Poll: Sony Movie Player, your thoughts?

[tellderek]

My NX is great... But this movie player is horrible! My 3-year-old Casio PDA did a much better job at playing back movies; what's more it played them in their native format!

I know Sony hates MP3 and movie players. They fear these technologies are cutting into their profits. I can neither confirm nor deny this. But if you’re going to sell a product and call it a Personal Entertainment Organizer, then make it entertaining!

They have intentionally made it hard to work with in these regards to discourage people from using their PDAs for these purposes.
Just look at how slow the built in picture viewer is compared to Acid Image. Does Red Mercury(makers of Acid) have the resources of Sony... I think not.

I for one want to be able to play and view all the popular formats in WIDESCREEN mode and in their original form: Mpeg, Jpeg, Bmp, Mov, Avi, Divx and whatever else... Period.

My message to Sony... Either do... Or do not! Quit pulling my chain by pretending to support these formats you wish would just go away.

This is my opinion; let me know how you feel.

[n2ifp]

While it's obvious that the Sony NX70v Clie isn't perfect, it does have it's good points. Maybe we expect too much, I don't know. I also don't know if all you ask is beyond reason. I have no clue as to what constraints or legalities are applied. Maybe it would cost 3 times as much for the perfect PDA. Now I think we are expecting the capabilities of a full blown high performance laptop. This is just some things to think about and that there also might be other factors. I am not defending Sony, but some things maybe beyond their control.

[Mr P]

Think you need to add another choice to this poll as I think the movie player is great but as nearly all NX owners would agree the viewer is rubbish it is so slow and thats why most go and get another viewer such as splashphot.

[cbulock]

Originally posted by Mr P
Think you need to add another choice to this poll as I think the movie player is great but as nearly all NX owners would agree the viewer is rubbish it is so slow and thats why most go and get another viewer such as splashphot.
I was thinking the exact the same thing. I have no problems with the movie player, but the Image Viewer is crap.

[bucalo9]

Yeah, I like its integration, but boy its slow!

[nbkzxl8]

I don't know, guys. I gotta agree with TellDerek; $600 is a lot of cheddar to burn on a pda. For that kinda money, you gotta expect a little more. Don't get me wrong, I love my NX70V, but I don't think it would have cost Sony any more to build in video playback in it's native form. The image converter software is less than stellar, as it doesn't convert many of the newer video formats. I know there are work arounds, using virtuadub or tmpgenc, but that's a lot of work to watch cartoons on a pda. I understand the new NZ90 will capture video in mpeg4...makes you wonder what formats it will play?

[cbulock]

Originally posted by nbkzxl8
I understand the new NZ90 will capture video in mpeg4...makes you wonder what formats it will play?

The NX70 also records video in MPEG-4.

[hansschmucker]

MPEG4 Audio & Video in a Quicktime5 .MOV to be specific

[mashoutposse]

Derek: Your post is a mish-mash of random thoughts that don't appear to be completely relevant. For example:

I know Sony hates MP3 and movie players. They fear these technologies are cutting into their profits. I can neither confirm nor deny this. But if you’re going to sell a product and call it a Personal Entertainment Organizer, then make it entertaining!

They have intentionally made it hard to work with in these regards to discourage people from using their PDAs for these purposes.
Just look at how slow the built in picture viewer is compared to Acid Image. Does Red Mercury(makers of Acid) have the resources of Sony... I think not.

Excuse me, but what the heck does Sony 'hating' mp3 and movie players have to do with the fact that the Picture Viewer is slow? I mean, WTF??? How does this protect Sony's music and movie interests? Really.

As an aside, Sony currently makes the only PC DVD burner that supports DVD-RW AND DVD+RW. Pretty ironic, given your post.

Regarding the rest of your post, I think you need to explore your $600 purchase a bit more before being so quick to bash and berate.

The CLIE Movie Player is excellent. You CAN play any movie in WIDESCREEN without having to jump through hoops like you do with Kinoma. In addition, you CAN play normal MPEGs natively (yes, MPEG-2!!!), but performance is lacking for the bigger files. MPEG-4 works great, and can be played back on any PC with QuickTime 6.0 without conversion.

