Turning my PDA into a PVP (Portable Video Player)

[Captain Slug]

After atleast a year of neglect, my Compaq iPaq 3635 is finding a new place in my heart. After pining over specialized $440 players I decided to experiment with what I have.

(Yes I know, really crappy picture)

So far the software that works best on my particular model is Betaplayer. And in order to get playback smooth I used virtualdub to resize and compress my video to
Video: DivX4 320x240 @ 100kbps w/ bicubic resize
Audio: MP3 24kbps

That may sound like a nasty compression, but considering my screen only gets 12-bit color I can't really tell the difference between 100kbps and 700kbps. The software allows full-screen playback at a 90-degree angle so that the video is in a 1:1 pixel ratio. The playback is good enough that I can still easily read subtitles on anime. The image quality is comparable to small LCD TVs, but without the static.

This is suprisingly easy to accomplish but requires some experimentation, especially if you want to find the maximum playable video quality for your particular handheld. But when I compare the battery life, weight, size, and price between my older PDA and a portable media player, I'm definitely happy with this.
At the compression level of the video my average file size is 1mb per minute of video/audio so even smaller compactflash and SD cards will do fine for storing a normal length movie (which seems to average around 85mb). If you want to go nuts you could use a microdrive. It will hurt your battery life a tad, but you'll be able to up your video quality (assuming your PDA can handle it) and increase the number of files to watch.

I'm looking forward to getting my new battery and PCMCIA expansion/battery pack. After those arrive I should be able to manage 8 continuous hours of playback.

Anyone else doing something similar?

[cursor]

I have a 4 gb microdrive. I use Fair Use to compress video down to usable chunks. I usually go about 6 mb/minute--my PDA has 480x640 resolution, and I like it to look really good.

The great thing about using Fair Use & BetaPlayer is that they have great video quality and are FREE!

They're wonderful applications that are 'must haves.'

[Seven]

Looking forward to doing this with my iPAQ3800.

As soon as I can get this thing open...then I'll clean it up...get the digitizer replaced...then get the 4GB microdrive and put some stuff on this thing. Should be fun.

7

[PerlAddict]

Fair Use wouldn't decrypt my DVD's, so I had to use DVD Decrypter to rip them first, then Fair Use to compress them. Still trying to work out the kinks, though, as I was encoding Wide Screen movies, so picking a resolution was a little trickier. At 512MB, the video was good but it still didn't look quite right on my PPC screen. However, I watched one of the ones I ripped a little too large on my computer and it looked quite nice. =)

[Captain Slug]

I'm still using virtualdub because it can process whole folders as one job. It seems the one limitation I have is I can't set the sound quality above 12kbps without getting jumpy playback on my PDA. This isn't a big deal though since the output quality of it isn't great to begin with.

I can't wait for my 5gb microdrive to come in the mail...

[d94]

i love my nx60
480x320 screen
i got a great deal on it too. heh

[IrQ]

What OS are you guys running? I had an old ibm notepad a while ago that ran off of windows CE. It was really nice for what it was. If you are running the newer version of CE (im having a brain fart at the moment and cant remember what it's called, the one that looks like windows xp) you can use windows media player portable and then use windows media encoder 8 to get a dvd down to around 256 megs with really really good picture/sound quality for a PDA. You can still use dvd decrypter and such for it, compress to avi or mpeg, and then to wmv. It's the one good thing that came from microsoft.

[Captain Slug]

I'm running Pocket PC 2002. I prefer Betaplayer over WMP. It's just easier to use and has extra options for microdrive buffering settings, as well as many other things WMP lacked.
DivX is still giving me the best performance and picture quality.

For MP3s however I still prefer using an mp3 player, but if I do put mp3s on my PDA I play them with winampaq which has superb preamp and equalizer options as well as easy file navigation (no big suprise considering it's really just a port of winamp 2.x). Being able to use the winamp skins I've made is also a huge plus.

[PerlAddict]

I'm using WM2003, soon to be WM2003 SE (edit: Which I think is Windows CE 5.0, but don't quote me on that)

BetaPlayer is my favorite, too. I love the landscape mode.

If you're feeling a little brave, Capt., you can try a mild overclock using XCPUScalar for when you watch videos. Going from 400Mhz to 470Mhz cleared up a lot of frame-dropping issues I was having with some Scrubs videos (which were around 170MB for a 24 minute clip, as they had been encoded for viewing on a computer or a TV, so the [unnoticeably] higher quality was a bit much for my PPC until I gave the processor a little boost).

[Captain Slug]

hehe, my model only a mere 206mhz and I only seem to have performance issues when it comes to sound.

edit: Haikiba!

[PerlAddict]

If you're using a model with a Samsung processor, most people don't seem to notice much of a difference between the Xscale 400Mhz results and the Samsung 266Mhz chip.

