*unfinished* Watching Anime on iPod: From MKV to AVI to M4V

[Kudryavka]

Nowadays, most all fansubs are distributed in MKV format, a format that allows softsubbing, chapters, and whatnot. This is great and all, but the mainstream tech businesses haven't quite caught up to MKVs yet; therefore, support for MKV files is unfairly rare. Of course, iPod is included in the list of machines that can't play MKV files, or any files for that matter, unless they're encoded in Apple's weird and annoying M4V format. I need fansubs on my iPod, since they always go unwatched on my computer, so getting those MKVs on my 6Gen iPod doing is a necessary skill.
If done under default settings, this process will result in a considerable loss in video quality. For better results, set your quality settings higher. Remember that since this is going to be presented on a tiny iPod screen, what looks horrible on your big computer screen won't look too bad on your iPod.

This tutorial is an expanded version of one I found on Nick's Anime Blog.

First, make sure you have everything you need downloaded.
To convert MKV to AVI:
*VirtualDubMod - To put files into an AVI container
*VobSub - To get VirtualDubMod to work with separate subtitle files (soft subs)
*MKVExtractGUI Mirror - To unpackage video, audio, and subtitles from MKV containers
*MKVToolNix - To get MKVExtractGUI to work right
*All2AVI - To convert raw MKV video (no audio or subs) to AVI format
*H.264 and XviD codecs - To get any of this stuff to work right
Optional:
*AC3ACM - To be able to use AC3 files in VirtualDubMod
*LameACM - To encode to MP3 in VirtualDubMod
*VLC media player - To convert non-MP3s to MP3s, and to play freshly downloaded MKVs

To Convert from AVIs to M4Vs:
*3GP Converter - To encode AVIs into iPod-friendly M4Vs. It's in Japanese, but you can configure it to use English.

Now, on with the tutorial itself!

Install Everything
Obvious step is obvious. Not everything comes with an .exe installer, so just unZip/unRar into whatever folder. I chose to make my desktop my work area, since it's easy to get to files there.
If you get FFDshow, you'll need to set it up.
-Start-->Programs-->Combined Community Codec Pack -> FFDShow VFW Codec Configuration
-will update later...

Acquire Necessary Files
-Start up MKVExtractGUI (from here on out known as MKVE).
-Click the button with an ellipse (...), then choose your MKV to convert.
-Checkmark the video (H264), audio (usu. AC3 or MP3), and subtitles (usu. ASS). Checkmark any fonts you may want to use.
-Click Extract

[JEEB]

It's usually not a bad idea to try and make a nice guide for the newbies to follow when stuff needs to get converted for appliance X or Y, but there're too many places I actually have to facepalm at here.

Not to mention that the iPods come in multiple ages, which all have different settings and resolutions that they want, using an application that hasn't been updated for five+ years isn't actually that sane :P (not to mention that the non-mod version has been kept up to date if you haven't yet seen that).

Also, VSFilter's (yes, this is Vobsub) newest version comes with the CCCP and should be usable with VirtualDub if you only copy the filter to the vdub's needed folder and rename it if needed.

As an overall image on what should be done, personally I would probably just use ffms2 in Avisynth with timecodes output + Aegisub's VFR->CFR conversion for the subtitles paired with a needed AssumeFPS on the Avisynth side + timecodes input on the x264 side (it does have timecodes input nowadays, y'know) and then remuxing/re-encoding the audio depending on what the Matroska file contains. I'd guess the iPod would work with VFR MP4, since the PSP copes with such files as well.

Another option could be a libass-enabled mplayer piped to ffmpeg (maybe with some CFR conversion done at either side if needed, too).

First of all this drops out the need to make something into avi, as well as aims at keeping the VFR there. Ordered chapters are a whole different possible PITA, but hey -- uau's mplayer and some Avisynth ++'ing should actually do its job.

