snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 I dont care about being right, I just think that the body of information out there on how to make this stuff work correctly is crap, and itd be nice if it was neatly packaged for people to read like the rest of the sticky's. 1) Use Handbrake in H.264 Mode to Encode. 2) Do not encode at 640x480 (Your AVIC screen is not 4:3 its widescreen) 3) Encode at whatever the maximum output resolution is for your device. a) If iTouch / iPhone then 480x320 or 480x272 4) In any case, set your iPod to widescreen mode in iPod settings. 5) Set AVIC to "Full Mode" when displaying video. Much better, we now have some direction here. Now for the answers: 1) Yes, H.264 is the best codec to do this 2) You do want to encode at a horizontal scan of 640, Handbrake will adjust the vert lines accordingly and will maintain your source aspect ratio. The AVIC is neither 4:3 nor is it a widescreen. It is a computer resolution of 800x480, which makes things tricky. 3) Encode at the native res, or as close to, of the intended display device. In this case the intended display device is the AVIC. Higherst allowable res, ie 640x?? where ?? doesnt exceed 480 is going to get you the best picture on the AVIC 4&5) Since the AVIC is not a true widescreen (16x9) which the iPod would encode for, you can try whatever you like here. Only thing i'd ad is, per the graph that you posted, the maximum TV output of the iPhone/iTouch is 480x320 so on those devices it wouldnt do you any good to waste file space by encoding at 640, because the tv output on the device maxes out @ 480 lines. If you have a 4:3 iPod like a regular iPod video then 640 horizontal will work and then the only thing your worrying about is maintaining correct aspect. Regardless of iPod variation setting Widescreen in the iPod settings menu is the correct option. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 actually... im not sure what would happen on an iPhone/iTouch if you encoded at ??? x 480 where ??? is larger than 480. If the graph is right and the max tv output res is 480x320 then anything above that would be clipped, but it seems weird that they would have different maximum output resolutions for standard NTSC video on different iPods. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 The way that resolution reads out is 720x480.etc where 720 is lines across and 480 is lines down. WxH ratio. Yes you would be occuping useless space if you only intended to watch these videos on the ipod alone, but since tou intend to view them on the AVIC this added file size will give you a better image on the in dash screen which is almost 3x higher res than the iPod. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 All right, I suppose I just got schooled a bit. I was looking at the 5G iPod specs post Firmware 1.2, since that is what I am running. Though that doesn't make sense that apple would do something like that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 I wasnt trying to school you man, just trying to figure out why the hell they would do that... I guess when I get home from work i'll just have to try and encode files at something higher than 480x320 on my iTouch and plug it in and see what happens. My guess is that graph is in error, but I guess we'll see. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 A bit O.T. do you use an apple ipod cable to attach to the AVIC or the pioneer Cable, and what ver iPhone do you have? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Im using this: and im not really sure what version my iTouch is. I dont have it in front of me. Its fairly new though. Another kinda OT comment. I think its REALLY bizarre that Pioneer would require the audio/video data to go through composite and analog audio cables while the control of the ipod go through USB instead of all of it going through USB... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Im using this: Another kinda OT comment. I think its REALLY bizarre that Pioneer would require the audio/video data to go through composite and analog audio cables while the control of the ipod go through USB instead of all of it going through USB... Thats not a pioneer thing. I work for a large electronics manufacturer. We make several units that interface with the iPod product line and it is actually a limitation on the Apple side of things. The transfer of media digitally, I believe as part of their Digital Rights restrictions. All of our equipment controls over the USB protocol and transfers video and audio over standard line level. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Ahh, I never really thought about it from a DRM standpoint. That makes much more sense though why they would do that. Im gonna go TOTALLY off topic now. Is there any way to access the full potential of the AVIC's screen. Like if someone wanted to put an XBOX360 under their seat and have a vga/dvi cable run to the AVIC? I know that 800x480 would be a supported resolution on the 360 if you used the VGA route. Whats the deal with the EXT1 / EXT2 inputs on the menu, I googled to try and find out how to use them because I have dreamed up all kinds of schemes for external video sources. Another one I want to do is put one of those cheap DTV tuners under my seat and be able to get ATSC Digital Television on my AVIC while driving so I can watch basketball games. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Ahh, I never really thought about it from a DRM standpoint. That makes much more sense though why they would do that. Im gonna go TOTALLY off topic now. Is there any way to access the full potential of the AVIC's screen. Like if someone wanted to put an XBOX360 under their seat and have a vga/dvi cable run to the AVIC? I know that 800x480 would be a supported resolution on the 360 if you used the VGA route. Whats the deal with the EXT1 / EXT2 inputs on the menu, I googled to try and find out how to use them because I have dreamed up all kinds of schemes for external video sources. Another one I want to do is put one of those cheap DTV tuners under my seat and be able to get ATSC Digital Television on my AVIC while driving so I can watch basketball games. Short of cracking open the unit and making your own wireing harness directly into the screen no. As for the EXT1 and EXT2: EXT2 is the minijack on the front, Its actually an AV input for another video or external device. EXT1 is the RCA's on the back currently occupied by the iPod. If you disable the iPod in setup you will notice that EXT1 now is un greyed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snoodge Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 So if you want to have video from your iPod, and you dont want to use the front aux connector because its ugly having a wire sticking out of the front of your deck, your screwed on having a second video source? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 So if you want to have video from your iPod, and you dont want to use the front aux connector because its ugly having a wire sticking out of the front of your deck, your screwed on having a second video source? No your Ipod is designed to plug into the back RCA's. The front Jack is for an alternate source Quote Link to post Share on other sites
flinkazoid Posted March 12, 2009 Report Share Posted March 12, 2009 So I was p[laying around with the ipod as well as the AVIC last night and discovered how to get the best image on the avic screen using handbrake. Encode the video with the MAX vertical resolution that your iPode will output. Disable Widescreen on the ipod. Widescreen will just put black bars on top and bottom of the image, not transmit a widescreen ready format, since the AVIC doesnt zoom to fill, but stretch to fill. Set the video mode to full. You will now have as close to a 16x9 video displayed on the AVIC screen as possible. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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