Database Users

why are movies so crap ?

I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?

spacecat said:
I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get tcpmp downloaded.......if that doesnt improve the playback it might be the same reason why the hermes was crap at video playback.....the OS sucks!
the hermes now plays videos quite nicely on WM6.....are you still on WM5?

no I am on wm6
I read another thread and am trying some different settings so hopefully it will mprove
still for such a pricey device it should work out of the box

it is most likely the conversion software you r using or the format that its in. i use spb mobile dvd 1.2 and i convert it into wmv so i can use wmp10 and not TCPMP. if you want to try a "TRIAL " copy i can send it to you, just drop me a line.
[email protected]

irus said:
it is most likely the conversion software you r using or the format that its in. i use spb mobile dvd 1.2 and i convert it into wmv so i can use wmp10 and not TCPMP. if you want to try a "TRIAL " copy i can send it to you, just drop me a line.
[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
email has been sent

err its ok i seem to have found the TRIAL copy

nice video here i use tcmp and select the video driver ATI

run a few tests and its better but cant touch PSP AVC movies for quality

spacecat said:
I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.

I'm still on WM5 and tge movie quality is absolutely sensational. On the other hand, it is crap on both of my two PSPs! I don't bother using my PSPs. I think it is potentially possible to have quality video if I get the settings right in PSP, just like you can have quality video on thus device if your setting is right.

Be careful with the ATI fix cab. I just installed it on the Athena and now my device can not boot pass the second splashscreen

mackaby007 said:
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you said you did two test in 640x368 what software did you use. thanks

mackaby007 said:
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im gonna look into it as im sure this can be improved but why does it struggle so much at 25 fps
on my psp i cn get 29.97 fps and razor sharp definition using AVC or PMPMOD with no dropped frames at all. Everyone i have ever shown my psp movies to are blown away by the picture quality. the Athena movies look grainy and pixellated in comparison
Im sure the Athena can do more but its a pain finding out

spacecat said:
im gonna look into it as im sure this can be improved but why does it struggle so much at 25 fps
on my psp i cn get 29.97 fps and razor sharp definition using AVC or PMPMOD with no dropped frames at all. Everyone i have ever shown my psp movies to are blown away by the picture quality. the Athena movies look grainy and pixellated in comparison
Im sure the Athena can do more but its a pain finding out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The PSP was designed for multimedia exclusively. every last detail in this respect has been thought through. The Ameo serves a multitude of purposes and utilizes thirdparty software for a great deal of applications. With a few tweaks it works a treat, but its not the same thing. The PSP is an out of the box video and gaming solution and isnt really comparable. Try browsing effectively, typing a word document or sending a text or making a call on your PSP - that would impress your mates!

leoni1980 said:
The PSP was designed for multimedia exclusively. every last detail in this respect has been thought through. The Ameo serves a multitude of purposes and utilizes thirdparty software for a great deal of applications. With a few tweaks it works a treat, but its not the same thing. The PSP is an out of the box video and gaming solution and isnt really comparable. Try browsing effectively, typing a word document or sending a text or making a call on your PSP - that would impress your mates!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not denying what you are saying but I would have thought that a brand new top of the range device costing 700 pounds woud be able to out perform a 2 year old device that you can now pick up for 100 pounds.
I am very happy with most aspects of my Athena its a great device for many things but for movies its quite poor.
I did a conversion in spb dvd at 640x336 as recommended but it was
still poor. The only one that has looked comparable was a 640x480
conversion at 25fps. it looked good but kept skipping frames.
also if you stopped it the player stopped working .TCPMP and CORE
if anyone has a definitive programme and settings for making near dvd quality movies without skipping I would be very interested to hear

spacecat said:
I am not denying what you are saying but I would have thought that a brand new top of the range device costing 700 pounds woud be able to out perform a 2 year old device that you can now pick up for 100 pounds.
I am very happy with most aspects of my Athena its a great device for many things but for movies its quite poor.
I did a conversion in spb dvd at 640x336 as recommended but it was
still poor. The only one that has looked comparable was a 640x480
conversion at 25fps. it looked good but kept skipping frames.
also if you stopped it the player stopped working .TCPMP and CORE
if anyone has a definitive programme and settings for making near dvd quality movies without skipping I would be very interested to hear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you to a degree, although the Ameo is tied to the fact that it uses a generic OS (which automatically leaves it open to performance issue). The PSP on the other hand has an OS specifically designed for it.
I find that since i installed the HTC 001 rom i dont have any playback problems at all. I always select ATI Imageon rather than ATI imageon decoder, and also choose microdrive mode. it works for me

