Media Player still choppy with A05 update

thezed · 07-31-03, 07:07 AM

Has anyone had a chance to have a decent look at video/audio performance with the A05 ROM?

This was the thing that annoyed me the most about my Ax when it was running the A04 ROM. I start watching Thumbwars in 320x240 @ 128 kbps (it is 19 MB in total) and the sound chops up and the video actually freezes for a few seconds every 5 seconds or so. It was the main difference between my Ax and the one the guy next to me at work ordered two weeks before hand (I believe he was running the A02 ROM).

So I upgraded today (after an email from Dell to say that if I had the file to use it) to A05 hoping like crazy that this was going to be fixed. But alas, the video still chops up and freezes every 5 seconds or so :(

It doesn't mater if I have the file stored on normal memory, CF card or the Built-In memory. It still chops like crazy. The movie file itself is not corrupt or dodgy, because I can pop my CF card in friends X5 running A02 and it plays perfectly.

Can anyone else confirm this type of behaviour with A05 ROM update? I am wondering if I should be in touch with Dell (again) because the unit is faulty, or if this is something that is common to all A04 and A05 ROMs. I am annoyed, because this is what I first reported to Dell and and they told me to "hang on and wait for the update", and now the update is here (and I have noticed quicker file access when listing dirs and with MS Reader etc) and now it's here and I can't see any difference in the thing that caused me to complain in the first place.

Anyone else out there with same/similar issue?

CheerZ :)

axim_X5guy · 07-31-03, 02:26 PM

mine is still choppy after the upgrade. And my start menu is still very slow.
I compared with a friends old ipaq and it's much slower and choppier.
It feels like the fix only addresses half of the issues

HedCold · 07-31-03, 02:37 PM

sometimes when i play music its still staticy, but if i pause it then start again it goes away until i start changing the volume around again

littlekevbo · 07-31-03, 02:37 PM

is your firends CPU set to stay at a specific speed? mine is much smoother when I take if off AUTO.

axim_X5guy · 07-31-03, 03:13 PM

he doesn't even have a choice of changing speeds. He has a compaq ipaq w /ppc 2002.

07-31-03, 03:37 PM

you did a soft reset after the update, right? cuz that makes it run a lot faster.

if you already soft reset, dunno.

i've watched a movie in PMVP with the new patch, no problems, loaded much faster.

haven't really watched anything on WMP9, i only have .avi files so i have to use PMVP.

axim_X5guy · 07-31-03, 03:57 PM

I tried the soft reset to no avail.
Also my friend has an old compaq ipaq w /ppc 2002 and it runs so much smoother than mine.
Does any of the ipaq's come with a compact flash slot?
I think I may swith... can't deal with this slowness

rezbin · 07-31-03, 04:35 PM

Did you restore a backup after the A05 update? I found that after I restored my backup, the system would act up a little, especially with multimedia. I found that a hard reset and fresh installs of my apps solved all the problems.

I don't have any WMP audio problems like static, however I've never played any movies with it.

thezed · 07-31-03, 07:31 PM

I have soft reseted, and also forcing the CPU to 400 MHz. No luck. Supposedly a tech will be contacting me withina few days. It really looks like a buffer issue (movies with lower sample rates are still choppy, but they play for a bit longer in between 'chops').

If anyone wants to do any testing on their own Ax, the file I am testing has the following properties:

Duration: 21:46
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Audio Codec: Windows Media Audio 9
Audio Description: 16 kbps, 16kHz, moono 1-pass CBR
Video Codec: Windows Medica Video 7
Video Size: 320 x 240

It's about 19MB in size. I believe Microsoft's Media Encoder standard Pocket PC profile is about 240 kbps, so this file is way under anything that SHOULD be pushing the Ax (especially since (supposedly) identical hardware runs it fine under 2002)