watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

hi guys, i'm looking at getting an n810 but before i do i want to be sure i can transfer and watch my favourite feature length dvd movies onto it so i have a few questions.
1) do i need any additonal software?
2) do the movies need to be compressed first?
3) how much space does an uncompressed and compressed movie take up?
4) how many movies would i be able to save to an 8gb card (apparently this is the largest size the n810 will accept)?
5) have i missed anything?
:confused: all help greatly appreciated. cheers!

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

1. No, but installing Mplayer will help you a lot regardless.

2. Yes. You'll need to encode to about 480x200 or so to get best results. If you're on Windows, you'll need something like Super or another video converter to resize it. If you're on Linux, just use Mencoder. Here's a simple mencoder line option command to do just that.

The reason for the extra mp3lame option is to boost the volume on the dvd to make it easier to listen to on the tablet, especially if you're traveling.

3. A standard 90min movie usually takes up between 350 and 400mb for me, although I've had some encode as small as 250mb. It really depends a lot on how much actions you have in the film. The more the action, the larger the video file.

4. That depends on how big each of them encodes. Typically I expect to get between 14 and 18 on a single 8gb card, although I've gotten as many as 26 on a card before. And as for the latest, the n810 will accept up to a 32gb card with no problems, but the largest microsd is 16gb, and if you want 32, you'll need to go with the sd card mod for the n810 to use a regular full size SD card.

5. Nope, sounds like you got everything. :)

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

see
http://wiki.maemo.org/Video_encoding

i usually get them down to 230-310MB.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

Do you do single or double pass? I typically do double pass just out of principle, although single is sufficient. The advantage of double is that, while it adds a little bit of size, it ensures that you have almost no artifacting. And while I don't mind lower resolutions, artifacts drive me bonkers.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

Welcome !!!

You may want to check the thread I opened untitled " Video can be better than expected" in the multimedia section.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=28911&page=4
(Post#40)
There you will see that you can have a lot more detailed video than 400x240, depending on your movie original aspect ratio and framerate.

Personnaly, i cannot stand 400x240, it's too ugly for me.
I use 576x352 and it works very nicely in fullscreen mode.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

would anyone have an educated guess as to whether the n900 (assuming the leaked specs are correct) could play ordinary divx/xvid video files that are usually played on pc's? you know the drill, 700mb movie files, 350mb for a tv episode.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

totololo: Your specs are alright, but they kinda hit the hard limit of what the nit can do. The 480x200 is the "safe" limit that provides a balance of performance vs quality.

edgar2: Given that they only went with the Omap3 500mhz, I'd say no at this time. I was hoping for a bigger Omap3, but alas, we didn't get one. Of course, then again, the n900 is a phone, so the Omap3 500mhz is plenty for what it needs. I hope however that Nokia goes with the 800mhz Omap3 for the next nit. That would be a hugely welcome upgrade. It may not be the 1.6ghz first theorized, but heck, 800mhz is better than nothing. :D

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

double, but i only use 352x208 - i don't see much difference in higher resolutions. when i watch movies, i have the tablet at quite a distance... i wouldn't notice better quality. :)

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

There is one advantage to single pass - the bitrate will be more constant which means less choppiness on dynamic scenes. Whether you prefer choppiness over artifacts is of course a personal preference.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

The hardware is more than capable of that. If we can get hw accelerated playback for mplayer it could do even better (h264, 720p, etc).

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

AFAIK the development devices in the Mozilla/Maemo Danish meeting were 500MHz because they were using Beagleboards for them. You don't know what processor the actual device has. Also the beagleboard's 500MHz OMAP3 will be more than capable to run a normal desktop encoded movie.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

Exactly, and the interest of these settings will depend on your use :
- watching a video when the tablet continue to do something else in backgroud : you'd better keep old settings
- watching a video exclusively & with the best possible quality : new specs are a lot better

Some people like Benny aren't as picky as i am regarding picture quality ... for them there is no reason to go for the new settings ...:p

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

I really don't know what all you guys are smoking :)
I've been watching vanilla (not recompressed) films and series downloaded of torrent since day 1 on my N810.

All videos I've tried are already in a format suitable for playing on the NIT with just the occasional hiccup in some fast motion scenes. I guess I don't watch action flicks really that often on the tablet, but I've really been impressed at the video playback using mplayer. Largest format I've tried to watch is 624x352, and that's about the standard for widescreen standard definition movies.

Maybe the speed of the SD card, or using something other then mplayer for watching is what's limiting video playback. I remember trying to watch these videos in Canola, and getting very choppy playback...

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

the OP asked about DVDs, which are high-bitrate MPEG2 files.

the videos you get from P2P networks usually are already re-compressed and encoded in various MPEG4-variants.

Re: watching feature length movies on the N810.
 

There is some debate as to parameters to set to convert the video (look around here, and the wiki), but I can tell you that in windows, MediaCoder is the best program I've found.

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/editions.html

Much better than any of the programs listed on the wiki.

Hope it helps!