Hulu 480p - SOLUTION BELOW!!!
Sorry to start a new thread but the old one seems to have gotten ignored.
Here's the latest (as I see it):
1) Latest version of the converter does not convert sound properly. I've tried several different output formats and have tweaked the frequency, bit rate, etc. and all of them pop and hiccup every few seconds. The sound is in sync with the picture but the pops and clicks in the soundtrack make the converted videos unwatchable.
2) The converter plug-in in Media Catcher is a great idea but it won't convert 480p - picture is perfect, sound is perfect but sound and picture are out of sync.
3) I think the 16:9 aspect ratio problem (16:9 gets converted to 4:3 and picture is squished) may be resolved but I haven't tried to convert any widescreen videos lately.
4) I uninstalled all of Applian's programs (as well as every other media converter program that I had) and reinstalled ONLY the Capture Suite (that I purchased a few months ago) to see if that would resolve the problem. It didn't.
5) I also downloaded the additional codec pack (not sure if it was for the latest version of converter but I figured it couldn't hurt) - did not resolve the problem.
6) As I pointed out on several other threads, there are other converter programs that seem to work flawlessly (but are limited to several minutes unless purchased). However, I PAID for the Suite and don't want to pay for ANOTHER converter program.
7) As another user pointed out, mencoder (free) works but requires a lot of knowledge about all of the parms being passed to it (the manual is 172 pages) in order to get the best quality converted videos.
8) I opened a ticket several weeks ago and never received a response. While I (and everyone else who has purchased the software) greatly appreciate the efforts put forth by Applian and I, personally, love Media Catcher, we need to get this last little bit of problem resolved. Almost all of the television video that I capture is destined to be played (probably once) on my Archos 704 which supports almost any format EXCEPT .flv. If I wanted to watch everything on my laptop or my pc, I wouldn't care but my primary use is my Archos. (Since the Archos is also a DVR and can be hooked up to a television with Component or S-Video cables, I prefer to capture all videos in the highest resolution available and don't want to have to keep switching back and forth between 360p and 480p when capturing so just using 360p is not really an alternative.)
Please get this working...
Thanks.
Might just come down to frame rate
I tried using a combination of ffmpeg and a utility called "mp4box" to convert a 480p Hulu file to straight mp4.
If I used a frame rate of 29.97, the resultant video (after mp4box merged the audio and video streams back together) has perfect audio and perfect video but is way out of sync (just like the new converter plugin in Media Catcher).
However, if I use 23.976, I get perfect audio, perfect video and PERFECT SYNC (and NO stutter, clicks, pops, etc.).
(The process was documented here: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archi...4-t357698.html )
I need to see if I can tweak a few settings because the new video seems to be a little more CPU intensive than my Archos 704 can handle (video seems to skip frames...just enough to be annoying) but it is much better than before. (Plays perfectly on my dual-core laptop.)
C'mon folks...I think that we've found enough pieces to solve the puzzle. I believe Converter is using ffmpeg (or mencoder) underneath the GUI. See if you can tweak the parms that you're passing to it. Both will work, given the correct information.
Thanks.