Related
Hi,
Can anyone tell me which version tcpmp i install on the wizard please. There is the normal tcpmp.setup.0.71.exe and there is the tcpmp.smartphone.0.71.exe version.
thanks
Wizard is a pda. Use tcpmp.setup.0.71.exe.
thanks,
loaded it and was not impressed with the perfomance! From the settings page, general. heres what it displays:
language: english
platform: pocket pc
OS Version: 5.01
OEM info: HTC
Processor: Arm926E
Clock speed: 170Mhz
!!!!! what happened to the 200mhz OMAP processor? I played a mpg video at avg speed 52.9%
vid frames 934
frame rate: 13.18
361kbit/s (orig 682kbit/s)
i only have spb gprs monitor installed and dont see why the performance is so slow!
tcpmp
yeah i get 170MHz too. and video playback is okay, but not very fast at all.
i was hoping to have better video playback from TCPMP.
Windows Media Player is always jerky on my kjam when streaming from a website no matter what the quality of the video.
Unfortuantly TCMP doesn't appear to make use of the 2D accelleration hardware on the Wizards OMAP cpu. Apparntly Ti are a little bit shy when it comes to providing the information nessecery for the TCMP developers need to impliment support. An alternative would be a display driver for the wizard that impliemented direct-X (TCMP can make use of direcet X acceleration I belvie) but i don't imagine this happening any time soon!
I've been through all this.....take a look at this thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=33030&highlight=
Yeah, so, it'll do ok if you play content encoded at QVGA or lower. But I have loads of 700 mb Div-x's that are mostly almost VGA. These play back fine on my Axim X50v but not on the Wizard. Obviosuly the wizard is much slower but I can't help bu think that leveraging the 2D accell hardware would help!
Sorry for the newbie question but can someone explain the differences on an exe install and a cab install?
And, how to do a cab install step by step.
thanks,
Sorry for the newbie question but can someone explain the differences on an exe install and a cab install?
And, how to do a cab install step by step.
thanks,
Mogwai - exe typically run on your desktop pc and install over activesync to your ppc. cabs typically are copied ot your ppc and run on it directly (launched using the file browser).
You might read up a bit on how to start new topics in forums as well - what you're doing is posting 'off topic'
hi all
I am getting O2 XDA Exec
I would glad if you can clear out the following points from someone who already owns one:
YOU DONT HAVE TO SAY HOW TO DO IT, SIMPLE ANSWERS WILL DO
Does skype work over gprs at all?
if yes, how much skype will use interms of gprs bandwidth
2- can you play video 640x480 @30fps
4- now the most important question, how well does the exec handles games. I am looking at some 3d games.
and will be playing playstation one emulator.
5- incase it was simlocked, does anyone know if O2 does unlock the phone
thanks for your time
comon people someone must have few answers
all those views and no replies?
i only have the question to 5 and as far as i know, O2 Exec is not sim locked
for the Skype, it didn't work with me over GPRS, no matter what i tried.
for the gaming, personally i don't play games on it whatsoever (exept for the buble breaker), but one friend is spending most of his time playing 3Ds on it, but i never saw the PS1 emulator on it & i sure don't know if it's gonna work fine on it.
cheers
where do i get the ps1 emulator, plz i know i can get snes emulator etc but if you can get me the software or the link i will gladly check it for you!
thanks
this is the ps emulator link is:
http://fpsearm.psxfanatics.com/
speed depend on game, so I am mainly looking for final fantasy 7
have you tried the emulator?
can you inform us on the results
I have played movies at 30fps at 640x480 using pocket dvd studio to rip the dvd. It's a littly choppy at times and sometimes sputters but for the most part it works fine. I haven't tried playing them without all the background stuff running like voice command etc. - maybe that would help with the choppiness. If you're looking for top of the line quality without any hiccups you might be disappointed though.
this is what I am trying to feel, I am expecting too much from it.
I had not owned PDA before. thus I have really high expectations from it.
I think the Universal is not for me, gonna get a PDA phone when its mature enough
As to the video playback, I use ImToo DVD ripper and then convert to Pocket PC format using Windows Movie Maker. Tthis gives me quality video and stereo sound without a large file footprint.
by the way majdi, I am from jordan too (same country) but I am living in the uk
can you inform me on the exec price there?
and would appreciate if you gave me you msn ID
salam
Does skype work over gprs at all?
