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On balance, my new Epic wins hands-down. I love the device, Android, Linux, and it seems to be a far better gaming platform (a bonus -- not what I bought it for, but I'm having a blast with the portfolio of Gameloft 3D FP games -- amazing!)
However, I am lost on a few things. So, here's a thread to get some help. To start, some video questions:
If there's a media player to handle one's video library, I can't find it. The only way I've found to open and watch local video is to find the file with My Files, and open it there. This brings up the native video player, which is rather limited in features.
Once the video player is up, I can't figure out how to get back to it if I task-switch to something else for a moment. Can easily happen with a phonecall, for example. Sometimes the window "stack" facilitates using the back button to get back to it, but under more circumstances than not, you can't.
This is a real PITA, because I lose my place in the video. I have to re-open it, and seek around to find where I was. Am I missing something here?
I was a major CorePlayer fan on the OmniaII. It had it's own problems (lack of graphics acceleration support, the biggest), but those warts were far outbalanced by the rich featureset. I plan to get CP for my Epic when (if ever) it becomes available, but for now I'd like to get something similar if it's already out there. Any recommendations?
I've read a lot about the "lag fix". Do I need to do that? I've got a very new Epic, running DI18 (a week and a half old).
I fell asleep on my Epic, and now it seems to me the slider rails are "loose". I can skew the screen portion of the phone clockwise and CCW, back and forth, when opening, to as much as +/- 5-10deg. I paid no attention to this earlier, so it may be no different. The slide seems otherwise solid and fine, but for this. Are your Epic's similar?
Sprint bloatware: Is there an easy way to disable much of this (services, etc.)? For example, Amazon MP3, Sprint Nascar, and a dozen or so other services/apps that are started at boot and respawned if killed. I won't ever be using this junk, so I'd rather they not be consuming resources, slowing things down. Do I have to root the phone and manually edit Linux startup files to get rid of this junk?
Thanks for helping out this noob!
Was omnia2 android?
Out the box Epic plays more file types than other non Galaxy S phones. On the market "Rock Player" plays all file types, followed by an xda dev's app "vplayer" I think it is. Other choices inlclude Act 1 Video Player and Meridian.
Instead of "My Files" to browse files to use with default player and other function try one of Astro File Manager(my primary), IO file manager, Androzip and more.
Most problem you may have can be solved in the "Market"
Sent from my "Wheres my 2.2 Epic 4G" using the XDA App
Omnia II! I really wanted this phone when it first came out. Omnia II runs Windows Mobile.
+1 on rockplayer
No lag fix needed on the Epic, there are lots of threads on this.
Not sure how to fix your slept on epic part, you'll have to read up on that.
As far as bloatware, you can follow this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=780333
Be Careful, if you want to use sprint updates you have to leave certain apps like sprint hotspot, Amazon mp3, etc or else you'll get a validation error when doing updates.
This has become such a pain for me I just leave those apps on the device. There are devs, who have great workarounds too you just have to read up on it.
My experience: I have an iPad1, iPad2, HP Touchpad, and three Archos 5" Android tablets... So not too much of a n00b.
Keyboard: The keyboard doesn’t always work for me.. When I first got it, every time I hit the spacebar, it would automatically go down two lines.. And when I hit the delete button, it would go back one space, then it would stop deleting and just repeat the same letter over and over.. While testing this, the Fire crashed.. and when it reset, the keyboard worked better without these issues.. but I still had a lot of typing mistakes as it would be too sensitive.. (kinda crazy that the Fire crashed in the first hour I opened it while typing up an email)
Video: Playing videos from Amazon Prime was fast and sweet! Amazon made it very easy to watch their videos on the Fire. I have not tested MP4 videos I have made for my iPad yet.. Because of size restrictions, I may not do this.
Home screen: Why can you not change the "last viewed" stuff on the top of the Fire.. this is horrible.. I came to work today and of course everyone wants to play with my new Fire.. so they could all see every single website, book, PDF, movie, etc I had viewed last night.. and now because they played with it, I have all the stuff they viewed there as well now.. There should be some sort of incognito mode.. I know this is a personal tablet, but whether someone is behind me when I am in the home screen or someone picks up my tablet at my apartment.. I don't need them seeing what I have been looking at.
