Any 4700 owners here who could do a little test with Betaplayer for me?

[KuroNeko]

I'm interested in a 4700 for playing divx/xvid files, using Betaplayer. The files I have are for normal TV viewing and I'd like to play them without re-encoding.

According to Picard (Betaplayer genius) the 4700 with built in ATI gfx chip may not be able to handle high bitrate high res movies and scale/rotate them as well. The Dell X50v can do this with the Intel2700. So should I get a Dell? :mrgreen:

So I'd like to know if a high bitrate (1200-1500kbps) movie file, using a somewhat larger (e.g. 704 pixels) or smaller (e.g. 580 pixels) horizontal resolution, requiring scaling & rotation during playback, would still play without dropping frames.

If anyone here has a 4700 and is familiar with Betaplayer (knowing how to check for dropped frames) and is willing to do this test, please respond.

I can prepare some short clips that should not be too big and upload them to you. Unless of course you're an anime fan and have fansubs of your own - in that case you'll have plenty of material to begin with :D

Thanks in advance!

Neko

[JvanEkris]

I use betaplayer on a 4700 to play AVI's based on 700Kbs video (MPEG4 VBR), combined with 128 Kbs audio (MP3 VBR) without any trouble. They are movies i have ripped from DVD or recorded from TV, all in 720x576 format at 25 fps (=PAL).

Jaap

[KuroNeko]

Hallo Jaap,

ik zal maar best in het Engels verder gaan :)

The bitrate is important. Picard told me its the resolution x bitrate that's important because this determines the memory bandwidth needed.

Most my files are 1200-1500kbps. And looking at the benchmark page by AVI, the 4700 is at 145%, while the Dell is at 180%+, so it has a llot more headroom. Just making sure the 4700 has enough power not to run out of breath.

Neko

[JvanEkris]

Hoi Neko,

I've tested an original dump of 10 minutes of an episode of Spooks, recoded at 1550 kbit/s video and 185 Kbit/s audio, totaling to an AVI of 1735 Kbit/s optimized for 640x352. It plays very well i must say, no dropped frames or hickups. It really looks supurb (i combine it with a Freevo machine: i get perfect AVI's for my Hx4700).

When i run a benchmark i get around 120%.....

Jaap

[KuroNeko]

Hi Jaap,

this is what we already knew, this is the same type of files used in the becnhmarks. The question is, what happens if you get files which have 704 or 720 horizontally. This means the video must be scaled and according to Picard this can make quite a difference for the ATI chip. And since you are at 120%, there's not much room left. The Dell has much more headroom in this regard.

I've created 3 files for testing. PhilH contacted me by PM and I'm mailing them to him as I write this. If you're interested in trying these, I can mail them to you or upload them to a site you have access to. Size is 8MB so please make sure your email account can handle it!

Neko

[JvanEkris]

Oke,

I will dump part of a DVD onto my server. But he is busy now with recording MythBusters. So i have to wait 20 minutes:)

Jaap

[picard]

KuroNeko: Be sure to search on forums for the 'green-tint' video playback effect on e800 and hx4700. It's caused by the hardware video decoding bug in ATI Imageon chip.

[KuroNeko]

OK, I'll do a search on that. Curious how bad this will be...

Neko

[JvanEkris]

Oke,

I have tested a set of movie file: this time i used the first minute of West Wing with the size 720 x 576. I got the following results: A clip at 1400 Kb/s MPEG4 and 131 Kbs MP3 skipped frames, resulting in a benchmark of 64% 8O A clip at 1200 Kb/s MPEG4 and 131 Kbs MP3 skipped frames, also resulting in a benchmark of 65% 8O I must say i'm a bit obscured by this data. I did not realize that increasing the screen-size had such an effect! I always believed that it did not make much difference which screensize was used as long as the bitrates were kept more or less the same.......

Jaap

[KuroNeko]

Jaap, what happens if you watch them unscaled (scaling manual and 100% - you'll miss parts of the picture but it will be interesting to see if this is the cause of the speed-down)

Neko

[KuroNeko]

edit: deleted double posting

[KuroNeko]

Here are some results of the X50v versus the 4700. The Dell manages to just scrape over 100% on the heaviest file, while the 4700 drops to just above 70% on this. Quite a difference the Intel GPU makes.

