Transcoding Ogg Video for playback on PS3 using Handbrake

UDS for Maverick took place in the last week, and though I would have loved to have attended, life and uni prevented me.  Thankfully though some videos of the talks as well as various interviews with some Canonical employees, and prominent community members have been made available at http://video.ubuntu.com/uds/maverick/.  They are Ogg videos, encoded with the Theora video codec, and the Vorbis audio codec.  Nice and free, but unfortunately my freedom hating and rights revoking PS3, which doubles as my media centre, doesn’t play them back.  I store music and video on a USB hard drive connected to my router, which has a media server, which streams files to my PS3.

ffmpeg is my first port of call when doing any video conversion, as it normally performs brilliantly, but for some reason, no matter what options I used, I was unable to produce a video file that wasn’t blocky, and completely wrong coloured.  See a sample below:

I pumped the bitrate right up for this as well.

I have no experience using MEncoder, but I gave that a try, and got similar results.  VLC player has a conversion function, but I have never managed to get this working.  Even the built in presets have never produced a proper video file, with the ones I have tried either coming out as 3 seconds long, or looking as above, and missing the audio track.

A program I have used for converting media for my (freedom hating once again) iPod is Handbrake, but only ever in Windows.  Most recent versions of Handbrake included in Ubuntu had gui issues, with controls not being wired up correctly (resulting in the Start button never being ungrayed out).

Luckily these issues seem to have been fixed in the development version, and so if you checkout the latest source, and build from scratch, it seems to work.

The instructions for building the latest version from source are here.

Once you have followed those steps, you should be in possession of a working copy of HandBrake.

You can start the application by running it from the System menu, or by running ‘ghb’ from the command line.

The program is fairly simple to operate, you click Source, and select the file you wish to transcode.  Then select where you want to save it.  For straight PS3 usage, I just go with the default profile, which sets most settings sensibly.  Then hit Start, and the file will appear in the queue and start transcoding.  You are then free to select more files to be transcoded and add them to the queue.  You can see the progress of the current operation at the bottom of the window, and hitting the Show Queue button will show you the current queue in a new window:

and if you look closely you can see the UDS videos all queued up and currently in the process of transcoding!

There is one more step before you can play these files (in my set up anyway).  I’m not sure if this is the PS3 or the Media Server (TwonkyMedia Server) built into the router (Linksys WRT160NL), but Handbrake names the files with a .m4v extension, and while these will play fine in most players, the PS3 likes it if you rename them to .mp4.  Simples!

That is all there is to it.  The HandBrake team have done a wonderful job of creating a simple program which just works, and I am grateful for the hard work they have put in, that makes my life a bit simpler.

Any comments, go for it!

The Problem with Stupidity

Just came across this little gem on facebook:

Someone I do not know had clearly missed the last month of campaigning, had decided to ignore what was going on, and then on the day of the actual election, asked the people she knew on facebook who she should vote for. She voluntarily gave up her right to independent thought by not making herself aware of the current political situation, instead relying on the wisdom of those she knew on facebook.

The reply is fantastical. Vote labour, because the other two will stop tax credits, and leave immigrants in the country to work (spelling corrected).

So now the person who didn’t care to actually find out parties policies to allow herself to make a decision of her own, based upon her personal political ideas, now decides to vote Labour, because the other two will take away tax credits, and allow immigrants to work.

Except those aren’t policies of any of the other two main parties. Both the Conservatives and Lib Dems have policies that will cut tax credits for the higher earning families, but then in real terms Labour has been doing that all along, by not taking inflation into account. It is also already legal for an immigrant to work. Otherwise why would they come here. It isn’t legal for illegal immigrants to work, that’s why their status is “illegal.” The Lib Dems have a policy of legalising illegal immigrants already living here, and taxing them, rather than letting them work illegally and not being able to tax them. But that isn’t the same thing.

I’m sure this is quite a common occurrence, and not a special case, and it shocks me that people can be so stupid. Lack of information in this time of freedom of information cannot be an issue.

Please, if you haven’t bothered to find out what the different candidates are offering, don’t vote. Leave it to those who are making informed decisions. Don’t just listen to the regurgitatings of those around you who will presume to tell you for whom to vote, especially if they are going to get it wrong.

Really funny letter

This is an edited version of a letter, not sent to me, but a friend.  I have edited out the names to protect the identities of those involved.  This is really funny.  The author of the letter does not speak English as a first language.  From what I remember this is their second communication.

Dear Jane,

How are you and your family doing? And how is life all these while? I hope splendid, as for me and my family we are doing fine.

I have been longing to have a friend with a caring heart cos I’m a guy with a caring heart. I’m so ecstatic that I have found one which is you Jane. I thank God for bringing you to my way as a nice friend and I’m inviting you in to my life now as a friend, because only God brings good friendship. I’m that kind of friend you will trust without an iota of doubt because; I’m a guy with an open hearted heart though distance may lie in between us, but as long as our hearts beats for each other as good friend then the distance got no meaning in our hearty friendship. I pray to God that this our new hearty friendship should grow and be more intense as the day and year passes by if having you as a nice friend is a sin, I prefer been a sinner and still have you as my nice friend which my heart desires as a dear longs for river so does my heart for you deep as the ocean, is my desire now that I have found you as a good friend I will never let you go because you have captured my heart, please handle it with care. Loved people do say hearty friendship is frolic, vibrant, I never believe it but i’m believing now because I have tested yours which is unquestionably the ultimate. Jane, when I cogitate about you sometimes I always put up a ravishing smile on my face and say good friend like you are really hard to come by. Please come in to my world of coastal and let me spin you round the galaxy of my hearty atmosphere as a nice friend. But silver and gold I have not but the most precious gift of my heart I will give to you in abundance as a nice friend. In the name of love and life I pray our hearts beats for each other as nice friends, only God knows who and where our best friend will come from.

I prefer you loving me as a friend than giving me one of the best thing on earth cos materials things come and go but love last for eternity, my love for you in unconditional. I do think about you much more than you could guess because you mean so much to me each day and through out the year, and I’m wishing you and your family blissful, merry, happiness through out the year and entire life, have a peaceful, joyous, frolic, merry and blessed day over there in London.

Hope to hear from you soon

Thanks from your good friend

Ian