The N800 as a PMP?
 

Hi! I have previously owned a PMP (Personal Media Player) that I enjoyed a lot for playing music and watching videos, although the PMP broke down this summer. For a while I've been looking around for a replacement, but haven't really found a PMP that seems good enough in the right price range.

I got really interested in the Archos 605, for both PMP functionality and Wifi web browsing, but it seems like the web browsing on the 605 is more of a gimmick than a real use. And, the 605 is quite pricey, the screen doesnt seem that good, etc.

Then I came to think about the N800 and realized that it has dropped in price... A lot. I got really interested in it, because it really seems (in theory, at least) like a great allround machine, and I'm not afraid of third party software and a bit of tinkering (allbeit not too much).

So far, my impressions are that the N800 is a great Internet Tablet, with a great screen and that it functions just fine as a music (MP3) player.

The video playing I'm a bit unsure of, though.

How good at video playing does the N800 get with the best available third party software? I would prefer to be able to play "regular" .avi-files in DivX/Xvid and other common codecs. Preferably with standard TV/DVD-rip resolution, up to 720x576 or something like that. For short - I'm not interested in having to Transcode videos. How well does this work on the N800? Is it likely that the N800 will, in the near future, get much improvement in this area through better third party software?

If I buy an N800 I will probably not strike until after christmas.

Very grateful for your thoughts on this. Thanks in advance!

Cheers.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

The N800 gets -very- good with the latest software and a few freely available downloads such as the brilliant n800 media converter. I use mine every day on the subway watching recorded TV-shows and listening to music and for longer trips, a movie or two is a real treat. At first I was a bit irritated that I had to re-encode everything for it to play nice with the n800, but you get into the habit of doing that real quick. If you don't want to transcode, then of course it's not very good at all. I had some limited success using ORB to transcode on the fly, but the picture quality really suffered.

Picture quality with reencoded material is excellent, sound quality perfectly adequate with good pair of headphones, and the built-in speakers are good enough that I've watched the occasional episode of House even without headphones.

The only issue I have is the battery-time, I have to be pretty careful to charge it at least once a day, sometimes twice.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Thanks for your reply!

I just have this "condition" that I don't want to have to do transcoding... :/

But is there any hope that better software is released for the N800, allowing it to play videos without transcoding? I mean - is it "theoretically" powerful enough?

Are there any third party software "projects" for video playing on the N800 in the works that we can look forward to?

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Using third party software like gmplayer allows you to play a lot more media without reenconding. It depends what you normally encode at.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Sorry to be this blunt, but don't even bother with the N800 as a PMP, it falls miserably short. Like you stated, you don't want to have to transcode all your DivX/XviD files and i agree with you.

I personally have over 250gb's of DivX/XviD files that i play on my Archos AV500 and Treo 700Wx. it seems that one would have to recode everything to 320x240 just for the benefit of the N800, which is a chore.

One thing though, at least on OS 2008 my N800 could handle DivX files but it was choppy and laggy and not worth the trouble. I personally don't regard the N800 as a video device anyway as it's never worked well at being one.

I only wish that maybe the VLC folks (or even the TCPMP folks) might have an interest in the N800. I'll bet they wouldn't suffer for donations from folks here.

Just my opinion.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

For those of your with large media collections and decently powered computers. Check out aflegg's excellent on-demand on-the-fly transcoding solution: mediautils saves the trouble of re-encoding and gives you beautiful looking, perfect playing media every time. With a decent upstream, you can also set this up to send you media while on the road.

Personally, if you're willing to invest just a little time to prepare things for the N800, it makes an absolutely fantastic media playback device.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

It's called "mplayer" and it works great. ;)

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Don't be worried about the bluntness - I just want to know if there is any hope :)

You seem to understand my situation. Even though there might be great transcoding tools, I just don't see that as an option. I want to be able to plug in my device and transfer any video of my choice from my collection without having to plan in advance. It might sound picky, but worked perfectly fine (most of the time) with my "old" PMP. I understand that PMP's have dedicated chipsets for video-decoding, though, which I guess the N800 doesn't have?

