OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => C1000/3x00 General discussions => Topic started by: GadgetGuy on October 02, 2005, 08:18:01 pm
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Hello all,
I have a Sony PSP, which has truly great video quality ( playing videos converted by me, not UMD).
I also have a very olf Pentium II - 350MHz PC with 128 MByte RAM and a 2D only graphics card, running Windows 2000: that also does OK (enjoyable) video ( in 640 x 480).
Now to the Zaurus: I have tried all kinds of tricks with Kino2, but the quality I am getting is quite disappointing. Jerky images, no usable full screen etc.
Is it me, who does not know what to do, or is the Zaurus not capable of good quality, jerk free video? If the answer is yes (i.e. the Zaurus cannot do this), then how come, that my very old PC can?
If the Zaurus can do good video: can you please tell me:
- what Kino2 settings
- what video file format ( DivX? Mpeg2? Mpeg4?)
etc. etc. to use...
Thanks for any advice
Miklos
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Are you using Tetsu's special kernel? It has a variety of enhancements for video. But even without it, you can get decent video performance. I would look at your encoding settings. What bitrate are you using for audio and video? Changing to mono sound can often make a difference, as can lowering the bitrate or the resolution. You might need to encode at 320 x 240 and then blow it up to full screen on the Zaurus.
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hmmmmm
answer is yes......yes.......yes..........hmmmmmm........and yes.
look down at my signature. it will take you to my site and you can view videos on your zaurus at full screen and stereo 30fps, high quality everything.
install the kino2 from my site. if you screw up, i recommend you start from scratch.
then download a sample video that i provide and you got yourself a video. i placed instructions on how to create video as well.... no problems.
i also carry a video camera were it records in sd card at 24fps and i can play back video 640x480 res with no problems.
have fuun dude!!!
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now to find some linux software that is easy to re-encode my vid's for my z
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if you look at my linkgs section, i have a place were you can encode in linux. someguy posted information on how to do it.
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cool
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hmmmmm
answer is yes......yes.......yes..........hmmmmmm........and yes.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97927\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Cresho,
thank you for the reply. I did download the short video clip from your website.
I watched it with Kino ( and I have the Tetsu kernel installed - as part of the Cacko 3100 beta ).
It does work, but it is not something I would consider "good" quality... More like: not bad, not bad, but overall still quite poor quality. I have seen other videos with the same results: quite poor quality.
Then I have tried one of the Sony PSP demo videos ( MPEG4 ), which looks good on the PSP and it did not even play at all on the Z. The same file also plays well on my PC.
Would you (or anybody else) be so kind to point me to a site where I can download a clip, which you would consider "great" quality? Just to have an idea what to expect?
Thanks again,
Miklos
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Then I have tried one of the Sony PSP demo videos ( MPEG4 ), which looks good on the PSP and it did not even play at all on the Z. The same file also plays well on my PC.
Have you got a link to one of these videos?
Si
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Then I have tried one of the Sony PSP demo videos ( MPEG4 ), which looks good on the PSP and it did not even play at all on the Z. The same file also plays well on my PC.
Have you got a link to one of these videos?
Si
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98014\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
No. However if you do a search for SONY PSP Video Download, it will be one of the top hits. It is an official Sony website...
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If you go here
http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx (http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx)
and scroll to the bottom, you can download trailers for some movies. I tried the trailers for "Guess Who" and "Resident Evil". In both cases, they played poorly.
On kino2 sound doesn't work, and kino2 dies. VLC has trouble with them. VLC issues a number of "header damaged" messages.
kino2 works well for a number of movies on my 3000. VLC works OK for quicktime movies that kino2 won't play. So I assume that there's something funky with the encoding of these movies.
On my destop Ubuntu 5.04 box, xine and mplayer don't work well for these trailers. VLC works OK, but issues a ton of messages.
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I found out that rotating the video 90 degrees clockwise during encoding makes it run more smoothly on the Zaurus. I've attached a 25-second clip from Star Wars that has been encoded in this way. It's 640 x 326 widescreen, 500kbps, mono sound, and it runs well on my Zaurus. I would think a clip this short shouldn't be a problem from a copyright standpoint, although the mods are of course free to take it down if they choose. You might need to run it twice to really see the quality, since the first time through may be a little jerky.
