Tutorial: Converting your DVD's to Palm Pre using Handbrake

chris · 06-10-2009, 08:24 AM

With the multimedia capabilities of the Palm Pre, there is no doubt that many of our readers will want to convert their DVD's for use on the Palm Pre. This tutorial will guide you through the entire process using the free software, Handbrake, available for both PC and Mac. In the tutorial, we took our copy of Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and coverted the DVD for use on the Palm Pre. The processing time is dependant upon your computer's processor and the legnth of your DVD. "A Bug's Life" is 1 hour and 34 minutes. On a Mac Pro, the entire process took roughly 35 minutes from start to finish. Since the Palm Pre supports iTunes, we were able add the converted movie to iTunes and then sync with the Pre. Let's make movies!
There are a number of software applications that will allow you to convert your DVD's into a playable format on your Palm Pre. Handbrake works great, it's free and you can download a copy for either Mac or PC. Grab a copy, install and get your DVD's ready!
Step 1: Insert your DVD onto your computer and then launch Handbrake. On our Mac, we opened the source DVD BUGSLIFE and selected the 'VIDEO_TS' folder. Immediately it started to scan the DVD.

Step 2: There are various presets and you can tweak settings to your preference. For our conversion, we had the following presets:

Video Codec: H.264 (x264)
Framerate (FPS): Same as source
Average Bitrate: 960

Click on Picture settings and set the following presets:

Source: 720x480
Keep aspect ratio: On
Denoise: Off
Output: 496x368 (this is due to the fact that we selected Keep Aspect Ration On.l
Source: 720x480
Crop: Auto
Deblock: Off
Decomb: Off
Detelecine: No

Step 3: Click on the Start icon to begin the encoding process.

Step 4: When the coversion is completed, Handbrake will inform you to "Put down the cocktail, your Handbrake queu is done.

Step 5: If you use iTunes, simply drag the resulting file into iTunes. Select the 'Movies' tab and select 'Sync movies'. I also selected the option to only bring my preferred movies and then checked BUGSLIFE. When the sync completes, eject the Palm Pre from your computer.

Step 6: Select the Application Launcher and open up the Videos application. Select your movie and it will start playing immediately. You've now successfully converted your DVD movie for use on the Palm Pre. Enjoy your movies on your Palm Pre!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cijcU5Y7G7g

.plaid · 06-10-2009, 02:33 PM

Hmm, well there is something fishy going on here. chris, I went ahead and did up a walkthrough as you and I discussed (posted here) but the H.264 codec didn't work on the Windows-converted version; FFmpeg was the only codec that folks could get to play.

fr4nk1yn · 06-10-2009, 08:30 PM

Something fishy indeed. I had to use ffmpeg but I also had to MPV.
Tried it two more times. Maybe it's the MAC?!

SmegInThePants · 06-22-2009, 05:40 AM

Now I want to see a bugs life.

DoTheDew911 · 06-23-2009, 05:50 PM

Is it possible to get a full PC tutorial for those of us with computer down syndrome? Also, a full list of codecs/apps needed to be used would be nice. Another question: Handbrake works on Vista?

.plaid · 06-27-2009, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by DoTheDew911

Is it possible to get a full PC tutorial for those of us with computer down syndrome? Also, a full list of codecs/apps needed to be used would be nice. Another question: Handbrake works on Vista?

If you follow the link in my previous post you can read a walkthrough for converting files for the Pre using HandBrake+Vista. It's a bit touchy with Vista but I haven't had any problems.

Best,
.

2pre4us · 11-20-2009, 04:13 AM

hi all! So I have a shiny new Pre about a week old, and having video issues. I am using Handbrake with the following settings.

MPEG4 /mp4 or mainly m4v (which is the default for iTunes/Apple TV i believe) & H.264 and none of my many movies will play on the PRE. They work just fine in iTunes. The specs are around the 480-720 x 208-480 resolution, bitrates hover around 550-1900 and 24 frames.

What am I missing here? I have ipod 5g & large file size UNchecked as well.

I also tried to transcode to a smaller preset but Handbrake always encounters an error when i try to use an mpeg4 as the source file....

Based on this thread, do i really have to start over and use the FFmpeg setting?

escline · 11-20-2009, 09:04 PM

I had encoded a video a few months ago without problems. I tried again this evening, and was having the same problems.

To get it to work, I had to first select the "iPhone & iPod Touch" preset, and then change the settings to match this tutorial.

This is running HandBrake ver 2009092801 on Windows 7, btw.

Also, for quicker tests, use the Preview button in HandBrake, which will create a small sample file that you can first test.

2pre4us · 11-25-2009, 05:59 AM

ahh, I didn't see a preview button. I tried after reading the part which said Handbrake switches its preset to default; and it worked. So i set it to iPhone/touch & H.264 & mv4 and was able to watch on the Pre just fine. I also tried FFmpeg via mp4/m4v as well, and it was noticeably more pixelated then H.264.

I have an old 1st gen c2d (1.8) and Win7 64 bit/2GB and the rip took about 1 hour using the most recent Handbrake

JDGAFFLIN · 12-16-2009, 10:34 AM

Chris,

Have you tested this method on the Pixi? If so, what where the results? Thanks in advance.