How to: AVI DVD MKV Bluray to Galaxy Nexus

[dvdcatalyst]

This guide explains in detail how to put your own movies on the Galaxy Nexus the easy way.


With a screen as large as that of the Galaxy Nexus, it was clearly made for video playback, and while there are some movies you can rent/purchase from the Android Market, the choice is somewhat limited. And, since there is no way yet to verify if you already own a movie on DVD or Bluray, you are forced to pay for the movie. Unfortunately, there are not that many video file types that play properly on it, and while there are video players in the market that provide support for formats like AVI and MKV video files, it is often a hit or miss situation to get these files to play without issues. So in order to get your own movies to play properly, the easiest way is to convert them to the proper format, and that is where this guide comes in.



What you need:


* Of course a Galaxy Nexus. This guide works for just about any Android phone/tablet, and you can even use it for all the Apple devices as well, but this guide will cover the Galaxy Nexus.


* A computer running some form of Windows operating system. Some people have reported that it works on Linux with WINE, but this is not “officially” supported. I don’t have a Linux setup at the moment, and with 100′s of different “distro’s” (Gentoo, DSL, Ubuntu, Fedora etc) it is impossible for me to help troubleshooting.


* The computer needs to be able to access what you want to convert. If you want to convert DVDs, your computer needs to have a DVD drive. If you want to convert Bluray, you need a Bluray drive of course.


* DVD Catalyst 4. The software program that makes the process of putting DVDs and movies on your Galaxy Nexus (or whatever other phone/tablet you have) as easy as possible. You can purchase DVD Catalyst 4 (currently with a 50% off sale so you can get it for less than $10) by clicking here (link), or download the free trial version by clicking here (link) Note: the trial version converts 25% of each item.




Setting things up:


Download DVD Catalyst 4 on your computer using the links above. If you purchased DVD Catalyst 4 you should have received a download link by email pretty much within minutes. If not, check your spam/junk mail filter and see if it ended up in there. If you used the eCheck payment method, unfortunately due to the communication that is performed between PayPal and your bank, it can take a few days before the payment is cleared. As soon as the transaction is cleared, you will automatically receive the download link.


After downloading either the trial or the retail version of DVD Catalyst 4, look for the downloaded file on your computer. Usually your computer downloads files to your Documents folder or your Downloads folder, but some people store their downloads on their Desktop.

After you find the downloaded file, right-click on it, and select Extract All:

This will bring up a file-extraction utility. Just follow the steps by clicking next next finish. After this is finished, the folder where the files are extracted to will be opened:

Now Double-(left)click on the dc4.x.x file displayed in the folder to install the program.


If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, it might ask you if you are sure you want to install the software. In order to install DVD Catalyst 4, you need to click yes of course.

Just follow the steps to install the program. After the installation is complete, DVD Catalyst 4 will have put a cat-eye icon on your desktop, and of course the program will also be listed in your Start-menu.

Double-click it to start the program:

On the left side of the program, you will see a Video Player Device selection area, which you can use to select the Galaxy Nexus profile.

There are a couple of different profiles you can choose from. If you convert DVDs or similar-sized AVI files, the standard Galaxy Nexus profile will produce good looking video files for it at a reasonable filesize.


If you are using an older computer (single-core) conversions can take a bit. If you want this faster, you can trade off quality for speed by selecting the Galaxy Nexus (fast) profile.


If you convert HD content such as Blurays or HD MKV/M2TS files, use the Galaxy Nexus HQ1 profile for slower movies (romance/comedy) or HQ2 for fast movies (action/racing etc). For a mixture of both HD and DVD, you can use the HQXT profile, which sits inbetween the standard and HQ profiles.





The actual process for converting your movies for the Galaxy Nexus:



DVD Catalyst 4 can convert DVDs and popular video files such as AVI, MKV, DIVX, XVID without the need of additional software. It can not convert so-called “Digital Copy” video files (the ones you get with some DVDs and Blurays). It can also convert Bluray movies, but in order for Bluray conversions to work you will need something else (this is only needed for Bluray. DVDs work fine without anything else). More information on using Bluray with DVD Catalyst 4 can be found here:


http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/08/dvd-catalyst-4-1-bluray-guide/




If you want to convert a DVD, just insert the DVD while DVD Catalyst 4 is open, and it will detect it. If any other applications try to play the DVD, close them. Having more than one application access the DVD at the same time will result in some complications.


If you want to convert your AVI or MKV video files (or a different video file type), simply drag them over onto DVD Catalyst (or a folder containing a bunch of them). DVD Catalyst 4 will sort out what it can convert.


Be it a DVD or video file(s), DVD Catalyst will scan it for content and collects information from it such as the playlength, multiple episodes, languages, subtitles etc.


For the purpose of this guide, I’m using the “Cowboys and Aliens” DVD.