I use PocketDivXEncoder to encode my videos. It seems to work the best and is relatively easy once you figure it out.
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I'd class that as good quality, icruise - nice work!
The nemo sample is acceptable to me: I might start encoding a few movies, as I think it really is worth it.
Thanks for the tips guys'n'gals, they're most appreciated.
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I've attached a 25-second clip from Star Wars [div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98049\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Thank you - I am convinced: it does look very good! So off I go, converting some movies.... and my PSP will remain for games only...
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hmmmmm
answer is yes......yes.......yes..........hmmmmmm........and yes.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97927\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Cresho,
thank you for the reply. I did download the short video clip from your website.
I watched it with Kino ( and I have the Tetsu kernel installed - as part of the Cacko 3100 beta ).
It does work, but it is not something I would consider "good" quality... More like: not bad, not bad, but overall still quite poor quality. I have seen other videos with the same results: quite poor quality.
Then I have tried one of the Sony PSP demo videos ( MPEG4 ), which looks good on the PSP and it did not even play at all on the Z. The same file also plays well on my PC.
Would you (or anybody else) be so kind to point me to a site where I can download a clip, which you would consider "great" quality? Just to have an idea what to expect?
Thanks again,
Miklos
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98009\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
sorry for the quality problem. but that video was originally made to run on a zaurus from an sd card. if you recall, you cant run video off an sd but with this format, it is possible. the video that is shown was done low res for xaurus sl5500. the good quality i have doesnt fit on my websites so i just decided to keep this file for specifically demonstrating video being possible to play on the z platform.
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yep....verified this video vs the stuff i currently encode. demo nemo on sd is nowhere near the quality i put out for the z c1000. I just cannot put it up because i have no space.
my videos are high quality and sound superb. I just wish i can put out an exampleb so people can see.
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I have some space, Cresho, and am willing to host some files for a good cause. PM if you are interested.
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but that video was originally made to run on a zaurus from an sd card. if you recall, you cant run video off an sd but with this format, it is possible.
Why can't you run video off of an SD card? I'm doing it right now and it's indistinguishable from running it off of the internal hard disk.
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but that video was originally made to run on a zaurus from an sd card. if you recall, you cant run video off an sd but with this format, it is possible.
Why can't you run video off of an SD card? I'm doing it right now and it's indistinguishable from running it off of the internal hard disk.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98223\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
oops..........that was specific to the sl-5500. its fine on the c series.
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oops..........that was specific to the sl-5500[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98318\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Well, in that case I hope my Collie never finds out, otherwise it might just stop playing back videos directly from SD
The main problem with video playback from SD with Collie is the performance of the original SD driver shipped with the OS -- it's slow and uses quite a bit of CPU while accessing the card. The patched driver available from the forum download section does not exhibit that kind of behaviour and thus works fairly well even for video playback.
Best regards,
Chris.
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iCruise, do you have a copy of that starwars video which is not rotated?
I'd be interested to doing a speed comparison on the c7x0 using hardware rotation and the later PXA270 machines using software rotation, plus the Nokia 770 is probably not overly happy playing it in rotated state so I could do with a normal landscape version to (ask koen to) test on that.
Sorry to be a pain,
Si
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iCruise, do you have a copy of that starwars video which is not rotated?
I'd be interested to doing a speed comparison on the c7x0 using hardware rotation and the later PXA270 machines using software rotation, plus the Nokia 770 is probably not overly happy playing it in rotated state so I could do with a normal landscape version to (ask koen to) test on that.
Sorry to be a pain,
Si
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=100978\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
I'm afraid not. I'd have to rerip the DVD and start from scratch to get a non-rotated version, and I don't really have the time for that at the moment. But if you want to try experimenting yourself, you can use PocketDIVXEncoder with any DVD and make two short clips, one rotated and one not.
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I found out that rotating the video 90 degrees clockwise during encoding makes it run more smoothly on the Zaurus. I've attached a 25-second clip from Star Wars that has been encoded in this way. It's 640 x 326 widescreen, 500kbps, mono sound, and it runs well on my Zaurus. I would think a clip this short shouldn't be a problem from a copyright standpoint, although the mods are of course free to take it down if they choose. You might need to run it twice to really see the quality, since the first time through may be a little jerky.
