The power of the Pandora?

[NovemberJoy]

For those of you who have one, how strong would you say the Pandora is at both emulation stuff and mobile PC tasks? Is there any video editing software that would run on it at an acceptable speed, and how well does it handle anything else you might want to do on it?

 

[levi]

It's pretty bloody incredible for emulation. I could emulate most of the 8-bit home computers, all of the 16-bit ones, all of the major consoles between the Intelivision/Atari VCS and the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo DS. In terms of mobile PC tasks, I edited documents on it, and browsed the web, but I'd say video editing is not its strong suit. With only a 480p screen, you'd have a hard time checking how everything looked on a PC screen for starters.

 

[NovemberJoy]

It's pretty bloody incredible for emulation. I could emulate most of the 8-bit home computers, all of the 16-bit ones, all of the major consoles between the Intelivision/Atari VCS and the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo DS. In terms of mobile PC tasks, I edited documents on it, and browsed the web, but I'd say video editing is not its strong suit. With only a 480p screen, you'd have a hard time checking how everything looked on a PC screen for starters.

Part of my plan was editing low-resolution stuff, so the screen resolution wouldn't be an issue. Is it a difficult task to add software outside of the Pandora repository? If so, that might kill any plans of editing on it. Good to hear it's a better emulation machine than the PSP, though.

 

[matzesu]

I use my CC Pandora (256mb Ram 600 mhz +) mostly for PSX and DS Emulation, but i also dit some Text Editing on a Bee Ceeper Convention and i worked on a Exel Document (for record our work time) at a booring family party.., but also made some older Computer Emulation like C64 and Amiga (there is a cool Amiga Version of a Giana Sisters Homebrew Version whit sprites from the DS Version..)..
Ditnt use it much for WEB these days, as the newer Wep Pages are full of Popups and Multi Media Comercials where the CC Pandora is a bit too slow..
But when i had just a "Dumpphone" (Sony W850i), i used my Pandora lot for Surfing the Internet at MC Donalds..

Some of the PSX Games and some of the DS Games ditnt work whit the Pandora (or whit mine) like Formula 1 2001, Final Fantasy 8 (maybe a Copyprotection Issue), and GTA Chinatown Wars and some of the DS Games that need the Microphone

 

[levi]

Part of my plan was editing low-resolution stuff, so the screen resolution wouldn't be an issue. Is it a difficult task to add software outside of the Pandora repository? If so, that might kill any plans of editing on it.

In general, it can be relatively involved, which is why we have the repo so that when developers have done it once they can publish their binaries and we can all use them. The only video editing tool I can find is this mpeg tool which is a bit limited in these days of vp9 and theora codecs.

If you can find the source for something, you can compile a hell of a lot using code::blocks (or there are ways to cross compile), but these all depend on having the source to whatever you're wanting to run. You might also be able to nick some debian softfp binaries that should work too, I assume, but I don't know what would fit in 512MB of RAM to be honest. I personally think if you want to do video editing, you need a Pyra or a laptop. On my server where I generally transcode videos I've downloaded for smaller screened devices, I upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 4GB just for that, so even using ffmpeg on the command line I expect to be fairly painful.

 

[ingoreis]

Just see the Videos on my Youtube Account.
They are nearly all from Pandoras and you can see what tha Pandora can do

They are all recorded from Pandoras(exept newest one with the XperiaPlay)

https://www.youtube.com/user/reisingo/videos?view=0

 

[NovemberJoy]

In general, it can be relatively involved, which is why we have the repo so that when developers have done it once they can publish their binaries and we can all use them. The only video editing tool I can find is this mpeg tool which is a bit limited in these days of vp9 and theora codecs.

If you can find the source for something, you can compile a hell of a lot using code::blocks (or there are ways to cross compile), but these all depend on having the source to whatever you're wanting to run. You might also be able to nick some debian softfp binaries that should work too, I assume, but I don't know what would fit in 512MB of RAM to be honest. I personally think if you want to do video editing, you need a Pyra or a laptop. On my server where I generally transcode videos I've downloaded for smaller screened devices, I upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 4GB just for that, so even using ffmpeg on the command line I expect to be fairly painful.