>> It depends on the operator. With Vodafone NZ it does, but consumes about 1mb an hour just being logged in
2- can you play video 640x480 @30fps
>> Yes, but you need to get Betaplayer (do a google search)
5- incase it was simlocked, does anyone know if O2 does unlock the phone
>> Xda Exec and Mini S ARE NOT SIM LOCKED.
For playing DVDs on my O2 XDA Exec I use Pocket DVD for PALM (which I bought for my TH55/E1). I use TCPMP to play them at 15fps without any slow downs, glitches, nor loss of sound. It plays smoothly like watching a movie on a small DVD player. The only drawback is it uses about 400MB of my SD Card memory. I use the following settings:
DVD / Movies SETTINGS:
Fullscreen: 464x288 (134 kPixel); 24 kbps audio 6 channels; 490 kbps video (6th setting)
Widescreen: 464x224 (104 kPixel); 24 kbps audio 6 channels; 486 kbps video (5th setting)
re DVD
i use pocket DVD studio which can be downloaded from www.pocketgear.com and it is about $39.
i convert my movies 320X240 at about 15fps
the result is good decent quality audio and video on the exec and a typical movie 2 hours length is done at about 210Mb.
originally converted movies for my Blueangel (XDA2s) but now using same files on the exec and not a major difference in quality except for the odd fast action sequences which become pixelated and blotchy but a fair compromise between size and quality!
on the whole i can live with these settings. i play the files on Betaplayer. Top quality freeware, doenst use a lot of memory and perfect for playing all types of files.
thanks
most of you use 15fps, does the video look strange at that frame rate?
aslo if someone could clarify speed on games, that would be nice
re ps1 emulator
finally got it to work! downloaded emulator and the bios file
i had destruction derby 2 for the ps1 at home so i created the 'backup' image file and put the file on the memory card
fired up the emulator and the emu works fine and applied the bios
loaded the image file of the game and it also started loading BUT was tooo slow.
on the pc version of the emu i had about 200fps whereas on the exec was 15fps at best, way too slow to play. sound was too loud and distorted and graphics were ok-ish.
so this experience for me was not a good one and will not be pursuing ps1 emulation on the exec.
hope this helps
I have tried to pull the threads of the various discussions on these forums of device speed and TCPMP into one place (my brain, to be specific), but I'm still not getting the performance out of TCPMP that I really want and, frankly, expect (given that I can get better performance on my 2 year-old Tapwave Zodiac). Here are the basic details:
o) Running an O2 with WM 5.0, version 5.1.195
o) ROM version 1.30.107 WWE
o) TCPMP 0.71, "Smartphone" version, all plugins installed
o) Settings: Video at 100% (converted to 640x480 resolution); smooth zoom 50%; dithering enabled; Intel XScale enabled;
o) All applications save WM 5.0 native apps installed on a 2GB SanDisk SD card
o) All test video files installed on card as well
o) All programs closed by hand prior to running TCPMP
o) Tried files converted by DivX Converter, Lathe, Dr. DivX, and PocketDivX Encoder
o) tried both in portrait and landscape mode, with and without going to "full screen" mode
(I wanted to run Pocket Hack Master to try to tune the device prior to running TCPMP, but it causes my Exec to hang; that's covered in a separate post.)
The output is, well, okay--the image is sharp--but all panning and motion is somewhat jerky. In my experience, this generally indicates that the processor can't keep up with the demand, and one should encode using a lower video and audio bit rate until you find the optimum settings. However, I have tried (in Dr. DivX and DivX Converter) bit rates from 1000kbps down to 500kpbs, and still am seeing jerkiness.
So my questions are: has anyone else seen this behavior? And does anyone have an suggestions for improving TCPMP performance? Install the VGA hack, perhaps? Upgrade to a newer ROM version? Hope that it gets better when I perform system tuning with Pocket Hack Master (should I ever get it to work)? Overclock my device using PHM? Encode at a significantly lower bitrate? Use a different tool for encoding? I am open to suggestions.
Note: I can encode ripped DVDs (using DVDShrink) at 800-1000 kpbs video, 128 kbps audio, and have them viewable on my Tapwave Zodiac using the Palm version of TCPMP with no jerkiness or jitter.
Thanks for any help.