I use PocketDivXEncoder to encode my videos. It seems to work the best and is relatively easy once you figure it out.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98049\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Reviving an old thread...
I'd like to encode the video at 640 width, which Cresho's method is not good for, since if the video isn't rotated, the Z isn't powerful enough to play it.
icruise, what were the settings you use in PocketDivxEncoder, and how big is the resultant movie, say Star Wars?
Cresho, do you know if it's possible to rotate the video in Vidomi? I haven't found out how.
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just out of curiousity, what benefits do you get from rotating the video? and I checked vidomi and cannot find a "rotate" I did use pocketdivx and found it to be very.....good depending on what you want to really use it for.
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just out of curiousity, what benefits do you get from rotating the video? and I checked vidomi and cannot find a "rotate" I did use pocketdivx and found it to be very.....good depending on what you want to really use it for.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140957\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
If you rotate the video and uncheck the Auto-Rotate option in Kino, the Z can play video with 640 width - this is much better visual quality than 320 width.
PocketDivxEncoder is fine, can do this - only it lacks advanced control ops, i.e. you can pick the video quality on a scale of 1 to 10, but not much else.
I've tried encoding at 5 quality, this produces roughly a 500MB video for a 105 min. movie at 640x320 resolution.
I've tried already and it plays on the Z, without jerks or getting stuck, and it's much better to watch than the same stuff encoded with vidomi at 320 width.
I think Vidomi produces better quality video at 640 width, but it's not playable on the Z because it's not rotated and thus jerks and gets stuck and all...
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If you rotate the video and uncheck the Auto-Rotate option in Kino, the Z can play video with 640 width - this is much better visual quality than 320 width.
PocketDivxEncoder is fine, can do this - only it lacks advanced control ops, i.e. you can pick the video quality on a scale of 1 to 10, but not much else.
I've tried encoding at 5 quality, this produces roughly a 500MB video for a 105 min. movie at 640x320 resolution.
I've tried already and it plays on the Z, without jerks or getting stuck, and it's much better to watch than the same stuff encoded with vidomi at 320 width.
I think Vidomi produces better quality video at 640 width, but it's not playable on the Z because it's not rotated and thus jerks and gets stuck and all...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140958\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Can I ask what exactly you are talking about? So you want to watch your videos at 480x640 (portrait) instead of 640x480? On the c3100 and probably the other models the videos are played in the proper rotation already. I play plenty of 640x480 videos just fine on mine.
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yeah "xami"! he just wants to know the methods you used.
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The LCD's in the clamshell Z's are natively portrait (480x640). So while videos may be "playing normally" in landscape mode, you're actually wasting a lot of processor time just in rotating the video.
Therefore it's better to pre-rotate video (you're re-encoding it anyway) and turn the rotation off in mplayer/kino. You still get proper landscape orientation but without the performance hit.
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The LCD's in the clamshell Z's are natively portrait (480x640). So while videos may be "playing normally" in landscape mode, you're actually wasting a lot of processor time just in rotating the video.
Therefore it's better to pre-rotate video (you're re-encoding it anyway) and turn the rotation off in mplayer/kino. You still get proper landscape orientation but without the performance hit.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=141009\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
That would be interesting. I guess I don't understand how it works. My "auto rotate" setting is off in kino and my movies play in the proper way. Is mplayer or kino set to rotate it by default no matter what the setting is?
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That would be interesting. I guess I don't understand how it works. My "auto rotate" setting is off in kino and my movies play in the proper way. Is mplayer or kino set to rotate it by default no matter what the setting is?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=141022\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
It works exactly like pelrun says. If your video is not rotated when encoding and you play it in Kino in landscape mode, the software rotates it and plays it, this wastes processor power.
Sometimes even when you uncheck the auto-rotate option in Kino it rotates it etc. So your videos would play.
I'm surprised though that you mention that you can play 640x480 videos just fine.
Are you sure they are 640x480 and not 320x240? If so, can you specify how you encoded these, because I haven't found a way to play 640x480 files unless they're pre-rotated.