If that MPEG video editor can do anything beyond stringing clips together, I think I could find a use for it...otherwise, I'd have to check old 32-bit video editors and see if anything can work well with the Pandora's anemic RAM supply. I was interested because I've done some video editing on the GPD Win 1 and 2 and was wondering if it could be done on the Pandora with its full-size SD slots and 10-hour battery life. Thanks for the help.

Just see the Videos on my Youtube Account.
They are nearly all from Pandoras and you can see what tha Pandora can do

They are all recorded from Pandoras(exept newest one with the XperiaPlay)

https://www.youtube.com/user/reisingo/videos?view=0

Thanks for the links. I think I've seen your stuff before, and it paints a pretty good picture of what the Pandora's capable of.

 

[levi]

If that MPEG video editor can do anything beyond stringing clips together, I think I could find a use for it...

Given it's designed to edit clips without reencoding them, I suspect that precludes anything like fades to black and up, just allowing direct cuts, and maybe L cuts if I'm being generous. Basically, you can do anything you can do with ffmpeg from the command line using -c:a copy and c:v copy, but any other options involve transcoding and this app is not designed to do that.

 

[NovemberJoy]

Given it's designed to edit clips without reencoding them, I suspect that precludes anything like fades to black and up, just allowing direct cuts, and maybe L cuts if I'm being generous. Basically, you can do anything you can do with ffmpeg from the command line using -c:a copy and c:v copy, but any other options involve transcoding and this app is not designed to do that.

I see...I guess the best thing I could do is just test and see if I can find anything if I do end up getting one. There are minimum specs (presumably for older versions) listed on Wikipedia for several video editors that the Pandora can easily clear, and that gives me a little bit of hope that I could do something with it. Outside of that, are there any other mobile-PC tasks the Pandora can easily take care of?

 

[levi]

I've not been able to find an open source video editor suite that doesn't have a busy AI and consider 3GB of RAM to be absolute bare minimum on wikipedia, after a quick dig just now.

I used my Pandora largely for playing back music and podcasts, and it can also play some videos, although with more youtube videos being 1080p and beyond and 60fps these days, that's less common that it used to be when the Pandora was new. I also maintained a few plain text documents mainly in vim, but that may not be user friendly enough for most people.

Here's the list of office software published on the repo: https://repo.openpandora.org/?page=all&cat=Office&s=new

Just libreoffice alone gives you word processor, spreadsheet and other bits and pieces I've never actually used even on larger computers. I'd recommend spending a little time digging through the repo and looking at the different categories; some take you to a list of available software, but if there's only one tool available that fits that category, it takes you straight to it.

 

[NovemberJoy]

I've not been able to find an open source video editor suite that doesn't have a busy AI and consider 3GB of RAM to be absolute bare minimum on wikipedia, after a quick dig just now.

I used my Pandora largely for playing back music and podcasts, and it can also play some videos, although with more youtube videos being 1080p and beyond and 60fps these days, that's less common that it used to be when the Pandora was new. I also maintained a few plain text documents mainly in vim, but that may not be user friendly enough for most people.

Here's the list of office software published on the repo: https://repo.openpandora.org/?page=all&cat=Office&s=new

Just libreoffice alone gives you word processor, spreadsheet and other bits and pieces I've never actually used even on larger computers. I'd recommend spending a little time digging through the repo and looking at the different categories; some take you to a list of available software, but if there's only one tool available that fits that category, it takes you straight to it.

Kdenlive's minimum requirements are listed as 600 MHz and 256 MB of RAM, although I'm assuming that's a much earlier version. It's worth experimenting with at least a little bit, even if it would have to be with a much earlier version. Thank you very much for all the help and advice.

 

[canseco]

I've not been able to find an open source video editor suite that doesn't have a busy AI and consider 3GB of RAM to be absolute bare minimum on wikipedia, after a quick dig just now.

Kdenlive only uses 145 MB when starting the program, almost the same for other libre and open source editors.