Doug
I have a similar problem. I have encoded a few videos at 700 kbps video and 128kbps audio that run fine when my XDA is plugged into the mains or to the computer, but jitter when it's running on battery. I tried it first thing after charging today with the battery at 98%. The video was still jittery. Tried it again plugged into the mains and it's fine!
Here's one of the files I encoded. Spoilers for Season 10 of Stargate SG1 and Season 3 of Stargate Atlantis, if you care.
(Edit: Hmm - the forum wouldn't load the file. I've a rapid share link instead)
http://rapidshare.de/files/34374785/SG1_LemonScene.rar.html
Stargate SG1 Season 10 - "The Pegasus Project", Lemon Scene, 33 seconds. Xvid 700 kbps video, Lame 128 kbps audio, Frame rate 23.976.
I had problems like this but after changing every setting in tcpmp and still having no joy, i downloaded Sompy MovieEncoder its a free program for the pc, it takes your movie files and recodes them to a smaller rate etc, file quality will decrease, but less resoures on the ppc are used when playing the movie file.
its the only solution i could find
if there is any other solution i would love to know
I have the same problems using both pocketdivxencoder and smartmovie, when I use VGA settings. I just encode everything in QVGA resolution now, and it's a bit grainy, but at least no lag.
Still zeroing in on getting this working the way I want (caveat: I am much pickier than most people about sharpness, jitter, pixilation, and the like), but I have managed to get some improvement in playback. Here's what I'm finding so far:
o) Using Pocket Hack Master (which can only be used when my device is plugged in to either the wall charger or the USB sync cable; don't ask me why), I have hard-set the system speed to 520MHz, and have set the speed for TCPMP to "maximum" so that it overclocks when I run it.
o) I converted several test files (I have a set; I'm obsessive) at 500kbps video, 80kbps audio, 40KHz audio frequency.
This gives smooth playback except when there is too much data, i.e. when there's a lot of motion in the image and its a complex image. (Trees with lots of leaves seem to be a good test case.) For example, in the scene in "The Incredibles" where Mr. Incredible is shaking a tree to get a cat out, the image freezes a bit. In the scene in "The 40 Year-old Virgin" where Our Here is biking down a tree-lined street and the camera pans up to the trees, the image freezes a bit. Images like that.
It's unfortunate that I have to ramp the bit rate down so low, although on this screen--as opposed to a QVGA screen--the images are much sharper at lower bit rates. Even so, I still want to see what other people say about, for example, using "true" VGA mode, different versions of TCPMP, and the like. It would be nice to be able to convert in the 700-800kbps range; in my past experience, that gives a good compromise between image sharpness and file size. (I personally don't mind a movie taking up a GB of space; I want that movie to look good, dammit!)
Doug
I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Good:
+ No more jerkyness in any of my divx video's. (Don't know the bitrates on them)
Bad:
- 520 MHz is a big drain on the battery.
- Some stability issues when changing CPU speeds.
Edit:
When plugged in the mains, the Uni speeds up to 520 MHz. Thats why it will play fine when plugged in, but not on battery.
Biffert said:
I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming the XCPUScalar is some kind of system performance tuning application, yes?
Doug
dougom said:
Biffert said:
I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming the XCPUScalar is some kind of system performance tuning application, yes?
Doug
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes indeed, it allows scaling the Intel XScale CPU in the Uni to a speed of choice, or autoscale based on CPU load.
http://www.immiersoft.com/index.html
It works for me, although I have some stability issues when changing speed to often.
I use O2 Exec with Dopod 900 latest rom with TCPMP V 0.71
it run very well in my device.
I use Pocket Divx encoder. I just set the out put to be VGA PPC resolution.
No fuzzy, slow or any bad grainy.
Or I just got lucky
i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.
skywriter said:
i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you encode with "DVD to Pocket PC" 3.6.2 @ 640x480. That's a new tool on me; do you have a pointer to it? And what video and audio bit rates are you encoding with?
Also, are you running Win2K, or XP? (Or, heaven forfend, something else?) And when you say you are using WM 10, is that on the desktop, or on the Exec?
Thanks,
Doug
dougom said:
skywriter said:
i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you encode with "DVD to Pocket PC" 3.6.2 @ 640x480. That's a new tool on me; do you have a pointer to it? And what video and audio bit rates are you encoding with?