I just tried your settings , I was playing from the memory card
used the microdrive and the ati imageon MUCH MUCH better
no skipping . this was with a 640x336 clip .
I will see what a full 640x480 at 25fps can do tonite
cheers

here is what i use:
Player: TCPMP 0.81 with all plugins
Driver: ATi Imageon
Storage: Microdrive
Bitrate: 600kbps (benchmarked at 625, so 600 is safe )
Framerate: 25fps
Encoder: Divx 6.1
Quality: Insane
Audio: AC3, lowest bitrate etc
works a charm

Midget_1990 said:
here is what i use:
Player: TCPMP 0.81 with all plugins
Driver: ATi Imageon
Storage: Microdrive
Bitrate: 600kbps (benchmarked at 625, so 600 is safe )
Framerate: 25fps
Encoder: Divx 6.1
Quality: Insane
Audio: AC3, lowest bitrate etc
works a charm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what prog do u use to encode the movies?

spacecat said:
what prog do u use to encode the movies?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WinAVI, email me for a 'trial'

Coreplayer/TCPMP Bliss...

That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks

I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.

adamelphick said:
I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had tried that some months ago and wasn't that impressed, but maybe they have improved it. What version are you using?

mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb

The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.

fallenczar said:
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks my friend. I'll try those suggestions and let you know.

adamelphick said:
The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for that mate, Just downloading it now, will try it soon.

I stand by my findings...
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.

mackaby007 said:
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming

fallenczar said:
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blimey, I haven't used that format for years, except for downloads from Apple.com...thanks for the tip. I'll look into it once I get some more free time.

Test Clip for download...
Just in case you can't be bothered or have the time to test these settings, just download this test video and see what you think...it's about 8.5 MB in size:
DownloadLink: http://rapidshare.com/files/50811286/10000_BC_HD_xvid.avi

Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?

mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.

juiceppc said:
Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.

panvita said:
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No disrespect panvita, but you obviously have no idea what I've been talking about. Take any of those movies that you say is full screen in Smart Movie and run some test with it,(I use the latest version) and the Smartmovie converter cannot even encode at full VGA 640x480 by default and the PPC SmartMovie player doesn't like most videos encoded by other encoders (its limited).
What I'm trying to say is SmartMovie Player on the PPC is inferior by far to TCPMP and Coreplayer. Check the options in SmartMovie player to show framerate whilst a movie is playing and check the actual resolution too. I think you'll find that it is more often than not, Not real VGA res and when it is, your frame-rate will be terribly slow.
Then run the same movie file in TCPMP or Coreplayer and check your property settings after playing your movie file and you'll see again the frame rate achieved and how many frames were dropped.
Don't mean to sound arrogant or like a Mr Know-it-all, but it is pretty much common knowledge that Coreplayer and TCPMP is far superior to all other PPC based Video players on the market to date, even though 'It' still has its shortcomings.

mackaby007 said:
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.

juiceppc said:
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't argue with that at all. Coreplayer is crap for WMV but that is exactly the format WMP likes to play.

TCPMP on x7501
I am using the TCPMP player on my new Advantage x7501 & it works perfectly!

I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????

Try different settings...somethings wrong with yours.
hirad_sabaghian said:
I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooh do I detect a tone of anger or possibly sarcasm in that last statement/question? hehe
OK, the reason is probably that when you use Coreplayer or TCPMP, you have the Imageon Decoder activated...No good, NOT fixed to work with Coreplayer or TCPMP as yet.
Coreplayer: Under your video settings, ensure you have the following settings checked or enabled:
Video Output: ATI IMAGEON
Video quality: High
Smooth Zoom: On
Dither: Ticked
Acceleration: UNticked (else you'll be using the hardware decoder - no good)
Under Preferences select Direct Draw options page and select the following:
Overlay with colorkey - Ticked
Use blitting instead of overlay - Blank
Use device stretching for blitting - Blank
Overlay format - YV12
There you have it. Last but not least, don't encode videos much beyond 480x320 otherwise the Athena cannot handle it.
Try that my friend.
Same set-up for TCPMP:

Best video encoder settings?

I've searched but came up blank. Does anyone have an optimal setting to rip video for playback on the Advantage? I've tried a few settings and some didn't work at all, some playback with a stutter. I thought I'd see if anyone here has discovered a best setting.
I'm trying to play them back on pocket player or tcmp.