On the OpenPandora, maybe simple editors like Vidcutter or Avidemux could work well, as they use much less resources.
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Kdenlive's minimum requirements are listed as 600 MHz and 256 MB of RAM, although I'm assuming that's a much earlier version.

Nope, requirements are always for the latest version, unless they forget to update that info.

 

[levi]

The only problem with Kdenlive is having to ship the entirety of KDE with the package, but I guess with fat internet connections and big sd cards these days that's less of an issue that it used to be. The latest Avidemux is KDE only also.

I'll admit I didn't do an exhaustive read of wikipedia's free and open source video editor pages. The only one I came across initially listing its hardware requirements was Natron which stated 3GB of RAM. As far as I'm reading the wikipedia for kdenlive it doesn't list minimum hardware requirements there either, and I even went as far as visiting it's home page and trying to find something there. But if you've run it and it starts out taking less than 200MB that's promising at least.

 

[NovemberJoy]

That actually brings up another question...what about SD cards, USB flash drives, and things like that? Are there any issues with speed or size that the Pandora has? I've heard it does have SDXC slots, but that it requires certain updates and stuff to be able to read from them...

 

[Letalis Sonus]

I've heard it does have SDXC slots, but that it requires certain updates and stuff to be able to read from them...

SDXC itself (at least the SD 2.0 specification without the second row of contacts) has no backwards compatibility problems whatsoever. The only issue arises from the fact that Microsoft's lobbying succeeded in promoting exFAT as its preferred filesystem - which is easily fixed by simply reformatting the card with a better supported filesystem, if the card did not already come with a less problematic filesystem.

Some cheaper cards may use FTL chips that do not handle non-FAT-based filesystems well, though. If you buy cards from a manufacturer that has either a very good reputation like Sandisk or one that uses self-manufactured NAND chips like Samsung you should be on the safe side, though. There's a list of known cards on the Wiki.

 

[NovemberJoy]

SDXC itself (at least the SD 2.0 specification without the second row of contacts) has no backwards compatibility problems whatsoever. The only issue arises from the fact that Microsoft's lobbying succeeded in promoting exFAT as its preferred filesystem - which is easily fixed by simply reformatting the card with a better supported filesystem, if the card did not already come with a less problematic filesystem.

Some cheaper cards may use FTL chips that do not handle non-FAT-based filesystems well, though. If you buy cards from a manufacturer that has either a very good reputation like Sandisk or one that uses self-manufactured NAND chips like Samsung you should be on the safe side, though. There's a list of known cards on the Wiki.

What are the issues with exFAT? It seems to be supported fine even by standard desktop Linux, and it's what all my SD cards with capacity higher than 32GB are formatted as. My cards are Sandisk and Samsung stuff, though, so there should be no issues there.

 

[levi]

Yeah, I have a USB flash stick for shifting small bits of data around, and I'm pretty sure that's exFAT formatted, and I must have used it on my Pandora. Worked without fuss.

 

[NovemberJoy]

So...are there any other bits of information I should know about the Pandora that would be good to know? I don't want to get burned by a common beginner mistake or anything like that.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

and I must have used it on my Pandora. Worked without fuss.

Because you installed the codec pack. While there is a GPL FUSE and kernel driver for it, you officially have to pay MS license fees to use it - similar to several multimedia codecs. When Microsoft entered the Linux patent pool last year they did not bring the exFAT patents to the party.

 

[Binky]

So...are there any other bits of information I should know about the Pandora that would be good to know? I don't want to get burned by a common beginner mistake or anything like that.

Has anyone mentioned the quirks of the main USB port yet?

While the small (miniUSB-A/B) port supports everything - It can be either a host or a slave, and will run at "low", "full" or "high" speed, the big USB host port will only operate at "High speed" 480Mb/s as introduced in the USB2.0 spec. That means that some very simple devices (keyboards and mice, typically) will not work without a USB hub acting as an adaptor.

At one point there were problems with the USB drivers crashing if you plugged in a hub without any downstream devices, but that might have been fixed now...(?)

Generally, it's pretty hard to actually break things with a Pandora - play around, read the wiki, and ask here (or on IRC) if you're having trouble!