Also, are you running Win2K, or XP? (Or, heaven forfend, something else?) And when you say you are using WM 10, is that on the desktop, or on the Exec?
Thanks,
Doug
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use XP. it's WM10 on the uni, WM plays no part in encoding. other than three video form factors the audio and video rates are slidersm i would have to look in the file properties.. so it's a very dumb tool that gives pretty good results.
This works great for me:
DVD Catalyst 2.1 ($24.95 USD-much less than others!) is really fantastic. It is the only decoder that not only has a great UI but really works and is fast! The developer has worked really hard to get this program to work well and he is on the way to win more awards. You can download a fully funtional trial version. Go to http://www.dvdcatalyst.com/ and give it a try.
The settings I use is:
Output: Pocket PC DivX
Screen Size: 640x480 VGA PPC
Video Quality: 500-600 Kbps (depends on length of movie and if I want one or two movies on my 1G card)
Audio Quality: 112 Stereo Kbps
I use TCPMP and under Video options have Intel XScale selected for the driver.
Best results are after a soft boot to regain leaked memory and disable automatic mail checking or anything that might run periodically in the background and suck up CPU time.
The picture and sound are great.
Regards,
Gordo
When I clock the CPU to 520 MHz (The factory maximum for the Uni CPU) I get much much better results. If I do nothing with the speed the jerkyness occurs no matter how much I tweak it.
To see if it is a solution, play a video that is jerky when you are running on battery. Plug the Uni in the mains and play the video again, you should be able to see a significant difference (Uni goes to maximum speed when plugged in)
my uni hangs above 520mhz. i don't mind a bit of occassional jerkiness. i cannot use WIFI at the same time as BT HP (any application).
what i need is way to rip my matrix DVD's to watch! they are devious. i want to teh freedom to play them on my media of choice. i've bought many 100's of both DVD's and CDs, i've played the game long enough ny now.
skywriter said:
my uni hangs above 520mhz. i don't mind a bit of occassional jerkiness. i cannot use WIFI at the same time as BT HP (any application).
what i need is way to rip my matrix DVD's to watch! they are devious. i want to teh freedom to play them on my media of choice. i've bought many 100's of both DVD's and CDs, i've played the game long enough ny now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that "Matrix: Reloaded" is an excellent test film for seeing how well conversions work. It has scenes where there is rapid regular motion, CGI, and plenty of other stuff going on that gives your CPU a good workout.
I'm still tweaking to try to get a good result. I personally *do* mind jerkiness; I can watch films converted at 800-1000kbps on my Zodiac; I would love to get the same kind of performance on my Exec. I will keep trying.
The only reason I mention the desktop/laptop OS is because my understanding is that you can get better handshaking between WM10 on the desktop and the version of WM on the Exec, and WM10 doesn't run on Win2K. Also, I may be getting some strange behavior during encoding because I'm running on Win2K rather than XP, so perhaps the codecs aren't working quite right. I don't know why that would be, but this stuff seems to be as much an art as a science. When my new laptop comes in (any day now!) I will give it a try.
Doug
For folks who are interested, I seem to have found a method for conversion and playback that works fairly consistently with a variety of films. Very little of this information is stuff that I have discovered on my own; most of it is culled from this and other newsgroups. Thanks to everyone for all their advice.
Here's my method.
Tweaking your Universal
Install Pocket Hack Master--You are going to want to set your Universal to run at 520MHz normally, and then test the other available clock settings using PHM's Speed Configuration option. I would then advise you to use the Application Speed option of PHM to force the speed of TCPMP to the highest available clock speed, overclocking your CPU if need be. Yes, this will burn battery power insanely, but if you want a smoother playback, this helps. (520MHz provides decent playback, however.)
It is worth noting that I bumped into some weirdness running PHM. Specifically, you either need to disable the Universal's built-in scaling functionality in PHM by choosing Edit > Settings > Advanced > Disable Device Built-in Scaling, or only run PHM when it is plugged into line current. Otherwise, you might experience a system hang, a screen white-out, or other irritating symptoms that can only be escaped with a soft reset.
Install Magic Button--This is not a requirement, but it helps when you are trying to make sure none of your applications are running while you run TCPMP.
Turn Off All Your Applications--Anything else running in the background will slow down your playback.
Reboot Your Universal Before Playback--This clears up any unwanted crap from your buffers.
