Several Questions...


Tupin

Still Fresh
Joined
May 31, 2010
Messages
4
First, if I were to order one later this month or in early October, when would I get it? Secondly, can it do 1080p video?
 
I wouldn't call two several, but okay.

To answer the first question: no one can say for certain. The official answer would probably be around Christmas. That's for ordering now, I don't know about early October. More realistically, I'd say more like within the first few months of 2011.

For the second question, I'm pretty sure the short answer is no. Until there's support for the DSP core in kernel, I don't think even 720p is really possible. Even then I think 1080p would be pushing it, although I can't really see the point on a 800x480 screen anyway. On the other hand, I may have no idea what I'm talking about here, so someone who does can feel free to correct me.
 
I don't understand the preoccupation with 1080p video on a 800 x 480 handheld device that has just standard definition video outputs. Why not just resize the video?
 
I've got no interest in HD video or anything like that, but I'm guessing that it's probably a great deal more convenient to not have to resize it, and just let the hardware handle it if it can do so. :p
 
cbox said:
I don't understand the preoccupation with 1080p video on a 800 x 480 handheld device that has just standard definition video outputs. Why not just resize the video?
Takes time.
 
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Tupin said:
can it do 1080p video?
Let's be absolutely clear here, It's certainly can't display 1080 lines on a screen that's only 480 lines tall.
 
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were forgetting tv out here people...its not about watching 1080 or 720 on pandora, its the use of tv out where we want to be able to have 1080 h264 encoded video on the go and just hook up to any tv and watch in amazing quality, i would be more then happy with 720 though, which i think is already possible?
 
DaMummy said:
were forgetting tv out here people...its not about watching 1080 or 720 on pandora, its the use of tv out where we want to be able to have 1080 h264 encoded video on the go and just hook up to any tv and watch in amazing quality, i would be more then happy with 720 though, which i think is already possible?
The TV-out cable uses S-Video and composite. Can those even be used with videos of those resolutions?
 
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Alerino said:
DaMummy said:
i would be more then happy with 720 though, which i think is already possible?

unfortunately not

all videos > 480p are barely watchable, even at 1ghz
Are we waiting for some hardware acceleration to make playing vids a little easier for the Pandora?

H264 takes a lot of CPU to decode.
 
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With a newer linux kernel and hardware acceleration 720p should be possible.

As already said, forget about 1080p. Outputting any HD resolution is not possible either, the screen only goes to 800*480 and the S-video out can only output SD resolution.
 
Don't forget there are different codecs here. And even h264 has different profiles.
I think there have been demonstrations of the hardware handling 1080p encoded with h264 baseline profile.
But most sources of 1080p video are almost certainly encoded with high profile, and I doubt that's ever going to play.
I'm not sure about 1080p ASP (XviD), but again there are few sources.
 
Considering the last 720p file I played was 4.3GB Mkv, I would still convert it before using it on my Panda. While I do like the idea of just throwing it on for convenience, sometimes the files are just plain too big. I can only imagine what size a 1080p version of said movie would take space-wise. I'd rather re-encode it and make it look razor sharp at about 700MB or even less. Then I can make a few discs up with my favorite movies already prepared for mobile watching. Actually I have resisted messing with 720p content for this reason, except for my actual PC, nothing I have could handle it. So all of my stuff is already sized for DVD player/mobile viewing on the Pandora anyway. For example, I have a 1h 40min movie in Mp4 (H.264 480x204) that looks great and is only 386MB. When sized on my laptop screen to approximate the Pandora screen size, it looks like a DVD. Now that's what I like! Forget loading 4.3GB for 1 movie!

(Prometheus, I think I have found my format of choice with this movie encode as long as H.264 at this size will play OK. AAC audio too and total bitrate for all of it is around 500Kbps. Looks a bit soft when expanded to 15" laptop fullscreen but at Pandora screen size it's crisp, clear, and no noticeable artifacting)
Actually, as much as I like this, I think I might stick with Divx. Only because Virtualdub gives so much control when editing and resizing etc. I have not found a good Virtualdub style tool for mp4. But this movie even at 384Kbps video in H.264 does look rather sweet. Side effect is I can rip everything and have a DVD player compatible Divx as well. I'll do some more testing over time and see what looks best on Pandora before I decide which way I will go for sure. I do want to have certain movies I have on DVD to be permanently ready to toss on the card and go. Just something I do when I get a new video capable device.

Screen cap of encoded movie (I think we determined this was allowed) remember that a single frame will usually show more issues than the moving video and I think this looks pretty darn good. It would be hard for me to not want all my movies ripped this way, and 386 MB for 1h 40min , just too good!
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Edit: I am also reading the s-video wiki which states "S-Video carries standard definition video (typically at 480i or 576i resolution)"
So you couldn't output 720p no matter what you tired to do. However one can argue that 720p content will look better than say 480p content this way. But only actually comparing two truly 480p and 720p samples against each other on a specific TV type (CRT,LCD) would say for sure. In nearly every case I would say if it's encoded well at SD resolutions it will look fine on a TV and 720p will be overkill.
 
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