Media Center on Pocket PC

[fish1856]

Does anyone know of a program i can use to compress down Media Center Television programs (dvr-ms files) to fit onto my pocket pc. I know that DVD's can be compressed down. I want to be able to take tv shows with me. Any help on this would be appreciated.

[MitchellO]

If you have a Pocket PC with WMP10 on it, you can sync the videos to the pocket pc. I know you need WMP10 on the PPC though. It seems to be a simple process from what i have read. Never done it though.

Only some of the newer (WM2003SE) Pocket PCs have Windows Media Player 10, and even then not all do.

[MitchellO]

Just found this (google, you've gotta love it!):

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/_archives/Jan05/WinMediaPlayer10.aspx

It has a bit about media center support in WMP10 for PPC.

[Sven Johannsen]

It's not the compression that is your problem, it's the conversion from dvr-ms to something you can use. Did your media center come with any movie creation software on it, other than MS Movie Maker. Try loading one of the TV files into it and see if it converts it. ArcSoft Showbiz came on my HP MCE and does this. Once the file is converted to something normal, MPEG in my case, then you can use any of the compression techniques available, such as Windows Media Encoder.

The best answer though is get a PPC with MP10 on it. It makes it painless. Unfortunately those aren't that widespread. X50, X30 with update, rx3000 series with update..maybe others i doon't know off-hand.

[Mona13]

I have the ATI TV tuner ($69 with $20 rebate) and it came with software that when I'm recording, it automatically puts it in wmv format for my x50v. When it's done, I just copy it to my 2 gig CF card via a reader. Takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on what I recorded. I love it. The sales person didn't know anything about it, but it will record in quite a few formats. It also came with TV Guide. I just click on the show I want to record and it is ready and waiting, also free with this tuner. Some of the other ones had a monthly charge.

I have heard mpg is best, but I don't want to take up the space with another player and the wmv plays great with no problems. I had to play with the recording settings and set up a customized setting to get it full screen on the x50v. The standard wmv ppc setting was smaller than full screen.

Mona

[MitchellO]

It's not the compression that is your problem, it's the conversion from dvr-ms to something you can use. Did your media center come with any movie creation software on it, other than MS Movie Maker. Try loading one of the TV files into it and see if it converts it. ArcSoft Showbiz came on my HP MCE and does this. Once the file is converted to something normal, MPEG in my case, then you can use any of the compression techniques available, such as Windows Media Encoder.

The best answer though is get a PPC with MP10 on it. It makes it painless. Unfortunately those aren't that widespread. X50, X30 with update, rx3000 series with update..maybe others i doon't know off-hand.

MCE includes a feature to sync the video content to a compatible PDA (ie. one with WMP10). It makes the process fairly painless (from what i have read).

My XDA II Mini has WMP10 too (aka. HTC Magician, MDA Compact, iMate JAM).

[Sven Johannsen]

MCE includes a feature to sync the video content to a compatible PDA (ie. one with WMP10). It makes the process fairly painless (from what i have read).

My XDA II Mini has WMP10 too (aka. HTC Magician, MDA Compact, iMate JAM).

It's not MCE that does it, it is MP10 on the PC. It converts and syncs many audio and video formats into ones compatible with MP10 on the PPC and PMCs. The catch is it won't do the conversion if it doesn't see a compatible portable device, i.e Pocket MP 10 or a PMC. If you haven't tried it on your XDA II, you should.

[MitchellO]

As per request, I just tried syncing a 50Mb MPEG file to my XDA Mini with WMP10 and it worked perfectly. The video looks ok, audio is great and the process was quite fast.

[Sven Johannsen]

As per request, I just tried syncing a 50Mb MPEG file to my XDA Mini with WMP10 and it worked perfectly. The video looks ok, audio is great and the process was quite fast.

Did you note the resulting file size on the XDA and that it was converted to a wmv.

[MitchellO]

The computer did the settings automatically. The 50Mb file was reduced to 11Mb, and yes the file was wmv. The settings let you change the filesize, but by default it works out the best quality/size ratio based on the available space. Will give a lower setting a try when I get home.