Verify All Applications Are Off--On your Today screen on your Universal, select Start > Settings > System > Memory > Running Programs. Turn off anything that is running. Yes, I know; everything should be turned off as a result of your soft reboot, but I'm paranoid. Skip this step if you aren't as paranoid as me.
Conversion
Prior to converting my movies, I rip them using DVD Shrink, which I prefer over DVD Decoder. I don't really think it matters, though. I then encode using Dr. DivX. Here's the info:
Film clips: "Serenity" (television pilot); "Matrix Reloaded"; "The Incredibles"--this collection gives me a good cross section of animation, CGI, live action with little motion, live action with lots of motion, and live action/CGI combined
Conversion tool: Dr. DivX 1.0.7, using the latest DivX codec (6.2.5, I believe).
Video Bit Rate: 700kbps
Audio Bit Rate: 80kbps
Resolution: Make sure your width is 640; set your height based on whatever your film's aspect ratio is (For 16:9, 352 or 368 pixels; for 2.35:1, 272 pixels). It is important to use a width of 640, as TCPMP runs better when you set the Zoom to 100%.
I use two-pass encoding. I suspect that different films will require different video bit rates, probably varying between 500-800kpbs. This is just a guess, however.
Playing Your Movies
I playback with TCPMP. Personally, I haven't had a lot of luck using Windows Media, and Mitch (the author of DVD Catalyst) says that he has had better luck with *.avi format than *.wmv.
I use the following settings in TCPMP:
Speed: 100%
View > Zoom: 100%
View > Pixel Aspect Ration: Square
View > Orientation: Follow GUI
Video > Smooth Zoom (Only 50%)
Video > Dither (enabled) (To help minimize pixilation of the image)
Video > Quality > Normal
Video > Video Driver > Intel XScale
Video > Streams > Video (enabled)
All Other Settings: defalt
So there you have it. Is it a little bit of a pain? Heck yes. Is it worth it to get smoother playback? Well, it is for me; you have to decide if it's worth it for you.
Happy viewing,
Doug
Has anyone thought of running these videos through Benchmark mode (File > Benchmark in TCPMP) so that people trying to assist can get a better picture of just how jerky the video playback is?
I've the same issues here!
When plugged to the main power all the movies run smooth.
When running without chargin it becomes slow!
has anyone tried converting to .3gp since the TCPMP does support this. I have encoded most of my movies
video format = mp4
codec = CoreASP
video size = 352 x 288
frame rate = 15.000
audio = mp3
audio codec = CoreMP3
format = 48000Hz Stereo
Data Bit Rate = 128 kbit/s
sample rate = 48,000
weighs in around 700mb after compression
After I have made a backup copy of my intended movie using DVDfab HD decryptor:
http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm
which is absolutely free
...I then use DVD Decrypter, also free, which can be found here:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/dvddec-options.htm
in the "Descrambling / Ripping tools" section.
this app wont crack any current CSS keys but what it does is allow me to rip the movie to one single .vob which I then compress with Xilisoft 3gp converter.
the playback is very smooth & clear IMO.
benchmark test:
TCPMP Version 0.72RC1 Benchmark Results
Average Speed 208.60%
Video Frames 10190
Audio Samples 32725921
Amount of Data 53259 KB
Bench. Time 5:25.661
Bench. Frame Rate 31.29
Bench. Sample Rate 100495
Bench. Data Rate 1.3 Mbit/s
Original Time 11:19.333
Original Frame Rate 15.00
Original Sample Rate 48000
Original Data Rate 642 kbit/s
URL \Storage Card\VIDEO\CASINO ROYAL.3GP
Size 693721516
Platform PocketPC
OS Version 5.01
OEM Info HERM100
Clock speed 397 Mhz
Video output ATI IMAGEON 240x320 16bits Slow Lookup
Video zoom 352x288 -> 240x320
Audio output Wave Output 48000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.
BTW - I have ATT 8525
So this documents my sad experience with XDA's culminating in a regreful decision NOT to buy the HTC Advantage.
I have bought 3 generations of past HTC based XDAs including the Wallaby, Andes and Universal.
Primarily I need a phone and a PDA in a single unit with the promise of also using it as a media player in situations where I'm without my laptop or subnote.
The fastest media player that I have used always seemed to be the TCPMP player but this was too slow to play conventional DIVX .avi or other FULL SIZE movie streams.