One should think this cinches it, and the Dell wins hands down (even with a slightly less good screen), but during my hunt for info, I dropped by the Aximsite forums, and there are some disturbing problems with the X50v - the cradle seems to blow up mainboards, the screen gets dirty under the edges a lot making the alignment go out of wack, ...

Counter this with the memory leak problems the 4700 seems to have and we're looking at a choice between 2 beta devices :?

Anyway, here's the bench results:

BetaPlayer Version STABLE.0.5 Benchmark Results
File 704 Pixels Axim X50v - Ipaq hx4700

Average Speed 102.68% 73.32%
Video Frames 260 260
Audio Samples 412416 412416
Amount of Data 7140 KB 7140KB

Bench. Time 0:08.448 0:11.831
Bench. Frame Rate 30.77 21.97
Bench. Sample Rate 48813 34856
Bench. Data Rate 6.9 Mbit/s 4.9Mbit/s

Original Time 0:08.675
Original Frame Rate 29.97
Original Sample Rate 48000
Original Data Rate 6.7 Mbit/s

URL \SD Card\704pixels.avi \CF Card\704pixels.avi
Size 7311360
Platform PocketPC
OS Version 4.21
OEM Info Dell Axim X50 HP iPAQ hx4700
Clock speed 624 Mhz 624 Mhz
Video output Intel 2700G 480x640 Slow ATI IMAGEON 480x640 Slow
Audio output Wave Output 48000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.

---------------------------------------


BetaPlayer Version STABLE.0.5 Benchmark Results
File 704pnormal Axim X50v - Ipaq hx4700

Average Speed 196.38% 130.94%
Video Frames 798 798
Audio Samples 1527552 1527552
Amount of Data 8642 KB 8642 KB

Bench. Time 0:16.253 0:24.377
Bench. Frame Rate 49.10 32.73
Bench. Sample Rate 93981 62661
Bench. Data Rate 4.4 Mbit/s 2.9 Mbit/s

Original Time 0:31.919
Original Frame Rate 25.00
Original Sample Rate 48000
Original Data Rate 2.2 Mbit/s

URL \SD Card\704pnormal.avi \SD Card\704pnormal.avi
Size 8849408
Platform PocketPC
OS Version 4.21
OEM Info Dell Axim X50 HP iPAQ hx4700
Clock speed 624 Mhz 624 Mhz
Video output Intel 2700G 480x640 Slow ATI IMAGEON 480x640 Slow
Audio output Wave Output 48000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.

---------------------------------------


BetaPlayer Version STABLE.0.5 Benchmark Results
File 720 Pixels Axim X50v - Ipaq hx4700

Average Speed 144.31% 84.33%
Video Frames 421 421
Audio Samples 830592 830592
Amount of Data 8552 KB 8552 KB

Bench. Time 0:12.167 0:20.822
Bench. Frame Rate 34.60 20.22
Bench. Sample Rate 68262 39888
Bench. Data Rate 5.8 Mbit/s 3.4 Mbit/s

Original Time 0:17.559
Original Frame Rate 23.98
Original Sample Rate 48000
Original Data Rate 4.0 Mbit/s

URL \SD Card\720pixels.avi \SD Card\720pixels.avi
Size 8757248
Platform PocketPC
OS Version 4.21
OEM Info Dell Axim X50 HP iPAQ hx4700
Clock speed 624 Mhz 624 Mhz
Video output Intel 2700G 480x640 Slow ATI IMAGEON 480x640 Slow
Audio output Wave Output 48000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.

[JvanEkris]

Here are some results of the X50v versus the 4700. The Dell manages to just scrape over 100% on the heaviest file, while the 4700 drops to just above 70% on this. Quite a difference the Intel GPU makes.

One should think this cinches it, and the Dell wins hands down (even with a slightly less good screen), but during my hunt for info, I dropped by the Aximsite forums, and there are some disturbing problems with the X50v - the cradle seems to blow up mainboards, the screen gets dirty under the edges a lot making the alignment go out of wack, ...

Counter this with the memory leak problems the 4700 seems to have and we're looking at a choice between 2 beta devices :?What memory-leak are you talking about? My Ipaq runs for days without any problem. As long as you don't turn on the credent security you do not run into problems.....

Jaap

[KuroNeko]

Something I read about here or on the IpaqHQ forums. Don't remember where. It didn't seem too bad, but a soft reset would be needed several times a day. Doesn't really mean a problem for me so I didn't pay much attention to it either than register it.

Neko