PocketTV now optimized for VGA on x50v - Page 2

02-07-05, 12:21 AM

Yes, the Intel SDK includes the source code of a modified MPEG-2 decoder interfacing with their driver. This is a fact, I was just stating it.

But this MPEG-2 video sample code is miles away from a real, product-quality MPEG-2 decoder. This sample code only shows how MPEG-2 mode of IDCT and motion estimation should be interfaced with the 2700G driver.

There is much more to that in an MPEG-2 decoder. You need to support MPEG-2 audio (different from MPEG-1 Layer 1 and 2), AAC and Dolby (most MPEG-2 streams, e.g. DVD, use AAC or Dolby audio), MPEG-2 program parsing and MPEG-2 transport parsing. Not to mention that a product quality MPEG-2 video decoder would have to be very different from the sample video code provided by Intel. The Intel sample code is based on none other that the Technical Report of the MPEG Committee, i.e. the code from the MSSG group (MPEG Software Simulation Group), which is public domain. In a real product, you need to be fully error-resilient, and the sample code cannot be used as it would just crash if a single bit is incorrect.

02-07-05, 12:25 AM

By the way, the compression efficiency of MPEG-2 is about the same as that of MPEG-1 in case of progressive video (i.e. film), in fact the progressive mode of MPEG-2 is almost identical to MPEG-1. I was a member of the MPEG committee and actively involved in the development of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, so I know what I'm talking about here :)

So by encoding progressive video in MPEG-1 at VGA resolution, you will get basically the same video quality, performances and compression efficiency as MPEG-2.

The purpose of MPEG-2 was ONLY to have support to encode interlaced video (i.e. for TV CRT interlaced display), since MPEG-1 works only with progressive.

But Pocket PC's have progressive display, so if you were to play MPEG-2 interlaced, you would have to de-interlace the video in order to display it. This process is not efficient (even though the 2700G can do it), so you would in fact get a better quality by doing the de-interlacing in the source (also called inverse telecine if the source was 3:2 pulldown), and encode your video as progressive... which can be done with MPEG-1 with the same efficiency.

Mediocrites · 02-07-05, 09:25 AM

Gee, I'm not sure this is the right place to be posting this tech question but...

In pocketTV classic, when using true VGA mode, my videos only take up 1/4 of the screen in landscape. It works fine and full screen in portrait. I've tried the original driver as well as the gapi tweaks with 2700 and Xscale modes.

Edit: Forgot to mention the version #. Newest POckettv classic version.

02-07-05, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by Mediocrites

Gee, I'm not sure this is the right place to be posting this tech question but...

In pocketTV classic, when using true VGA mode, my videos only take up 1/4 of the screen in landscape. It works fine and full screen in portrait. I've tried the original driver as well as the gapi tweaks with 2700 and Xscale modes.

What do you call "True VGA Mode" ?

Try the latest version of PocketTV, which is optimized and uses the 2700G video accelerator. If should display VGA correctly (i.e. fullscreen), and scale video to the display size if it is too large or too small.

By defaut, the "Action" button (in the middle of the DPAD cursor) will switch between "Nominal Size" (i.e. same as zoom 100% in betaplayer) and "Fit Screen" (i.e. zoomed to match the display size).

I suppose that you are using an older version of PocketTV (i.e. using GAPI, not the 2700G), and that you have installed some third-part "hack" to set your device in a non-standard mode that you call "true VGA", correct ?

Mediocrites · 02-07-05, 09:41 AM

Full uninstall of all older versions. Downloaded pockettv classic from the website today and installed via activesync to BIS.

I'm using SE_vga to run in "true vga" or forced vga mode. (3rd party hack)

In that mode, all videos only take up 1/4 of the screen. I've tried the action button and it makes it even smaller, indicating that the 1st choice was some sort of bestfit option. Great program and I've used it before, but now I run stuff in vga and would still like to use it. :
)

Oh, and I've tried the original dell driver and tha gapi tweaks.

02-07-05, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by Mediocrites

Full uninstall of all older versions. Downloaded pockettv classic from the website today and installed via activesync to BIS.

I'm using SE_vga to run in "true vga" or forced vga mode. (3rd party hack)

In that mode, all videos only take up 1/4 of the screen. I've tried the action button and it makes it even smaller, indicating that the 1st choice was some sort of bestfit option. Great program and I've used it before, but now I run stuff in vga and would still like to use it. :
)

Oh, and I've tried the original dell driver and tha gapi tweaks.

Yup - this happens when it is started up when the PDA is alread in landscape mode, and is running in TRUE VGA moide (by using a 3rd party app such as OzVGA or SEW_VGA). If Started in Portrait mode in TRUE VGA, it will happily swap to lanscape mode in full screen and run correctly.

It looks like it thinks the screen is twice as wide as it actually is, so it has centred on the left side of the screen?

I know you don't need to run OzVGA to get the VGA benefits from PocketTV, but I already am. The easy work around is to switch to portrait mode before running PocketTV. (My Record button has been mapped to change orientation, so this is easy for me - I never use the record anyway)

Hope this helps

Mediocrites · 02-07-05, 09:58 AM

Yup correct. I forgot I was starting in landscape but it still doesnt seem to work for me.

I too have the rec buttonmapped to change orientation.

However, in portrait mode on the x50, start up pockettv and play a video and switch to landscape mode IN POCKETTV and the video takes up full screen.

Play a video in portrait mode and use the rec button to change orientation leads to 1/4 screen usage.

Then again, maybe I'm a moron...which has been the case before.

c.hilding · 02-07-05, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by PocketTV Team

Yes, it does too, but both applications have different features.

For example:

- PocketTV can stream from a web server using http protocol. Betaplayer can only play files.