And the sugar on the bottom. You could possibly actually automatize all of this (not sure about the Aegisub's VFR->CFR conversion for avisynth, but otherwise) :P

Anyways, good luck with the guide and I hope this'll help you to see how to make this thing as fool-proof as possible.

[synaesthetic]

What I'd like to know is how one watches anime on an iPod without extreme headaches. I tried watching something on my Sony A728 once and the subtitles became so small and painful to read...

[JEEB]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

What I'd like to know is how one watches anime on an iPod without extreme headaches. I tried watching something on my Sony A728 once and the subtitles became so small and painful to read...

Not sure, but at least the PSP had a screen big enough (480x272 at 4 inches or so?) for me to enjoy an episode or two of something during my daily one-hour bus ride to the university.

Also, some people will still want to do the conversion and watch the stuff, and IMHO it should at least be done correctly. I had meant to do something to automatize encoding without subtitles and keeping the VFR, but it never got further than random batch scripts and henkan-kun (3gp_conv) profiles.

Subtitles and VFR input always make stuff harder, but not exactly impossible >_> .

[chikorita157]

I have converted stuff with Perian and Quicktime Pro on Mac OS X to iPhone/iPod Touch and it was alot simpler to hard code the subtitles. Although not pretty since Perian doesn't support special effects in ASS, just the text and styling, it actually works pretty well and I don't really have to go jump into the hoops to get it working.

[JEEB]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

I have converted stuff with Perian and Quicktime Pro on Mac OS X to iPhone/iPod Touch and it was alot simpler to hard code the subtitles. Although not pretty since Perian doesn't support special effects in ASS, just the text and styling, it actually works pretty well and I don't really have to go jump into the hoops to get it working.

If it handles VFR and ordered chapters fine, I see no problem in this way as long as you're ready to use the Quicktime Pro encoder, which IIRC is pretty damn awful (or MyComet3G's x264 interface for Quicktime, that yields much better results IIRC) and if you can live without perfect rendering of subtitles.

Although I have no idea how Quicktime handles stuff inside... but I guess when you're encoding for a device with a small resolution like these it really doesn't matter (it does, but as long as it doesn't completely rape the output as in do unneeded framerate conversions etc. it should be "fine").

[sneaker]

Originally Posted by JEEB

As an overall image on what should be done, personally I would probably just use ffms2 in Avisynth with timecodes output + Aegisub's VFR->CFR conversion for the subtitles paired with a needed AssumeFPS on the Avisynth side + timecodes input on the x264 side (it does have timecodes input nowadays, y'know)
...
And the sugar on the bottom. You could possibly actually automatize all of this (not sure about the Aegisub's VFR->CFR conversion for avisynth, but otherwise) :P

It has been possible to input timecodes into vsfilter's avisynth plugin for over a year now.

[JEEB]

Originally Posted by sneaker

It has been possible to input timecodes into vsfilter's avisynth plugin for over a year now.

Oh wow, kind of slipped my mind completely >_> But yes, this makes it all completely automatize'able.

(Shows me how much I actually deal with hardsubs)

[Random32]

your guide uses 3 tools for converting files from one format to another
would WinFF work better?

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by JEEB

If it handles VFR and ordered chapters fine, I see no problem in this way as long as you're ready to use the Quicktime Pro encoder, which IIRC is pretty damn awful (or MyComet3G's x264 interface for Quicktime, that yields much better results IIRC) and if you can live without perfect rendering of subtitles.

Although I have no idea how Quicktime handles stuff inside... but I guess when you're encoding for a device with a small resolution like these it really doesn't matter (it does, but as long as it doesn't completely rape the output as in do unneeded framerate conversions etc. it should be "fine").

I think it runs okay... I have played videos that were converted with Quicktime and the results were good, except that it took a extremely long time to convert to a iPhone format. I think ffmpegx and mencoder can encode faster than the Quicktime and Perian combo. Too bad that Handbrake still does not support hardcoding of ASS/SSA subs and subs stored in the MKV file (you need to demux the subsite file, convert to SRT format and select the SRT file to hard code it).

