[Nook Color General] a.fenderson:
Encode a single-file Blu-ray movie rip to 1024x600 MJPEG

Encode a single-file Blu-ray* movie rip (.m2ts) to high-quality MJPEG, resolution 1024x600 (Nook Color native):

1. Download and install XviD4PSP 6.03 beta--you may need to upgrade your .NET, DirextX, and/or MS Visual C++ redistributable, but links are on the download page. Alternately, download and run one of the portable versions which doesn't require these (it's perhaps a bit less stable though).

NOTE: The XviD4PSP site is one massive, monolithic Silverlight monstrosity. Even on a fast connection, I recommend you give it 60 seconds minimum to load, otherwise links you may need simply will not show up: there is no indication (in my browser) that the site is still loading, other than it being incredibly unresponsive and random graphics/links/etc slowly keep appearing mid-page.

2. After installing, run XviD4PSP. Patience is required, as the app is not snappy. Once open, drag and drop your XXXXX.m2ts file onto the "Drop files here" area at the bottom-left. The filename and thumbnail appear, and a progress bar labled "Parsing". If this changes to "Parsed" it has scanned and accepted the file: if you get an error, there's possibly something wrong with the file but not always--hover over it, then click the red X, and drop it back in; otherwise try closing and reopening XviD4PSP, then dropping the file back in.

3. In the pane on the far right, near the top, find the Format dropdown, and change it to AVI. The Preset dropdown should be Standard. The dropdown below that should say "Select tracks by preset," but if your tracks don't appear properly below this, try changing to "Select all tracks."

4. Moving down the pane on the right: make sure the video track is checked, and the first two dropdowns (scantype and AR) below that match what you believe the original file's properties to be--if not sure, don't change anything (you shouldn't have to anyway). The third dropdown is where you can type a delay in milliseconds relative to the audio, but you generally won't need to worry about changing this.

5. Below that, you'll generally see a pre-selected filter, most likely "Color YUV420P > YUVJ420P", with gears, red X, and green + icons to the right. Click the red X to kill this filter. Then click the green + and choose "Resolution and pixel format." In the pop-up, change the width to 1024, the height to 600 (or 576 to maintain a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio), choose some form of Interpolation (I use bicubic, even for downscaling, though I think it's generally considered overkill/waste--bilinear should be faster). Under "Resolution Preset" drop it down to Custom. Now click the OK button on the popup window, and you should see a filter in the right-hand column that includes both the previous color conversion and your new custom resolution downscale: if it doesn't have both, try deleting it with the red X and creating it again.

6. The box to the lower-left of the filter allows you to change the encoded video type, drop it down and select "MJPEG". To the right is "Custom" which you can't seem to change. To the right is a gears icon, click this. On the pop-up, select a number for the Quantizer between 1 and 31: lower quantizer = higher quality. Some consecutive quantizers actually will produce bit-identical results. For max quality (but also highest file-size), select 1. Drop the Preset dropdown to Custom if it's not, and click OK button to close the pop-up.

7. On the pane on the right again, below the last step, will be the audio track(s). Make sure the wanted track is checked, and optionally specify the language in the appropriate dropdown. There are various audio filters one can use: to set one, click on the green + to the right of "Don't use filters", then select the appropriate type:

--if the source material is > 16 bit depth, you should probably select the "Sample Format" filter, then set it to "16-bit" and click OK.

--if the source material is > 48 KHz sampling rate, you should probably select the "Sample Rate" filter, select "48000Hz" maximum, (optionally choose the downsampling "Quality" level you desire) and click OK.

--if the source material is multichannel surround (most BD movies are), you should select the "Channels and Loudness" filter and set "Mix Channels to" to "Stereo," (optionally apply gain and/or change the "Out Volume" to fit your needs) then click OK.

Below the audio filter line(s), select your preferred target audio type: I've used MP3 successfully, but AAC may be a better choice. To the right of this, choose one of the preset bitrate/formats (128 Kbps should be "good enough" for many people), or click on the gears icon to set your own custom audio encoding parameters.

8. Click "Save As" above where you previously dropped your file, and specify a target directory and file-name, then click OK. When you're ready to encode, click the "Start encoding" button to the right. Encoding may take some time, and randomly some errors will pop up in the log section, but not all of these seem to actually cause problems, so don't despair too quickly.

Suggestions:

I. Try an encode on a shortish sample file first, such as one of those annoying preview adverts that are on most Blu-rays. Also, you may want to run the same clip through a hardware-decode capable Handbrake encode, then compare the resulting filesizes of the two encodes. These MJPEG files are HUGE.

II. To make this worthwhile (visual quality noticeably better than even really great hardware-decodable 854x480), use a quantizer of 1. At this quant, you will get Blu-ray size bitrates, though, so prepare to dump the resulting encode to your 32GB microSD. :)

* Note: this process is intended for progressive content, with square pixels, at ~24 frames per second (i.e., standard Blu-ray movie format). Interlaced or hard-telecined material, 1440x1080 resolution, or 720p @ >24 fps, and seamless-branching (and other forms of multi-.m2ts) movies may require additional preprocessing via AVISynth or similar, though they may work with other encoding options I've not tested in XviD4PSP.

If you have any questions, comments, or see any errors in the above walkthrough, let me know. As for general problems with XviD4PSP--I'll try to help, but I'm no expert in this, and only began using this program about a week ago. :)