DVD Catalyst 4 scans for all the content on a DVD in order to make it easy to convert TV DVDs (individual episodes) for movies, you might end up seeing more than one track. Even though DVD Catalyst 4 filters out trailers, sometimes special features are long enough to pass through. To remove them from conversion, simply select the DVD track you don’t want (the longest one is usually the movie) and uncheck the “enable for conversion” checkmark.

Now all that is left is the conversion process, which you start by clicking the Go button.

Recap:


So after you installed DVD Catalyst 4 on your computer, started the application, selected the Galaxy Nexus profile, added files or inserted a DVD, and tapped Go. Since DVD Catalyst 4 remembers your profile and settings you might have changed, all your future Galaxy Nexus conversions will be even easier: Start DVD Catalyst 4, insert DVD/Bluray or drag files over, tap Go and walk away. It does not get easier than that.




Conversion:


Video conversion is quite a demanding process for your computer. Especially on older computers, it can take some time for a movie to be converted. During conversion, the video and audio format of your DVD or video is changed to a format that can be handled by your iPad2, and if needed, the screen resolution is changed and black borders are removed.


When the conversion starts, DVD Catalyst 4 scans the movie at 5 different spots to determine if the video contains black borders. Most newer movies don’t have them anymore, but there are a lot of older wide-screen movies that do, and if these borders are not removed during conversion, they will reduce the quality as well as make the viewing experience less pleasant.




movie with black borders


tablet movie playback with black borders in file


(The white area represents the area of the width you would be missing. The video player app makes the white black though)



Now if we remove the black borders from the conversion, things turn out a lot better:



black borders removed from the conversion



tablet widescreen movie with minimal borders




The movie now fills the entire width of the screen. This is the default behavior of DVD Catalyst 4.


For more details on this process, or on how to make all your movies full-screen for the Galaxy Nexus, have a look at this black-border removal guide:


http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/08/chapter-10-black-bar-removal/




After the scanning part, it will start the conversion. This can take a while.


DVD Catalyst uses H264for the video format of Galaxy Nexus files. This format produces the highest possible quality for your conversions at a reasonable filesize. For most recent computers, conversion to this format runs at about 2x real-time, but on quad (or more)-core systems, it can run quite a bit faster. If you are using an older computer, you can select the Galaxy Nexus (fast) profile in DVD Catalyst, which uses a different format (often called mpeg4sp or ffmpeg) that is less taxing on your system (but also lower quality).

Transferring your videos over:

After the conversion is complete, DVD Catalyst 4 will bring up the folder where DVD Catalyst 4 stored the created video files. It defaults to your “My Videos” folder. (If DVD Catalyst 4 asks to connect your Galaxy Nexus, tap Cancel and the Videos folder will open. The Nexus connects a bit different than most Android devices)

Connect your Nexus, and open “My Computer”. You should see your Galaxy Nexus there near the bottom.


Note: If you don’t see it there, you might need to update to the latest Windows Media Player( here ) which installs a special driver for the communication method the Galaxy Nexus uses. If this doesn’t help, please contact your phone provider for assistance on the connection of your phone to your computer.

Tap on the Galaxy Nexus in “My Computer” and then doubleclick on “Internal Storage” (if you use a memory card for your Galaxy Nexus, tap on External Storage).

With the video displayed and your Galaxy Nexus and simply drag your video files over to the “Movies” folder to transfer them.

You might receive a message from Windows about that it might not be able to play the file, but just click yes here.

When the file(s) is/are transferred over to your Galaxy Nexus, you can play them using the build-in Gallery app.

Tips:


Video output folder: Do not point the video output folder location directly to your Nexus. It will cause complications, or conversions will run really slow. Use a folder on your computer, and copy the file after the conversion is complete.

Audio Sync: When you preview the created videofile(s) on your computer, do NOT use Windows Media Player, it will have audio sync issues. If you play the created files on your tablet, or use a different media player, such as VLC or Quicktime, the file will be in sync.


Volume. A lot of people are in the habit of increasing the volume for their conversions. With DVD Catalyst 4, there is no need for that. It uses a technology we call “Volume Maximizer” which automatically boosts the volume level of all your conversions to a safe but louder volume. More information can be found here: http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/01/...volume-levels/


Full-Screen Video. While briefly explained above, in order to make all your movies appear full-screen on your Galaxy Nexus, have a look here: http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/08/...k-bar-removal/


Filenames on Android. A flaw in the Gallery app from the first releases of Android is that it only displays thumbnail images of the videos you have on it. While for movies, this might not be much of an issue, for TV shows, its impossible to tell which episode is which. Using a file-browser application to find and select your video files is one way of selecting the video you want to watch. Because of this limitation, we created MovieGallery, a video player application that adds support to Gallery for cover art of your movies, as well as a nicer way of browsing through your collection:

You can find MovieGallery in the Android Market. a free and a pay version are available. For more information on MovieGallery, have a look here: http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/10/moviegallery-1-3/

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[dvdcatalyst]

Of course this works for the Xoom/XyBoard as well. Instead of selecting Android > Galaxy Nexus, select Android > Xoom or Android > Xyboard for your device profile