BetaPlayer, hi-res DivX, WiFi, NO reencoding - smooth!!!

[schriss]

Here is what I tried:
1. Enabled WiFi on my Dell Axim X30 624MHz.
2. On my X30 I have mapped a network drive that is shared on my PC
3. Run XCPUScalar to be able to see CPU usage on X30
4. I fired up BetaPlayer
5. Changed Zoom options to "Fit to screen"
6. Opened a DivX movie from mapped network drive, movie was 512x384 resolution
7. Pressed Play and I got it playing SMOOTH :D
So when at home and in range of WiFi I can play any file I have on my PC without the need to waste time to reencode and loose quality.
By the way, CPU usage was hovering between 85-95%

Conclusion? BetaPlayer RULEZ! :D

[Duncan]

Conclusion? BetaPlayer RULEZ! :D

It does indeed. :)

[OneAngryDwarf]

anybody tried this on a iPaq 2215... i'm curious if it would work despite the 200mhz drop

[tourdewolf]

Here is what I tried:
1. Enabled WiFi on my Dell Axim X30 624MHz.
2. On my X30 I have mapped a network drive that is shared on my PC
3. Run XCPUScalar to be able to see CPU usage on X30
4. I fired up BetaPlayer
5. Changed Zoom options to "Fit to screen"
6. Opened a DivX movie from mapped network drive, movie was 512x384 resolution
7. Pressed Play and I got it playing SMOOTH :D
So when at home and in range of WiFi I can play any file I have on my PC without the need to waste time to reencode and loose quality.
By the way, CPU usage was hovering between 85-95%

Conclusion? BetaPlayer RULEZ! :D

How did you map a network drive? Is that built into WMSE? I have been trying to do that very same thing on a 4355 but can't see the shared PC drive in betaplayer.

[dmacburry2003]

Resco File/network Explorer seems to work well for networking and such.

[Gremmie]

anybody tried this on a iPaq 2215... i'm curious if it would work despite the 200mhz drop

I've used it on equivalent devices, yes, it runs very smooth.

[ignar]

Here is what I tried:
1. Enabled WiFi on my Dell Axim X30 624MHz.
2. On my X30 I have mapped a network drive that is shared on my PC
3. Run XCPUScalar to be able to see CPU usage on X30
4. I fired up BetaPlayer
5. Changed Zoom options to "Fit to screen"
6. Opened a DivX movie from mapped network drive, movie was 512x384 resolution
7. Pressed Play and I got it playing SMOOTH :D
So when at home and in range of WiFi I can play any file I have on my PC without the need to waste time to reencode and loose quality.
By the way, CPU usage was hovering between 85-95%

Conclusion? BetaPlayer RULEZ! :D

Just wondering why you want to play movies on the PocketPC when you can just do it with your PC. Maybe another W?BIC item? :D

[schriss]

I used VM Net Browser to enable "Network" folder.

Why I tried that? To see if it works. And it does, so someone may find use for it, WiFi is used not only in my home :D

[Gremmie]

Just wondering why you want to play movies on the PocketPC when you can just do it with your PC. Maybe another W?BIC item? :D

A lot of Divx movies are in QVGA or VGA. With the new PDAs and even old one's, the dot pitch is the same as regular monitors. Thus, the screen is really the same size as you'd view on your PC. The reason that I do it is because the PDA is more portable.

[OneAngryDwarf]

well ignar, for a number of reasons really. Not that it is mentioned here but think about setting this up and accessing it from a 3rd party wireless high speed connec. say at work or at starbucks or something like that.
Or here's another - perhaps you want to watch a movie or tv show while sitting in your back yard... or perhaps you are one of those people who likes to spend a lot of the time in the bathroom, now you can watch vid rather than read. Or what if you have kids or something like that and you have to watch them (be in the same room) and you don't have a PC in there... ahhh you can just watch it on your ppc...
I just tried doing this on my 2215 and found that it runs smoothly initially but then it pretty much locks up the vid or skips a lot after a good 15-20 sec. My ppc formatted movies work fine with this though. However having the ability to not have to convert movies and still be able to watch them would be a major plus.

