Bit Of A Last Minute Letdown (news)

[polooo2]

http://www.gpzigi.com/zboard/zboard.php?id...onboard&no=1449



1. AC3 filter codec not 'officially' supported as Dolby is asking for about 25~35 bucks PER UNIT for its license.
GPH didn't think it'd cost that much so now they're dropping AC3 filter at the last minute, but might be adding this codec by default on it's next version of 2X.

2. WMV(7,8,9), WMA not supported at the launch. MS based codecs are not working too well under linux environment, so they say. But they are still working on this issue and they know of a company who has solved this problem so they might be working togather for this.

3. Final hardwares will come out after the 28th of september. Once it is out, they'll be sending out units to magazines for review and also they'll take more photos and videos of it running stuff in-house as well.

4. Preorder date in Korea has moved from Oct 1st to Oct 4th.



:angry:

 

[Jarska333]

But that leaves it open for, ahem, unofficial AC3?

 

[Vimacs]

most likely

 

[Sonic-NKT]

nothing im afraid of.. i dont think i will ever really use AC3 that much on this thing. And WMV is a format i dont like either

 

[mattyrb]

http://www.gpzigi.com/zboard/zboard.php?id...onboard&no=1449



1. AC3 filter codec not 'officially' supported as Dolby is asking for about 25~35 bucks PER UNIT for its license.
GPH didn't think it'd cost that much so now they're dropping AC3 filter at the last minute, but might be adding this codec by default on it's next version of 2X.

2. WMV(7,8,9), WMA not supported at the launch. MS based codecs are not working too well under linux environment, so they say. But they are still working on this issue and they know of a company who has solved this problem so they might be working togather for this.

3. Final hardwares will come out after the 28th of september. Once it is out, they'll be sending out units to magazines for review and also they'll take more photos and videos of it running stuff in-house as well.

4. Preorder date in Korea has moved from Oct 1st to Oct 4th.



:angry:

​

I was more interested by comment about the next version of 2X.....than the codec related details

 

[Qingdan]

nothing im afraid of.. i dont think i will ever really use AC3 that much on this thing. And WMV is a format i dont like either

​

Yeah, agree on that .... What's the point about AC3 soundtrack on a handheld with not that good speakers anyway ? AC3 might be useful in a HomeTheatre design thinggie, but on a handheld ?

Plus usually AC3 soundtrack for videos are huge, so why putting so many bits for the soundtrack if you can't really hear the improvment of quality .

I would prefer to save space on my memory card and not use AC3 anyway , so that's not thaaaaaaat bad I guess !

 

[Julius]

Ahh, ok the original topic on the frontpage frightend me a bit. But this really doesn't matter at all.

Who needs that crap wmv format anyways.

Besides, is someone ports the VLC player, it will be 'unofficially' supported too.

 

[OrR]

GPH, if you are listening, please never pay for any codec support!

 

[loki666]

Ahh, ok the original topic on the frontpage frightend me a bit. But this really doesn't matter at all.

Who needs that crap wmv format anyways.

Besides, is someone ports the VLC player, it will be 'unofficially' supported too.

​

mmmh... not sure of this.
VLC is using an emulation/wrapper layer to decode WMV files (you need .dll from windows on your linux box)
this is possible because .dll are x86 files, but I'm pretty sure it wont works for an ARM system whithout adding a complete x86 opcode emulator.

 

[Shadowlord]

That's strange... they always say 'we will try to add feature xx on the next version of gp2x'. But they also say that they have no plans for the successor of the gp2x...
I really hope there won't be an improved version of the gp2x in the near future.

What about point 4? 'Preorder date in Korea has moved from Oct 1st to Oct 4th.'
- Well, is this some kind of... release date? They always said mid to end of October for preorder in America and Europe.
FAQ says 'Late October - Early November'.
I thought, GBAX will get the first batch, so does that mean that we'll get our gp2x really SOON?

 

[timeslip]

Ahh, ok the original topic on the frontpage frightend me a bit. But this really doesn't matter at all.

Who needs that crap wmv format anyways.

Besides, is someone ports the VLC player, it will be 'unofficially' supported too.

​

It does however mean that if u get movies from a ,umm less than legal source since most are ripped from dvd with ac3 sound then you are going to have to recode the original file. So so much for easy movie play then....

Of course im sure everyone here wouldnt resort to illegal practices like that anyway so im sure u`ll all be fine

 

[Julius]

mmmh... not sure of this.
VLC is using an emulation/wrapper layer to decode WMV files (you need .dll from windows on your linux box)
this is possible because .dll are x86 files, but I'm pretty sure it wont works for an ARM system whithout adding a complete x86 opcode emulator.

​

Yes and No

A quick look at the VLC homepage says that wmv1/2 is supported on ARM, while WMV3 isn't (but also not under Linux on an x86 PC).

WMA is also supported on ARM also btw

Oh and I haven't seen much movies with AC3 sound on illegal places

 

[furikuri]

The problem I have is that most of the anime I have uses ac3 audio. So I guess I will have to re-encode all of the audio. I was hoping that I could just throw the files on and play them without moddification. Ohh well...

 

[mattyrb]

The problem I have is that most of the anime I have uses ac3 audio. So I guess I will have to re-encode all of the audio. I was hoping that I could just throw the files on and play them without moddification. Ohh well...

​

It's that or you pay more for the unit...i know which i'd prefer

 

[Julius]

or wait for the unofficial patch

 

[mattyrb]

or wait for the unofficial patch

​

mmmm not sure gamepark really want that to happen.....that would cause bad press

 

[DJWillis]

Nothing to get worried about here...

AC3 is a codec that has a maddening cost attached so I am not surprised GPH don’t want to/can’t afford to carry it. I am not going to cry over that one, we only have the 2 speakers or headphones anyway and some nice AC97/I2C stuff on the chip to play with .

WMV and WMA support. Well if you want to sell a device that supports WMV and WMA out of the box you would need an MS commercial use licence (for the patents, if not the source used), just like you really need a licence for commercial use of the MP3 formats ‘patent’ even if you use an open source decoder such as MAD. There is nothing to stop the community adding WMV and/or WMA support in very short order using some of the integer only reverse engineered codecs that are available in many open source projects as these would not be for GPH’s direct commercial gain .

Technical problems aside (and I suspect this is more licence then technical IMHO) this issue is really no different from the fact that say Ubuntu and SuSE’s Linux distributions come with a very limited set of codecs on the media but there freely available to download from 3rd party projects after you install. Again, no gain for Ubuntu or SuSE as a commercial entity.

 

[garteth]

Is this codec support something to do with the firmware of the gp2x, the hardware or is it just codec software as part of the operating system?

ie can support be added later if need be.

 

[DJWillis]

Is this codec support something to do with the firmware of the gp2x, the hardware or is it just codec software as part of the operating system?

​

Software/firmware all the way, the hardware in the GP2X can assist in certain encoding and decoding tasks if you write your codec to support its way of working.

You could optimise say an MPEG4 decoder for the GP2X by using the various features available in the hardware but your still writing a piece of software.

 

[garteth]

So if they do release a future gp2x with this type of support do you think it will be just a matter of a software or firmware upgrade for existing gp2x owners?