Messages

1

Software / MJPEG-encoded videos on Zaurus?

« on: April 05, 2004, 03:33:18 am »

Sorry, the short answer is...re-encode!
I have a Canon PowerShot S30, same deal, same result (about video and audio). Apparently, the audio is what really kills the Z...so, unless someone comes forward to say that tkcVideo works some kind of magic, I wouldn\'t hold my breath. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
I was looking at trying VLC for fun...is that the newest version, or the \"easy to install\" (but old) version?
Pat

2

Accessories / IBM Micro drive and SL-5600

« on: December 29, 2003, 08:48:31 pm »

You don\'t have to imagine it: Sandisk already makes a 2GB CF card ($600 tho)! I heard rumors of a 4GB coming a few months back... ;-)

3

Accessories / IBM Micro drive and SL-5600

« on: December 23, 2003, 12:44:20 am »

I\'m no physics major, but I think it\'s pretty much a no-brainer that physically spinning a platter (no matter how small) is going to use more energy than just accessing memory when you need it. (The \"flash\" part of CompactFlash)...Yup, here you go:
IBM Microdrive 1G/340MB specs: http://www.premierelect.co.uk/microdrive.html
Sandisk CompactFlash guide (look for \"mA\", match case) http://www.sandisk.com/pdf/oem/ProdManualC...CFlashv10.1.pdf
It looks like the \"writing\" is about 5x less, and the \"sleep/standby\" is...Ummm...? I don\'t remember how to read that one. 10x less? 100x less? 1000x less?
Plus my favorite part, right above that table: \"Shock, Operating: 2,000 G maximum\". Hehe. 2,000 Gs....cooooool.... I might be pulped, but my CF card....SURVIVES!!!

4

Accessories / WIFI CF Card Review?

« on: December 23, 2003, 12:16:52 am »

A bit aged, but this can give you a starting point for general chipset performance:
http://www.trowcom.co.uk/Z-Batt.htm

5

Accessories / ( CE-AG04 ) Whould this work on a SL-5500 ?

« on: December 23, 2003, 12:14:00 am »

The answer to the first post is \"Not unless you\'re willing to break your Z\"
The answer to the second post is \"A PC Card (!NOT! CompactFlash) camera with zoom\".
 :wink:

6

Software / E-book reader for Sharp ROM

« on: December 21, 2003, 08:59:18 pm »

Just a thought, has anyone tried to look throught the internet archive? (archive.org, I believe?) There is a VERY SMALL chance that it copied the site before it was shut down. That could at least get you a filename to search for.

7

Cxx0 Hardware / CF problem with C760?

« on: October 01, 2003, 08:23:58 pm »

Sorry, Dude (Dudette?), but I\'ve had no problems with CF memory cards on mine up to 1GB. I\'m currently using a 256MB.  I haven\'t tried a WiFi card tho...maybe that won\'t work on mine! (Hahaha)

Pat

8

Cxx0 Hardware / Sd port and sandisk wireless card

« on: September 23, 2003, 12:39:04 am »

offroadgeek-
Glad to be of service! I see that you are a big CF fan (like myself), I still can\'t believe that people buy into this cr@p of a new memory format every week, especially since half of them are crippled (hello, S0ny Memory Stick! Didn\'t you think of the future? Does \"640k should be enough for anybody\" sound familiar?), and the other half are TOOOO expensive!!
Ah, but enough ranting. I just wanted to say, with that 128MB/Wi-Fi card and a little work, you could be watching a movie! (Check out my latest notes under http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...viewtopic&t=153
)
Pat

P.S. How long do you think it will take for a 1GB/Wi-Fi to come out? That\'s what *I\'m* waiting for!

9

Software / Mplayer? Xmms? Opie-mediaplayer2?

« on: September 23, 2003, 12:26:43 am »

Yup, wierd as it may seem, it\'s better to encode a \"harder\" stream (at 48khz), than to throw the Z a \"softball\" (11/16khz).  I was able to encode and get good playback off of a 320x240x25fps stream, with 48khz/128kbps stereo.  Occasionally it stutters, but it quickly catches up (talkin\' about Kino2 here).  Some people have talked about lowering down the frame rate to 12, etc. but I just can\'t bring myself to that...maybe I\'ll lower the bitrate on the video some. I\'ve tried to encode at ]320x240, specifically at 640x4XX (c\'mon, admit it! You were thinking the same thing!), but it doesn\'t seem to work through Kino2\'s interface. Going to the terminal left me with a nice, smooth...resized image. ;-)
In any event, I think that pushing that many pixels would take a lot of work, so we\'re probably going to have to wait for some major revisions to mplayer\'s ATI W-100 code (also, adding in OGG support) before we can even think of that...
Pat