Using the included Image Converter tool, the NX70V plays back movies better than any PDA out there, including PPCs. In 320x480, most movies converted from PC actually look slightly better on the NX. It's almost akin to going form interlaced to progressive scan. Of course, there are many, many more dots per inch (dpi) on the NX screen than on any PC monitor (or any other PDA), so this is to be expected.

Also, adding mp3s to your Clie is pretty darn easy. if you installed the MS Export PC utility, all you have to do is put your NX in the cradle and drag and drop your MP3s over the MS Export icon. THAT'S IT. I don't see how Sony is at all inhibiting mp3 playback. Heck, you would think they would simply EXCLUDE the feature if that was the problem. I mean, they even added a remote, for goodness' sake. Doesn't seem like a half-baked 'bulletpoint' feature designed to annoy... at least to me.

I for one want to be able to play and view all the popular formats in WIDESCREEN mode and in their original form: Mpeg, Jpeg, Bmp, Mov, Avi, Divx and whatever else... Period.

Firstly, here aren't even PPCs that can do this without 3rd party software, much less any other Palm. IIRC, PPCs still need PocketTV software to come close to doing what you're saying. Secondly, the NX can already do .jpgs, .mpgs, and some .movs natively. Consider that no Palm, not even the $500 Tungsten T, comes close to the NX70V when it comes to entertainment and multimedia.

[Tek Phreak]

but guys is it to much to ask for the video player to support .avi extensions and .divx encoding? I would be happy w/ just .avi extensions! This is my only complaint, but it is kinda big, but not big enough that i dislike my clie in any shape or form.

Enjoy.
-Tek

[tellderek]

Excuse me, but what the heck does Sony 'hating' mp3 and movie players have to do with the fact that the Picture Viewer is slow? I mean, WTF??? How does this protect Sony's music and movie interests? Really.

Personally I think Sony is no big fan of any kind of media exchange that they don't exclusively control; I guess you have forgotten Magic Gate memory stick. What a great invention, those things delete your MP3s from your hard drive when you copy them to your Clie.

As an aside, Sony currently makes the only PC DVD burner that supports DVD-RW AND DVD+RW. Pretty ironic, given your post.

Companies this large often have more that one division. It's not unlikely that someone at Sony figured it was just a matter of time before someone else came out with it, so why not be first?

Regarding the rest of your post, I think you need to explore your $600 purchase a bit more before being so quick to bash and berate.


I'm not bashing my Clie, but I expect more and yes it can get better. Don't believe me? Ten years from now this thing will be junk!

The CLIE Movie Player is excellent. You CAN play any movie in WIDESCREEN without having to jump through hoops like you do with Kinoma. In addition, you CAN play normal MPEGs natively (yes, MPEG-2!!!), but performance is lacking for the bigger files. MPEG-4 works great, and can be played back on any PC with QuickTime 6.0 without conversion.

Perhaps I need to make my point clearer. I mean without hassle. No special directories that that movies need to be loaded into, no special formats, no hoop jumping period!

Of course, there are many, many more dots per inch (dpi) on the NX screen than on any PC monitor (or any other PDA), so this is to be expected.

Honestly I don't know what the dpi is on the Clie. Here is all Sony's website said:

• Display
TFT color display with back light
320 x 480 dots
65,536 colors

However, when it come to playing movies, resolution and color depth are what slows playback. My PC monitor runs at 1600x1280 @ 32bit color setting (Millions of colors) and let me assure you that my ATI Radeon 9700 crushes my Clie... Silly to compare the two.


Firstly, here aren't even PPCs that can do this without 3rd party software, much less any other Palm. IIRC, PPCs still need PocketTV software to come close to doing what you're saying. Secondly, the NX can already do .jpgs, .mpgs, and some .movs natively.

I am sure everyone here realizes that depending on what you buy you may have a different software package included with it. My old PPC came with movie player software and I believe it worked much better than what came with my Clie. I could open movies in any folder... and it worked painlessly.

