03.09.10
Posted in Life at 3:18 pm by wfrantz
For a limited time only, you can choose one of the following free DivX movies from FilmFresh: Batman Begins, Ace Ventura, 2 weeks notice, Sisterhood of Travelling Pants or Green Lantern
You can also get a free copy of Terminator Salvation from CinemaNow using coupon code TS201023.
Film Fresh and CinemaNow offer lots of DivX movies for sale that will play on a Mac or PC but also work in any DivX certified device. Do you have a DivX device? Maybe a DVD player with a DivX logo or a Sony Playstation 3? These free videos allow you to try out DivX at zero cost.
Using the DivX Video On Demand (VOD) system can be kind of difficult for new users and I’d like to know how it could be improved. Pretend to be an average consumer. Can you get this cartoon to play on your DivX DVD player? How many steps do you have to go through? What problems do you encounter? Is there some point at which most people would just give up?
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03.04.10
Posted in Life at 12:22 pm by wfrantz
While attending the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, I found out what all the fashionable fans will be wearing to Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia for the 2014 games.
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03.02.10
Posted in Life at 5:25 pm by wfrantz
Currently the #1 download at Film Fresh is a free cartoon by Sid the Science Kid from PBS.
Film Fresh offers lots of DivX movies for sale that will play on a Mac or PC but also work in any DivX certified device. Do you have a DivX device? Maybe a DVD player with a DivX logo or a Sony Playstation 3? This free video allows you to try out DivX at zero cost.
Using the DivX Video On Demand (VOD) system can be kind of difficult for new users and I’d like to know how it could be improved. Pretend to be an average consumer. Can you get this cartoon to play on your DivX DVD player? How many steps do you have to go through? What problems do you encounter? Is there some point at which most people would just give up?
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06.26.09
Posted in Life at 9:25 am by wfrantz
Look at the following picture. Stare at the black ‘+’ in the center and you will see a moving green dot but try to follow the green dot with your eyes and it will disappear.
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06.09.09
Posted in Life at 10:43 am by wfrantz
http://www.mininggazette.com/page/content.detail/id/504993.html?nav=5006
A different fellow named “William Frantz” was sentenced for negligent homicide following a DUI accident. We both happen to be from Michigan but the defendant is a 19 year old Michigan Tech student who just happens to share my name. I sympathize for the kid but the moral is clear. Drunk driving can be deadly.
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07.22.08
Posted in Life at 8:57 am by wfrantz
FYI, you can get my public PGP key from the PGP Global Directory
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05.19.08
Posted in Life at 3:53 pm by wfrantz
I recently shot some video using the camera on my HTC Touch Cruise. I was easily able to send it as an e-mail attachment using Pocket Outlook and my GMail account. However, when the video arrived it was in an unusable format so I had to do some FFMPEG processing on it.
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01.24.08
Posted in Life at 1:38 pm by wfrantz
I saw this question today so I’m posting my response here for everyone.
I am seeking a way to covert my dvd’s to a video file format.
I am looking to use mp4 or divx…
In the USA it is illegal to circumvent the copy protection found on most commercial DVDs. However, if you have an unprotected DVD, you can use DivX Converter to convert the DVD to a DivX file.
For example, I have a DVD from my wedding. I paid the videographer for the footage and he gave me an unencrypted DVD. I put that DVD into my computer and can see the contents of the disc. In one of the sub-directories there is a set of large files with names ending in VOB.
Drag and drop the VOB files into DivX Converter, select the “Home Theater” profile, wait a while, and you’ll get a file out with a name ending in divx that is about one quarter the size of the original VOB files. Converter automatically stitches the VOBs together into one file. Take that divx file, burn it on to a CD-ROM and you can watch it on any DivX Certified DVD player. There are many models to choose from starting from as little as $40.
Go to www.divx.com for the software. The DivX Converter software is free, but you’ll need the optional ($10) MPEG2 plug-in to read VOB files. If you are converting lots of videos, consider upgrading to DivX Pro ($20) that will convert files faster and/or provide better quality.
Beware of software that says it creates “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. I only use DivX Converter, Dr. DivX, StreamClip or VirtualDub. I avoid ffmpegx, handbrake, etc.
Advanced Encoding
So you’ve tried DivX Converter but you’ve found you want more control over the encoding process. I’d suggest using software that gives you direct access to the DivX encoder options.
For Mobile, I always crop to 4:3 aspect ratio then scale to 320×240 (qVGA) and keep the video bitrate around 300 kbps. Lanczos is the best resize filter. Always crop off any black borders that may appear around the original video. You waste lots of bitrate trying to encode a sharp black frame around your video. Get rid of them.
