movie quality?


thedon

Still Fresh
Joined
Apr 21, 2003
Messages
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do u guys think that it is worth it to buy the gp32 if i'm mainly going to use it for the mp3 and divx player? i was actually gonna buy a pocket pc for the same reason until i stumbled upon this device. the gp32 battery life is like 4 times better, it comes with stereo speakers and uses sm cards which i already have but the cpu speed is quite abit slower. so do guys think its worth it? seeing as how i can't test it out ure opinion is much appreciated. oh i forgot to add that they are both about the same price.
 
Well... I own both - lets put it like this....

Firstly, The battery life is DEFINITELY better on the GP32. The battery life on a PPC when doing intensive stuff like MP3 or movie playing is terrible. Secondly, getting DivX to work well on a PPC has been a nighmare for me. It works, but judders like hell and is really inconsistant, whereas moviepark generally6 plays the vids really well (if only at 10fps).

To be honest, in my experience, using a PPC as a portable media player is much more problematic than using the GP32 for the same. The PocketPC2002 operating system has way too many overheads to be a successful media player, whereas the GP32 can concentrate on that task and that task alone, so is much better at it.

What it boils down to... The GP32 is much better as a portable media player, but if the organizer/document viewing features of the PPC are more important to you, then go for one of those. I myself think you are more of a GP32 man (sorry.. making assumptions about your gender from your nick - forgive me if I'm wrong :) ).

Hope that helps.

Cheerz
 
Axemans right, Gp32 is the correct choice for DIVX and movie playing. I have 2 128MB cards just for movies. I believe I have the Matrix on one and Chicago the movie on another. It works excellent. I watch movie and vdeio clips on my lunch break from work and in my free time.
 
sorry to change the subject a little, but TJFBryant, did you say you had the matrix on one of the cards? I cant remember where i read it but i got the impression that "The matrix is mostly a blur" when compressed and played under 10fps. Is the quality actually any good for special effects intensive films like the matrix/LotR?
 
cool thanks, i was i little worried that 10fps seemed a little low to watch videos well, but from the sound of it, it doesn't seem to be a problem right? oh and axeman, when u try watching videos on your pockect pc what fps rate is it at and is there any noticable quality differences when you do get the video to work?
 
Movie quality is great, don't worry about that. The only concern is that its awkward to get a decent framerate (and therefore looks more juttery) with PAL movies (at 25fps) as opposed to NTSC ones (at 30fps). Just try and use 30fps movie files and there's no juttyness... 20fps is good too; and 25 isn't too bad (ends up ~7fps) - but try decimating something that's already been put down to 15 fps... or 12.5 even :p - its hard to make it look good. But usually its fine.

BTW: The thing about the matrix being a blur is ONLY if you;re trying for big-time compression - i.e. 2 or 3 movies to an SMC and a few games on top of that. If you're encoding with good quality settings, then the movie might end up looking a bit grainy on the PC (not noticeable on the GP32), but it'll be fine. If you try for a better compression ratio, its possible to get a 3 hour movie down to 85 megs with a bit of work, and very little quality loss (i.e. Harry Potter 2, in my case), but an action film doesn't compress as well (needs more key-frames, lower and closer quantizer values etc or it just looks well... bad)
 
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