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Answer

You can get more details of why an export failed by looking at the CatDV Error Log in your Logs directory (this file is located in the CatDV program directory under Windows or in ~/Library/Logs under Mac OS X).

It appears that using the "iPod Movie 320x240" setting does sometimes fail for no obvious reason with a -50 paramErr error, which we suspect is due to a bug in some versions of QuickTime.

There is a workaround however. Select Recompress, then choose "MPEG-4" as the file format. Pressing Settings and customise the file format to one supported by video-capable iPods. You then have two choices.

You can use MP4 as the file format and H.264 as the video format, with an image size of 320x240 and a data rate of up to 768 kbit/s, with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbit/s and 48 kHz stereo. This will give the most compact files but takes a long time to compress and is limited to 320x240.

Alternatively, you can use MP4 as the file format and MPEG-4 Improved as the video format and a data rate of 1200 or 1500 kbit/s. Select a frame rate of Current and an image size to match the aspect ratio you want, such as 640x360 for 16:9, 360x480 or 544x408 for 4:3. This will result in larger files than with H.264 but is much quicker to compress and gives better results if being played back on a television through the iPod's video out connector (as the resolution is higher than the 320x240 limit for H264).

In both cases, select AAC-LC as the audio format, with a bit rate of 128 or 160 kbit/s.

7/2/06