Do you guys know what might be the best 720p settings to use in the VIdeo PLayer Device drop down menus?
I did select 720p in the first box, but then it wants me to chose a device in the 2nd box. Does the 2nd box matter? Am I on the right track?
Choose Android in the first box and Galaxy S3 in the second box. Try it out and see what you think. There are Galaxy S3 HQ options as well, which increase the bit rate. If you click on power user in the bottom right you can see exactly what settings each option has - but all Galaxy S3 templates use 1280 x 720 resolution.
The main things you can play around with here, if you choose (but it's ok to use the templates and leave these) are:
Video quality (bitrate): This is how much data/space is used to represent the movie. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality and file size. There are definitely diminishing returns here. I think the 1000 bitrate that you get by default with the Galaxy S3 template is kind of low but will work for animations and videos with little action. If I'm converting an action movie I will bump this up to 2000. If space weren't an issue you could go a lot higher. Many of the 720p and 1080p videos I have use bitrates from 5000-10000 to get maximum quality.
Video mode: The options here are 1 pass or 2 pass. All you need to know is that if you choose 2 pass it will slightly increase the quality (without increasing file size) but the conversion will take up to twice as long.
Sound quality: This is the bitrate of the audio. Back in the day when mp3 first got popular, people were quite happy with 128 audio. Now the preference is often 320 for listening to music. Honestly it's up to you but 128 will work - I will probably use 192 as a compromise. The higher number/quality you choose, the bigger the file size. Since the audio portion of a video is a lot smaller in size than the video itself, increasing/decreasing audio quality has a much smaller effect on your final file size than changing the video bitrate.
Hope this helps - trying to keep it very basic! The main goal here is usually to achieve the highest quality without using too much space on your device. 720p is a nice quality resolution for a phone but because the screen is so small (compared to TVs) the imperfections are much less noticeable. That's why I want 5000+ bitrate for watching on a TV and yet 1000-2000 will work fine on the phone, even at the same resolution.
Trial and error is good here - use a template and see what you get quality wise - then tweak the settings and see what the new result is...all while paying attention to the file size.
If you want to learn more here's a guide from the app developer with S III specific info:
http://www.tools4movies.com/2012/06/samsung-galaxy-s3-avi-dvd-m2ts-mkv-and-bluray/
For a more in depth guide about DVD catalyst see here:
http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/08/dvd-catalyst-4-1-user-guide-index/
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