Forget MMPlayer..SmartMovie is amazing!

[Gero]

OK.. just downloaded and tried the demo of smart movie and WOW.. I mean I have MMplayer (infact only bout the licence a month ago) and I was very impressed with MM Player... the only drawback is the overnight requirement to downsive video files to an acceptable sizer to fit on a 256MB card..

I have just tried Smartmovie (on the PDA 24/7 website) and WOW... Its as good as MMplayer, but for the extra 5 bucks (its 19.99, you get a desktop converter, the neccessary Xvid codecs (better than DivX)... it converts files at 5x quicker than playback speed (so 25 minute movie emcoded in 5 minutes) and makes the files very small!..

Wont say anything more as I havent texted all the settings etc... but really just wanted to give people a heads up... I mean, it even installs a 'Palm XviD' codec onto the palm.. and has codects for series 60, Pocket PC etc etc... Very smart programme bundle!

Gero.

[spence]

I cannot find smart movie anywhere! Can you supply a link to where you exactly found it?
Thanks in advance

[Lance]

SmartMovie (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?productType=2&optionId=1_1_2&jid=BD64EAB6E978F137B27DAAX282FA6A96&platformId=1&siteId=1&productId=121046&sectionId=0&catalog=1&txtSearch=smartmovie)

[spence]

Thanx

[gavinfabl]

Just downloaded trial. The playback of movies and screen interface is awesome ..

[kazuni]

i'll try it ! thanks for the link!

[Pdaman]

Update :

Smartmovie rocks (don't rock anymore)
now i don't buy mmplayer and now i don't buy kinoma producer so i will buy this nice smartmovie player with nice details...
Reason :
My zire 71 don't play movies even i have all data but it is fast and nice looking if nothing else...

So Back to mmplayer or to kinoma...

Anyway Again one more reason to buy pda not phone...

Update :

What movie/video player can read most formats so what is best player ?

-kinoma producer ?
-smartmovie ?
-mmplayer ?

Please someone

[spence]

I'll stick with mmplayer, i know where am am with it! Tried smartmovie and converted a file, however it will not play on my palm (zire71), can anyone help?

[Gero]

Spence.. did you load the Palm Xvid video codec that was in the trail zip file?.. I didnt load that straight away and the inclided demo movies wouldnt play for me. Having installed it, they now play.

Also, i have noted that filed coded for smart movie using their software, have mixed success playing in MM Player.. some appear to play.. some dont...

I dont think this is a competitor to MMplayer as MM player plays a hell of alot more formats and is a 'player' afterall..

Samrt movie will only play movies converted via its desktop converter (in Xvid codec).. until someone comes up with more plam version video codecs.

Smart Player definite IS competion for pqDVD and in my opinion better as with pqDVD you still have to shell out for mmplayer rather than getting one included with the desktop conversion software.

Kinoma?.. well that program is a bit of a joke isnt it?... never been good for more than short clips of things.

[spence]

I loaded everything that came with it, it sayes 'XviD codec:not enough memory for initialisation'

Instead of buying all of the software such as smart movie and pqDVD studio id rather do it the long way with freeware i have.

Although it would be nice to try it out.

[Gero]

There is freeware you can play dvd quality movies on your palm with?.. what freeware is that then?..

From the error message.. it sounds like you dont have enough available memory?..

[mattyparanoid]

Downloaded the trial from Handango and gave it a whirl without installing the desktop.

I have the newest Tripping the Rift Episode that I downloaded just a few minutes ago, 56meg avi not ripped by me.

MMPlayer 0.2.11 plays it fine, as it has for the past few versions.

SmartMovie plays it, but with consistent skipping...
(just a correction gero, SmartMovie doesn't require the movie to be converted by its desktop companion...)
So initial impressions are that it is not quite ready for primetime, but I am impressed for it start out of the gate.

I think the interface is a bit tacky and garish myself. All that flashing in the background is ugly IMO. Not skinnable, that is a strike against it for me.

