Playing movies?

[serpa4]

I had HP iPaq 4150 (400mhz processor) for a week. With a program I was able to convert my home DVDs into a 128 mb file and watch full screen with the windows media player. Is there a way to do this with palm programs to compress/convert the DVD and another to play them full screen? Is the 200mhz processor capable of playing movies?

[Qyd]

Kinoma player to play on iQue
Kinoma producer to convert from avi of mov to pda format
dvd to avi... there's tons of programs that can do that.

but ... this is not pocket pc, multimedia part is a little laid back; movie quality vs. file size is real bad...

[GMan]

Originally posted by Qyd
Kinoma player to play on iQue
Kinoma producer to convert from avi of mov to pda format
dvd to avi... there's tons of programs that can do that.

but ... this is not pocket pc, multimedia part is a little laid back; movie quality vs. file size is real bad...

I downloaded the trial version of Kinoma and have to agree with your view on file size and video quality.

What are some of the other programs that allow you to create and play movies on the iQue?

:)

[Sony convert]

Unfortunately Kinoma is supposedly the best of what's out there. Sony has an excellent movie player and converter program with excellent compression and far superior quality playback for its Clie series. However, it will only work on the Clie models. So for now we are stuck with Kinoma I'm afraid.

[duhgus]

Shortly after I started reading here I posted this thread:
http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=31663
May be of some use.

I found that MMPlayer was VERY good.
http://www.mmplayer.com/
(So much so that I registered a copy)
I tried about 6 trial versions of DVD conversion programs and ended up with DVD to VCD.
http://www.dvdtovcdripper.com/

I gave me all of the features that I needed (wanted) to customize such as video bitrate, audio bitrate and best of all MAXIMUM FILE SIZE. (You tell the program to rip the movie into specified files sizes.)

I'm in the process of ripping "12 Monkeys" at 800 kbs video, 128 kbs audio and 230 MB files size. It told me that the TOTAL would be 800+ meg.

I suppose I could lower the video bitrate and make the files smaller, but I haven't experimented with it yet. I'll sacrifice file size for quality.

[apersson850]

Originally posted by GMan
I downloaded the trial version of Kinoma and have to agree with your view on file size and video quality. I can't really compare, since I've never considered a Palm device to be any real movie player. I have some short movies on mine, but they are made just for demonstration of the capability.
Also, I haven't played with any Pocket PC for this kind of application.

However, I can add that if you register your Kinoma producer, you'll get more options as far as the quality of the rendered movie goes. Frame rate, sound quality, picture size and so on, can be set more freely.
There is also a newer Kinoma producer now (mine is verison 1), but I haven't checked if I can upgrade for free, or must pay again. I don't use it that much that it motivates paying again.

[lostSoul001]

I just downloaded pocket DVD studio http://www.pqdvd.com/watch_dvd_on_palm.html

and it's really great. no intermediate ripping required, very optimized for creating DVD video for palm and very fast too.

I also installed the MMPlayer demo (I can't believe they want to charge people $15 for what is still incredibly buggy beta software).


However, the only movies I can get to play without crashing MMPlayer are really low res/ low bit rate rips - bad enough that they would be really uncomfortable to watch.

Has anyone else played with this software combination? Are there resolutions and bitrates that work well with MMplayer on the ique?

Could my Saddisk SD card be responsible for the struggle to play higher quality files or is it just a limitation of the 200mhz processor?

Has anyone tried this with a panasonic card?

I would love to be able to use these two programs to rip DVDs to SD cards and watch them on my Ique. Is this a silly pipe dream?

[Franklee]

This not what you asked but you can get small DVD player very cheap. Less then large SD card.

[tke918]

Originally posted by lostSoul001
I just downloaded pocket DVD studio http://www.pqdvd.com/watch_dvd_on_palm.html

and it's really great. no intermediate ripping required, very optimized for creating DVD video for palm and very fast too.

I also installed the MMPlayer demo (I can't believe they want to charge people $15 for what is still incredibly buggy beta software).


However, the only movies I can get to play without crashing MMPlayer are really low res/ low bit rate rips - bad enough that they would be really uncomfortable to watch.

Has anyone else played with this software combination? Are there resolutions and bitrates that work well with MMplayer on the ique?

Could my Saddisk SD card be responsible for the struggle to play higher quality files or is it just a limitation of the 200mhz processor?