I dont have the time to constantly convert movies from standard 700 MB .avi format to PPC pixel size. But the Universal was simply NOT fast enough to play the uncoverted movies. (Plus the Universal has some issues when it comes to slooowly receiving and making calls .. another story)
As a standby measure I use a Fujistu Loox N560 (and Nokia 7380 combo), with a 624Mhz Xscale processor. Wiith TCPMP IT IS fast enough to play movies on its VGA screen without really any noticable skipping.
This was a temporary measure until HTC could produce a phone PDA combo that I could again use as a do-it-all device.
BUT after much monitoring xda-developers I conclude that the HTC advantage with all its other features will not do this job. I really really wanted the Advantage to work for me but post after post have indicated that it just cant cut it for displaying videos.
How difficult can it be to produce a device and software that can do this! Like I say, I dont want to spend all my waking hours converting .avi files from one format to each other, just to play the regular 700MB / 2hour standard .divx file.
The x7500 is a phone and a PDA, not a video player. Yes, it can play Videos and movies, but they need to be converted as you already stated.
So if you want to watch videos in their native format, why would you think a phone would work as a video player.
Why not just go buy a mini-video player...And if you already knew the answer and you don't want to convert to a format that can be played on a PDA......
Why did you waste our and your time explaining the obvious!
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the HTC Athena, with it's dedicated ATI graphics chip, might have a chance to play the same videos he's able to play on the Loox (another PPC device that uses the same 624Mhz Xscale processor).
Hopefully either the CoreCodec folks will be able to work around the buggy ATI drivers driving the Athena, or we won't have to wait long until someone releases a device with better a dedicated GPU.
i see ur point...i have converted many videos and most took no more than 15-20 mins max. but thats due to my core 2x duo processor.hopefully we see some software upgrades to solve this.
mmh,... I do not really see the point you mentioned.
The TCPMP is not able to use the Ati drivers but with the RawFramebuffer and DIVX (XVID) converted movies it runs brilliant.
I also convert DVDs to approx. 600 video and 128 audio @ res of 640x480. with this I will come up
with about 500-600 MB per movie. Excellent quality and no lags...
And what is your exact problem with converting.... Du you want to
but a DVD content auf 4GB on your MD ? uncoverted movies on a mobile
device makes no sense... or didnt I get the point here ?
Definitly I can not confirm your statement mentioned. Also standard divx movies at 700MB CD size will run like a charm.
But now some experience from my side:
I used the SPB Mobile DVD to convert files directly from DVD... a big mess... audio/video goes out of sync and if paused the whole movie
become laggy. 5-10FPS .... I was searching the Inet and also XDA Devs for this problem...
At the end I had to find out the SPB Mobile DVD converting program is SH** !!!!
Now I use Pocket-DVD Studio... converting with the newest XVID drivers. Excellent performance as mentined before...
So maybe this is your problem... give try to another converter and see what happens. (Use one with not installed codecs... use one where you can make
setting and use the system installed codecs)
So from my side: The Athena is a good mobile movie player (with TCPMP)... my opinion
errr...
Hiya people,
I must say that this is a bit confusing to me. I use the ATI driver on my Ameo (advantage) with TCMP as long as you dont use the hardware acceleration it works perfectly. There are many threads regarding this subject.
All in all, any 700-800 MB movie that I err......come accross and copy directly to my Ameo plays perfectly for me. Xvid or Divx.....
I dont do any conversions or anything. I just download and play.
Maybe I get the odd frame skipped here and there but its not an issue for me. I watch many action films...no problemo.......all standard 700 mb+ Avi files....I have Simpsons amd Resi Evil extinction on my Microdrive now...both 700MB plus..
Example my copy of RE:E 717 MB
MPEG4 Vid
608 by 256
25 FPS
After 2000 frames, I had dropped 42...
Lol maybe I am just not fussy and this is a nuisance to everyone else. I have not found an AVI that I have been unable to watch yet....
Then again, I used to watch 160 X 120 movies on my HTC Voyager using Pocket DIVX encoder which really really sucked and I thought it was cool.
I can also confirm that no convertion is needed, I have a lot of convertions which are over 2gigs, I watch these on my pc, but have watched them on my Ameo.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=308952
amouses said:
So this documents my sad experience with XDA's culminating in a regreful decision NOT to buy the HTC Advantage.
