Nook Color: Can't Play sideloaded m4v videos

[merlin5353]

Just got back from a trip. Used my NC on the 4 hour flight to watch 'Avatar extended directors cut' and 'Crazy Heart'. Sound was good with no lag; vid was smooth. Ran it off my Sd class ? (probably 1, I didn't pay much for it). Used Handbrake, IPOD and IPOD Legacy (no diff), used all the specs posted here before.

[ibm650]

so battery was good for 4 hours of movies?

[merlin5353]

Originally Posted by ibm650

so battery was good for 4 hours of movies?

Sorry for the delay. Yep, I watched more than 4 hours of movies and read for about 2 hours on one charge. I had about 20% left when I finally put it on charge late that night.

[mmw1161]

I use tools4movies/DVD Catalyst 4. Easy to use.

[Belle2Be]

I'm having technical difficulties, I downloaded HandBreak, converted a .avi to a MP4 via the instructions on page 2, (Post 18, Baka'swalk thru-), Then I transferred via USB into the Nook/My File/Video and when I loaded it up, I got an error that says "cannot play video". Any ideas?
Its like magic, everytime I post, I find the answer. I left the V codec at 264 so I changed it and am trying again

[ThirtyBird]

This is a great thread for Nook Color owners who wish to play video - thanks to the helpful posters! I've been converting DVD's & TV Captures etc to watch from my hard drive since the days of Divx 3.11alpha, but I can still learn something new!

The single most important thing I learned from this thread may help you belle2be. The Nook Color supports 264 "baseline" encodes only - what this means is that in handbrake, you MUST ensure several settings on the Advanced tab are set properly. Those being :

Maximum B-Frames : Must be 0!
CABAC Entropy Coding : must be unchecked
8x8 Transform : must be unchecked
Weighted P-Frames : must be unchecked

reference : https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic...p=78494#p78491

I had trouble with encodes that work on my Droid not working on my NC. If you hover over each of these options, handbrake gives you a bit of help on them, and once I learned this and made those changes, it was smooth sailing and working video from there!

For those who want more details: If you check out the wiki for h.264, it gives a good description of profiles. It looks to me like encoding "baseline" will lose some quality and some features, but looks like it would be compatible with a wide variety of devices.

[JamesG]

But can this process allow me to convert itunes video so that it plays on my nook?

Originally Posted by SCION

I found this post on the Barnes and Noble forum:


FINDINGS

----------------

ok, the Nook Color has a resolution of 1024x600, which is an aspect ratio of 1.71

720 seems to be the maximum width of a video, so at 1.71 aspect ratio the correct width should be 421 pixels.

I encoded a video with a width of 721 pixels and it would load the player, but then crash and say it couldn't play the file. Anything larger than that and it doesn't even attempt to load it. So apparently 720 pixels is the built in maximum width for video files.

I did not discover a maximum height, however it's irrelevant.

ENCODING

-----------------
I encoded all of my test videos with MPEGstreamclip which is a free tool. I would assume these settings would also work in HandBrake.

MPEGstreamclip - http://www.squared5.com/

(if you're unfortunate enough to be on a Windows computer you will also need Quicktime Alternative 1.81 to run MPEGstreamclip properly)

Quicktime Alternative 1.81 - http://www.filehippo.com/download_qu...ernative/2615/

BASICS

------------
Just make sure you're set to MPEG-4 encoding, 720x421 (640x480 for 4:3 content) and you should be good.

Here are my Compressor presets (if you have a Mac and Final Cut Studio)

http://www.mediafire.com/?akfeeefjvbgjs7d

And here is a test video

http://www.mediafire.com/?meby28unjt7jhyc

[merlin5353]

Try Handbrake and use the directions here:
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/...ook-color.html
I've not had any problems converting several types of files.

[gstealer]

Originally Posted by mmw1161

I use tools4movies/DVD Catalyst 4. Easy to use.

I splurged on the $10 for this last night and am very happy with it.
Much easier 1 step process then trying to use 3 other files to do the same job.

[borg man]

You can also use iWisoft Free Video Convert from easy-video-converter.com

Choose the MPEG-4 Movie (*.mp4) profile under the Common Video profiles, click on Settings, and use these:



Volume adjustment is optional.

[merlin5353]

I think we (mostly) have established that it IS possible to side-load the NC with all kinds of files (movies, videos, crap). Just have to pick your poison and try it. Especially if you are using a Mac. I mean, it IS a disadvantage for we PC'rs to have several free progs to choose from. BTW, I'm pretty sure my copy of VLC will play 'bout anything. I removed quicktime a while ago. It was too buggy for me.

[borg man]

Originally Posted by borg man

You can also use iWisoft Free Video Convert from easy-video-converter.com

Choose the MPEG-4 Movie (*.mp4) profile under the Common Video profiles, click on Settings, and use these:

Attachment 68051

Volume adjustment is optional.

Should point out that you have to manually type in 720x420 for the Video Size (thanks to the original poster for determining this value); it's not a default from the drop-down menu. The only other change I made to the defaults was to set Audio Sample Rate to 48000Hz.

Also, this software does batch conversions. Just select the files and drag and drop them. I have not used Handbrake and I don't know if it does batch conversions or not, but I recall reading somewhere here that someone had written a script to use with Handbrake for batch conversions. Cheers.

[Pushka]

I am getting an error message trying to load the original videos into the Handbrake converter. Some load fine, others won't. All the videos play fine on my iPad so they are not corrupted.

[gmon]

I got a simple question, I hope anyway - where is the stock media player that is allegedly preinstalled in the Nook Color and what is it called? I can't find anything that appears to be a video player in the Extras tab.

[MobileTechReview]

The app is called Gallery and it handles photo and videos.