*Big news for dual core CPU owners* (dec16 2006)
The x264 developers and the MeGUI guys have given us PSP owners a massive xmas present! Prior to today, we could only use one thread when encoding video using x264 as the PSP does not support slices, the previous way x264 used more than one thread. Today they have released an update to the code which allows x264 to utilise more than one thread in a way which is compatible with the PSP! I personally use a centrino duo laptop and my encoding speed has gone up amazingly. To take advantage of this, you need the latest x264 and megui. If your using the auto update feature of MeGUI, it will download it automatically. Then you go to tools-settings in MeGUI and untick "automatically set number of threads" and then in the x264 config set the threads to 0 and this will make sure the threads is set to auto, this is the preferred way now.
Well its taken a while, but now PSP video converting is pretty much at the level us PSP owners would hope for! Now if only sony could remove the pixel restriction and lets us use the full 480x272 screen. For now, we are happy with the simpler PSP video process. Changes included:
- Finally native 25fps support, no more converting!
- Atomchanger now redundant, MP4 works out the box
- No need for specific file names structure, dvd.mp4 (for example) now just works
- No need for the various folders, a VIDEO folder on the PSP root can handle all types now
- AVC level cannot exceed 2.1 and thumbnails currently no longer work (older videos wont work if AVC level was above 2.1)
So there you go, no more atomchanger, no more weird file and folder naming.... Right, now onto how to encode PSP compatible video using MeGUI and the lovely x264. This is a basic version, if you need to start from scratch with your DVD, have a look at the DVD guide. This guide assume you have a working avisynth script (use MeGUI inbuilt script creator if you wish!).
Ok, so you have downloaded MeGUI and x264 from http://x264.nl and have a working avisynth script. Now, you could use my profiles from the front page, or you could tweak all the settings for yourself. The settings you always have control over are the number of passes and the bit rate. Now, If your going for for lower file size with less quality, you can try 180 in the Bitrate. The PSP can handle much higher bitrates, so you could go for maximum quality at say 600 or even higher.
As you can see, this is the setup with the PSP 180 profile. Note the threads set to 1!! Also, I have left the deblocking as 0,0. If you wanted to use stronger deblocking, try increasing the number to +1+1 or higher. This will soften the image and lose some fine detail, but if you only converting as many episodes of coronation street as possible, this may not be a concern :p
Set the number of passes, automated 2 pass is probably the easiest. The guys over at Doom9 have suggested 3 pass may potentially help for lower bit rate encodes, but this is not confirmed or denied, ultimately personal testing was suggested. The third pass would obviously increase the encoding time considerably, so maybe try it on a sample of the clip using the trim command in avisynth. Just add trim (1500,1800) to your script, the first is the start frame and then the final frame, so its 300 frames in this example... one minute is fps*60, so 1500 frames for 25fps.
So, either use my profiles or use your own. Adjust the settings to your preference, click ok and then load up the Queue tab.
Click start when your ready! Then you can mux your video into your audio and
drop into the VIDEO folder on your PSP! nice and simple, no more stages after
this!