Convert Windows Media Center Recordings to Palm PDA

Converting Windows Media Center recordings to play on a PDA

I've been looking around for a way to convert my TV Recordings from Windows Media Center to a format suitable for palying on my Palm PDA. After trying out a variety of tools and methods here is the procedure that works for me to play movies on my Palm Tungsten T. The same process should work for other Palm devices, including the latest Treo's, LifeDrive and the new T|X, or even Pocket PCs. Using the default options suggested here a 2 hour movie should fit on a 128Mb SD card.

The best part of this process is that all of the required software tools are available for free.

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Step 1: Coverting Windows Media Center .dvr-ms files to MPEG2

Windows Media Center uses it's own video file format (dvr-ms) which is not widely supported by video editing applications. A freeware application called AutoDVRconvert can be used to convert dvr-ms files to a standard MPEG2 format

Download AutoDVRconvert Visit the AutoDVRconvert discussion forum

AutoDVRconvert has a number of options. The simplest way to convert is to use the default settings and select the "Convert Single File..." option. AutoDVRconvert can also be configured to convert all of your media center files at once, or even convert on the fly while media center is recording.
AutoDVRconvert 1.3

After the convertion is complete you will now have a new .MPG that can be played by other media players, the next step is to process the video to a size an file format suitable for playback on a PDA.

Step 2 : Coverting MPEG2 video to a format suitable for playing on PDA

To resize and re-encode the video into a format suitable for playing on a PDA is you will need another free application, VirtualDub-MPEG2 is based on the excellent VirtualDub, an opensource video processing tool. The VirtualDub-MPEG2 version is required to read the MPG file created by AutoDVRconvert.

Download VirtualDub-MPEG2 Visit the VirtualDub-MPEG2 Site

1. Open the MPEG video file in VirtualDub

Start VirtualDub and select File > Open video file... to open the MPG video file created by AutoDVRconvert. VirtualDub Open...

VirtualDub will start importing the MPEG2 file which may take several minutes.
VirtualDub Import MPEG2

2. Set the Video conversion and encoding

To get the Media Center video file to a size and format that will play on a PDA a number of conversion options must be set to resize the video image to fit on the PDA screen, to set the frame rate, and to encode to video to a format suitable for playback on a PDA.

2.1 Set Target Frame Size

The set the target video frame size select Video > Filters... from the VirtualDub menu. From the filters dialog click the Add... button and select the resize filter from the filters list.

In the Filter: resize dialog (shown below) set target size. Reducing the video 180x120 works best on the older Palm devices such as the Tungsten T which have slower processor. Encoding at 320x240 should be also work fine for playback on the Palm Tungten T which has a 320x320 screen, but may result in some frame loss on playback, and also increases the file size. Newer Palm devices such as the LifeDrive should be able to handel video size of 480x320
VirtualDub Resize

2.2 Set Target Frame Rate

Select Video > Frame Rate... to open the Video frame rate control dialog (show below). For the Palm Tungsten T setting a frame rate to 15 frames per second (fps) seems to work well.
VirtualDub Frame Rate

2.3 Set Target Encoding

Finally select Video > Compression... from the VirtualDub menu to select the video compression codec. Personally I've found that the XviD MPEG-4 Codec works best for me in terms of small file size and good playback quality. Other MPEG-4 codecs such as the DivX also perform well.
VirtualDub XviD Compression

If you do not see the XviD MPEG-4 Codec in the codec list you will need to download and install the the XviD codec. The latest XviD codec installer for Windows can be found here:

Download XviD MPEG-4 Codec visit xvid.org

Adjust the XviD codec settings by clicking on the Configure button. In the Xvid Configuration dialog set the Target quantizer: value to 31.

Click the Target quantizer: button to switch to the Target bitrate (kbps): option. Set the value to 64 (other values such as 96, 128 or 256 could be used to increase video quality, but will also increate the file size).

Select OK to close the XviD Configuration dialog, and then OK again to close the Select Video Compression dialog.

3. Set the Audio Encoding

As well as the video encoding the audio encoding options need to be set. By default VirtualDub will copys the audio stream direct from the source video file, to turn on the audio processing select Audio > Full Processing Mode from teh VirtualDub menu.

Next select Audio > Compression... to open the Select audio compression dialog. Select the MPEG Layer-3 (mp3) Codec and set the required encoding rate, 40 KBits/s 24,000 Hz Stereo works well for me.
VirtualDub Audio Compression

4. Save the PDA video file

The final step is the export the video file. From the VirtualDub menu select File > Save as AVI... and set an appropriate output filename and location. A dialog will appear to provide details on the encoding progress. This can take quite a while depending on the size of the original video file.
VirtualDub Encoding Status

Once VirtualDub is complete you can transfer the new video file to you Palm.

Step 3: Playing Videos on Palm

Turing your Palm into a Palm Media Center

Once the video file is on you Palm device you need to be able to play it. TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) is a great Freeware palm application for playing audio and video files.

Download TCPMP Visit the TCPMP Forum

TCPMP comes with a variety of plugins to support different audio and video codecs. As a minimum you should install the MPEG4 video (tcpmp_mpeg4_plugin.prc) and MP3 audio (tcpmp_mp3_plugin.prc)

Thank You

Special thanks to the authors of AutoDVRconvert, VirtualDub, VirtualDub-MPEG2 and TCPMP for making this possible.