I do like my Clie, but can admit it is not perfect.

I think once you see the big picture you will better appreciate where I'm coming from.
Sony has a division called Sony Pictures and they make movies. They have a division called Sony Music and they make music CDs. These same companies are the very reason why DVDs are encrypted... or did you think they encrypt them to make them easier to load onto your Clie?

They are currently fighting to prevent digital TV signals from being recorded to DVD recordables by embedding encryption into the signal.

Lastly was it not Sony that released the newest Michael Jackson CD with a new format that didn’t sound as good as a regular CD but was designed to prevent playback on a computer CDrom drive. Why? So that it could not be ripped to MP3 format.

Again... Sony; quit jerking my chain already

[cbulock]

Tellderek,

In that whole post, you never explained why Sony would want to deter you from viewing images. I don't think that it is in there best intrest to do so.

Personally I think Sony is no big fan of any kind of media exchange that they don't exclusively control; I guess you have forgotten Magic Gate memory stick. What a great invention, those things delete your MP3s from your hard drive when you copy them to your Clie.

What? Delete your MP3's?

[tellderek]

For those that are unfamiliar with MagicGate; it allows you to move your MP3 rather than copy them from device to device (PC, Clie …etc).
We can only hope that the new MS Pro doesn't mandate the use of this technology. Go here for the details.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-25-1999/0000877656&EDATE=

[mportuesi]

I can't vote for the poll the way it is.

I think Sony's Movie Player is just fine, even though it's not at all obvious how to get movies from elsewhere to play in it.

As far as the image viewer, it is way too slow, and doesn't support landscape viewing easily at all.

[cbulock]

Originally posted by tellderek
For those that are unfamiliar with MagicGate; it allows you to move your MP3 rather than copy them from device to device (PC, Clie …etc).
We can only hope that the new MS Pro doesn't mandate the use of this technology. Go here for the details.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-25-1999/0000877656&EDATE=

The Memory Stick Pro will feature the Magic Gate technology, but it's nothing to be afraid of. All files that work on a regular Memory Stick, will function exactly the same on a Magic Gate Memory Stick. Even MP3's. Magic Gate has to do with files that require copy protection such as ATRAC3. Thats the music format Sony is pushing. But on Clies, it's not required that you use this format. Magic Gate is very similar to the copy protection built into SD cards. It won't affect any audio or video formats that you currently use. It's just there for formats in the future that will require copy-protection and digital rights managment.

[mashoutposse]

TellDerek:

On the mp3 issue: What cbulock said.

On everything else:

Perhaps I need to make my point clearer. I mean without hassle. No special directories that that movies need to be loaded into, no special formats, no hoop jumping period!

The only thing you're required to do is to drop the file you want into Image Converter, and IC does the rest. It can't get much simpler than that. Even on a Pocket PC, you will still have to actually place the PDA on its cradle, open My Computer, manually drag and drop files, then manually locate them on the PDA itself.

Heck, the fact that the NX can read MPEG-4 files natively almost qualifies as a minor miracle, given the OS. Be reasonable. Can it be better? Of course! -- one day, on my CLIE I'll be able to open any .mpg, .mov, .avi, or any movie encoded in one of the approximately two billion DiVx codecs out there. Still, the implementation of today serves its purpose well, and IMO is a far cry from being 'horrible.'

Honestly I don't know what the dpi is on the Clie. Here is all Sony's website said:

• Display
TFT color display with back light
320 x 480 dots
65,536 colors

However, when it come to playing movies, resolution and color depth are what slows playback. My PC monitor runs at 1600x1280 @ 32bit color setting (Millions of colors) and let me assure you that my ATI Radeon 9700 crushes my Clie... Silly to compare the two.

Because the NX's 320x480 pixels are packed so tightly (pixel density is far higher than an PC monitor), most converted movies manage to look even sharper on the CLIE. In addition, I have yet to experience any dropped frames or stuttering of any kind with any IC-converted movie that I have played (as stated previously, larger MPEG-2s don't play too well).