I have bought 3 generations of past HTC based XDAs including the Wallaby, Andes and Universal.
Primarily I need a phone and a PDA in a single unit with the promise of also using it as a media player in situations where I'm without my laptop or subnote.
The fastest media player that I have used always seemed to be the TCPMP player but this was too slow to play conventional DIVX .avi or other FULL SIZE movie streams.
I dont have the time to constantly convert movies from standard 700 MB .avi format to PPC pixel size. But the Universal was simply NOT fast enough to play the uncoverted movies. (Plus the Universal has some issues when it comes to slooowly receiving and making calls .. another story)
As a standby measure I use a Fujistu Loox N560 (and Nokia 7380 combo), with a 624Mhz Xscale processor. Wiith TCPMP IT IS fast enough to play movies on its VGA screen without really any noticable skipping.
This was a temporary measure until HTC could produce a phone PDA combo that I could again use as a do-it-all device.
BUT after much monitoring xda-developers I conclude that the HTC advantage with all its other features will not do this job. I really really wanted the Advantage to work for me but post after post have indicated that it just cant cut it for displaying videos.
How difficult can it be to produce a device and software that can do this! Like I say, I dont want to spend all my waking hours converting .avi files from one format to each other, just to play the regular 700MB / 2hour standard .divx file.
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i play "regular" 700 mb avi file on my uni without any lag.
what u smoking
dude what are u smoking video on the advantage is freaking sweeet. plus if u install projet athena 3 on it, the thing is a marvel of design and technology. they guys that made project athena put so much into it. infact i dont even need to use my hardware keyboard anymore. the teksoft keyboard works even better than the hardware one. but i digress, the tcpmp that is includded on the project athena uses the ati graphic card. i have never seen better video even better than the psp. no need to convert. i use full videos no conversion at all.
I am sure anyone who has had experience of it will agree slingplayer is one of the best applications for a pocket pc.
However on the Ameo, which is the variant I have, its performance is a lot to be desired. Whether I use it on the wifi or HSDPA it seems to be jerky all the time (not a very good user experience). The stats say the 300kb/s to 400kb/s is being achieved but the frame rate doesn’t go much above 10 (is it the darn video driver again?). The settings i use are:
Enable slingstream optimization
High action
video resolution : 320 by 240
audio : mono low
Managed to borrow a dell Axim X51 (qVGA screen, 412Mhz version) the other day, and tested its slingplayer performance and frankly was amazed at the difference. It was managing 30 frames per second and was super smooth whether portrait or landscape (same slingplayer settings by the way).
Ameo has the same processor as the Dell only faster, different graphics chip though.
Is it because Dell has a proper video driver or the fact that it is only a qVGA resolution i.e. 4 times less area to display. You will note that best performing devices as far as SPB graphics benchmark are qVGA.
I have read on threads people being pretty happy with slingplayer performance but that’s a subjective statement.
Could people who have used slingplayer on any variant of the athena, i.e. advantage X7500, X7501, dopod 1000 etc. state the frame rate and the bandwidth they are achieving (either cellular or wifi connection) so we can narrow down the problem.
1) Lack of proper ATI driver on all or some of the athena variants.
2) VGA screen taxing the processor too much (shouldn't be as the slingplayer application is still trying to display qVGA resolution, assuming 4 pixels displaying the same image is less strenuous on the processor than displaying 4 distinct images)
3) Some other reason such as splingplayer not optimized for the ATI chip?
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated
I tried this last night and I am getting 10-15fps whether connected to my wi-fi network or via 3G and my vid is jerky as well. Disappointing but hopefully will get better... I am using the default settings (slingstream optimization and medium action).
EDIT: FWIW, the Axim x51v is VGA 640x480...
EDIT2: My bandwidth is 200-300kbps whether connected to wi-fi or 3G.
assuming you guys are using win media player to play the videos, you are probably running into the same issues I had trying to stream from ORB to my ameo, the fix was to use the windows mobile 5 (windows media video 9) codecs for windows media player ! simply unpack the attached files and copy into your windows folder then reboot.
apperntly there is an issue with the Windows media video 10 codecs supplied with win mobile 6 !
ice_coffee said:
assuming you guys are using win media player to play the videos, you are probably running into the same issues I had trying to stream from ORB to my ameo, the fix was to use the windows mobile 5 (windows media video 9) codecs for windows media player ! simply unpack the attached files and copy into your windows folder then reboot.
apperntly there is an issue with the Windows media video 10 codecs supplied with win mobile 6 !