For all encodings, I take advantage of the optional enhancements offered by DivX Pro. That means, Multipass (fast first pass), Insane Quality, Experimental SSE4 Search, Enhanced Multithreading, Bidirectional coding, Auto Noise Reduction, Optimized Quantization, Shaping Psychovisual Enhancements and Enhanced I-Blocks. For grainy video, I use Masking Psychovisual Enhancements.
Multi-pass provides better quality and better control of the bitrate. For example, if you try 300 kbps with 1 pass, you might get 275 kbps or 325 kbps. With fast first pass, you will usually get within 2 kbps of your target rate. If you really want exactly the target rate, make a slow first pass.
If you don’t care about rate, use the “1-pass quality based” setting. It’s really the best and fastest method. You let the encoder choose the optimal bit-rate based on the content. I typically use a Quality setting between 3.5 and 5.0 depending on the content. Unfortunately, with this setting, you don’t know what bitrate you’ll end up with and you could easily get something your phone can’t handle, so I don’t use this setting for Mobile sized videos.
I never mess with the max key frames and keyframe threshold. Theoretically you could optimize those settings based on your content. For example, if you have lots of video of a talking head, use a very high max key frame. If you have lots of panning or short, similar scenes, lower the max or the keyframe threshold. By default, you’ll get a key frame at least every 3 seconds and I rarely try to tweak it.
For more detail about what all these settings mean, see the Dr. DivX user guide.
Don’t forget about the audio. Many DivX videos have 128 kbps MP3 stereo audio. That’s usually what you want for Mobile clips and a converter like VirtualDub will copy the audio stream as-is without re-encoding it. Unfortunately Dr. DivX will always re-encode the audio stream whether you need to or not. Sometimes I will use DivXMux to use the original audio stream and the converted video stream.
If you never use stereo headphones, you can save a few bytes by converting the audio to mono and drop the bitrate to 96 kbps.
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12.26.07
Posted in Life at 5:30 pm by wfrantz
William Frantz Elementary School is located at 3811 North Galvez Street, New Orleans, LA 70117. While we share the same name, I’m not related to the school.
Lee Harvey Oswald was born October 18, 1939. He lived on Alvar Street, across from William Frantz Elementary which he attended with his brother.
Decades later, 6 year old Ruby Bridges also attended William Frantz Elementary marking the end of segregation on November 14, 1960.
3 years later, on November 22, 1963, Lee assassinated one of the biggest proponents of civil rights, President John F. Kennedy.
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12.21.07
Posted in Life at 12:30 pm by wfrantz
By now there are a few million iPhone users compared to hundreds of million Windows Mobile phone users. Yet, in The Seven Biggest Mobile Content Stories of 2007, Fierce Mobile reported that iPhone Safari browser usage has dramatically exceeded Windows Mobile Pocket Internet Explorer.
I find this astonishing. Apple overcame a 100:1 disadvantage and a several year head start. Then again, I’m often taken aback when “average users” believe some feature is revolutionary when in fact it has been available for years. Now I realize that Apple’s skill is not simply making good products but actually promoting their use. There are no commercials on TV that show happy Windows Mobile users scrolling around web pages on a phone, so I guess nobody realizes its possible until Apple runs an iPhone ad. Suddenly everyone thinks only an iPhone can do this, that or the other thing.
For example, in Year of the iPhone Sue Marek says, Apple’s iPhone transformed wireless handsets with its innovative design and touch screen. I disagree. Hold an iPhone next to an iPaq from 1999. The design is sleeker and smaller but it doesn’t seem innovative considering 8 years have past.
Sue continues, the device finally showed consumers that mobile computing was not only possible but actually fun to do. Here I agree and this is where Apple made a difference. They showed consumers.
Consider iTunes and CD burners. Nobody realized they could make their own CD’s until the “Rip, Mix, Burn” commercials ran?
Go back to the first iPod. Handheld, digital music players had been around for a long time but people didn’t know they existed or didn’t understand what they did. Apple entered the market and taught everybody.
Go back to the first Mac. Other computers had mice and GUIs (including Apple’s own Lisa) but Apple had to show people that computers could be easy to use. I honestly don’t think Apple computers are any easier or harder to use than other computers but Apple does the best job at teaching people.
I’m not an Apple basher. To the contrary, I have an iPod, iMac and a Macbook. I love the products, however I didn’t pay retail for any of them and they don’t offer any feature I can’t replicate for less money. It seems, the “average user” doesn’t share my aptitude for cobbling together solutions or hunting down alternative products.
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