Encode video files for ipod-touch/iphone and T-Mobile G1/Andriod [Linux Hacks]

I posted an article back in February on how to re-encode movies for ipod and other pmp devices in linux, based on my mini_encoder.py script. I have a few more updates now to add to the script for your enjoyment. Release notes as follows:

-Now uses optparse python module for command line argument process handling
-New option for iphone/ipod-touch in addition to ipod-video and default modes
-Uses ffmpeg for processing ipod/iphone videos (H.264 and AAC codecs encoded to mp4 format)
-General code cleanup and slight re-factoring
-More verbose help options

The main takeaway from this version is that mini_encoder.py is now capable of resizing mpg or avi video files for your ipod-video, iphone/ipod-touch or even your T-Mobile G1/Android, in addition to any other pmp player that is capable of handling avi or mpg video streams.

The default resolution is 320x240, but for the iphone/ipod-touch and G1, it bumps it up to 480x320 to fit nicely on the screen and utilize the larger screen size. See the help option for more info

$ ./mini-encoder.py --help
./mini-encoder.py - Encodes and resizes video files (avi or mpg) to fit
 small screen resolution pmp devices. Resolution and codec formulas:

 default - 320x240 (preserves original codecs from source video file)
 ipod    - 320x240 (re-encodes to mp4 using H.264 and AAC codecs)
 iphone  - 480x320 (re-encodes to mp4 using H.264 and AAC codecs)

 Supply a path to the movie file you wish to encode (required):
./mini-encoder.py [options] --movie /path/to/file.avi
 Options:
   --version       Print the version number of this program
   -m, --movie     Path to video file you wish to encode 
   -p, --ipod      Encodes to mp4 format for use with ipod-video
   -i, --iphone    Encodes to mp4 format for use with iphone/ipod-touch

Usage: mini-encoder.py [options]

Options:
 --version             show program's version number and exit
 -h, --help            show this help message and exit
 -m INMOVIE, --movie=INMOVIE
                       Input video file to encode
 -p, --ipod            Encode to ipod-video format
 -i, --iphone          Encode to iphone/ipod-touch format

Example for encoding for iphone/ipod-touch:
./mini_encoder.py --iphone --movie /path/to/movie.avi

Requirements for running this program are:
1. A recent version of python
2. transcode package
3. ffmpeg package

Please feel free to download it and let me know what you think.

Convert wav to mp3 for a directory [Linux Hacks]

There are some really nice Linux tools out there to do wav to mp3 conversion (lame, bladeenc etc). Here is a small shell script to run on a given directory that will convert all .wav files to .mp3:

wav2mp3.sh

Output:

$ ./wav2mp3.sh /home/nmaxwell/foo/
/usr/bin/bladeenc
Performing mp3 conversion on: /home/nmaxwell/foo/
Old filename: /home/nmaxwell/foo/song.wav
New filename: /home/nmaxwell/foo/song.mp3

BladeEnc 0.94.2    (c) Tord Jansson            Homepage: http://bladeenc.mp3.no
===============================================================================
BladeEnc is free software, distributed under the Lesser General Public License.
See the file COPYING, BladeEnc's homepage or www.fsf.org for more details.

Files to encode: 1

Encoding:  /home/nmaxwell/foo/song.wav
Input:     44.1 kHz, 16 bit, stereo.
Output:    128 kBit, stereo.

Completed. Encoding time: 00:00:07 (21.71X)                                  

All operations completed. Total encoding time: 00:00:07

The script will run this conversion on any files it sees in the directory with the .wav extension.