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That would be interesting. I guess I don't understand how it works. My "auto rotate" setting is off in kino and my movies play in the proper way. Is mplayer or kino set to rotate it by default no matter what the setting is?
[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=141022\")
It works exactly like pelrun says. If your video is not rotated when encoding and you play it in Kino in landscape mode, the software rotates it and plays it, this wastes processor power.
Sometimes even when you uncheck the auto-rotate option in Kino it rotates it etc. So your videos would play.
I'm surprised though that you mention that you can play 640x480 videos just fine.
Are you sure they are 640x480 and not 320x240? If so, can you specify how you encoded these, because I haven't found a way to play 640x480 files unless they're pre-rotated.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=141023\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Here is a link to a music video that plays just fine on my zaurus:
[a href=\"http://radnimax.com/misc/endless.avi]http://radnimax.com/misc/endless.avi[/url]
In fact, most music videos I download play just fine on my zaurus without any special re-encoding.
The settings I have enabled in preferences under the video tab are "Drop frames", "Disable aspect ratio correction", and "Enable audio autosync". All others are dissabled. There is a slight jerkyness to this video only because it has to drop frames. I got a script from somewhere in these forums that will convert anything to a better zaurus friendly format but I haven't used it in a while. In my opinion it reduces the quality a bit too much. I'll eventually get around to twiking it to better sute my needs, but I haven't considering they already play at acceptable speeds.
If you want any more info, let me know. You can't get ANY 640x480 videos to play at acceptable framerates?
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Here is a link to a music video that plays just fine on my zaurus:
http://radnimax.com/misc/endless.avi (http://radnimax.com/misc/endless.avi)
In fact, most music videos I download play just fine on my zaurus without any special re-encoding.
The settings I have enabled in preferences under the video tab are "Drop frames", "Disable aspect ratio correction", and "Enable audio autosync". All others are dissabled. There is a slight jerkyness to this video only because it has to drop frames. I got a script from somewhere in these forums that will convert anything to a better zaurus friendly format but I haven't used it in a while. In my opinion it reduces the quality a bit too much. I'll eventually get around to twiking it to better sute my needs, but I haven't considering they already play at acceptable speeds.
If you want any more info, let me know. You can't get ANY 640x480 videos to play at acceptable framerates?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=141055\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
OK, I've tried this one and cannot play it, it's super slow...
So, there must be something in the settings...
I see you're using the standard Sharp ROM on a 3100. I have a 3200 with Cacko...
How did you install Kino and Mplayer? Did you use Cresho's package, or which ipks did you install?
Do you have any mplayer specific arguments passed to mplayer from Kino's settings?
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Hmm, ok. Here are the packages that I am using:
(from http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/kino.html) (http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/kino.html))
bvdd-0.4.0-1
mplayer-bvdd-iwmmxt-1.1.5-1
kino2-0.4.3c
and of course tetsu's kernel. I don't know what else it could be. Also, I am overclocking to 520/260/130 when playing videos but it only improves performance a little.
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I encode videos for my 3100 using Virtualdub - Xvid codec, 600kbps, MP3 audio at 128kbps/48000 khz
In testing I did a while back, the 48000 khz was important - playing video with 48000 khz sound was much better than 44000 or any divider thereof.
THe resolution I use is 320x240, 30fps, which is *perfectly* smooth on my non-overclocked Z. I've tried other options, including pre-rotated 640x480 and got good results, but the 320x240 videos play just as well on the Z as they do on my computer.
Visually, I find dropped frames or hitches in playback very annoying, and I don't want to overclock, so I stick with the smaller resolution. ALso, ripping DVDs is faster (1.75x real time) vs ripping at 640x480 (~1x real time).
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Cresho, you rock! I went and used the newest version of Kino2 and there was a ton of lag. Then I went to use your version of Kino2 and it ran so much better on my SL-CK.
I still had better performance on my Tapwave Zodiac though
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argh!
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getting the audio rate correct in the file before the Z seems to be vital... it was like that on the 860 too. I suspect the sound driver has a very crude resampling algorithm to turn non-48K into 48k which eats up too much CPU. You might find that 24kHz as an exact multiple works OK too.