Gp2x Up To Snuff As A Media Player?

[yaustar]

Alex is probably getting confused with the MP4 container format.

 

[DaveC]

I am looking for a pmp and was wondering what your experiences where with the GP2X (also looking at the PSP) and was wondering what peoples experiences where. I am interested in doing the following:

-Viewing e-books (including PDF)
-Using it as a portable comic viewer
-Watching Videos on it including Video Podcasts

The reason I am leaning toward this device and not a harddrive PMP is I want to limit myself to around $200.

You may want to just get a cheap used PDA. There are pleny of good ones that do what you want for cheap. You can even get a zodiac or PPC cheap since gaming doesn't seem to be what you are looking for from your post. Those are better than the GP2X for the apps that you mentioned because of the higher resolutions and PDA apps that you seem to need are abundant on those. Of course the GP2X is great for emus and homebrew games it you are into that.

 

[dennis20014]

If you haven't figured out already, the gp2x is really a great choice for a pmp. Not to say there isn't some faults. As an Ereader, you can read books and stuff perfectly, for most part, I think you have to change some inches on it (like in wordpad) to make it fit correctly. I've looked at PDF files on it and it does work, but not too great, it's in it's early stages.
The built in picture viewer, is really nice now since they've updated it (a bit back). You can zoom in and out, fit it to the full screen, or even do it so were you look from left to right. And video support is the best. It would be nice if it supported WMV, but you get divx,and xvid, far better codecs in my opinoin, and you get to use AVI files =D

I don't own a psp, I have a few friends who do, and everytime I'm over it's just collected more dust. Putting video's on it is the stupidest thing, like someone mentioned earlier you have to name it a certain way, and you still don't get to use the full ratio of the screen. The battery life just requires you to buy more, and by now you've spent $100-200 more than you have for the gp2x (w/ SD even, you can get a 1GB sandisk for $40 on newegg)

But you may just want to get a PDA like dave was saying. The ereader and pdf is in it's early stages, and if that's what your doin the most, I wouldn't recommend this baby. It is nice for homebrew and emulation (like nes, snes etc. if you didn't know ) lol ok I'm done reviewin, you decide

 

[DaveN]

You may want to just get a cheap used PDA. There are pleny of good ones that do what you want for cheap. You can even get a zodiac or PPC cheap since gaming doesn't seem to be what you are looking for from your post. Those are better than the GP2X for the apps that you mentioned because of the higher resolutions and PDA apps that you seem to need are abundant on those. Of course the GP2X is great for emus and homebrew games it you are into that.

DaveC's right. A PDA will be a better choice if you're going just for the things you wrote above. If you'd like to play games you'll have to decide what's more important. A good eReader, Picture viewer and more compatible movie player or the ability to play thousands of games ( using emulators ) on the go.

 

[Alex.]

Alex is probably getting confused with the MP4 container format.

Touche. I assume that the majority of MPEG4 movies available are encoded with commercial codecs, not DivX or Xvid. The video player of the GP2X is solid though, and like others said, the resume movie feature is very handy

- Alex

 

[jmetal88]

One thing that pisses me off is the continued advertisement for MPEG4 support. There is no MPEG4 support as of yet. The box says it plays MPEG4 and WMV - all lies, they have a great product no doubt, but that doesn't mean they're not sneaky merchants.

- Alex

WMV, it doesn't play, but DivX/XviD is MPEG-4.

However, they are still planning to introduce WMV in the future, so don't look at it as a lie, look at it as wishful advertising!

 

[Alex.]

One thing that pisses me off is the continued advertisement for MPEG4 support. There is no MPEG4 support as of yet. The box says it plays MPEG4 and WMV - all lies, they have a great product no doubt, but that doesn't mean they're not sneaky merchants.

- Alex

WMV, it doesn't play, but DivX/XviD is MPEG-4.

However, they are still planning to introduce WMV in the future, so don't look at it as a lie, look at it as wishful advertising!

So be it I wish their wish will come true then

- Alex

 

[Shikaku]

One thing that pisses me off is the continued advertisement for MPEG4 support. There is no MPEG4 support as of yet. The box says it plays MPEG4 and WMV - all lies, they have a great product no doubt, but that doesn't mean they're not sneaky merchants.

- Alex

WMV, it doesn't play, but DivX/XviD is MPEG-4.

However, they are still planning to introduce WMV in the future, so don't look at it as a lie, look at it as wishful advertising!

So be it I wish their wish will come true then

- Alex

Or just wishful hoping for us to make a good port of it =/

 

[sparr]

I'd wish gph would add zip support, it's such a hassle to unzip all the zips..EVERY time..

why not just unzip them once? you arent getting any space savings by putting jpeg files inside zip archives.

 

[Alex.]

Nevermind.

 

[tshroom]

About the comics.. I think someone should port CDisplay to the GP2x. It is a great program that is used for viewing comics on the PC. A great deal of comics are made in this format. Or does the 2x already support CDisplay files?

No, but CDisplay files are just renamed zip files full of jpgs.

Just rename your .cbz back to .zip, then unpack it to a folder on your SD and it will be much the same (in the viewer's comic mode).

Wow.. that seems like a great idea. Why didn't I think of it.

 

[ste_167]

However, they are still planning to introduce WMV in the future, so don't look at it as a lie, look at it as wishful advertising!

I thought the latest was that they'd looked into WMV but Microsoft would demand individual licences which would push the cost of the gp2x up, so it doesn't look to be happening. GPH wouldn't want to push the price up as at the moment that is a selling point. Bearing in mind, many won't be bothered about WMV, many won't know what WMV is, and many probably think it has it already.