What I'm still curious of is if you think the N800 actually has enough power so that it _should_ be able to function as a PMP, or if its just not possible. Imagine if Nokia really put their minds to it. Could they develop a really good media player for the N800 (making it perform as a PMP)?

GeneralAntilles - specify how great mplayer works, please? :)

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Of the .avi files I have copied (un-transcoded) to my N800 and viewed with Mplayer, I have had good results. Maybe I have been lucky but .avi (DivX/XviD) files play well so long as I open them with Mplayer only. The other players can't do what Mplayer does on my N800.

I have taken .wmv files and they are poor, but the utility I found called Media_Converter_Windows_1.43 recoded problem files so they play just fine on my N800. I know you said you don't want to transcode (I didn't want to either) but that utility makes it a snap. It has a small foot print, the interface is very intuitive, it is fast, and it remembers the last settings I used and uses them the next time.

I read a tutorial written ( or published ) by Nokia specifically addressing how to optimize video for smooth / clear playback on the Internet Tablets. I'm sure you can find it with Google. Reading that wasn't necessary but it was worthwhile for me.

I obtain .avi files that are randomly obtained from various places, and tossing them on a SD card and in my N800 (without prior optimization) results in good playback (with Mplayer) most of the time. But as I have stated, maybe I've been lucky.

The rest of the N800's functionality more than make up for it's quirks in the video playback dept. in my view. Your mileage may vary. Regards.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

The issue, unfortunately, is a complicated one. The LCD controller is (primarily) what limits us from the high-quality frame-decoding that the rest hardware might be able to hand. The OMAP core actually has both an IVA video decoder and a PowerVR OpenGL chip which could prove useful for the purpose of video decoding (mostly the IVA), but, by negligence or by necessity (possibly relating to the LCD controller), we do not have drivers for them from Nokia.

So, could the N800 get better in the future? My guess is yes (though there may be limits that I am unaware of or under-accounting for, Serge is much better qualified than anybody else on these boards to comment), Nokia could certainly surprise with drivers in a future update (as seems likely from whispers around the water-cooler). How soon that will be (if ever :(), who can say?

Personally, I would wait for the next device in the NIT lineup (probably the N900; and probably not much further away than mid-summer 2008, though, I have no hard facts here other than inference from previous release trends) which will almost certainly feature an OMAP 3000-series core and be capable of playing back much larger and higher-quality video files.

Based on the hardware and software available right now, it works about as well as is humanly possible. :)

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Thanks again! XxM5xx, what you write about mplayer gives me hope! If you have been using it to play the average crop of ripped video material with satisfactory results that sounds very similar to what I require.

Are there others here that can report on their experiences from using Mplayer on the N800?

It is very interesting what you write as well, GeneralAntilles. So hopefully (I'm not holding you accountable :D ) there is a decent chance of us seeing improved video support on the N800 in the future.

I would love to wait for an N900, but I'm guessing that it will be a bit too expensive to justify a purchase for me.

Tough choice, as always... Well, I guess I will try to collect information as well as wait and see if something happens on the third party software front, and then decide what to do perhaps at the beginning of next year.

Any further thoughts are welcome, of course :)

As I wrote, it would be cool to hear more about Mplayer!

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Mplayer is definitely the best player around, but you shouldn't expect miracles. Most files I threw at it without re-encoding played, but choppy and no way was I able to skip to a scene or anything. I always re-encode all my files and it works great. OK, the re-encoding is a bit of a hassle, but if you do it immediately after you have downloaded something, then it is not that big a burden.

The N800 is not designed to be a PMP and if you buy it now, hoping that future drivers might increase performance, then I would advise you not to buy it, because you will get frustrated (just like a lot of people who are still waiting for video in skype).

All in all the N800 is a great device and it is criminally cheap at the moment. I couldn't do without it anymore and if you re-encode your files than it is one hell of a PMP (albeit with adequate battery life, not the best). If you don't re-encode your files I would advise you to buy something else.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Personally, I don't understand the 'I don't want to re-encode' crowd.
The screen's small compared to a monitor/tv. Storage is tight. You should be re-encoding for smaller file-sizes and the smaller screen anyway.