I'm using CorePlayer (it appears that it's actually using the ATI Imageon for hardware video acceleration) and am getting great results (smooth playback, almost no frames dropped) with H.264 at 25 or 29 FPS with 320x240 resolution, but TCPMP seems to play the files well too.

as most people here, i use Core player or TCPMP, depeniding on the ROM i'm using at the time.
But most common one i use is coreplayer 1.21.
DivX or Xvid encoding at between 600 & 750 kbps for the video, 128kbps aac or MP3 for the sound.
-0.200 delay on the audio in coreplayer/TCPMP and they are as smooth as butter.
Pisses the ipod touch owners at work off something rotten when they see the video on my athena!!

I use Pocket DVD for PPC & Palm at these settings:
Audio: 24 kbps, 22 KHz, Mono
Video: 512 kbps, 24 fps, 464X288
Never had any problem in any of my devices.
...

hey cktlcmd,
using mono audio would really lose the 3d effect on movies, which imho is what most people want/expect nowadays. this is really a big plus on action movies.
anyway, just a thought.
ciao!

Hopefully just to add to this thread's question. At this point which one is preferred....Coreplayer (newer version) or TCPMP .7 or .8?

Kenjari said:
Hopefully just to add to this thread's question. At this point which one is preferred....Coreplayer (newer version) or TCPMP .7 or .8?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, anytime it is coreplayer now. It lets you search and play youtube in very high quality without lag. Not to mention that it is also visually a lot more appealing.

Thanks for the reply eaglesteve. So why are there so many die hard TCPMP fans (I myself up until now)? Are there any advantages "at this point" that TCPMP have over its successor Core?

Kenjari said:
Thanks for the reply eaglesteve. So why are there so many die hard TCPMP fans (I myself up until now)? Are there any advantages "at this point" that TCPMP have over its successor Core?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be because one is free and the other is not.

Makes since. I guess when I became a fan, it was when Core was just released. Folks over at the Aximsite.com at the time explained that there were advantages that TCPMP had because it was still beta, "free", was able to add plugins, things that I was told Core didnt have on its first lauch.
I guess I never kept up with the improvement over the time.
BTW....thanks for your input. Last night I purchased Core....I'm excited to use later today. Would it be wise to get the Core Pro for desktop? I have been using the DVD Decrypt and AutoGK for my video conversions.

[APP] DIVX for WM

Thought id post this for those who are looking for a divx player.
http://labs.divx.com/node/6211

CorePlayer still works faster on the Diamond.

How fast?
can i simply drop a regular ~700mb xvid/divx movie on the internal storage and play it in full screen(with dithering and smooth zooming enabled) without lag or frame dropping?
just wondering since i'm probably buying the diamond, and this could really be a deal breaker.

leonatan25 said:
CorePlayer still works faster on the Diamond.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My friend I think you didn't try watching divx on Diamond...We can't watch divx even with core player. But this is possible on Omnia. So we are watching other programs ore codecs...

sorry but, have no problems watching dvix 700mb files on my diamond witch coreplayer

Doritoch said:
My friend I think you didn't try watching divx on Diamond...We can't watch divx even with core player. But this is possible on Omnia. So we are watching other programs ore codecs...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, but I have no problem watching 640x272 files on my Diamond with CP.

I have 2 diamonds and for a few days the omnia i900. I think nobody can see a full 700Mb movie on Diamond, without cuts. But on omnia is no problem at all. Omnia is much much faster than Diamond. I was thinking to buy one, but i will wait for the 480x800 version.

katerini said:
I have 2 diamonds and for a few days the omnia i900. I think nobody can see a full 700Mb movie on Diamond, without cuts. But on omnia is no problem at all. Omnia is much much faster than Diamond. I was thinking to buy one, but i will wait for the 480x800 version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Omnia resolution screen is just 240 x 400 pixels
Diamond is real vga - 640 x 480 ...
so Omnia has less resolution with faster CPU ...
as result, u have BIG cut in the resolution with the Omnia..

Diamond is not for Multimedia. Is one of the slowest mobile that I`ve been testing so far. The only thing that can chage this is the release of Ati video Drivers from HTC and a new O.S (maybe windows mobile 6.5?). Until that, I recomend you to buy another phone with better multimedia support (iphone or nokia)

I downloaded DivX player from divx labs and installed it.
After that, I started downloading movies from the following site:
http://moviesmobile.net/
and now, I have aproximatly 10 movies installed on my phone, that I can watch with rather good quality, (not crisp)
So I think it's very well doable, but you shouldn't try to cram a 700 mb movie trough there.
also, I used core player once and it starts showing some weird deformations when I run a 700 mb movie on my diamond
The speed stays nice and stable, but the movie itself looks like crap.
Hope this helps

Err, that site only has 320xXXX resolution, awful lol.