Apps: There are a nice amount of apps available already for the Fire.. BUT.. why can’t I remove the apps that the Fire came with? Also, the PDF viewer that comes with the tablet is no good. I side loaded some PDF magazines into the Fire, and they were unreadable on the screen (all jaggy). I then installed the Adobe PDF viewer from the Amazon Market, and the text is much better.. but zooming in and out on a 7” tablet does not make for smooth reading. And why don’t the PDF thumbnail the first page images? The iPad does this right away… all you see on the Fire is the text name of the PDF written over a white sheet. Lastly, I installed Touchdown for the Fire (as the built in email does not include MS Exchange support).. and it works well..except that the client does NOT sync while it is not open.. What the heck is that??
Web: Loading pages like Gizmodo.com was quick.. but it was another issue reading the site.. scrolling down was very jerky and slow.. I know the page is long, but most tech blogs are.. and that is what I would like to read in the back of a cab.
Misc: I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control, as well as offering page up/page down control for reading. The Fire is a bit heavy and thick.. but for $200, u can’t complain.. I will probably keep using my iPad for reading websites and PDFs… and using the Fire for books and Amazon prime videos.
If anyone knows how to fix the issues above, please let me know.. I know that there is a root out now for the Fire, but I am hoping that there are faster/smoother solutions.
I was able to side load a .m4v file on the Fire, but it wouldn't play until I renamed it .mp4.
The videos were HQ rips for my iPad so that worked great.
I agree on the last item viewed being on the shelf. Wish there was a way clearing that.
EvanWasHere said:
I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control
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On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
Thanks for the review!
the source code will save us!!!
esoh said:
On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
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Click to collapse
Yes I sideloaded Mobiplayer and the soft volume swiping does work for the Fire. So at least for video playback I can live without a hardware key. Btw I need to enable software decoding by default or some files won't play... maybe I needed to install a Mobi codec but I don't know which one works. Maybe someone can point me to the right direction...
Cheers,
W.
Agree with you. I'm facing same problem.
I installed Swiftkey and feel it is much better than the Amazon default keyboard.
You can remove the items from the Carosel. Refer to instructions at http://mazurk.net/KindleFire.htm
It's a fun toy and I'm glad I didn't pay anything for it (won it at an office raffle) but I'm still kind of lost as to what I'm gonna use it for as I have an iPad 2. Still, I'm having a blast trying to mess with it and hopefully gonna get TWRP installed here soon.
Can Nook HD or HD+ read CBR or CBZ files natively?
The only app I want outside of stock is Comic Rack to read those. But if these can read those files OOB, then I don't even need it.
Thanks!!
I very don't think it will natively. And BTW, I very like to use Perfect Viewer better than Comic Rack. And I think it support CBR also. Although I never tried it. I perfer the customization UI and the way it works.
Thanks a lot I didn't think that it would. Unless perfect viewer has made some drastic changes I'm going to stick with ComicRack I enjoy using that much more over the perfect viewer.
The stock reader handles CBZ just fine but not CBR (.rar requires licensing), and there are also piles of comics available via the B&N store and/or stock apps. I was pretty impressed with the OOBE on the HD+. I never would have bought it if I didn't know I could get Google Play on there, but once I had it I realized I could have gotten along pretty well unrooted.
Do you have any input on why you prefer ComicRack to Perfect Viewer, btw? My experience w/ CR on the PC is pretty similar to Calibre; it feels like using a front-end loader to plant a flower, or often enough like piloting "the entity" from South Park. All of the 'features' get in the way of actually using the thing, and CR more than Calibre is prone to hanging and just takes ages to do anything with my big collection. Pretty much its only advantage over CDisplay + folders is the web comics templates.
Nevertheless, I'm contemplating giving the Android app another go just for the syncing and library management aspect, because there's no way I can keep even a significant fraction of my collection on the device.
Taosaur said:
The stock reader handles CBZ just fine but not CBR (.rar requires licensing), and there are also piles of comics available via the B&N store and/or stock apps. I was pretty impressed with the OOBE on the HD+. I never would have bought it if I didn't know I could get Google Play on there, but once I had it I realized I could have gotten along pretty well unrooted.
