METEO
Avi-2-GBA Video Codec
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Avi-2-GBA
English
(Translated by
Mike Haggar)
METEO
v.1.3.1 Chinese Requirements:
- PC with DirectX 8.1 or above for converting MPG, MPEG and AVI
files to GBA files.
- One of the GBA Flash Linkers and Cards (XG, EZ-Flash, F2A any
one will do)
- Gameboy Advance or GBA SP or the movie playback!
Convert Video Files (MPG, MPEG and AVI)
to .GBA movie files with Avi-2-GBA and METEO video codec!
Controls:
All buttons restarts the video so be
careful if you're watching a
longer video.
Avi2GBA METEO Manual:
Video file: File must be an AVI or MPEG1 video playable in Windows
Media Player.
GBA ROM file: Any rom name you like, end with .gba.
ROM Name: Choose something descriptive if you use a menu loader.
Bitrate: Higher value = higher quality = bigger filesize. Around
100 gives a very nice quality, 40 average, 20 very compressed.
Set
the framerate to automatic for low bitrates. But for the highest
possible compression you need to set the frame rate manually, see
below for sweet spots.
Even if you set the bitrate very low it won't go under 20kb/s in
reality. Likewise even if you set it to a very high value it won't
really go over 150-300kb/s depending on contents.
Picture Settings:
No crop
Displays video with original aspect ratio without cropping. Adds
black bars to sides or top and bottom if video isn't 2:3 ratio.
Good for regular TV sized 4:3 videos.
Crop
Displays video with original aspect ratio after cropping. Does
not
add black bars but cuts the sides or top/bottom if video isnt 2:3
ratio. Good for widescreen 16:9 videos.
Resize and ignore aspect ratio
Stretches the video to fill the screen and ignores aspect ratio.
Manual Setting:
Trimming:
No Crop is like No Crop above and Crop is like Crop, but lets you
select frame rate and pre-filter.
Manual crop - keep ratio: first crops off whatever value you give
and then crops off more if needed to get 2:3 ratio without
stretching the image. U = Up, D = Down, L = Left, R = Right.
Manual resize: lets you choose exactly how much of the image to
crop. After cropping the video is stretched to the aspect ratio
of
the values given in Resize, default 240x160.
Frame rate:
Select frame rate. Auto should be fine for most videos. Higher
rate = smoother playback but bigger filesize and worse image
quality. Don't set the frame rate to more than half of the
compression value, see below for sweet spots to use.
If you use Original, note that the GBA can't keep up very well
with framerates over 24 FPS and will lag noticeable when it gets
up to 30 FPS.
Pre-filter:
Filters the video before encoding. Default is 4 times resample
which should be fine for most videos.
None: fast, not very good, depends on source
15bit: improves quality with low compression rate
2 times resample: high quality dithering, makes color gradation
smoother but can make details grainy
4 times resample: even higher quality dithering, best choice for
keeping file size down.
Tips:
Meteo has a number of sweet spots in the relation between
compression and frame rate. If you don't hit them the file size
can grow very large with no increase in quality. Below are some
recommended settings under various circumstances.
Highest possible quality and biggest file size:
Bitrate: 120-250
Trimming: Crop (or No Crop depending on personal preference)
Frame rate: 24 FPS
Pre-filter: 15bit/4 times
Should fit about 5 minutes of video into a 256mbit (32megabyte)
rom depending on contents. Video quality will be excellent. Great
for music videos, anime openings or other short clips.
Lowest possible quality and smallest file size:
Bitrate: 10-15
Trimming: No Crop
Frame rate: 6 FPS
Pre-filter: 4 times
Should fit about 20-25 minutes of video into a 256mbit rom
depending on contents. Video will be very choppy and
blocky/blurry. Great for TV shows or other longer videos but too
blurry to see subtitles on anime for example. Note that these
settings is a sensitive sweet spot and changing them even slightly
will increase file size dramatically.
Medium quality for low motion video:
Bitrate: 30
Trimming: No Crop/Crop (depending on source/preference)
Frame rate: 6 FPS
Pre-filter: 4 times
Should fit about 12 minutes of video into a 256mbit rom depending
on contents. Video will be very choppy but the image clear. Great
for anime or other videos with subtitles.
Medium quality for high motion video:
Bitrate: 30
Trimming: No Crop/Crop (depending on source/preference)
Frame rate: 15 FPS
Pre-filter: 4 times
Should fit about 12 minutes of video into a 256mbit rom depending
on contents. Video will be very blocky/blurry but the motion
pretty smooth. Great for higher compression on music/action videos
or other videos with lots motion.
Sweet spot list:
Bitrate: 50 Frame rate: 24 FPS
Bitrate: 40 Frame rate: 20 FPS
Bitrate: 30 Frame rate: 15 FPS
Bitrate: 20 Frame rate: 12 FPS
Bitrate: 20 Frame rate: 10 FPS
Bitrate: 15 Frame rate: 7.5 FPS
Bitrate: 10 Frame rate: 6 FPS
Basically, keep the bitrate at twice the frame rate or more, or
the file will get huge.
To make videos look better on GBA SP you can use a video editing
program (VirtualDub is highly recommended) to increase the
contrast with 5-15% and color saturation with 25-30%, depending
on
contents of the video.
A source video that is 4:3 ratio but where the actual image is
widescreen 16:9 with black bars on top and bottom can be manually
trimmed to fit into the GBA screen without black bars and with
aspect ratio intact. Typical example: Original video is 640x480
with actual image in 16:9 that is 640x360. Set Meteo to manual
resize of up/down to 60 and left/right to 50 and leave Resize at
240x160. Or Manual crop - keep ratio, set up/down to 60 and it
will automatically crop what's needed on the sides.
Note that Meteo is capable of creating very large roms that
emulators are not able to run, and even if the emulator is able
to
open it the sound or image might get cut off while playing the
video. Keep size under 256mbit (32megabyte) to be safe.
Input video with too high (over 30) FPS may cause program to get
confused. It also seems sensitive to minor errors in videos that
Windows Media Player might not notice. Especially AVI files might
get cut off in the middle of encoding or sound might drop out.
To
work around this you can try to re-encode the video in VirtualDub.
Shin's notes:
- If the gba file reaches above 32MByte (256Mbit) the program will give an error (Input file error).
- The more quality the original movie has the bigger the gba movie will be (even though the time is the same).
- It's possible to create even longer movies but it will look crappy, and your friends will laugh at you because it looks so pathetic.
- Movies with no sound cannot be used.
- VCD's can be recorded too (DAT files), as long as you can fit it in 32MB.
- It takes about 1.4x the movie time to convert the movie.
- Some movies above 16MByte (128Mbit) cannot be viewed in emulators.
- To be sure you don't fail creating your movie, it's best to convert all episodes with Compression quality.
Avi-2-GBA incoding sweet spots with the right setting by Shin's
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