01-26-2004, 06:35 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 706
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Is that a DVD in your Pocket? DVD to Pocket PC Reviewed
We've all heard about the wonderful multimedia capabilities of the Pocket PC. For a long time, we saw it as what separated the Pocket PC from the Palm. Listening to your music on a Pocket PC is pretty easy - just copy the MP3 or WMA to a storage card or your device and voila - your Pocket PC is a jukebox. But watching a movie has not been quite as easy. That's where DVD to Pocket PC steps in. This application rips and encodes a DVD to fit it onto a storage card for viewing on your Pocket PC.
DVD to Pocket PC sets out to do what can already be done by a number of other tools. What makes it special is that it does with one tool and a single button push what is usually done by a combination of other tools and lots of messing around. Instead of using an application, like Super DVD Ripper, to extract the DVD movie and then something like Virtual Dub to encode the movie, DVD to Pocket PC rolls all of those function and settings into a very clean interface with a single button. Is it perfect? I think it's pretty good but there are some little things I'd like to addressed.
Getting Started
Once you've downloaded DVD to Pocket PC you'll need to install it. You'll need a computer running Windows XP to do that. According to the Makayama Web site other operating systems are not supported. The installation required just over 12MB for installation and requires that you have the Microsoft Windows Media Player Series 9 Encoder also installed.
If you don't have it, the DVD to Pocket PC installer will prompt you to download and install it.
Finally, your PC will need to have a DVD drive and Codec installed. I use Cyberlink PowerDVD. On the Pocket PC side of things you'll need a device running Windows Mobile 2003 to view movies.
How did I Test
Once installed, DVD to Pocket PC is very easy to use. Although there are a myriad of settings for you to tinker with, you can be up and running a few seconds after starting the software and putting a movie in your DVD drive. For the purposes of this review I used a Region 4 copy of Star Trek First Contact. The movie has a run time of about 104 minutes. My PC is a Celeron 2.4 GHz running Windows XP Professional with 1 GB of RAM and about 25 GB of free disk space.
Let it Rip!
Once the DVD was in the drive, I started DVD to Pocket and hit the single Open button on the screen.
This brought up a selection window so that I could pick which track to rip from the DVD. On a DVD with a single movie this is usually the track with the longest run time.
You'll also notice that the DVD is playing in the application window within the image of the Pocket PC. Even the buttons on the Media Player work! Once you've finished messing around with that you can press the Start button on the screen and DVD to Pocket PC rips the movie from the disk and stores it on your hard drive.
The ripped file is then encoded to work on the Pocket PC.
The entire process took about five hours on my computer and, once started, did not require any intervention from me. During the entire ripping and encoding processes the CPU on my computer was running at close to 100%. Memory use was pretty low. This indicates that the more processing power you throw at this, the faster it will run. The developer recommends running it after a clean reboot, with no other applications running.
The ripped DVD file, prior to encoding was stored to the root of my hard drive and was about 1 GB in size. The final file, converted to run on my Pocket PC from a 256 MB SD card was 208 MB in size. It was stored on the desktop of my PC and was called DVD.wmv. You can then copy the file to your Pocket PC either by using a card reader (recommended) or through Activesync (if you're patient).
While ripping and converting my DVD I did experience one rather annoying piece of behaviour. On a couple of occassions, I just left the software to do its thing while I went out. When I returned a few hours later it had stopped after ripping the DVD and did not start the conversion to Pocket PC format. It seemed to me that DVD to Pocket PC was unable to invoke the Windows Media Player Encoder to do the second half of the process. Fortunately, if this happens, you don't have to start over as there is a menu option (Options | Special) to start from Step 2 of the process.
Support and Documentation
Even though the process for extracting and encoding the DVD is really simple, Makayama have an online guide here to guide you through the process.
Also, when I had questions, the developer answered my emails promptly and clearly.
Configuration
Like all audio and video encoders, DVD to Pocket PC supports a myriad of different options for manipulating the result of your DVD rip and encoding. Some of the options are pretty obvious such as output volume and subtitles. Others require a little more knowledge about encoding. I found that the default settings delivered a reasonable result.
But is it Any Good?
Well, like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I watched First Contact on Spike, my iPAQ 2210, from a Sandisk 256 MB SD card. The sound quality was pretty good. Even though I only use a pair of el cheapo headphones I could clearly hear everything and it was, in my mind, good enough. The video quality was OK as well but, not suprisingly, there was some loss as a result of the encoding. In some scenes, especially when looking a solid areas with lots of shading, there was some pixelation. Also, in scenes where the camera slowly pans around or zooms in on a subject, there is some slight jerkiness. That said, the movie was certainly watchable. Given the limitations of the Pocket PC screen neither of these issues was enough to make the movie unwatchable.