I am sure everyone here realizes that depending on what you buy you may have a different software package included with it. My old PPC came with movie player software and I believe it worked much better than what came with my Clie. I could open movies in any folder... and it worked painlessly.

Any IC-converted movie will show up immediately on the NX. You don't even have to look through folders like you do on a PPC. Really, if there's one aspect of the NX that Sony practically nailed, it's movie playback.

I think once you see the big picture you will better appreciate where I'm coming from.
Sony has a division called Sony Pictures and they make movies. They have a division called Sony Music and they make music CDs. These same companies are the very reason why DVDs are encrypted... or did you think they encrypt them to make them easier to load onto your Clie?

But what does this even have to do with the CLIE? Assuming you already have movies and mp3s that you want to transfer to your NX, all you have to do is use either Image Converter, MS Import (so the Clie shows up as a drive on your PC), or MS Export (for drag and drop ease). NONE of these programs hinder your attempts to load copywritten material onto your Clie.

I do like my Clie, but can admit it is not perfect.

I agree, but I think the fact that it is pretty much the best out there has to stand for something. IMO, the Clie is close enough to warrant its heavy price tag. I mean, a Tungsten is $500, for goodness' sake :)

[cyclone]

Another issue possibly preventing playback of .AVI's (and DivX support) is that there is dedicated hardware assisting with the decoding of MPEG files. It's not clear whether this hardware can be tweaked to support other codecs, or whether the main CPU has enough cycles to support it.

[Lexx]

Originally posted by tellderek
[B]

I'm not bashing my Clie, but I expect more and yes it can get better. Don't believe me? Ten years from now this thing will be junk!


I agree, but I am shocked you gave it that long a life cycle. I give it 9 months before it's junk. :) At least my Visor Prism made it very close to the 4 year mark before I seriously started considering a new device. Had I not won my NR70V, and later sold it to get the NX70V, I would most likely still be using my Prism. :) 



Perhaps I need to make my point clearer. I mean without hassle. No special directories that that movies need to be loaded into, no special formats, no hoop jumping period!



Things being in specific directories don't bother me much. It helps keep things kinda organised.

I am sure everyone here realizes that depending on what you buy you may have a different software package included with it. My old PPC came with movie player software and I believe it worked much better than what came with my Clie. I could open movies in any folder... and it worked painlessly.


Ah! Now I undestand what you ment to say. I agree. It would be nice to change folders from within the applications.

I do like my Clie, but can admit it is not perfect.


And what makes it worse, is that we probably will not see any kind of software improvment after the memory stick upgrade. Notice I didn't say OS5.2, because I honestly do not believe Sony will release OS5.2 for current NX users. It's a shame really. Kinda makes me feel like I still own my Visor Prism which had no flash rom, thus I could understand no OS upgrades. Here I have a unit with flash rom, but no support from the vendor. :(

[Drexer]

asd

[Drexer]

Sorry hit the keybroad

[keeperkeith]

ok for those of you wanting to playback your d/led divx movies....c'mon now...think realistically....

my old pc could barely play dvix movies....

There WILL need need to be sometype of video conversion if the resolution of the videos are big....playing a 640x368 video on our clies is pretty outrageous. geez our screens are only 320x480...

yes it would be nice if the movie player supported those codecs, but really...it won't make life easier....there will still need to be conversion

i agree that the picture app is way too slow

[sstrasser86]

yeah i think the movies player is deceant but the pic viewer is horrid

[jklfafa]

you guys are too picky!!...besides the load time on the viewer...
its fine......imagine waking up tommorow with it gone!!!

[cbulock]

Originally posted by jklfafa
you guys are too picky!!...besides the load time on the viewer...
its fine......imagine waking up tommorow with it gone!!!

You must only have one or two .JPG's on your device. I was only keeping about 40-50, and I imagine some people are keeping many more than that. Every time you view an image, and go back to the viewer, it must reload every thumbnail. And you can't even cancel it. It takes a good 20-40 seconds to reload. It's a pain to actually view the images. Try Acid Image. It save the thumbnails and runs extremly fast. You don't even notice the app is there because the images load instantly.