File Size

[VictoNight]

Just a quick question. I just bought an IPAQ and I'm leaving on a trip in a week. I would like to fit in a couple of movies on the road but I'm concerned about how many I can fit on a memory card. I would appreciate any and all information on what file size I can expect and what the best format for the smallest size would be. And I was also curious about if their would be any difference between say a CF card and a SD card or even a micro drive as far as read time and which would be best for viewing movies. Thanks for the time.

[Palm Cow]

A movie is pretty descent quality from about 115MB and up, but of course, the more memory you use, the better it is. For me, 180MB is just about perfect, because it leaves 60 or so MB free on my 256MB SD card for MP3s.

Compact flash is faster than Secure digital; I don't know about microdrives. I would assume that they have to spin for a while before they can read. At any rate, I don't notice any difference in speed from opening an MP3 from my 32MB CF card or my 256MB SD card. Then again, the CF card is 3 years old and the SD card is brand new :wink: . My SD card handles movies fine, opening a 180MB movie, almost 2 hours, in maybe 5 seconds. So while CF is faster, I don't think it makes too much of a difference for movies.

As for a couple of movies, I would recommend at least a 256MB CF card, probably 512MB. CF is less expensive than SD.

[VictoNight]

Thanks for the help. If you don't mind me asking. Which program, or string of programs do you use for ripping/playing your movies?

[Palm Cow]

Download.com is your friend! I use DVD Rip N Burn, free, to rip the files into a slightly compressed AVI, and the VirtualDub to compress it to what settings I want. There are plenty of good guides out there, but I dont have the links. Someone else probably does. But those programs are pretty self-explanitory.

Hope I help. BTW those are free :D.

[Falstaff]

I have a 256 MB SD card (shopping around for a good deal on a 512 CF) and I've been playing around lately with ripping DVDs. I Have been using PocketDVD. (http://www.pqdvd.com/) I burn my movies so they are 240MB, I make the sound very good, and on comedies (Old School and Airplane I've tried so far) the video is very good. But in action movies (Pirates of the Carribbean) there is a lot of pixelization in fast moving scenes. If you want to watch fast paced movies, I suggest getting a 512 MB CF card, for slower movies, 256 MB should work fine. What PPC do you have?

[Palm Cow]

He has an iPAQ with an SD slot and a CF slot, but he doesn't have either slot used yet. I would wager he has an h2215 or h2210.

[VictoNight]

Man! You've got my number. I have an h2215. I want to go with quantity but I don't want to sacrifice too much quality. I'll probably get a 512 CF. Ebay is a great help...