IMO the real failure of the n800 as a PMP is the lack of storage and the lack of a good sync'ing program. It's pretty inconvenient for the average user.

It works for me. But I realize that not many people would go through what I go through to catch up on tv over lunch. Heck, half the time I don't even do it anymore. Lately I've only been grabbing the latest off my video\mobile directory once or twice a week.

If you watch primarily streams (UPnP/web), it's far more convenient.
But that's not usually the use-case that PMP shoppers have in mind.

If there were a solid app that I could fire up, that would automatically grab the 'latest' files from a network share and purge 'watched' files - those problems would largely go away. But it doesn't exist.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Hi, I would love to here from someone with a Cowon A2 and a N800. I have a n700 and it just doesn't compare to the A2.
For the OP, what about an A2? Its a much better device than Archos. I think the 770 works as a media player - definitely its okay because it has a large screen to watch on a commute, etc. but I think it can't compare to something like the A2 and Archos x. My A2 is broken now, so I could never do a side-by-side, but it seems MUCH better than the 770 at least. I think if anyone using a N800 to watch videos tried a better PMP they would say - oh yeah there is a big difference.
Maybe what makes the A2 PMP so much better is: higher resolution, better viewing angle, better image on a non-touchscreen, and the ability to zoom on the fly, which can make a video much bigger when cropping doens't matter.
I haven't tried a N800 - is the screen much better than the 770?

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Sorry I dont know much about this, but how long does it take to re-encode?

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

And Cowon is coming out with the Q5W, which includes WiFi, a browser with Flash, document reader software, and (possibly) GPS.

It looks to be pricey, though...

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I've been thinking that something like the Neuros OSD would nicely compliment the Nokia tablets. It records on just about any media and it's Open Source as well.

[homer_mode]
Hmmmm... Open source....Argharggharghl...
[/homer_mode]

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Me either, though I scarce ever watch video. Grew up with no TV, but lots of books, so I generally tend to reading textual resources, or listening to music/audiobooks. So maybe I'm out of touch, but when I used my old IJ-100, I had 2 MP3 libraries in parallel: I set my ripping software to rip, encode as 192kbps joint-stereo for computer, and also encode as 32kbps mono for the IJ. Throw whatever I wanted to listen to today on my 32MB MMC, and I'm good to go. If you handle it at rip-time, or on adding externally-sourced music to your library, it gains you device storage (precious), shortens transfer time, and tailor to mobile listening conditions. (In my case, going mono let me listen with one earbud, without losing a channel. You could also sox earwax it, for headphone use, equalize for poor frequency response of some device, etc.) In the case of video on the N800, it also permits better playback performance. The only loss is a 25% expansion of computer storage (dirt-cheap).
I assume you mean by "lack of storage", insufficient storage to keep entire library on there. Otherwise, I don't see why 2x 16 GB SDHC is not enough.
Not trying to get all

:mad: :mad:
RTFM!
:mad: :mad:

on you. But...

Then make it?

It shouldn't be that hard; I bet I could have a script to do just that working in 2 hours. Of course, you use it a bit, find shortcomings, get frustrated, spend a couple hours fixing it, and repeat, but still a total of no more than 20 hours, I think.
You're saying "solid app," which would require much more time and effort, but I think this is really a problem best attacked by scripting. And, not trying to be harsh, if you run a UNIX system, you should be able to do such scripting. It's one of the things you learn to get things done, by getting things done. I don't know if you can or not, and I'm not saying you suck if you can't yet. Just don't let "can't yet" become "can't"...

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Yeah.

Though even 32gb starts to get tight when you're talking about bringing a few playlists and a couple movies with you on a business trip. Currently I just carry 2x 8g for personal media on trips, in addition to my work-specific cards. Again: the n800 works well enough as-is for me. I'm just saying that I recognize it would be too inconvenient for someone looking for a rounded-corners PMP-first device, like an Archos.

I've developed software long enough to know the difference in time required to make something work and time required to design something to work well for end users.