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The slingplayer mobile application is self contained (no WMP involved) and plays live streaming video only...
same problem here
billu said:
1) Lack of proper ATI driver on all or some of the athena variants.
2) VGA screen taxing the processor too much (shouldn't be as the slingplayer application is still trying to display qVGA resolution, assuming 4 pixels displaying the same image is less strenuous on the processor than displaying 4 distinct images)
3) Some other reason such as splingplayer not optimized for the ATI chip?
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason is that SlingMobile is using DirectDraw. The DDraw API on WM is slooooow. Thats the reason players like PocketTV or TCPMP went out of their way to code driver support for GPUs
The X7501 def has the ATI Imageon drivers there (I pointed this out on another thread), but it doesnt matter much. DDRaw+ATI=slow. DDRaw+Intel 2700=not TOO bad (hence the X51V working)
Basically, every PPC ever made from the Axim X51V forward should have had the Intel 2700. That they didnt has crippled the platform when it comes to video. The Imageon has potential, but ATI seems very hard to work with and getting it optimized is NOT easy.
The Marvell may save this situation if devs can start to take full advantage of WMMX2. Early reports show that with straight DDRaw, the Marvell proc alone is STILL not up to Intel 2700 standards, but Id bet that with direct WMMX2 enhanced code, it would be.
you can increase the buffer, but you have to do it in the registry, once you change it you cant go back into settings and change anything without changing the buffer back to 4 seconds
hklm\software\sling media\slingplayer\player
precharge duration = 10000
the 10000 in milliseconds
Thanks for the comments.
So it seems that the only hope is if an update of the slingplayer software decides to use the ATI Imageon driver.
Just to clear something up, the Dell I used was a X51 (320 by 240) and NOT a X51V (which is 640 by 480)
Is it possible to get the slingplayer to use the ATI driver using a registry tweak??
I would assume if they had developed ATI support they'd expose it. It may be possible that there is some undocumented dedicated support for the Imageon, but I havent seen anything.
I have just got my slingbox this week and I liked the idea of been able to watch my sky+ recordings, but playback via 3g is watchable but only about 15 fps , there is no improvement using wifi? However my cctv camera works smooth and looks great- possibly becouse its a black and white camera?
As a previous poster said orb works very good playing back full size divx from my home pc via either wmp or tcpmp without problems over 3g? but orb requires the pc to be on all the time, which is why I got the slingbox.
I just hope someone with more skill and knowlage than myself can sort a solution
Sling has released a new version of their mobile player that uses GDI instead of DirectDraw. Has anyone tried this on their Athena to see if it improves performance?
citivolus said:
Sling has released a new version of their mobile player that uses GDI instead of DirectDraw. Has anyone tried this on their Athena to see if it improves performance?
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Click to collapse
I tried GDI but the frame rate dropped off significantly.
There are 3 major problems with SlingPlayer on the Athena. As said before, it does not use the ATI video driver. But also the maximum supported resolution is only 320x240 and the maximum bit rate is only 600kbs. So it's never going to look as good as TCPMP for example.
The best setting to change to make SlingPlayer watchable is to specifically set the video bit rate to 600kbs. Unless this is done, the SlingPlayer never seems to use more than 300kbs and the result is very poor video. With 600kbs bit rate and 320x240 resolution, I get about 15fps on average. If I drop the resolution to 224x176 I get nearly 30fps.
My Slingbox video stream is 77kbs
I hope any body can help me with this issue.
I have my slingbox set in NY,USA, and I'm now in Bahrain my internet provider speed is 2mbs download/ 512 kbs, and the internet provider in NY is verizon at 6mbs/ 760kbs upload.
However, every time I start my sling box on my laptop (Dell D610), the video optimization start at 600-700 kbs and end up in 2 min in 77 kbs and stop there.
I don't know, if this is something has to do with the setup or what exactly...?
Can any body help me with that??
Thanks
Are you saying you have a problem using your slingbox on your Athena or your laptop? If your laptop then you are posting in the wrong place!
anyone figure out the optimal settings for our athena's to get buffering/playback more manageable?