- PocketTV can play video frame by frame, to look for a particular image in a movie. Betaplayer cannot do that.

- PocketTV can capture an image from a movie. Betaplayer cannot do that.

etc.

That's wrong. Betaplayer can also stream movies or audio, just go to File->Open and put the url in the address field. The other two features you mention are no use to most people, why go frame by frame, when you can simply pause the video to zoom in on the boobs with betaplayer? Oh, did I say that?

And the screen capture, that could be useful for some people, but not for me.

Best Regards,
Christopher H.

02-07-05, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by Mediocrites

Yup correct. I forgot I was starting in landscape but it still doesnt seem to work for me.

I too have the rec buttonmapped to change orientation.

However, in portrait mode on the x50, start up pockettv and play a video and switch to landscape mode IN POCKETTV and the video takes up full screen.

Play a video in portrait mode and use the rec button to change orientation leads to 1/4 screen usage.

Then again, maybe I'm a moron...which has been the case before.

yup - exact same thing here. pockettv has issues with the OS going into landscape whilst in "true/forced vga" mode. If you let ptv take care of the orientation change to landscape, its all cool.

flipcody · 02-07-05, 11:44 AM

Hmmm, it is getting closer to Betaplayer on performance. Ran the VGA mpeg video that Pocket TV provided on this thread:
http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...=pocket+tv+vga

Came up with following results (full screen):
149.68% 35.93 fps - Pocket TV 1.0.3
187.32% 44.91 fps - Betaplayer unstable .096 (sound disabled like PTV is)

Both programs are installed on main memory and video is on SD card.

What advantages does Pocket TV have over Betaplayer? It is not like I will encode full movies to mpegs anyway. Doing short clips does a mpeg at 640x480 look any better than a DivX or XviD file encoded at similar bit rates?

flipcody · 02-07-05, 12:02 PM

Ooops, I did not read Pocket TV's full post. Sorry.

I still can not get the same score with Pocket TV that I do on Betaplayer. I tried again after soft reset first app opened and got 151%.

Please explain how you are getting same score as Betaplayer.

rsmith4321 · 02-07-05, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by PocketTV Team

Yes, it does too, but both applications have different features.

For example:

- PocketTV can stream from a web server using http protocol. Betaplayer can only play files.

- PocketTV can play video frame by frame, to look for a particular image in a movie. Betaplayer cannot do that.

- PocketTV can capture an image from a movie. Betaplayer cannot do that.

etc.

Naturally Betaplayer also has specifics features.

PocketTV Classic is also free, and it works very well (it is very well tested on many devices because it has been around much before Betaplayer), so it is a very popular application.

Having both PocketTV and Betaplayer does not hurt.

Do you think that having choice is a bad thing ?

When did I say having choices is bad, that's a great thing. I guess you missed my point. My point was asking why anyone would make the choice to use Pocket TV over betaplayer? I can't see any reason, the reasons you mentioned are basically useless, I know betaplayer will stream files off a network, I do it all the time. I would never encode to mpeg1, it takes up much much more room for less quality than mpeg4/divx etc that betaplayer supports. It's basically like using a codec from many years ago that is out of date. To me, Pocket TV seems useless. I stopped using Pocket TV years ago myself. Am I wrong?

Ranma13 · 02-07-05, 03:43 PM

It seems like PocketTV Team likes to point out the fallacies in Betaplayer without doing much research.

1. Betaplayer CAN stream videos off of the net, and also audio files like shoutcast and WMP streams.
2. By default, the player uses right-handed landscape orientation for its full-screen view, which is what the majority of people want. There's no need to change it unless you want to, and it's very easy to do so.
3. He states that Betaplayer has a plethora of options that make little sense or are useless. Last time I checked, an equalizer wasn't useless, neither was color and saturation settings, hotkeys, and the player settings themselves. Betaplayer automatically detects which driver would give the best speed during playback and all you have to do after you install it is pick the file you want to play and it works fine. The settings are there only if you want to tweak something.

With that said, how many people actually use MPG anymore? AVI is definitely by far way more popular, and Betaplayer also supports plugins. I thought I would never come across a MPC file but just the other day I received a soundtrack ripped to MPC. And I have some movies that are encoded in AC3 also. It's great to be able to add functionality onto a player using plugins.

Seems to me like they're trying to spread FUD.

rsmith4321 · 02-07-05, 04:13 PM

Exactly, in fact, just the fact that they came on here and tried to put down an incredible piece of software to promote thier nearly useless out of date junk is enough that we should know not to download or certainly not purchase it. I would much rather give any type donation to the developer of betaplayer, and I think anyone here would have to agree. Well, unless we really need a screenshot out of our mpeg1 video. In fact, this has made me think, I am going to make a donation right now, as we all should.

d0pefish · 02-07-05, 04:18 PM

I'll have to agree. I've had much more success with BetaPlayer on my smartphone than I have had with PocketTV. I know this is an Axim forum and everything but I'm still waiting for mine :)

Still, its very similar. With PocketTV, my MP1 movies would be much bigger, play jerkily and lag my phone to hell. With BetaPlayer and the right encoding settings, the quality is excellent, playback smooth, and as you said, the screen orientation is automatically fitted to my phone's screen.

The features BetaPlayer has are useful and allow you to fine tune everything to what you find most comfortable, and what gives you the best performance. And it still manages to remain a lean and fast player.

And whats more, it's freeware... now I know there is a freeware version of PocketTV but IMHO it doesnt come close to BetaPlayer.

I think it's pretty low, the way you try and put down Picard's impeccable work. Have you seen how many updates to his program he releases? There's new features and improvements all the time - USEFUL ones - and he always strives to fix any problems people are having.

Sorry PocketTV, I don't think MPEG1 cuts the mustard any more. BetaPlayer is staying on *all* of my devices.