[Markito]

(I don't know if this has been discussed before. Couldn't find it through a search)


Speaking of Replay's unusual Mpegs...


I want to take some shows in my PC (thanks to DVarchive) and convert them to play them on my Palm OS device. There is some excellent converting (KinomaProducer) and playing (KinomaPlayer) software for Palm, called Kinoma ( www.Kinoma.com ) that converts mpegs to a good size and format for Palm devices.


I tried to convert a show and it said I couldn't. Probably due to Replay Mpegs being slightly different then normal ones. I am wondering if any of you Sony Clie owners out there have been able to convert Replay show files to your Palm OS. With Kinoma or something else.


I REALLY want to do this, so please lend a hand.

 

[dbonds]

I've actually been looking into this myself. I can't really test it as I have a Palm m505 (~2 years old and not the best platform for portable movies). However, I was considering getting one of the new Sony NX-70v's with this functionality being a BIG selling point.


What I saw from the Kinoma player was that the documentation for the Kinoma Producer didn't handle MPEG-2, but only MPEG-1. I suspect there are programs out there that will downconvert, but I haven't really tried this as I don't currently have the device to play the video....


I would be VERY interested if anyone comes up with a relatively short process to make this work though. I believe the NX Clie's come with player/converter software similar to Kinoma, but I have no idea whether it would work on Replay files either, particularly with all the GOP stuff I see people talking about in the Womble threads...


Ugh, I'd like to have a portable player for watching my shows at the gym, but I just don't want to invest $1000+ in the hardware/software to end up with a cumbersome process.


Daniel


PS - I've recently been reading up in the Archos Multimedia Jukebox, but I'll save that for a different thread.

 

[Wasatch Rider]

Since most of the Palm devices have limited memory and the largest solid state cards top at around 256MB, how would you fit an hour long show into one?

 

[Scyber]

Well I assume they would be dropping the quality significantly.


Plus SD cards now top off at 512mb. Of course I don't think you would have much luck with anything less than one of the new OS5 units (the sony NX series or Palm's Tungsten T). I don't think the older units got the horsepower.

 

[dbonds]

Yup, as Scyber mentioned, there would be significant downconversion in quality which is fine for playing on a PDA. Most of the apps have a compress/convert process to put the video into a format for use on the device. I've read in some Sony Clie message boards of people being very happy with the video quality on the NX series in particular after going through the various gyrations of conversion (slightly larger screen than the Palm Tungsten).


While SD (as used on the Palm Tungsten) sizes are up to 512M and seem to be growing, Sony's MSs (as used on the NX-70v) seem to have been stuck at 128M, but that's rumored to be changing soon. Some have reporting watching two hour movies on the NX using two 128M memory sticks after converting them to the appropriate size/format. For my purposes, I'd be ok with a relatively short playing time if the conversion process were shorter, cheaper, and able to be automated. I'd just setup DVArchive to suck certain shows down from the Replay, have my computer process them for PDA use, and transfer them over to a SD or MS reader.. Just pick up todays News/Today Show/Screensavers episode/etc and go. That'd be my dream.


I'm very tempted to buy one and try to figure it out, but it's a bit spendy for something I don't really need. I'm already frustrated enough trying to manipulate the MPEGs I pull from the Replay with DVArchive as I can't bring myself to buy Womble. :-/ The technology is pretty much here, but the software/packaging looks like it might take a little longer.. Ugh..


Daniel

 

[Ed Rempalski]

Wish I could help with Palms. Didn't think they would have enough horsepower to pull this off very well, (PocketPC's running the PocketTV app, can use all avail memory to buffer\\play IBM Microdrives to give excellent runtimes on battery since the drive can run intermittent).


Maybe the newer PALM's can deal with MPEG-1? If so, then it's pretty easy to offload Replay shows to a PC and batch transcode them for palmtops.


I use iPAQ's with great results. I tried windows media encoder to transcode Replay files to .wmv's with OK results (30min show is about 45Meg). I now use "PocketTV" and do my transcoding to MPEG1 using TMPGEnc with better results (full screen landscape playback with very good Audio and over 15FPS Video) and slightly larger files (30min show is now around 50meg). Thats like 10 hours of Video on a 1GIG Microdrive.

 

[dbonds]

I don't think they could until recently. As of the latest PalmOS version 5 devices(currently only Sony NX series and Palm Tungsten models), they're now using a more substantial processor line and have more of the bells and whistles like better screens, real multimedia (MP3s, video), etc...


I believe Kinoma will take MPEG-1 and convert that, although I'm not sure if it will play it natively off the external memory source. I believe the player Sony's bundling with their devices will play MPEG-4 natively, but I'm not sure what else.


BTW, I forgot to mention earlier, but the Sony NX series also has a Type 2 CF. Unfortunately, Sony only delivered their 802.11b driver and the drivers to use memory cards in that slot currently don't exist, but I think that's just a matter of time. Could be another option for the storage problem.


I keep swaying back and forth between biting the bullet and upgrading my PDA, waiting so I can spend the same amount of money on a more polished one trick pony (the SonicBlue/Intel player), or buying a cheaper Archos Multimedia Jukebox now that has lots of compelling features (and a lot of the same media conversion problems). I'll probably just sit and wait.. Maybe Santa will make the call for me.. ;-)


Daniel

 

[Tiyuri]

Ed,

What exactly do you do with tmpgenc? I just d/l'd it and when I try to use an mpeg pulled by DVA it tells me it can't handle it.


Thanks

 

[Crunchy Doodle]

I have the original Sony PEG-NR70V/U "Personal Entertainment Organizer". I carry around several videos of my own production on the 128 MB Memory Stick. A 7 minute 30 second video is 19.1 MB. On this Clié, the resolution is 160x120, which gets enhanced to 320x240 in the video hardware. The frame rate is lower than standard, but is quite watchable. Most people are in awe when they watch one of my gems on this small, but bright sharp screen. And the sound isn't half bad either.