Do you have any input on why you prefer ComicRack to Perfect Viewer, btw? My experience w/ CR on the PC is pretty similar to Calibre; it feels like using a front-end loader to plant a flower, or often enough like piloting "the entity" from South Park. All of the 'features' get in the way of actually using the thing, and CR more than Calibre is prone to hanging and just takes ages to do anything with my big collection. Pretty much its only advantage over CDisplay + folders is the web comics templates.
Nevertheless, I'm contemplating giving the Android app another go just for the syncing and library management aspect, because there's no way I can keep even a significant fraction of my collection on the device.
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Well that's awesome then, because I can just rename the cbr to cbz and be just fine!
I like Comic Rack because of the front end interface and how it handles the individual comics, it also seems faster than PV alot of the time for me.
I use Comic Rack on my PC as well, but I tend to read them on my Nook Color more than my PC.
Taosaur said:
Nevertheless, I'm contemplating giving the Android app another go just for the syncing and library management aspect, because there's no way I can keep even a significant fraction of my collection on the device.
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Sound like you need help putting your collection to other ppl HDD.
You can get multiple 64GB microSD card and just keep swaping them?
someone0 said:
Sound like you need help putting your collection to other ppl HDD.
You can get multiple 64GB microSD card and just keep swaping them?
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Nah, it's more a matter of not having to plug in and move folders around all the time or, alternately, taking up a big chunk of my SD w/ comics. But again, I'm still conflicted on whether CR on the PC is 'smart' enough and performs well enough to be a better solution than just keeping stuff organized in folders. One argument in CR's favor is that MTP is godawful slow on my machine--in fact, I'd probably be better off moving files over WiFi.
All this is fresh in my mind because I'm simultaneously reinstalling everything in Windows on a new SSD and loading up a new 64GB microSD for the HD+ (which is also still being set up to some extent) AND trying to figure out how I'll set up the old NC for my sister and with what card and data. Oh yeah, and I'm setting up a new PC I just built for my mom
It's awesome--I do like all these tech projects, but it has me re-evaluating a lot of my apps and methods, trying to make everything play nice together.
How about something like Seagate Satellite external HDD? You could have like a mobile wifi HDD sharing. I think it come w/500GB HDD but I think there is a hack to put bigger HDD in there.
More likely I'll return to the status quo of keeping around 8GB of comics on a card and adding new stuff manually, though I do want to give CR a try. Calibre seemed like more trouble than it was worth for a long time, too, but now that I've got the hang of it and have done most of the grunt work to get my collection organized, it's a powerful tool. Enough people are crazy about ComicRack that it must be good for something.
ETA: Calibre can also handle CBR/Z files, so that's also a possibility if I want to get some chocolate in my peanut butter, but I think I'm better off keeping ebooks and ecomics separate.
Perfect viewer works awesome for me, but I'll have to give comic rack a try. I was only keeping maybe half a gig of comics on my 8gb card in the nook color. This bigger screen and higher res is much nicer so far for some of the small text. Heck its most of the reason I upgraded. Man CM10 is nice on the nook color. LOL I threadjacked myself.
joehempel said:
I like Comic Rack because of the front end interface and how it handles the individual comics, it also seems faster than PV alot of the time for me.
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Do you mean page turns are faster? I'm testing them side by side on both the Nook Color and the Nook HD+, and there is a noticeable pause between touch and pageturn in Comic Rack, whereas in Perfect Viewer it's basically instantaneous. From fresh installs on a (currently) CM7 Nook Color, Comic Rack did have my library loaded pretty much instantly and automatically whereas PV had to be pointed to the folder and then did a lengthy scan. From then on, though, PV just beats the pants off CR for loading times and page turns.
It's all moot if you're planning to use the stock reader, but I figured I'd do the side-by-side since both devices were handy.
I just played around with the HD+ stock reader some more, and it's a little weird; the first CBZ I tried last week originally appeared under My Files in the Library app, but ended up shelved under Magazines after I'd opened it. I just tried loading several issues from a series to see if they'd be listed as a series under Magazines, but they didn't get added to the Magazine shelf. They show up in the Recent carousel, but to get at them via the Library I'd still have to go through My Files. The only change I've made was to change the folder name from /ext_sdcard/Books to /ext_sdcard/Comics. I'll mess around some more and report back.
