Do you have a handheld device with video playback?

[Baldrick]

Nope.

[vitualis]

Yep...

HP iPAQ rx3715... I can play DivX and XviD video files on it brilliantly.

Regards.

[mats.hogberg]

Yep, but it's nothing I brag about, or find even remotely interesting. Had a pocket TV some 15 years ago, and that taught me what to expect. The day pocket devices come with at least 14" screen (or hook up with your optical nerves, or project on your retina or whatever), OK, but 'til then it's just toys when it comes to viewing video.

/Mats

[edDV]

My Palm and Digital Camera can play video from flash cards.

[ROF]

My Pocket PC (iPAQ), a Creative Labs Zen Player, and my new Sony PSP.

All these can play video.

Do cell phones count?

[bugster]

Yep, my mobile phone (Sendo X) plays video.

[redwudz]

I have a pocket PC, but really haven't had much interest in making videos for it. It's hard to fit a decent video onto even a 512MB memory card.

[ROF]

I've ripped and encoded a selection of movies available for downloading onto 512MB media. Whole movies can be compressed nicely onto 512MB. Typically they are anywhere from 400-500MB in length and when viewed on such a small screen the compression is barely visible.

[dcsos]

I have a LIBRETTO
plays VCD only from HDD
Its the size of a VHS cassette and runs WIN 95
got it free cause the 1 gig hard drive died, put a10gig hard drive inside. It hold my Mp3's
and unlike Ipod owners I can create my playlists right in the machine while listening
(gotta use95 & winamp 2.6 because its such a slow machine!)

[mats.hogberg]

(gotta use95 & winamp 2.6 because its such a slow machine!)

I've never seen no reason to go above last 2.X (2.9something IIRC) version of WinAmp. Tried later incarnation, but promply uninstalled.<rant>Why does software (even non MS software!) given enough life span and development, have to become bloatware?</rant>

/Mats

[dcsos]

To make PDA's need 1 gig processors and mucho ram coming too!

Thats why MICROSHAFT conspires to UPDATE everyones box with INTEL
as partner
THE VHS sized LIBRETTO MAXES out at 32 Meg of Ram, but runs IE 5.5 and surfs wirelessly or wired ethernet cards I swap in!

I can even connect a cd rom battery wise with a bulky companion ata ide card & drive

But WINAMP 2.61 and Win95 Happily play Mp3 or MPEG-1(352x240) stutter free

[sholmes202]

Yes, I started with a Lyra 2780 and have moved to a PSP. The Lyra allowed recording directly from TV or from a non protected tape or DVD. However the screen is a bit small. The quality was fine but not as good as the PSP is. The advantage to the Lyra of course is that it has a 20GB hard drive so you can carry MANY videos. The PSP has a DVD level video quality.

Holmes

[Bronx]

I have an iPAQ rx3115 and I play mpegs, divx and xvid files.

[p_l]

Dude, is that pr0n and smokes?

[dcsos]

Smokes & ProN For SIZE Comparison only ******

[yoda313]

Hi,

Nope. I do love video but not enough to pay $200 or more for something that can get lost or damaged easily.

Kevin

[p_l]

Smokes & ProN For SIZE Comparison only ******

So what "handheld device" are you referring to, exactly?

[Cole]

Have an iPAQ h5450 which I bought second hand so that I could have Sat Nav for my car. I know that it can play videos, but my (very limited) attempts so far have failed as any mpegs played are very stop start.

[ruteger]

hello anyone
hope today is a good one for you and if not hope tommorow is

I have an Iriver H320 - 20Gig lil MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG) playa and after a nifty lil firmware upgrade im able to play any video converted for it - which needs to be encoded thusly

resize to 220X176
codec = Xvid
bitrate = up to 500
fps = up to 15
audio = MP3 128kbps 44.1Khz

and while the screen aint the biggest (2" TFT-LCD) and im not about to put LOTR on there , its fanfrikkintastic for lunchtime simpsons / futurama / black adder (tips hat to baldrick , master of all that is video) or other such half hours of pure joy which make me forget where i am or i can download the latest EELS music video and take it to work to show a friend with no PC (can you imagine that) ...although as a footnote i did do my intial test with the matrix and quite frankly was most impressed so if i was somewhere for an hour or 2 with nothing to do id be quite happy with the quality
i do love my iriver

[vitualis]

Have an iPAQ h5450 which I bought second hand so that I could have Sat Nav for my car. I know that it can play videos, but my (very limited) attempts so far have failed as any mpegs played are very stop start.

Have you downloaded betaPlayer?

It is a fantastic little proggy for playing back MPEG/DivX/XviD.

Have you encoded video that is appropriate for the Pocket PC? That is, framesize of 320x240. I can play DivX/XviD reliably on my HP iPAQ 1930 which I think has less computing grunt than your device...

