Gp2x As Mp3+video Player?

[quadomatic]

Anyone have anything to say about using GP2X as an MP3 and Video player?

I'm looking into either getting a Creative Zen Vision: M or a GP2X. It's a hard choice, but I'm leaning towards GP2X simply because of emulation, and also because I love homebrew.

So, what are people's experiences on using GP2X as an MP3 player and a Video/Movie player? Is the sound quality good for MP3s? How is video quality on MK1 and MK2?

 

[Yrx]

Dude, you've made like a million different posts. Just get it all out at once.

Mp3 and video are both really good in my experience, although for some reason my audio was getting unsynced on one batch of my files.

 

[sehs33]

It is "good" for both MP3 and videos, but don't be greedy, if this is your main need and you will be using it alot, buy a Zen vision, the GP2X can't beat it in battery life, storage space, and in portability.
Of course if you have extra bucks, buy both

 

[Melville]

Music playback is good from .mp3 and .ogg formats. The built-in player is a bit limited, but there are freeware programs -- e.g. CraigAmp -- which will handle lpaylists, albums, shuffling etc. with no problems.

Video playback is limited to XVid and DivX in .avi containers; most downloaded video files will already be in one of these formats. It can handle a range of different resolutions thanks to a dedicated video scaling chip, so for the most part you can just drop a film onto your SD card and the 2X will play it just fine. For full length movies it's usually worth using your PC to resize the movie first, to take less storage space and eat less of the 2X's battery. The re-sizing step is very simple, although a bit slow on old computers; my 4 years old computer takes about 40 min to resize a 1 hour film. The 2X's video interface is very simple and works well. I've only ever seen my unit so I can't speak for all, but I find that the contrast and colour depth are great, and the movies look sharp and well focused on the screen.

The TV-out works well for me, handy if you want to watch downloaded TV eps --or play music-- through a real TV.

However, as Sehs33 said: The battery life and storage won't compare to a Zen media player unless you're able to carry spare AA batteries and SD cards around with you. So I guess you need to prioritise portability against screen size and the GP2X's other functions.

 

[coldfish]

The nice thing about the GP2X is if you dont like the default/built-in media apps there's probably at least one homebrew alternative...

...oh and the homebrew, emulators, demos ect!

 

[hal9000]

Anyone have anything to say about using GP2X as an MP3 and Video player?

Considering the price of a MP3/OGG player that weights 10 times less, boot 10 times faster and has a way higher battery life, using GP2X as music player makes no sense to me.

For the video, I can just say that it works fine, I can't compare as I have never had any other portable video player in my hands.

 

[DBH]

Anyone have anything to say about using GP2X as an MP3 and Video player?

Considering the price of a MP3/OGG player that weights 10 times less, boot 10 times faster and has a way higher battery life, using GP2X as music player makes no sense to me.

For the video, I can just say that it works fine, I can't compare as I have never had any other portable video player in my hands.


I like ommpc2x so that makes sense to me

 

[mr.miyagi]

Before i bought a gp2x i was looking after a good mp3 player and i choosed an gp2x over the rest(ipod, zen...) the reason was bcause it use normal AA batteries.
I will never regret my choise, its a great mp3 player.
but its quite big if you only want it as an mp3 player.....but i dont care.

 

[nubie]

There is a new $40 Creative player the size of the new iPod Shuffle I think, it might be best to pick up one of those for MP3's and then the GP2X for the videos.

The reason is that music should just work, and fast, you don't want to boot a Linux embedded computer just to play an MP3, for video I don't know, it will only play Divx/Xvid and has trouble with B-Frames, since most Cough*torrents are fine it all depends on what you watch.

IMHO GPH should have given the option of the full media pack with Mpeg2 and WMV etc, since the license costs $35 they should offer the playback pack for $50 (development would likely be too expensive though because you are dealing with M$, and having a media pack out there kind of makes it obvious that your player can't play it all, and that might hurt sales.)

 

[rokdcasbah]

if you are going to be playing music on it a lot, i'd say get a hdd player with a rechargeable battery. then you can put all your music on it and not have to charge it more than once a week. and it will fit in a cupholder. also the buttons will be more accessible.

video is a tougher call since the players geared towards video are a lot more expensive, and typically newer, whereas there are great "last-gen" mp3 players floating around like the cowon x5 and iriver h120. if you get something supported by rockbox you will have huge flexibility in terms of playlists, database, etc.

if you only have the budget for one device (although in that case you should consider what nubie is saying about the sub-$100 mp3 players, they are still good) and gaming is your first priority, then you won't be disappointed with the gp2x.

 

[Fishbong]

...although for some reason my audio was getting unsynced on one batch of my files.

This is one weakness of the gp2x´s videoplayer. If a .avi container has an audiostream with variable bitrate, then the audio will be out of sync. Lots of devices have this problem though, people should just stop encoding their audiostreams with variable bitrates.

 

[Mostly Harmless]

I own both, I had my Zen first and used to use it for video as well as music but since I got my 2X I use that instead as the screen size is better and there is generaly less faffing around to do to get it to play DivX and Xvid compared to the Zen. As for music, I don't use my 2X for it at all as it's too clunky to fit in my pocket and I am too limited as to how much music I can fit on an SD card (along with all my other stuff). I can carry my complete music collection around on the Zen.