The included PC video software for the NR70V can take most any video file and transcode it for the Clié easily. I generally produce my videos with Avid Xpress DV in standard DVD quality ( that's what I do for a living ) and the Sony software takes care of putting on the Clié.


My son just got the NX70 with the faster ARM processor. So far, he hasn't had much luck with videos as the software support for the newer hardware sucks.


Bye.

 

[Wasatch Rider]

Ed,


Will PocketTV run on any PDA running PocketPC? What screen size are we talking about?

 

[Ed Rempalski]

I take medium quality Replay 4000 mpegs, generally use Womble to clip out the commercials, then use TMPGEnc to transcode to MPEG1.


I don't have any trouble using the Replay MPEGS


The TMPGenc settings I use for best iPAQ viewing are as follows;


VIDEO

Size - 320 x 240 MPEG1 (That's Full Screen in Landscape Mode on the iPAQ)

Aspect - VGA 1:1

Frame Rate - 29.97

rate - Constant

Bitrate - 300KBPS


AUDIO

Sampling - 44100Hz

Mode - Stereo

Bitrate - 64KBPS

Advanced>Audio Edit>Change Volume +200% (gives the audio a boost)


PocketTV works with lots of Palmtops, PocketPC and earlier models. Search Hangango for PocketTV. The PocketTV site has lots of good info on how to make video for your palmtop. That's where I got my start. I have also ripped a few of my DVD's to take on a flight with me. I got 3 movies on the Microdrive. They played great, and the audio was excellent!


Besides being optimized for Microdrives, they also work with the xScale processors as well. The "Nav" button on the PocketPC can be assigned to transport functions (I use right for FF, Left for Play/Pause, Up for Bright, DN for Dim, push for Landscape Display) I just wish that they could add 30QS and 7Sec Replay options to the player. Overall it's a great piece of software.

 

[st63z]

Heh, I think Jeff Lew's Killer Bean 2 had been the most effective PocketTV demo for me to wow friends into buying PPCs . A classic...


And did my eyes deceive me, or did I see something on SCI FI about a new animated series based on Tripping the Rift?

 

[Wasatch Rider]

How did you rip DVDs? Did you first record them on the Replay and then TMPGEnc them?

 

[Tiyuri]

ahh, I was hoping to avoid Womble ($250?!). Oh well. Thx.

 

[whoopus]

Okay, here is the question of the century. If we could get video lan ported to PocketPC (It is already ported to the iPAQ Familiar Linux), could we stream video from ReplayTV to the iPAQ or other PocketPC? That would be really cool!!! Currently I can stream .wma and .wmv files, but this would be the ultimate PDA experience/showoff! I am almost willing to put Familiar Linux on my iPAQ 3970 to give this a try. All we would need then would be the command lines necessary to mimic what DVArchive does to kick off VideoLan. Anyway....Just a thought!


Mark

 

[Ed Rempalski]

I ripped my DVD's with Smartripper, then used DVD2AVI, both free if I remember, then TMPGEnc to MPEG1.


Womble isn't mandatory but it is soooo fast and clean, a very solid and usefull product. It has the ability to even do the transcode to MPEG1 but I tried several times with bad results to get a useable output for the iPAQ. So I just went back to using TMPGEnc till I can spend some time trouble shooting.


I tried VideoLAN with my Notebook with the hopes of streaming Replay video anywhere around the house but it chokes with 80211b's bandwidth and I'm not ready to retrofit the house to 80211a just yet...


But I agree, to stream from any Replay in the house to a palmtop would be UberCool!


OT - but I also tried playing with Sony's new MicroMV camcorders (IP55), and after spending a fair amount of time found that these MPEG2 format camcorders do not really export useable MPEG2 files. The Cam went back for refund and I went back to DV. I'm not too happy with Sony's support, they were clueless about MicroMV.

 

[jmaver]

I did this on my NR70V when Kinoma first came out. One episode of Futurama took about 70 MB on my mem stick. The sound was off, but that was before they fixed stuff in kinoma 1.5. I haven't done it since, and I can'

t remember what I did at the time. I will take another look at it sometime, if I get a chance.

Quote:

Originally posted by Replayer (I don't know if this has been discussed before. Couldn't find it through a search) Speaking of Replay's unusual Mpegs... I want to take some shows in my PC (thanks to DVarchive) and convert them to play them on my Palm OS device. There is some excellent converting (KinomaProducer) and playing (KinomaPlayer) software for Palm, called Kinoma ( www.Kinoma.com ) that converts mpegs to a good size and format for Palm devices. I tried to convert a show and it said I couldn't. Probably due to Replay Mpegs being slightly different then normal ones. I am wondering if any of you Sony Clie owners out there have been able to convert Replay show files to your Palm OS. With Kinoma or something else. I REALLY want to do this, so please lend a hand.

 

[Markito]

Thanks everyone.

jmaver, I would really appeciate it if you would look into it. MB size doesn't matter to me too much, as I have several 256MB SD cards.

ED, I may pick your brain soon too. Thanks guys, I REALLY want to get this to work.

 

[dannyp]

BUMP


i grabbed a standard replay file from my 5040 with dvarchive and imported it in to kinoma producer on mac os x.

it converted the video portion but not the audio.


Id like to use my mac to do this but i also have a pc networked, so whichever has the least amount of steps to get the vids on to my tungsten is the way to go for me


too bad there is no mpeg4 player for palm.

these new ones certainily have the horsepower to play it as the kinoma player plays my test clip at 212fps


Any one have success?

 

[dannyp]

anyone have info?