Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

Yup. At least theoretically. I've read that flash memory is about the worst option for long-term archival. I always assumed it was the opposite. And actually have recommended it :)

I guess that as long as you do a read-from-old-medium-write-in-new-medium every 10 years it doesn't really matter. Just have to remember to set an alarm for every 10 years :)

Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

Yes, it's crazy, because normally flash media is the most resisting to environmental damage, so it is easy to think it is also the longer lasting medium. Have you heard of cases where a CF card was lost in the sea and somebody found it, and it still worked?

Good advice, but I think 10 years is way too long. Perhaps 2-3 years? I was pissed off when I found out that 10 year old recordable CD and DVD disks I had were mostly unreadable. Some brands were better than others, but for the most part they were unusable. There are multiple programs that can attempt to recover data from unreadable disks, and I had mixed success with that. I can imagine billions of dollars in data are probably lost because of faulty media. They should make it way more clear that CD media (at least the one produced 10 years ago) should never, ever be used as archival media.

Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

No but I once accidentally washed a USB stick in a washing machine. Put it on a radiator for the night and it worked fine in the morning.

Amen!

Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

As I understand it, the fresh boot playback issue is expectable and a result of pushing the envelope in getting 720p to work at all. So I am quite happy as is.

The distortion issue - is that definitely not a matter too high quality HD video?

Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

That's crazy, isn't it? Yet leave that USB stick alone for a few years in a controlled environment, and chances are the data will be irrecoverable.

It's kind of ironic that modern (electronic) media created with the most advanced technological knowledge known to man is bound to be lost in a few years, yet data registered the old-school way (written, engraved, etc) still surfaces after hundreds if not thousands of years, and it is still legible. The reliance of modern societies on electronic means to record data scares me. All of it is bound to be lost sooner or later. Think about the implications of that.

Re: Why can't N900 play videos smoothly?
 

I solved my problem by changing the kernel power settings. I set the minimum frequency to 500Mhz and now I never have the cyclical lagging when playing videos.

I think previously the minimum was set to 250Mhz, but there is a slight chance it was set to 125Mhz by me, foolishly, as I was not aware of the fact the N900 should never run at 125Mhz. I used to have many spontaneous reboots which seem to have gone too, so I really think I might have set it to 125Mhz. :o