I also encoded the same movie for a 128 MB card. Interestingly, according to my operating system, the file was 132 MB in size, even though I specified the final file to fit on a 128 MB memory card. After raising this with the developer, I found out there is a limitation. Only movies up to 100 minutes in length can be encoded to fit on a 128 MB card. The limitation moves up to 150 minutes for a 256 MB card.
I found that it was easier to think of the two modes "Normal" and "High" quality rather than 128 MB and 256 MB modes. If you want to fit a movie that is longer than 150 MB on a 256 MB card then use the "Normal" or 128 MB Card mode.
As an indication, First Contact, with a 104 minute runtime, created a 208 MB file in "High Quality" or 256 MB mode and 138 MB in "Normal" or 128 MB mode. My guess is that you should get pretty close to fitting a three hour movie onto a 256 MB card if you use the "Normal" mode.
So that you can get an idea of the difference between the modes, you can view a sample of each mode's output. Here's the "Normal" quality output, and here's the "High" quality output. Based on the rips I did, there isn't too much difference in the movie quality of the final products.
As for playback quality, my eyes tell me that the "Normal" quality encoded movie was watchable but showed a little more pixelation and slightly more jerkiness that the "High" quality mode. Sound quality wasn't much different between the two with enough depth for me. Given the limitations of the Pocket PC screen I felt that encoding to the "Normal" quality level would be good enough for most people.
Gotchas
Overall, DVD to Pocket PC is a pretty nice application. However, there are some things I'd like to see addressed in future releases.
- The application only supports Windows XP and Windows Mobile 2003 devices. While both of these operating systems are current, there are many PCs and Pocket PCs out there that are one generation behind. Support for Windows 2000 and Pocket PC 2002 would be nice.
- When I first tried to use the software I received an error message that prompted me to reset all of the user options back to the defaults. I had never altered these settings but some things did change when I did this. The software then worked.
- For legal reasons this software may not be used by citizens of the U.S. and Malaysia to convert copy-protected DVDs.
- On a couple of occassions the ripped DVD was not encoded. You can use the Step 2 only mode if this happens but it's still annoying.
Where To Buy
The software can be purchased directly from Handango. There is a trial version available that is fully featured but enly encodes the first few minutes of a DVD for viewing on a Pocket PC. The full version costs $24.99 USD. [Affiliate]
Conclusions
DVD to Pocket PC works effectively and fulfils its raison d'etre. It converts movies with little user intervention, delivering output of a reasonable quality. Is it worth $25? I'm not sure. Although you can achieve the same result using some free tools, they require you to set more options and provide manual input. As I'm not an expert at ripping and encoding DVDs I would prefer to use DVD to Pocket PC. It's easy and works. Check out the Makayama Web site for more information about this application.
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01-26-2004, 06:39 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,725
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Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.
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01-26-2004, 06:44 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 95
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Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.
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01-26-2004, 06:46 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,186
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by rugerx
Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Anthony Caruana
My PC is a Celeron 2.4 GHz running Windows XP Professional with 1 GB of RAM and about 25 GB of free disk space.
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:wink:
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01-26-2004, 06:56 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 68
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I love this software. I've already converted the first two seasons of Star Trek S9 and it was a no-brainer. I just leave it running at night, and in the morning I have a new episonde to watch. I then leave it running while I'm at work. I've converted using multiple programs, but after using this one, I'm never going back.
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01-26-2004, 06:56 PM
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Swami
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,303
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Hmmm, I'd be interested in seeing what kinds of time an Athlon 3200+ or a 3Ghz PIV would give. Definately an interesting area to watch (boom, boom! :wink: ).
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01-26-2004, 06:57 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 541
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Yet another completly legitimate use outlawed due to the corporate greed.
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01-26-2004, 06:57 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,734
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by OSUKid7
Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.
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If you are like me and leave your computers on 24/7, you can always leave it overnight or while you are at work. Interesting software, and I feel tempted to buy it before it gets banned here in the UK, and while (ironically) the dollar is so weak, making it cheaper.
Surur
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01-26-2004, 07:02 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,725
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Surur
Quote:
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Originally Posted by OSUKid7
Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.
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If you are like me and leave your computers on 24/7, you can always leave it overnight or while you are at work. Interesting software, and I feel tempted to buy it before it gets banned here in the UK, and while (ironically) the dollar is so weak, making it cheaper.
Surur |
Yeah, I guess...I do leave my pc on 24/7, so I could do this. But then again, I'm a heavy anti-piracy advocate, and this boarders on piracy which is why it may be banned. On top of that, I don't own any DVDs lol...just rent the movie when I want to watch it.
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01-26-2004, 07:09 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 468
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Excellent review! I have a question, though... What do you mean when you say it won't work on Pocket PC 2002? I played your sample file with no problem on my old Jornada 568 running PPC2002. It ran quite well, in fact.
As for the piracy issue, why should the media companies care if I rip my own DVD for my personal use on my Pocket PC? Now if I shared the files, that'd certainly be a different story. But for my own use, I thought all of that was ok.
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Linear Mode
