Archos 500717 User Manual - Page 18

35 MP3 Sound Codec If MPEG-4 Translator detects a suitable MP3 codec on your PC, it will use it, and your video file sound track will be MP3. Otherwise, it will use the standard IMA ADPCM codec. There are MP3 encoders (usually packaged together as an encoder and decoder) available on the Web for you to download. If you choose to use the LAME codec, make sure that you have a version built with the ACM front-end. You can find other MP3 codecs on the web by using the search terms ACM, MP3 and CODEC in your favorite web search engine. Once this MP3 codec is installed into your system, MPEG-4 Translator will be able to create final video files with MP3 sound, even if the source video file does not have an MP3 sound track. If you are unsure what codecs (audio and/or video) have been installed on your computer, you can see the list by going to the following location. For Windows XP, click on Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices Properties > Hardware, choose Audio Codecs, then click on Properties. You will find a list here of all the audio codecs that are installed on your computer. Decoding of MPEG 2 video files is currently not supported by MPEG-4 Translator. These are usually .mpg or .mpeg format files, not the required AVI file. There are other tools found on the Internet (FlaskMPEG, Rippack, etc.) that may be downloaded in order to help you with these file types. A good starting place is the website www.digital-digest.com. 35 36 9.2 Using MPEG-4 Translator Here you see the image of the main MPEG-4 Translator program. When you first run the program, if the required codec has not been installed yet. You should download the codec and install it on your computer. If the Virtual dub program has not been installed, you will also be notified, and you should install it (either with the ARCHOS™ Installation Utility or the Virtual Dub website). If you have placed the Virtual Dub program in a folder other than the installer default folder, it will ask you to locate the file. Select Source & Destination Files In this example, a source file 24 hours of Lemans.avi has been selected as the source video. You can see on the bottom of the window its original characteristics (width 720, height 576, frame rate 30). Next, you must then tell the program where to place (Set Destination file) the newly recoded version of the file (don't worry, it will not erase the original). You should give it a new descriptive name, such as shown above Lemans_AV 700.avi. Make sure you add the .avi extension. Change Settings 36 Next, you can change the parameters (Change Settings) of the encoder to adjust the level of quality of the final image. Like MP3 music, the higher the bit rate setting is made, the higher the quality of the music, or video in this case, that you will get. However, this will also take up more space on your hard drive. A setting of 900 kbps will give you a nice looking image for viewing on a television. For near DVD quality, you can set it up to 1200 kbps.