Has anyone tried this with a panasonic card?

I would love to be able to use these two programs to rip DVDs to SD cards and watch them on my Ique. Is this a silly pipe dream?

Pocket DVD studio often creates faulty divx fils and many people have problems with it.

http://mmplayer.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1040

Some people say that divfix (http://divfix.maxeline.com/index.php?target=showdoc&docid=355) fix the problem and others say increasing video buffer solve the problem. Someone says Pocket DVD studio 1.0.9 is better than the latest 1.1.0.

I use virtualdubmod (http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/) for encoding and have no problems whatsoever.

Speedwise, sandisk SD card is fast enough to play 300kbps divx movies, but I'm not sure about the reliability as a media.

Anyway, it's better to go MMPlayer forum (http://www.mmplayer.com/forums/index.php) to discuss about MMPlayer and movie encodings.

[g0tr00t]

Kinoma supports the iQue - widescreen :D

[lostSoul001]

300kbs at what resolution? I could not get MMPlayer to play more than 25 seconds or so of video at 300kbs before freezing or just exiting fullscreen mode.


as for pocket DVD, I have been quite impressed with it and have had no problems so far, but I have not ripped anything over 5min in length yet so maybe the issues arise with larger rips.

to address the comment about just giving up and buying a portable DVD player. Its the all-in-oneness of a portable device that really makes this attractive to me. For home equipment I like to keep everything as separate components but I hate carrying stuff around so I want one device that does it all and I want it to be light and small.

[JMckie]

Lets see now. If I want to watch a movie, I'll have to rip from a DVD. Convert the file. Buy a big enough SD card. Transfer from PC to card. Spend half the day doing this.

No movie is worth that effort. Seriously.

I understand consumers want to use their handhelds to watch movies. After all it can play music and it already has a screen. Maybe it will take off when these things eventually get hard drives.

It won't work for the iQue but I wonder if someone has made an SDIO card that is hooked up to a DVD reader? This would be the ideal accessory for watching movies.

[tke918]

Originally posted by JMckie
Lets see now. If I want to watch a movie, I'll have to rip from a DVD. Convert the file. Buy a big enough SD card. Transfer from PC to card. Spend half the day doing this.

No movie is worth that effort. Seriously.


Converting files doesn't take much time. i.e., it takes only 30 mins to convert one episode of the enterprise and the size is about 80MB. (my CPU is just 900MHz). The quality of mpeg4(divx) is superior than cinepak (kinoma).

Watching movies on PDA is good when you have to kill some time such as when you are in the waiting room to see a dentist. I watch a movie in such occasions, instead of playing games. 80MB is small enough, to me, to keep my favorite episode of the enterprise.

Seriously, it's not an effort to watch movies on iQue and it's really good.

[nparker13]

I have this PVR program for my computer that creates vcd quality mpeg files. I have an entire collection of almost every friends episode that are about 340 MB each. Is there any utility like those mentioned that can convert mpeg to smaller files to be read by mmplayer. I have the full version of kinoma producer, but its too slow, and too big. Any suggestions?

-nate

[JMckie]

There is a comprehensive instruction guide

here (http://discussion.brighthand.com/palmhandhelds/showthread.php?threadid=54950&perpage=10&highlight=dvd&pagenumber=1)

[lostSoul001]

well, since no one posted any specs, I played around with a lot of different settings and I think that the maximum the Ique can handle are these (using MMPlayer).

frame rate: 15fps

sound: still not sure about this but using 40kbs, 22khz mono right now (i imagine I could go higher with a big enough SD card)

resolution: depends on source, but do not exceed 78k/pixel (i am using 320x208)

video: 250kbs seems to work pretty reliably, maybe push this to 265kbs tops.

After all this, I'm not sure the final video quality makes the process worth while. It's really pretty borderline and is not impressive enough to warrant me paying to register MMplayer. Perhaps it might work well for an anime DVD as these often tend to compress nicely without too much chunking.

I'm hoping that a new version of MMplayer will be streamlined to somehow allow higher bitrates to be played, but I doubt it. In my opinion the ique is just not cut out for video.

[bruintoo]

I can vouch for Kinoma and Kinoma player. I converted a whole bunch of stuff and download as needed to the iQue. The fact the Kinoma supports the WIDESCREEN is a ++++++++++!
-BruinToo