Regards.

[Cole]

Have an iPAQ h5450 which I bought second hand so that I could have Sat Nav for my car. I know that it can play videos, but my (very limited) attempts so far have failed as any mpegs played are very stop start.

Have you downloaded betaPlayer?

It is a fantastic little proggy for playing back MPEG/DivX/XviD.

Have you encoded video that is appropriate for the Pocket PC? That is, framesize of 320x240. I can play DivX/XviD reliably on my HP iPAQ 1930 which I think has less computing grunt than your device...

Regards.

So far I have downloaded a program called PocketTV, which is suppossed to play any MPEG 1. As I said it plays, but stuttery.

The resolution could be an issue too though, as what I tried was a standard VCD PAL resolution, but what appeared on screen was in the correct aspect ratio. What it appeared to have an issue with was the frame rate. It fluctuated between 6 fps to 9 fps (pocketTV shows what the current playback framerate is).

Thanks for the pointers though, and I will have a look at betaplayer.

[vitualis]

Yeah, don't expect an older PPC to do particularly well if it needs to resize on the fly as well... Also, high bitrates (e.g., MPEG-1 for any quality) can strain the PPC.

If you encode DivX 5 (without GMC or Q-Pel) at 320x240 framesize (any larger is pointless), it should play fine on a PPC.

Regards.

[Cole]

Yeah, don't expect an older PPC to do particularly well if it needs to resize on the fly as well... Also, high bitrates (e.g., MPEG-1 for any quality) can strain the PPC.

If you encode DivX 5 (without GMC or Q-Pel) at 320x240 framesize (any larger is pointless), it should play fine on a PPC.

Regards.

Vitualis,

Just wanted to let you know that I have downloaded Betaplayer and also the Pocket DivX Encoder and got a near perfect playback on my PDA with the first clip I did.

It struggled very slightly with a high movement scene but that was the only issue.

Thanks again for the nod in the right direction.

Um... Should I mention that this was the first DivX(ish) clip that I have ever done

[rhegedus]

I've got a Toshiba e740 PAD that I haven't used for over a year, but I recall Windows Movie Maker did a good job of making wmv movies for it.

[EddyH]

Dcos doing well with getting a libretto to do VCDs, it must have a comparitively good video subsystem compared to other similar laptops - it's a P75 right?

My fullsize (not as big as modern ones, but fullsize keys and a touchpad) pentium 75 laptop just can't hack it, does about 12 fps maximum with 320x240 video in a window, worse fullscreen, in 8 or 16 bit mode... 24 bit, forget it. It used to be a p120 before i clocked it down for the battery's sake, but it was only about 1 fps better. Definately a bottleneck in the video processor.

As for "proper" handheld devices, i'm gonna do the same as i did with the ipod... hold off a couple years for the stuff to get established, through the early adopter stage and become more refined, capable and affordable, with a few more manufacturers getting on board with generic and compatible chipsets (holds up $150, 20gb, 1.8" HD - that's ipod mini size - "Npod" mp3 player.. it's wicked cool man.. based off some generic chinese mp3 player with an IDE chipset hacked into it. Works brilliantly, sounds good and can back up USB pendrives / digital cameras PC-free).

[vitualis]

You can always end up waiting forever...

With my HP iPAQ rx3715, I can watch both DivX and XviD clips (though they do have to be converted to PDA friendly specs) on a SD memory card, or even better, over my wireless LAN to my fileserver! And I still have around 6-7 hours of battery life!

With the newer higher spec devices with faster processors, VGA screens and a mobile GPU, you can play full "normal" size DivX and XviD files without having to specially convert them to PDA friends specs at all. They have enough computing grunt. Fantastic!

Regards.

[waheed]

A mobile phone (Nokia 6230)

[pbhalerao]

I have an O2 XDA IIi which is PDA (Pocket PC) + GSM phone. It plays about almost anything - though have not tried MP4 as yet.

[lchiu7]

I have a Sony Clie NX60V and NX80V. Both can play video files in a MPEG4 format that you use Sony software to convert. I encode the videos (usually TV shows) on my PC and store them on memory sticks to watch. For a 41 minute TV show (minus the ads) it takes about 85MB. Great for catching up on TV when I am traveling on public transport! Better than an iPod!

Larry

[offline]

I have a Toshiba micro with a 11 inch screen
and a MP4 cam with a 2.5 inch screen.

The cam has MP2,MP3 & MP4 playback and many hours
of run time (nokia lithium battery) but like most things
in life there is always a catch. Max SD memory of 512 meg
which means only around 25 minutes of video per chip

The Toshiba runs 80 gig of video but (catch again)
has a battery life of only 3 hours / 2 hours when playing
back surround mp4 video. :/