HOWTO: Encode video for a Cowon iAudio D2 (MP3 player)

I recently bought a Cowon iAudio D2. It's excellent player. It fits the bill very well for Ubuntu users as it's fully linux-compatible and has OGG support.

Anyway, the only issue is that the software that comes with the player (JetAudio) for converting videos to a format that's playable on the D2 is Windows-only.

Having spent a long time time experimenting with various settings, I've written a short script that should allow most users to simple right click on a file to transcode it into the right format.

Before you start, you'll need transcode,ffmpeg and mencoder installed. If you don't already have them, the easiest way to install them is to use Automatix.

To use the script, download it from here. Now drag the file into your ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts directory (you might need to show hidden files with Ctrl-H). Then right click on the file, go to Properties. In "Permissions" tab, make sure "Allow Executing File as Program" is ticked.

You should now be able to right-click a file, go to Scripts and select "d2-convert" (this may take a minute or so to appear - it's not immediate after installation). This will convert the file for you and save it as D2-<oldfilename>.avi

You can also select multiple files, and they will be queued. It's worth noting that I upgraded my firmware to 2.41 recently - so if you find it doesn't work for you, I'd try that.

This script is a bit rough, so feel free to suggest improvements! I'm hoping to create a DEB installer to simplify the process - if I find the time!

Enjoy.

James.

Those of you who don't want to add automatix and all the baggage that comes with that for such a simple task of adding three packages

Code:

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sudo sed -e 's/# deb/deb/g' -e 's/universe$/universe multiverse/g' -i.backup /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install transcode mencoder ffmpeg

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And a simplification of getting the script into the right directory with the right permissions.

Code:

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wget http://www.mozmarks.com/james/---files/d2-convert -P ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/d2-convert

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Hi
I was happy to find this howto as I have a stormblue av-700 mp3 player that has the same disadvantage as your, the program for transforming videos is w in only. The retail box of the player states that is linux compatible and it actually plays ogg and works well with linux except videoo. So I was just thinkiing how to make yur script working for my player also. For this reason i would like to ask what is the output format oyur script produces and if you have any idea how to make with your script .mpx format.
thanks for your time

The "d2-convert" script save video as a DivX AVI file, rescaled to fit into a 320x240 box but keep aspect ratio. Audio is MP3.

Sorry, I've never heard of the MPX format for video. I've had a quick look around on google and it seems other people are having the same problem trying to find a linux converter. I suspect MPX is quite an obscure format.

You could check to see if mencoder supports MPX - but having had a quick look at the list supported format in "libavcodec" it doesn't seem likely.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck though!

thank you anyway i will keep trying

Having just got my d2 I was expecting to have to figure out how to convert video and make a script. Thanks so much. My only problem is I use kde. I figured out how to add it to konquerors right click menu. How ever the script acts differently. Instead of opening just one file at a time it trys to do them all at once. When that happens with more then around five files some files get dropped. You can still run run it in konsole but the file path can't have any spaces in it or else it says it can't find the file.

I was wondering if anyone had a quick fix. If not I'll get in the script and figure out what needs to be changed to make it work in kde.


Spencer

It works just flawlessly! Thanks a million.. I was about to climb a wall I was getting so frustrated. Woot!

I have a little bit of a problem there.

When I right click the file and choose the script nothing happen. If I run the script from terminal I get the timet, I'm running it now on a big file so later I'll be able to tell you if it worked.

I'm using Ubuntu Feisty and I'm tying yo convert an AVI file.

this works a bit for me- I'm using the 2.5 beta firmware on my brand new D2. Script runs ok and coverts avi to playable avi, but is not too successful with other common file formats. Anybody say what file formats they have had success with?
An excellent player other wise.

I can confirm that the following works for VOB files on my D2

transcode --export_par 1,1 -H 10 -a 0 -q 1 -i IN.VOB -w 800,50 -F mpeg4 -b 128,0,2 -s 1.311 --a52_drc_off -J smartyuv=threshold=10:Blend=1:diffmode=2:highq=1 -Z 320x240 -y ffmpeg -o OUT.AVI

Did not need mplayer for conversion. Worked on Xvid files as well.