Anything less than a proper solution isn't going to solve the problem and I don't have nearly the time/desire to do it myself.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I definitely passed on the A2 and went with an Archos AV500 almost 2 years ago. To be fair, i got a chance to get the AV500 mint new for less than $120 (i work for a retail outlet and get first dibs on stuff). I cannot do without it, it lives in my laptop bag and goes everywhere.
Archos has certainly lost the way ever since their Gen 04/05 series. Now they nickle and dime you into buying stuff that *should* come with such devices anyway. The AV500 was the last great PMP Archos ever made. Played with a 605 WiFi the other day, and took it back in two days. Took 17hrs for battery to charge, meagre included accessories (almost none actually) and a host of issues.

I'm now seriously considering the Cowon A3 when it launches.

Oh yeah, N800's screen vs N770...better.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

The Cowon A2 seems really nice, but it's quite expensive. More than twice the price of an N800 here in Sweden.

The Cowon D2 got me really interested, but then I read that it doesnt play that many codecs and require transcoding. And as I've written - that's a no-no for me.

I guess it's just a matter of taste and difficult to argue for or against. I just want to be able to plug my PMP to my computer (or connect via Wifi, even) and copy or watch more or less whatever video I want from my archive. I don't want to have to "plan ahead" or wait for transcoding. I just don't think that should be needed in this day and age :)

I read that the N800 apparantly has like a third of the video bandwidth of the N770, and that's a reason that it can't play video that well. If this limit depends on hardware or bad drivers wasn't really clear.

Is the N770 better as a PMP then?

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

In this day and age, I don't see how anyone can get anything like an adequate viewing experience watching a tiny screen, especially if they are watching something designed for a big screen. Sound, yes. Textra, ok. Cartoons, yes. But movies? You aren't seeing the movie; you are seeing something else--the Reader's Digest condensed version.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

As I said - this is about taste, and we can't really argue about it.

I watch 99% TV/DVD-ripped documentaries on my PMP, though. With varying quality. I want to watch them on the go because I find them interesting and educational, and picture quality isn't the most important thing. Big screen movie experiences I get at the cinema or on my CRT projector at home.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

For a non-dedicated device (i.e. something without a lot of dedicated hardware), this isn't really a realistic expectation. As computers get faster, storage gets bigger, and bandwidth gets cheaper the quality of video content will go up, and the best desktop performance will always exceed the best portable performance.

Still, wait for the N900, things are guaranteed to be better, and I'm nearly certain standard divx stuff will play back with ease on its hardware.

No, and it's "770". ;)

What the hell else am I going to take with me on the plane? Or on campus? Or during lunch at work? A laptop? Pish, why even bother with the N800, then. There's a lot to be said for the "HD Experience", but a decent pair of headphones and my N800 is plenty fine for me.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

What I read was this:

"If we estimate bus performance on Nokia 770, it is ~55MB/s and is more than
enough to display 800x480 sized video frames with 30 fps."

"Looks like graphics bus on N800 is 3x slower than on Nokia 770. It might
be caused by inefficient framebuffer driver implementation in its initial
revision. But if it is a hardware issue, getting normal video playback at
native framerate may be troublesome."

http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//ma...ch/009133.html

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I watch moveis and other videos on my N800 all the time and I'm quite happy with the video & sound quality. More than half the use my N800 gets is playing Video or music (mp3 and rhapsody).

With mplayer I have been able to watch most videos with out any conversion.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Did they fix the bandwidth problem in the N810? or is it still like the N800? I haven't checked the specs but it must be better?

Also, what about the last question above? Is the 770 better than the N800 or worse because the N800 has a better screen? (Or noboby really cares - they are about the same :) )

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I was quite happy with the video playback of my N800 -- until I played my first movie on my Pepper Pad 3 and noticed what is possible on such a screen with the right (optimized) hardware.

It's quite clear Nokia took the easy way out with the Itablets, thinking people would prefer the twenty bucks saved over decent playback. I wouldn't be surprized if they're astroturfing some of these threads, trying to convince people the Itablets "aren't meant for video playback".

Mind you, all things considered, I'm still taking my N800 on the road for watching video, but the Pepper is bloody much better at it.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Hold it closer to your eyes, it instantly appears bigger!