"700MB divx" don't mean anything.
You have to look the bitrate of the video. The diamond with the last Core Player can handle videos (almost perfectly) with a bitrate <~ 550 (and a resolution under the 640x)

No problems with video at all. Make sure to tailor your videos to the Diamonds resolution, I use DVD Catalyst to switch up resolution, then DL to my phone. Typical 1 1/2 hour movie is around 550 to 650MB, I use size to denote quality although even a 550MB movie looks awesome on my Diamond.
Mind you, this is using the new Telus ROM
Whatever Telus did with the ROM upgrade, it turbocharged my media capabilities

by 700 mb I ment all comon .avi files cam,TS,DVDrips and so on you can find. Had no problem whatsoever.

Videos with a higher bitrate than 600~700 will have frame drop on the diamond.
Its hard to see them, especially if the movie don't have many actions scenes.
With a movie ~90mn/700MB, you have generally a ~800KBp, so no problem really, some frame drop, but it seem perfect.
But if you try a ~20mn/400MB or ~40mn/700MB (midle quality TV Show for example), the bitrate is most higher than 1000KBp and the video its almost unviewable...

yeye2 said:
Diamond is not for Multimedia. Is one of the slowest mobile that I`ve been testing so far. The only thing that can chage this is the release of Ati video Drivers from HTC and a new O.S (maybe windows mobile 6.5?). Until that, I recomend you to buy another phone with better multimedia support (iphone or nokia)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp

I`m watching 700MB movies whitout problems, is very important what program was used when the movie was processed, there are some that hang some time. I watched movies that had 1500kb bitrate without problems, and the quality is great. Try the CorePlayer 1.3 is the best. I will always choose my Diamond over an Omnia .

yeye2 said:
Diamond is not for Multimedia. Is one of the slowest mobile that I`ve been testing so far. The only thing that can chage this is the release of Ati video Drivers from HTC and a new O.S (maybe windows mobile 6.5?). Until that, I recomend you to buy another phone with better multimedia support (iphone or nokia)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know that HTC Diamond got an ATI chipset
Maybe it has a HD4850

blacriderv said:
I didn't know that HTC Diamond got an ATI chipset
Maybe it has a HD4850
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well the Diamond uses a Qualcomm cpu which has a embeded ATI Imageon. Programs like coremedia player uses this to improve the performance, but windows mobile comes without drivers. So bassically your diamond is running windows mobile like a failsafe version of windows xp.
check this link http://www.mobilewave.ro/news/Performanta-grafica-a-lui-HTC-Diamond-Touch-Pro-259.html, there are a few videos about the bad Diamond´s graphic perfomance. Devices with one, two or even 3 years have better perfomance than diamond
spippo said:
http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats very funny , a synthetic benchmark is very helpfull to see the true potencial of the device, but that doesn´t meen that you are using all of this power in a daily use. Just one example, try to play a video (H.264 at VGA (640×480) resolutions at 30 frames per second) in a diamond and then try a nokia n96. The nokia device plays the video smooth and without lag, the diamond video is laggy with frame lost, but ehy! you can run the benchmark on the diamond to feel better afther that.
htc performance post.http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=449391

Can it play video files in 800 x 480 resolution with CorePlayer?

I have an older HTC HD and it cannot play 800 x 480 video files smoothly so I usually have to reencode it to a resolution of 480 x 272 to have smooth playback with coreplayer with about 105% average speed on the benchmark results.
My question is, if I buy the HTC HD2 with its more powerful Snapdragon 1GHz processor, would coreplayer be able to play .avi or .mkv files with 800 x 420 resolution smoothly with over 100% average speed on the benchmark results?
Player smooth video with good bitrate and high resolution is very important to me because I do a lot of movie watching with my older HTC HD.

Hey, yes it can!
I have done some Benchmarking. You can see it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=616058

Always
Try a version of Coreplayer optimized for Snapdragon from Toshiba TG1 ...
Works flawlessly for me in GDI render .