10

Cxx0 Hardware / Sd port and sandisk wireless card

« on: September 22, 2003, 02:02:33 am »

Just FYI, there\'s supposed to be a Sandisk CF card that has BOTH Wi-Fi and 128MB of storage!
(I know it\'s not much, but it\'s a good sign of \"things to come\"!)
Here is a link:
http://www.digitallyunique.net/digitally-u...wcfb128768.html
(No, I don\'t work for Sandisk, \"Digitally Unique\", etc. etc. I\'m just a guy that likes to try to keep track of new toys...hehehe)
Pat

11

Software / Mplayer? Xmms? Opie-mediaplayer2?

« on: September 22, 2003, 01:20:54 am »

Howdy all!
Well, for those of you who are following this thread in hopes of watching stuff on your Z: Good news and bad news.
The good news: There\'s a new media player out there that does a pretty good job of covering up all those nasty mplayer command-line switches, etc. (they\'re still there, if you go to the terminal).  It\'s called \"Kino2\" (\"Movie\" in German, and possibly some other languages...get it?), and you can find it at: http://cacko.biz/sl-c7x0.html
The bad news: It\'s not the video...it\'s the AUDIO...(!)
Yup: The major driving factor in video playback on our C7X0s is...audio! I\'m trying to see if the various flavors of audio (MP3, MP2, WAV, etc.) can make a difference, but here\'s a fun test:
Try encoding your favorite video to 320x240ish, at ~200kbps. (<- Notice, no audio!)
Even at 24/5 fps, you should get most of your frames without having to skip that much (using -framedrop), of course, YMMV.
Now, go ahead and re-encode at ~100kbps, and add a teeeeny little 16khz, 16kbps MP3 stream.
Ok, math time! We went from ~200kbps, now down to ~116kbps. No problem, right?
WRONG!!! Using -hardframedrop (-framedrop won\'t even come CLOSE to keeping up)...and maybe -autosync 1, you will see....a whole lotta smearing. :-(
(If you just use -framedrop, you\'ll see...not much, then agonizingly slow frame updates.)
Soooo....I think we\'re just waiting for someone to re-encode for the ATI chipset (W-100?) *AND* add in OGG support...and maybe we\'ll actually have a functional movie player!!

So, I leave you for now...Until that great day when I can watch the Matrix at 640x426 (down from 720x480), 25fps, 192kbps OGG... ;-)
Pat
Pat

12

Software / any mms:// or .asf players?

« on: August 30, 2003, 07:51:50 pm »

?
I thought one of the big problems with the Z 7x0 was that the built-in media player would *only* play asf files! ;-)
Unless you are talking about something other than the \"ISO MPEG-4 spec\"...streaming, perhaps?
Pat

13

Software / The Best MultiMedia Player for Zaurus

« on: August 29, 2003, 06:05:11 am »

I depends...I\'m personally a big fan of mplayer. Not very fancy, but FAST! I think a lot of it\'s functionality may have been absorbed by XMMS, tho (with appropriate plugins?).
Pat

14

Software / Mplayer? Xmms? Opie-mediaplayer2?

« on: August 29, 2003, 06:01:44 am »

Yaaay!
Nice to know I\'m not (completely) insane!
In other news, I *did* get mplayer to run.
Took a LOT of work, and I think I kind of fumbled around until I got the http://www.self-core.org/~kaoru-k/pub/mpla....91.1-1_arm.ipk to work correctly...I forgot exactly how.
In any event, you\'re left with a player that runs well...as long as you don\'t actually try to do anything with the video, which is rotated the wrong way. Everybody seems to have a page about settin\' this option or that, which kills the frame rate...and I says to myself \"Hey, self: When you\'re recompressing the video so that it\'ll fit on to the memory card, why don\'t you go ahead and rotate it THEN, and when it\'s on the player, it\'ll already be oriented the RIGHT way?\". Problem solved! :-)
You\'re still only gettin\' 320x240, and you don\'t want to get TOO crazy with the bandwidth, but it beats the snot out of what you can do with the WM9-encoder.
(My encoder-of-choice is VirtualDubMod)
Good luck!
Pat

15

Software / Mplayer? Xmms? Opie-mediaplayer2?

« on: August 22, 2003, 03:30:28 am »

Well...21 views, and no answer...maybe I\'m not the only one that\'s having trouble...I feel *slightly* better.
In any event, for those who are curious, I\'ve seen some stuff floating around about a specialized version of mplayer (something about an ATI chip?), with a semi-complicated set of options that have to be set (reversed image?)...If I find out anything, I\'ll let you all know!
Pat