Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Hmm. Can't really upload a youtube since that would degrade the quality of what you get to see. (It would be like auditioning my stereo over the telephone.) It's much better than youtube ever is. If youtube is your standard, you're really going to be pleased! What I use it for is DVD's I'd watch at home. If you want to see what it's like, I guess you could find DVD Shrink (freeware) and rip a DVD at the specs I said, and then play it back on your computer at 2X size.

You mean the N800 vs N810? No difference in screen. Use the google link on this forum's home page and find threads on the differences.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Look, if you are looking for a multimedia device that does lots of formats and does it well, definitely go for the Archos. Review here:
http://www.osnews.com/story/18948/Th...sed_Archos_604
If you are looking for an internet tablet with SOME multimedia support, go for the N8x0.
If you are looking for a good music player and an ok h.264 player and a so-so internet experience (albeit with third party application support on the way), go for the iPod Touch.
If you are looking for a gaming device with an ok h.264 player, good screen and some basic internet, go for the Sony PSP.

Nothing more to add here, I've tried all four products (own them all) and that's my conclusion. Depends on your needs, what you need the most. No device does everything perfectly.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

I have a N810 (N800 should be the same) And I can play ANY unconverted video with mplayer. On some videos it will lag for a few seconds but that is all. I Have played full Dvix DVD rips. It played them perfectly. No special conversion. I assume with the conversion that it would take out the few seconds of lag I get on some videos but I don't bother.

As I type this I am watching The Matrix Reloaded, XVID Codec, 593 kbps, 560 x 240, mad audio codec, 128kbps audio. But it has played better than that.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Oh, and one more. The N8x0 devices have 16bit screens, while the Archos/PSP/iPod/iPhone have 32bit screens. The difference in quality exists, and I was painfully made aware of it the other night, when I was designing a theme for the N800/N810. All the gradients looked terrible because the screen didn't have enough colors to display everything. So basically, if the reason you buy a gadget is very visual (e.g. watching video), definitely go for a device with a good screen.

I still use my N8x0 devices for internet tasks when I am away, but each to its own, so I use each of my gadgets to do the thing it was designed for only.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

um, for the record, most psp/ipod vids work fine
and truth be told it'll play most vids i have in mplayer
if you want a real answer you'll have to tell us what kind of vids you'd be watching

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

>and truth be told it'll play most vids i have in mplayer

Mplayer might play them, but its interface sucks. The main player does not support psp/ipod videos. None of the QVGA videos I tried (encoded by different encoders no less), was working. I have sent to Thoughtfix a number of videos that are supposed to work according to Nokia's support codec list, and they don't.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

No, no you can't (there isn't any mobile media device that'll play full HD). 560px horizontal stuff is not HD ("full HD"/1080p is 1920px horizontal).

There's really no such thing as a 32bit screen. You mean 24bit.

What's to suck? It's a list of videos on the device that you double-tap to watch, and a text-box to enter a URL or filepath into. Realistically, most people would only spend about 1% of the time in the interface, and good, fast video playback is a lot more important than the stupid interface.

Besides, have you tried Mediabox?

Anyway, here's the straight dope: MPEG4/MP3 encoded avi files in the 400x240 (fit whatever dimension hits the limit first—320x240 for 4:3 stuff) pixel range at about 800-1500Kbps will play fine 100% of the time with mplayer. If you don't mind transcoding your stuff, then that's all you really need to know.

Personally, I have had a lot of success with stuff up into high 500-pixel horizontal range (I've even had some success with low 600-pixel horizontal stuff at 2.39:1) at about 700-1300Kbps (which is what most of the stuff you get from the "internet" is encoded in). It plays with just a hint of framedrop in high-action scenes. As some people find any framedrop unacceptable, you'll have to decide yourself if this is worth it.

h.264 can play, but only well at lower bitrates and resolutions (just as well, because the codec is particularly good at those sizes and bitrates). mplayer does not currently have good support for h.264, so you'd want to use Media player for that.

Again, personally, I find that the other features of the NITs greatly outweight any video issues for me. If you're looking for a strict media player, then this isn't really the device for you, but if you're looking to do just about anything (and everything) else, then the N810 is where it's at.

Now, one thing you might consider is a wait-and-see approach, as none of the mobile devices mentioned are particularly fresh at the moment, and updates should be forthcoming within the next 6 months or so. Nokia's next generation tablet (presumably the N900) will (almost certainly, as there's no hard evidence to support this yet) not have the video bandwidth and horsepower issues of the current generation tablets.

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Well, you obviously aren't watching the matrix reloaded if you are writing a post (without getting into why anyone would voluntarily choose to watch the matrix reloaded!)

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Is this seriously meant to be anything but trollish?

Re: Does it Play Media Well
 

Well then I'm using the wrong mplayer since mine seems to only play approximately 1/3 of the videos that I tried.

I would never recommend it as a media player over an archos and I'm positive that it will not play everything the archos does.