Axim geek

Hello:
I was wondering what the best movie and video player for the x50v is and whether I can get one that's free. Any ideas?

JohnMadDoe_CZ

No ideas. We're realistic. Get yourself TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player). It's free, and what's more, it's the best player EVER!

Haesslich

TCPMP for the free one, if you don't need h.264 and AAC decoding; there ARE plugins out there for that... but they're rather inefficient, IMO - my benchmarks with them show they're about 10-20% slower than the ones in the following player I'm about to name.

CorePlayer if you're willing to pay $20 - it's the successor to CorePlayer, and does a better job with h.264 and AAC-encoded media. Or, if you wait a few weeks (or months - I don't know what their release schedule is), you can get the free version of CorePlayer, TCPMP's successor, BetaPlayer, which will have similar plugins available for it.

ultramagneus

ok, i dont mean to hijack your thread, but i am looking for the same for my x51v so...

what is h.264?

JohnMadDoe_CZ

It's a VERY, VERY good brand new video codec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

For example, I managed to compress my DVD movie into a 400MB file with FULL quality - 720x576 with no artifacts... wild

Haesslich

Indeed. h.264 is what I've recoded all of my portable videos into; for the same file size as a 320x240 file with a so-so bitrate, I've encoded videos at 640x480 with MUCH higher video quality. However, the intel 2700g decoder does not natively handle h.264, so it's very costly in terms of CPU time, and none of the new Marvell Electronics xScale processors are currently available; but they too decode h.264.

ultramagneus

sounds like proprietry crap.....

and as i feel the same way about AAC.... well, TCPMP here i come

sounds like the only reason you have to pay for the paid version is stupid patent royalties for crap codecs....

ihateacid

H.264 is good, i can say its compressiong ratio is very good... the bad side of it is that if u need to convert ur videos to h.264 format, normal timing is 5X the actual time(ie converting a hour of video into h.264 format with almost the same quality with 60% the size takes 5 hours)

i wont use H.264 for now as im not willing to switch on my computer all night to do it.

u can buy http://www.cwol.com/ipod-accessories...-to-go-ads.htm to speed things up and save space in ur axim

if i had the money, i'll buy either a new graphics card with convertingn features or this item that i can bring around

i'd say H.264 > all for its size+quality.

Haesslich

Originally Posted by ultramagneus

sounds like proprietry crap..... and as i feel the same way about AAC.... well, TCPMP here i come sounds like the only reason you have to pay for the paid version is stupid patent royalties for crap codecs....

Uh... h.264 isn't royalty-based, not precisely. Nor is x.264 for that matter - the latter is a free and open-source version IIRC, and both do a damn good job compressing. It's like yelling at people for using XviD, since it's MPEG-4 and DivX - a related MPEG-4 codec - has licensing fees. The price for CorePlayer is to pay the licensing fees for AAC and the like, however. Get your facts straight before playing out your prejudices in public like that.

Besides, the quality of the video is excellent - it's like the difference between DivX and MPEG-1; night and day, in other words. TCPMP is made by the same guys who did CorePlayer - it was the predecessor... and it will be replaced by the open-source BetaPlayer, when that shows up.

Originally Posted by ihateacid

H.264 is good, i can say its compressiong ratio is very good... the bad side of it is that if u need to convert ur videos to h.264 format, normal timing is 5X the actual time(ie converting a hour of video into h.264 format with almost the same quality with 60% the size takes 5 hours) i wont use H.264 for now as im not willing to switch on my computer all night to do it. u can buy http://www.cwol.com/ipod-accessories...-to-go-ads.htm to speed things up and save space in ur axim if i had the money, i'll buy either a new graphics card with convertingn features or this item that i can bring around i'd say H.264 > all for its size+quality.

Since when? I've used MediaCoder and it took about 20 minutes per 20-minute video to do h.264 encoding... you must have a REAL slow computer or something. Otherwise, if you've got Nero, it'll take less time (10-15 minutes) for the same 20-min video. Your system must be like 2000-2001 vintage, to be that creakingly slow...

The problem is, as I've noted, that it takes a lot of CPU time to decode as the decoders for that are all software-based ATM, due to the lack of h.264 in current processors which aren't Monahan (which has h.264 decoding built-in). CorePlayer's the only one I've found that works consistently - Nero Mobile has a tendency to lock up.

ultramagneus

wikipedia says otherwise.....

Quote:

the vendors of H.264/AVC products and services are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology that their products use (where software patent regulations are upheld)

seems to say its royalty based pritty much...

correct me if i am wrong in my interpretation...

Haesslich

Originally Posted by ultramagneus

wikipedia says otherwise..... seems to say its royalty based pritty much... correct me if i am wrong in my interpretation...

h.264 is royalty based, technically, because it's a standard set by the MPEG group... and to use their encoders, you DO have to pay a fee. However, x.264 is free: it's written from scratch under the GPL and is the equivalent of XviD in comparison to h.264... which is ALSO on Wikipedia, if you'd bothered to look at the "see also" links. As I said, it's the comparison between XviD and DivX - one's an open source implementation of the MPEG-4 codec, just as the latter commercial one is. But, h.264 is NOT PROPRIETARY - if it was, it'd be like a Sony product where the license fees go to just one company. Get your facts straight.

And CorePlayer does an excellent job with XviD, as does TCPMP - which only makes sense, given that the TCPMP guys went on to do CorePlayer.

ihateacid

Originally Posted by Haesslich

Since when? I've used MediaCoder and it took about 20 minutes per 20-minute video to do h.264 encoding... you must have a REAL slow computer or something. Otherwise, if you've got Nero, it'll take less time (10-15 minutes) for the same 20-min video. Your system must be like 2000-2001 vintage, to be that creakingly slow... The problem is, as I've noted, that it takes a lot of CPU time to decode as the decoders for that are all software-based ATM, due to the lack of h.264 in current processors which aren't Monahan (which has h.264 decoding built-in). CorePlayer's the only one I've found that works consistently - Nero Mobile has a tendency to lock up.

hm.... how did you get it so fast? < mines intel pentium 4 ,3.0ghz dualprocessor + 1gb ram>
ive tested a lot of h.264 encoding programs and Super, cant get a 'real-time' 1:1 encoding time for H.264 under any settings... lemme test MediaCoder

[EDIT: i was doing 640x480 encoding with no change in resolution and onli about 70% reduction output in bitrate)

yeah ive recognised decoding h.264 takes about 20% of my hardware, getting a new graphics card that supports h.264 decoding works ...

Haesslich

If it's a P4, it's not dual-core. If it's a Core 2 Duo, then you're okay. I'm using an Athlon x2 4400+ with 2GB RAM, and MediaCoder works fine with that. I usually encode at only 400kbps bitrate, though.

ihateacid

ah...well, i have a limit on my choice as i usually encode dvr-ms from my TV Tuner Tv shows to avi files, usually use Super(MediaCoder cant open dvr-ms, encoding twice is slower than once )

figured MPEG4/DVD-complaint encoding is about realtime on my computer versus 2-5X H.264 encoding, i think i'd burn my videos instead of investing electricity