Encoding guides

Introduction

This section provides practical guidance on how to properly encode media files for use with SpinetiX players. Correct encoding ensures optimal playback performance, reliability, and visual quality across different projects and deployment scenarios.

You will find recommended settings, best‑practice workflows, and format‑specific tips to help you prepare videos, images, and audio files that meet the technical requirements of SpinetiX devices.

For related information, refer to the following pages:

Video decoding – detailed guidance on encoding parameters and supported formats for SpinetiX players
Network stream input - documentation about displaying real-time streaming media received over an IP network.
Encoders and streamers – documentation about certified third‑party streaming and encoding devices

Whether you are producing content for a small installation or a large-scale digital signage network, these encoding guides will help you achieve consistent and efficient results.

Elementi

Starting with Elementi 2015, when importing a video file that is outside the player' specifications, the user is prompted to automatically transcode it into a good format.

For cases when the videos are within specs, but use a less-optimized codec/container, the user can manually re-encode a video within Elementi for best player playback results, as following:

Find your project within the "Projects" tab (Browse panel).
Make sure that the project type is set to the correct player model.
- To change the type of a project, right-click on it, select "Project Properties..." (previously "Set Type") option and select the desired project model.
Double-click on the project icon to open it.
Import the video file, if not already in there.
Right-click over the video file and select "Re-encode" option from the contextual menu. A progress bar is shown during the re-encoding.

Notes:

The file extension might change after re-encoding, for instance from mov to mp4, so you might need to update your project if that media was already used.
If the video will be uploaded on a DiVA player, set the project type to "HMP300 Project".

FFMpeg

FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It offers a command line tool to convert multimedia files between formats.

Download the windows version here.
You can find the documentation for it here: http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html.

The generic syntax for a ffmpeg command is:

ffmpeg [global_options] {[input_file_options] -i ‘input_file’} ... {[output_file_options] ‘output_file’} ...

Some examples are detailed below. See also how to change the frame rate of a video.

Transcode into a certain format

If you need to change the format / container of the file without any encodings, use something like:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile -acodec copy -vcodec copy outputfile
ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile -codec: copy outputfile

This will simply copy the audio and video streams (#1) or all the streams (#2) into the selected format (e.g., mp4, mov).

Encode into MOV format

To encode a window media video into a 720p (or 1080p) mpeg-4 video (mov format), you can use something like this:

ffmpeg -i video.wmv -vcodec libxvid -s hd720 -aspect 16:9 -r:v 25 -b:v 6500k -bf 1 -acodec libmp3lame -b:a 128k -t 120 video.mov

where:

-vcodec libxvid selects mpeg-4 as video format;

-s hd720 reduces the size (if needed) to 720p (use -s hd1080 for 1080p);

-aspect 16:9 sets the video display aspect ratio;

-r:v 25 selects 25 fps;

-b:v 6500k selects 6.5Mbits as target bitrate;

-bf 1 sets one B-frame to improve the coding efficiency;

-acodec libmp3lame select mp3 as audio format;

-b:a 128k selects 128kb for the audio bitrate;

-t 120 stops writing the output after 120 seconds.

Encode 1080p video into MP4 format

ffmpeg -i video_1080p.mp4 -s 832x468 -b:v 2500k -vcodec libx264 -vprofile main -x264-params keyint=12 -acodec libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k video.mp4

This will:

Select h.264 as video format using -vcodec libx264
Reduce the size (if needed) to 832x468 using -s 832x468
Select 2.5Mbits as target bitrate using -b:v 2500k
Set 12 key frames for the output video
Select AAC as audio format: -acodec libvo_aacenc
Target 128kb for the audio bitrate: -b:a 128k

Notes on visual quality

From our experience, these parameters have the most impact:

Use two-pass encoding: this allocates bit rate optimally to maintain a constant visual quality (this will for example eliminate block artifacts). The best results are obtained in VBR mode with constant visual quality with HEVC or AV1.
Use 60 FPS. The impact is subtle, but it makes a huge difference, motion feels more "natural" at 60 FPS and this creates a more immersive experience. That setting alone will have more impact than bitrate or choice of codec. Kind in mind that TV is 60 fps.

Factors that have no impact on visual quality:

Chroma subsampling: natural content is not aliased, so unless you display on a computer screen with fine text, 4:2:0 is the correct subsampling to use, it is consistent with the capacity of the human eye and is used for broadcast quality video and even digital cinema.
Codec: any codec can produce good quality, where they differ is only what bitrate they need to reach the same level of quality.
Key frames: 2 key frames / s is the global standard for broadcast quality and DVD / Blu-ray. You can improve quality a bit by reducing the number of "forced" key frames at one per second if you want. Bear in mind that no matter what, codecs will spontaneously use key frames when they do improve quality, the only thing you control is forced key frames to improve seek times.
Bitrate: bitrate in itself has low correlation with quality, what matters is the visual quality target you set to the encoder. Yes, in general a higher quality target will result in larger file sizes, but at some point you will start encoding noise which means that above some bit rate, which depends on the cleanness of the video source (level of noise) and the codec, you can increase bit rate indefinitely without getting a better quality. Using a modern codec with more advanced in-loop filters like HEVC or AV1 will give you the best results, even if the bit rate is lower because they are more efficient.
Bit depth. It only matters if you use HDR or BT.2020 color space. For BT.709 there is no improvement to be expected when using 10 bits per component instead of 8. Note that the IBX440 support 10bpc and BT.2020 and HDR. If your LED screen supports it, you can create an HDR project in Elementi with 10bpc videos, but it will only improve visual quality is the color space is wider, like BT.2020.

Outdated software

WinFF

WinFF SpinetiX presets

Version 1.0 (2014-09-10)

WinFF is a simple graphical interface for FFMpeg. Once you installed WinFF, download the SpinetiX presets for HMP200, HMP130, and HMP100 devices, unzip it and double-click on the SpinetiX.wff file - this will import the SpinetiX presets into the encoder and let you select them to encode your video.

The following presets are available:

HMP200 H264
MP4 file with H264, resolution of 1920x1080
HMP130 MPEG-4
AVI file with MPEG-4 (part 2) with resolution of 1280x720
HMP100 MPEG-4
AVI file with MPEG-4 (part 2) with resolution of 832x468

Note:

To modify the presets parameters, click on "Edit > Presets", select the category "SpinetiX", then click on the preset you want to modify and change the command line parameters. Further documentation can be found on FFMpeg site.