[schriss]

Maybe you try to increase buffers, I increased them in Network Settings of VM Net Browser and also in BetaPlayer.

[Veggie_Musician]

Ive done this on my 4150 and it runs films like it would on SD cards :) Works with music too!

[schriss]

This is cool, if only BetaPlayer would get really optimized for WMMX my CPU usage would drop below 85% and that would prolong battery life :D

[squiggs1982]

YEah, mine plays very nicely on my 4150 for around 30 seconds and then it seems to stop and the timer thing appears every 10 or 20 seconds. Anyone have any ideas? Tried increasing the buffer size, but to no avail and my network is 54mb/s

Cheers!

[schriss]

maybe it's some kind of time out or power save on your 4150 that is causing this...

[ultraman]

Here is what I tried:
1. Enabled WiFi on my Dell Axim X30 624MHz.
2. On my X30 I have mapped a network drive that is shared on my PC
3. Run XCPUScalar to be able to see CPU usage on X30
4. I fired up BetaPlayer
5. Changed Zoom options to "Fit to screen"
6. Opened a DivX movie from mapped network drive, movie was 512x384 resolution
7. Pressed Play and I got it playing SMOOTH :D
So when at home and in range of WiFi I can play any file I have on my PC without the need to waste time to reencode and loose quality.
By the way, CPU usage was hovering between 85-95%

Conclusion? BetaPlayer RULEZ! :D

With more and more VGA PPC come up, I would like to know whether it is possible to do the same thing with VGA PPC, especially Loox 720. Since all the graphics which needed to process is four times that of the current QVGA PPC.

[schriss]

Don't worry, Picard (maker of BetaPlayer) is interested in Loox720, so if he gets one, you can bet the performance will be good.
Besides, there is surely space for improvement, like full wmmx optimization for new CPUs that have WMMX. Or some low level tricks Picard mentioned lately :D

Besides, my WiFi test was performed with VGA movies, so lets hope VGA PPCs will have necesary capabilities to display those VGA movies on VGA screen with at least same performance as my QVGA PPC displayed VGA movie on QVGA screen (using fit to screen).

[picard]

YEah, mine plays very nicely on my 4150 for around 30 seconds and then it seems to stop and the timer thing appears every 10 or 20 seconds. Anyone have any ideas? Tried increasing the buffer size, but to no avail and my network is 54mb/s
4150 has only 11mb/s wifi. and most importantly video decoding takes much cpu time and reduces the wifi speed. betaplayer currently not optimized for that and will only drop frames if the cpu can't handle the decoding. if the file readed can't handle the bandwidth (in this case wifi) it will stop playback for a buffer load and resume a few seconds later.

[jefersonr]

Man ! It´s really great !

I have an IPAQ 2210 with a compact flash wifi card and it worked pretty well. Only video with ac3 didn´t work. I tested it using XCPUscalar - 472 Mhz - and got a smooth video playback ! We really need the subtitles support. This player rules !!!!!!!! :D

[schriss]

Commercial SmartMovie's developers would be mad if BetaPlayer supports subtitles, they would have to take "the only player supporting subtitles" slogan down :lol:

[frankenbike]

Yeah, but 512x384? I mean, if you rip it off a DVD it's usually 720x480. So it's already been re-encoded. Especially if it's DIVX or XVid. Why not just make it the same size as the PPC and save some bandwidth?

[schriss]

Because it has NOT been reencoded, it was just one of DVDRips I recently borrowed from a friend...
Actually, I can't remember a single DVDRip that would be in 720x480 resolution :lol:
Usually DVDRips resolution is close to what I tried with BeyaPlayer.
But of course you can always Rip a special PocketPC version if you wish, or reencode.
My goal was to play on pocket pc movies that I have on my PC without any additional work - and it works :D (should be even better when full WMMX support arrives... :mrgreen: )

[alanho]

Just a followup on the h4150 problem.
I guess the problem is not overloading the CPU or powersaving mode.

It is the Wifi driver problem or the coordination between wifi and the player.

It seems that the player would STOP buffering the movie while it is player.
And therefore, you can get good movie frames after buffering finished (say 10 seconds) and completely stopped for further buffering (with waiting icon) and after buffering. it goes again.