For viewing videos encoded for PPC instead of computer/TV viewing, my model does well with sound and a very low dropped-frame count.

However, trying to play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with MorphGear and the sound turned on yields less than desirable speeds, even with the sound quality set to low.

[Captain Slug]

Well my 5GB microdrive isn't working in the standard CompactFlash expansion jacket at the moment. I'll have to wait and see if it works in the PCMCIA sleeve. Having a super bad day.

[cursor]

Well my 5GB microdrive isn't working in the standard CompactFlash expansion jacket at the moment. I'll have to wait and see if it works in the PCMCIA sleeve.

I'm having a hard time getting it formatted to FAT16, especially since I don't have a floppy drive to install Ranish Partition Manager with.

I've heard that the ones with the white label won't work in PDA's. It's Hitachi, right? Does yours have the baby blue label or the white label?

[Dylruss]

If you're using a model with a Samsung processor, most people don't seem to notice much of a difference between the Xscale 400Mhz results and the Samsung 266Mhz chip.

All ipaqs that age use the intel strongarm proc, I have the same model ipaq w/206mhz oced to 230mhz (wow eh? ). It works and worked ok for video and sound. My problem was the battery wasn't lasting forever and a 4gb microdrive is pretty expensive in itself.

So although I did do the same thing and run things in pockettv, I just ended up getting a pvp the archos av420 and have never been happier. But it negates the idea of whats happening here since this is about not spending $450 or so on a pvp, and using stuff you already have. The pvp worked better for me, but kudos on putting newer life into your ipaq's and other portables!

[Captain Slug]

I don't really need exterior recording/playback features and if I do find that I can't use the 5gb microdrive I got such a good deal on I'll just be sticking with a 1gb CF card.

I will mainly be using this a a time-killing device between classes and on airline flights. I'm not terribly concerned with needing to store a massive amount of video. I cram 900 minutes onto a 1gb card and be perfectly happy.

An AV420 would be lovely. I just don't want to carry around something that expensive or be uncomfortable with loaning it to my sister when she goes on a trip.

I've heard that the ones with the white label won't work in PDA's. It's Hitachi, right? Does yours have the baby blue label or the white label?

It's a Seagate ST1 5GB (retail, not pulled from an mp3 player). The only iPaq ROM updates I've found on compaq's site mention IBM microdrives upto 1gb with certain firmware versions.
I'm hoping the PCMCIA interface solves the problem.

[cursor]

Bummer, man. Sorry about your Seagate. If you bought retail you should be able to complain to them or just take it back to the retailer you bought it from.

I'm sure you've tried formatting it with a USB card reader.

[Captain Slug]

Oh goody

However, the ST1 retail camera drives have not been released to retail
outlets yet.

The ST1 drives that can be found from various places on the web are OEM
drives that are proprietary to the device it was removed from such as an
MP3 player.

The OEM drive label is red, yellow and white and is proprietary and is not
supported by Seagate.
The retail camera drive's label, when it is released, will be Orange and
Blue.

Regards,

Robert A.
Seagate Technical Support

Guess what, some doofus sold me an OEM drive (mine is as described above) claiming that it's retail. He even claimed that it's compatible with the Minolta Dimage A1 and included pictures he took using the microdrive. BUT, wonder of wonders my sister has that exact camera and it couldn't recognize the drive when I installed it.

I'm talking with Seagate and the seller at present about the matter.

I do have some good news though. My replacement battery arrived today and I installed it without drama or consequence.

Update: *PHEW!*
The seller is accepting a return and issuing a refund since I'm unable to use the drive.

[Pc geek]

Thats great but does anyone know if i can do the same thing you guys are doing with my zire31?

[Captain Slug]

Arg! Well I wasn't using this over the summer (no classes and I've been working) so my sister kind of hijacked it from me for a business trip and won't give it back. Atleast she decided to compensate me for it.
I'm shopping for a new one at the moment and hoping to find a device that supports higher resolution playback (Divx @ 640x480) so that I don't have to recompress files before dumping them onto the PDA.So it looks as though I will be asking for an Axim x50 for my birthday this year...

And as an aside I am using FairUse Wizard now for DVD recompression. You just have to watch-dog the settings so that it's set to the right resolution. Something which annoyingly you have to wait to do until the middle of the process.

Also, I found some SD-CF adapters on ebay and ordered one to see if it will work with the PDA my sister ran away with, my old CF MP3 player, and a really really expensive digital camera. If it works with any of them there will be a new use for all these SD cards lying around.

[jnev_89]

my x50v is due to arrive tomorrow. i can't wait, video at 640x480 while being silky smooth (my e335 was jumpy even at qvga resolutions).

i also use fairuse to rip my dvd's, and then pocketdivxencoder (free)to compress them for my pda. the combo works very well.