compression outside of the 3GPP standard (like if the phone doubles as an mp3 player).

I'm being bad by making movies 192x144 optimized for the P800's larger display. If you create 3GPP videos in the sizes recommended by the standard (176x144 or 128x96), the movies should play well on 3GPP-capable phones with smaller displays (like the new SE T610 and others).

Now I'm wondering about the file size of Bladerunner in 128x96. ;-)