• mp4ize url: http://thomer.com/howtos/ipod_video.html
• mp4ize script: (can't upload this for some reason, will try again later)

Add apt source: deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ maverick free non-free

sudo aptitude update sudo aptitude reinstall libavcodec52

I did a lot of this as root… it might be smarter not to do that

 
sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts ubuntu-dev-tools dh-make module-assistant cdbs debconf-utils fakeroot

sudo apt-get install libopencore-amrnb-dev libopencore-amrwb-dev liba52-dev libdts-dev libgsm1-dev libvorbis-dev libxvidcore4 libxvidcore-dev libdc1394-22-dev libfaac-dev libmp3lame-dev libx264-dev libfaad-dev libtheora-dev libsdl1.2-dev

mkdir ffmpeg-src
cd ffmpeg-src
sudo apt-get source ffmpeg

cd ffmpeg-0.5.1
sudo apt-get install build-dep ffmpeg

sudo ./configure --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab


make

sudo checkinstall

Script parameters

Ipod touch resolution: width: 960px height: 640px

video bitrate: not entirely sure, need to experiment with this. I'm going to start with around 700, maybe try 768. audio bitrate: seems to max out at 160kbs? the default in the mp4ize script is 128k. I think I'll leave it at that for now.

ignore all the stuff above about mp4ize, this is an easier way to do it I think: alternatively I could modify mp4ize to use this command:

ffmpeg command: ffmpeg -i INPUT.avi -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -s 960×640 -vcodec libx264 -vpre /usr/local/share/ffmpeg/libx264-default.ffpreset -metadata “title=The Ski Lift” -threads 4 -f ipod OUTPUT.mp4

If you haven't already, you may want to take a look at some existing projects that tackle cluster-based media encoding:

• DVD::RIP
• http://www.codergrid.de/