It's impossible to answer this - it depends so strongly on which video you're talking about. If you've got an mp4 file with a bit-rate of 2000kb/s encoded using CABAC then CorePlayer will have significant problems with it. Lower bit-rates (and avoiding CABAC) may well be fine.
This is slightly odd question, in a way: where are you getting your 800x420 videos from? I've never seen a downloadable video at that resolution (except for some samples on these fora). If the answer is that you are making them yourself by transcoding an existing file to change the resolution, then this begs the question: why on Earth would you want to transcode it into a format that you need CorePlayer to play? If you're transcoding then it would make more sense to transcode it into a format that can be played easily using Pocket Media Player or the HTCAlbum player - both of which do a much better job than CorePlayer on the (admittedly narrow) range of formats and codecs that they support.
Coreplayer does a very good job on the sort of lower-resolution AVI encoded with xvid that people normally use to distribute SD TV or DVD rips. So, between them, you pretty much cover the bases: stuff with a resolution of >800x480 that is transcoded should be converted into something you can play in HTCAlbum, while anything with lower resolution will probably play quite nicely in CorePlayer.

Yes, 800x480 avis should play fine on Coreplayer, tested with a few HD trailers down-res to 800x480 and they play fine. But of course, don't expect to play 800x480 mp4s with high bitrates in Coreplayer, it doesn't bode well. MKVs wise it might not work from the limited testing i've done in that area.
@Shasarak, some videos for some strange reason prefer to be transcoded into some formats. For example, on my setup, mkvs with vorbis/dts audio, when transcoded into mp4, they tend to go OOS. However when transcoded into divx/xvid, they work fine...Not sure exactly why, but that might be a reason.
Also, HTC Video player doesn't allow any form of playlist or folder based playback. Some people might prefer this to watching a movie, exit, click another video, rinse and repeat.

or
I also primarily upgraded to the HD2 for movie watching. Love it.
Plays 700meg avi's in any format via coreplayer. Usually around 180% so heaps of head room.
Screen is also a massive improvement and battery life is better. Eg the hd would only play 2 movies before flat however the hd2 is only at 50% battery after two full length movies.
At this stage after 2 months I have no reason to look for a new phone.

Where, where?
Azitrox said:
Try a version of Coreplayer optimized for Snapdragon from Toshiba TG1 ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where can I get it?

DinoZ1 said:
Where can I get it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not all that imo.
Tested it with some re-encodes I made, and whilst it does play them smoothly (especially compared to the retail 1.36 version), the quality needs to be dropped slightly to do so, whereas HTC Album plays it smooth and at max quality.

Azitrox said:
Try a version of Coreplayer optimized for Snapdragon from Toshiba TG1 ...
Works flawlessly for me in GDI render .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DinoZ1 said:
Where can I get it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't, or at least not legally - it's illegally pirated.

Shasarak said:
You can't, or at least not legally - it's illegally pirated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is legal to me as I bought a full licence

DinoZ1 said:
It is legal to me as I bought a full licence
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter.....you still won't get any assistance on where to find it here.

DinoZ1 said:
It is legal to me as I bought a full licence
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid it isn't and you didn't.
You may well have a licence for the commercial version of CorePlayer. You do NOT, however, have a licence for the hardware-accelerated version, unless you actually own a Toshiba TG01. The two products are not the same, and are covered by different licences. (And even if you do own a TG01, you still don't have a licence to take the application off there and install it on another phone.)

Shasarak said:
You can't, or at least not legally - it's illegally pirated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes , is `very` pirated , but for benchmark purpose ONLY I try it on my HD2 . Again , it`s amaizing !!

core player do not play mkv-files.
on my device i have sound but no picture.

Shasarak said:
It's impossible to answer this - it depends so strongly on which video you're talking about. If you've got an mp4 file with a bit-rate of 2000kb/s encoded using CABAC then CorePlayer will have significant problems with it. Lower bit-rates (and avoiding CABAC) may well be fine.
This is slightly odd question, in a way: where are you getting your 800x420 videos from? I've never seen a downloadable video at that resolution (except for some samples on these fora). If the answer is that you are making them yourself by transcoding an existing file to change the resolution, then this begs the question: why on Earth would you want to transcode it into a format that you need CorePlayer to play? If you're transcoding then it would make more sense to transcode it into a format that can be played easily using Pocket Media Player or the HTCAlbum player - both of which do a much better job than CorePlayer on the (admittedly narrow) range of formats and codecs that they support.
Coreplayer does a very good job on the sort of lower-resolution AVI encoded with xvid that people normally use to distribute SD TV or DVD rips. So, between them, you pretty much cover the bases: stuff with a resolution of >800x480 that is transcoded should be converted into something you can play in HTCAlbum, while anything with lower resolution will probably play quite nicely in CorePlayer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have found that any videos I play in Media Play or Album player play back with the video and audio out of Sync. I therefore use CorePlayer as it allows me to change the sync to compensate.
It is strange as the video files play in perfect sync on my PC but not on the HD2.
Anyone have any ideas why this would be?????