ETA: Somehow the comic I opened last week ended up in /sdcard/My Files/Magazines, and as such shows up under Magazines in the Library. Some CBZs do have some odd artifacting at the bottom of the page, like the bottom few pixels were smeared down the page.
excellent!
Thank you for testing this all out!
I like the fact that it puts in under magazines and separates them from books, so that's good.
I think maybe I'm going to sideload Comic Rack though if possible to use it.
I'll look at PV again, but I kind of like the animations between the pages lol. I dunno, I like the fine coat of polish and extras away from reading I guess.
Is the Comic Rack support SMB? Because Perfect Viewer does, I like to have all my media app support networking.
I also like how I could either use PV looking at stuff on the Nook as Bookshelf, or just browse the file like an image viewer off anywhere.
CBZ Double spread problem on nook hd+
Have you encountered compressed cbz page (when using nook hd+'s native reader)? Most common on my comics where a splash action scene occupies 2 pages. Once I convert it to cbz, nook hd+ shows the combined page into one screen. Twisting the nook to landscape does not fix the compressed image.
Any (verified) solutions out there besides physically splitting the splash scene (via photo editor) into two images (two pages)?
hi...
am confused to see nook touch on xda....i mean what improvement would rooting/installing custom rom on nook do?
i though nook touch is only used for reading and it does that already...what more improvement can be made...
jamaljan said:
hi...
am confused to see nook touch on xda....i mean what improvement would rooting/installing custom rom on nook do?
i though nook touch is only used for reading and it does that already...what more improvement can be made...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spam post?
Anyway.. if you do it right you will get a full Adroid 2.1 e-ink tablet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP2CVXzpK5s
Don't create useless threads, read the forum etc.
"more improvement" = fast display mode, every PDF/chm/doc/epub... reader that runs on Android, google play, games , web browsing, email clients, video playback, audio playback using external USB audio card, image viewers, making notes using external USB keyboard, RSS/ATOM, VNC, additional dictionaries and fonts,
drawing apk's, flashcard apk's (ANKI)
the list goes on.
osowiecki said:
Spam post?
Anyway.. if you do it right you will get a full Adroid 2.1 e-ink tablet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP2CVXzpK5s
Don't create useless threads, read the forum etc.
"more improvement" = fast display mode, every PDF/chm/doc/epub... reader that runs on Android, google play, games , web browsing, email clients, video playback, audio playback using external USB audio card, image viewers, making notes using external USB keyboard, RSS/ATOM, VNC, additional dictionaries and fonts,
drawing apk's, flashcard apk's (ANKI)
the list goes on.
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thanks a lot. my intention was not to spam. i was just surprised.
will definitely check out the forum :good:
EDIT: I don't think we can make it an e-ink reader, you are joking, rite?
jamaljan said:
thanks a lot. my intention was not to spam. i was just surprised.
will definitely check out the forum :good:
EDIT: I don't think we can make it an e-ink reader, you are joking, rite?
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Click to collapse
buy NST and it will show u that u have e-ink reader and we will convert it to a tablet.
i think u just spam .... and next post u will do and seemed it spam ..... unfortunately report moderators
PS: i have rooted NST and already convert it to tablet
speedman2202 said:
buy NST and it will show u that u have e-ink reader and we will convert it to a tablet.
i think u just spam .... and next post u will do and seemed it spam ..... unfortunately report moderators
PS: i have rooted NST and already convert it to tablet
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I already have Nook Simple Touch and yea its eink reader. I thought it was being referred that we can make it a colour ink reader... maybe i read it wrongly.
jamaljan said:
I already have Nook Simple Touch and yea its eink reader. I thought it was being referred that we can make it a colour ink reader... maybe i read it wrongly.
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Click to collapse
Of coarse we cant.
Just watch video, what is this thread about?
jamaljan said:
[...] am confused to see nook touch on xda....i mean what improvement would rooting/installing custom rom on nook do?
i though nook touch is only used for reading and it does that already...what more improvement can be made...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've confused yourself by thinking all improvements have to be made to reading. Even in reading, though, there is room for improvement. The stock NOOK reader and library have a lot of limitations and problems:
Limited font selection.
Poor and fragile organizational capabilities with large collections
Mixed support for metadata in sideloaded, non-B&N content (e.g. covers, book summaries)
No support for synchronizing reading positions on non-B&N content.