[JEEB]

Originally Posted by Random32

your guide uses 3 tools for converting files from one format to another
would WinFF work better?

I wish it'd be that easy :P

1. Don't take mention of the OP's "guide", he just doesn't have an idea on how to keep stuff correctly it seems, not to mention that several tools he mentions haven't been updated for years (and do have alternatives that are actually updated)
2. WinFF is an ffmpeg frontend as far as I can see, therefore it will most probably lack subtitle and ordered chapter features as one. Thus it will only work with certain kinds of material. As an extra bonus, no VFR support since IIRC ffmpeg wasn't made to keep your VFR as-is if you didn't put extra effort into it.

As I mentioned earlier, I did think of mplayer-uau (/mplayer-kovensky)'s output piped into x264 with timecodes from, say, ffms2 and lastly merged with audio that's encoded from another mplayer process' audio dumping feature's output as something that'd be possible to handle instead of Avisynth hackery and all kinds of other stuff to support ordered chapters/segment linking properly when re-encoding (there's the filtering-as-in-resize-etc. patch for x264 for resizing etc., so I'd guess this'd be mostly OK).

This, as well as the Avisynth hackery I mentioned, could of course be put under a single interface so that people like you wouldn't even know that there are multiple parts moving inside (not to mention that most of the tools that are around seriously don't care about these features that get used in fansubbing every day, mostly because they're going for the easy way through -- or because their developers don't even think/know about these features, so a specific mix of applications is already needed for the best outcome).

Originally Posted by chikorita157

I think it runs okay... I have played videos that were converted with Quicktime and the results were good, except that it took a extremely long time to convert to a iPhone format. I think ffmpegx and mencoder can encode faster than the Quicktime and Perian combo. Too bad that Handbrake still does not support hardcoding of ASS/SSA subs and subs stored in the MKV file (you need to demux the subsite file, convert to SRT format and select the SRT file to hard code it).

Don't know about ffmpegx (although I'd guess most of the stuff I said about ffmpeg's limitations keep here as well -- oh wait, it hasn't been updated for pretty much two years now), but mencoder certainly doesn't support most of the features we need if you don't feed it already "done" video from one application or another (not to mention that it's also awfully bad at muxing stuff into containers, and not really kept maintained by the mplayer devs either, as the case with timestamps tells us).

...
< Dark_Shikari> well, mencoder is deprecated for years
...

As far as Handbrake goes, it's basically a Pretty Good Frontend for ffmpeg, and therefore has the limitations of ffmpeg (ffmpeg IIRC can only render srt subtitles, as you mentioned). It's kept relatively up-to-date, but yes -- it also won't support ordered chapters/segment linking.

TL;DR If Perian can do it correctly with subs rendering, do give this a try. He seems to have some weird settings in the quality bar because he wanted to mimic the QT encoder's change of quality in the preview window, but that can be overridden as far as I can see. And of course you'll (gasp!) have to learn what kind of settings your poor device needs. Otherwise I'd say the mplayer + x264 w/ filtering patch would be the way to go (with another mplayer dumping audio and feeding it to an audio encoder).

Anyways, my hands are currently somewhat full with two projects at the moment from university, but I'll have to see if I can get something done after I get all of them done as I've been playing with completely custom workflows and batch scripts -- as well as with pyQT after I found out how much hackery I had to do to make stuff work nicely inside Keitai Douga Henkan-kun's ways of scripting.

In other words, you'd really struggle at finding an easy-to-use app that can already do ordered chapters / segment linking as well as correct VFR from files right now.

Quick Edit: Mplayer seems to be real bad at giving output to stdout, hurr. Most people just point towards cygwin's and *nixes mkfifo, which in return need their own kind of an mplayer build. Oh well...