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I haven't tried movies on the n810 yet, but the included vid clips look great to me. And I'm a former PP3 owner. I agree that the Pepper did movies really well, and did web surfing better than the n810 does in most regards. But the platform was closed and the company was clearly on a deathspiral. That's why I gave it up.

I'll try to convert some vids tonight to see how they look, but my first pass with the Nokia converter ended badly, with the program hanging at 99% conversion. Anyone have thoughts on that problem?

EDIT: oops, just noted that this was in the n800 thread, so my 810 experience is somewhat irrelevant.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Pepper is in bad form, and most development is in standby, I agree. But it's a bit premature to call it "closed" and in any case, the community is hard at work to get a "standard" Linux distro ready. As usual, the main problem is the closedness of several drivers.

What video converter do you use? Personally, I'm a big fan of this one: Fast, just enough options and it yet has to hang on me.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Add me to the "N800 is not a good PMP" crowd.

I had high hopes for OS2008, but the new media player plays none of my handbrake-encoded x264 or DivX/xVid movies. Chokes on every single one. Mplayer tries to work but is choppy.

Now if you transcode, (something I was opposed to also) you get very good performance. But it's simply not possible to copy a movie from my media server to the N800 and have it work.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

@Karel: yeah, Pepper's not dead, but I just got tired of waiting for promises to be fulfilled. And I wanted something a little more portable. The downside is that the Nokia is a lot less useful in my home than the PP3 was, but it's a lot more likely to be useful outside of the home because I always have it with me.

As for encoders... I don't know which one I'm using. I thought it was the official Nokia one. The one you pointed to looks a lot better. I'll check it out tonight. I was surfing around last night on these boards and found one that seemed good that did DVD --> n800 in one click, but I didn't get a chance to check it out yet.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I believe Handbrake will do DVD-to-N800, but you'll need to tweak its settings for that. I take the easy road and turn a DVD into a Divx+MP3 with Handbrake, and then run that file through N800 Video Convert, mainly because the latter is so blindingly fast.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Nokia really needs to get a team and make a official video player that is ultra optimized and can play videos with 640 X 480 resoultion.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I have only had my N800 for a few days, but I found it to works well with movies etc, provided they are encoded correctly, even with the default media application.

To put some of my own DVD movies onto my N800, I use DVD Decrypter to rip the VOB files to my HD and then use Handbrake to encode for N800.

I use the following settings in Handbrake:

• Source = file (.vob)
• Title "automatic"
• MPEG 4
• AAC (48kHz / 160 kbps)
• 400x224
• No Crop
• Anamorphic PAR unchecked
• Chapter Markers unchecked
• Avg Bitrate 600 to 700 (kbps)

These settings work pretty well and the movies play pretty smoothly. File size is relatively large (7-800MB+ per 120 minute movie), but memory cards are cheap and small.

I hope this helps...

Cheers!

Blue Sky

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Please no! We've all seen many times what happens whenever Nokia decides to produce some "optimized" software fir the Itablet platform.

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

I've been nothing but impressed with the media capabilities of this little guy, since getting it a few weeks ago. I think the screen is just beautiful (I've gotten comments on it any time I've had it out) and the flexibility is astounding. Some things play better than others - the firefly series I have, which is encoded at something like TV quality (500ish by 300something) plays flawlessly, but the Planet Earth HD series bogs down pretty frequently - to be fair though, not even my divx compatible DVD player can play it without choking from time to time.
The most astounding moment for me is when I got TVersity running with Canola. It transcodes and streams on the fly, and on my 802.11g network it plays flawlessly, without any hiccups whatsoever.
Canola for me made the device really come together for media - you've got everything there in one place, in a really mobile friendly application. I tried Kagu and UKMP and both of them were unstable, slow, and kind of confusing for me.
It works great to sling media to any other stereo, too, as long as you get the $10 worth of cables from radio shack. I now can have my entire MP3 collection sitting available on top of my frontroom entertainment center.:D

Re: The N800 as a PMP?
 

Are you sure n800 works with Slingbox?