Removed page numbering from table of contents.
Dropped support for Discover and Popular Science magazines.
I also got tired of B&N deciding that, because I hadn't purchased anything from them lately, I must be interested in novels with shirtless dudes and plastering them on my home screen. The first thing I did after rooting was replace the B&N library and reader with Mantano Reader Premium, which together with their cloud subscription service, keeps my reading synchronized across 5 devices, regardless of where I bought the book. Mantano can also read the newest Discover and PopSci formats with no problem. Mantano also supports additional dictionaries. I find the reading experience on my "Mantano Simple Touch" vastly superior.
Of course, there's the usual litany of performance and battery improvements:
Improved control of wifi usage and automated daily sync using Tasker. Wifi only turns on for the few apps I use that need it. No more leaving wifi on overnight by accident and finding battery down.
Improved control of wifi access using WiFi Manager. Much easier to search for wifi options.
Ability to log into captive web portals (e.g. hotels, airports) and automate login process using Wi-Fi Web Login. Unit can wake up at night and sync without manual intervention to access wifi.
Overclock, multitouch and fast screen modes (I don't use these much personally, but they work well with no perceptible battery impact.)
Automatic sync to local timezone using Clocksync (useful when traveling).
Improved keyboard with Smart Keyboard Pro.
And the usual litany of app selection:
Improved browser (Opera Mobile).
Corporate and private email (Touchdown, Maildroid)
Automated Dropbox folder sync (e.g. nightly news subscriptions using Calibre) using Dropsync.
Offline web reading using Instapaper with Instafetch client.
Travel info (Flight Track, TripIt)
RSS news feeds (NewsRob, My6Sense)
Google Voice (voicemail transcriptions as text).
And a few time-wasting games that work well on the eink screen:
Shredder Chess
Yukon Gold (there's an eink-optimized version here on XDA).
Crosswords
My question to you is, owning a device and having such capabilities, why would you NOT root it? A better start might have been to simply ask what people are doing with rooted devices rather than questioning the need to do so because you don't understand why. I can literally sit at the beach in direct sunlight and do these things (depending on wifi, of course). Why would I carry another device to do these basic tasks when the NST I already have does them just fine, anywhere, indoors or out? Do you find it more sensible for a corporation to define how you should use the device you paid for?
Thanks bobstro for the detailed answer. I'll definitely root my device as soon as I get some time. :good:
I really want to LOVE Vendetta Online, but I tried to play it and the controls seemed really clunky and I could not move around well at all.
I love this type of game, and have played lots like it on PC, and really enjoyed Galaxy on Fire 2 on my tablet. I have no problem with flight controls, throttle, reverse axis (up-down), etc. But with this game I could not fly around to shoot the targets in the tutorial.
I really hope, that I just missed something easy, like a setting, or a different way to do it. Please Help.
P.S. I am sorry if this is not the correct place or thread for this question, I am new to the Ouya forum section.
Zehrfox said:
I really want to LOVE Vendetta Online, but I tried to play it and the controls seemed really clunky and I could not move around well at all.
I love this type of game, and have played lots like it on PC, and really enjoyed Galaxy on Fire 2 on my tablet. I have no problem with flight controls, throttle, reverse axis (up-down), etc. But with this game I could not fly around to shoot the targets in the tutorial.
I really hope, that I just missed something easy, like a setting, or a different way to do it. Please Help.
P.S. I am sorry if this is not the correct place or thread for this question, I am new to the Ouya forum section.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I've been a member of the Vendetta Online community for over 10 years (signed up June 2003), and am a guide. Your message tripped an alert for me, and I wanted to offer a brief response; you can play Vendetta Online across all platforms it is available on (PC/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS etc.) with the same character, and interact with everyone else playing the game. This means that if you didn't like the controls on Ouya, you can switch over to PC and continue playing right where you left off.
I myself have an Ouya, but I haven't had a chance to play Vendetta on it, yet. However, I have enjoyed the game for over a decade, and hope you have the chance to, also (or at least for a while ) I would suggest downloading the game onto a different platform and giving it a try that way; you can always come back to the Ouya later (if you choose) without losing any progress.
Let me also add that you can adjust control settings by going to Options -> Controls (this may be under "Advanced Settings" in Ouya).