I am going to test it out further, but for now MMPlayer seems to be a bit better and is definately more configurable.

The desktop converter for SmartMovie is more interesting to me then the player. If it works like the box says, then I may be sold.

matty

[kazuni]

Anyone with a Tungsten E tried this? I kept on getting a crash or frozen application...

[gavinfabl]

I own PQ DVD , MMplayer and have just bought Smartmovie. I have kinoma as well, but it creates too large files.

I use Pocket DVD to record my DVD's and now smartmovie to play them. Smartmovie is slicker to user and you can skip to a certain part of the film. MMplayer can't.

Smartmovie on my T3 works very well at 15fps, 252kps and screen 448 x 256. Lightspeed is set at 500 for both MMplayer and Smartmovie. Mono sound. Smartmovie does have a neat converter.

MMplayer is more versatile but at moment I like Smartmovie. MMplayer can play higher quality AVI's but i need the ability to move to a certain part of the movie.

I am sure MMplayer will improve .

Pocket DVD makes recording DVd's simple.

Virtualdub is a free alternative but you will need to set up all the options.

[KenSong]

Originally posted by gavinfabl
MMplayer is more versatile but at moment I like Smartmovie. MMplayer can play higher quality AVI's but i need the ability to move to a certain part of the movie.

Actually MMPlayer can easily move to any portion of a movie via it's slider and you get a picture preview of the scene accessed. You can even bookmark scenes and easily jump to them at any time. I am of course talking about the latest version 0.2.11p5.

I hgave SmartMovie a whirl but I am sticking with MMPlayer. Here are my reasons.

No Zoom levels/FitScreen/Fullscreen
No on the fly rotate (4-way)
Codec not complete. many AVI movies cannot be played eg the ones I encode with DivX5.1 and DivX4 (very popular AVI for handhelds)
No Sound Amplifier
No Equalizer
B-Frame controls not available
No buffer control (hence some out of memory issue?)
No Repeat/Shuffle control
No Pan, brightness (movie, not device) and contrast control
When seeking, no preview window
Cannot create playlist or skin feature
No optional Audio codec support eg MP3, Ogg, Midi
Limited hardware button support with no user setting
No streaming video or audio
No bookmark feature

ALL THE ABOVE IS FOUND IN MMPLAYER - still the best video player for PALM IMO :)

[Gero]

KenSong... I think your absolutely correct with all of the above... but I dont think MMplayer and Smart Movie are really like-for-like (despite my title when starting this thread)..

Having played with smart movie more, I think smart movie is more about the desk top converter.. the palm application is just an add-on so that you can watch converted movies 'out of the box'.. unlike PQ DVD where after 25 bucks on the desk top converter, you still need to buy MMPlayer to watch the converted movies.

In terms of palm movie players, of course, MM Player is the king.

Whats really nice about smart movie is that the desk top companets appears to convert any movie format as long as you have the correct codec installed on your PC. I've managed to convert quicktime, realmeadia, avi (divx, Xvid etc), wmv, asf etc etc..

So yes.. Smart movie's strengths definitely lie in the desktop converter whilst MM PLayer is still the king of players.

[gavinfabl]

I am of course talking about the latest version 0.2.11p5
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen 0.211p4 on MMplayer forums but not p5 , therefore my slider control is not working at all.

Where can you get p5?

[MrYuk]

Originally posted by KenSong
Actually MMPlayer can easily move to any portion of a movie via it's slider and you get a picture preview of the scene accessed. You can even bookmark scenes and easily jump to them at any time. I am of course talking about the latest version 0.2.11p5.


Noticed your posts in the MMplayer forum - it seems you are using D-Vision to encode on the Mac OS for your T3. Is there (anywhere) step by step instructions on how to do this? My family is traveling this weekend and I would rather buy a few extra SD cards than a portable DVD player (most of which _do not_ remember the position in the movie when powered off then on - a real hassle with 3 yr olds)

TIA

[KenSong]

It is simple really. Put in your DVD and select it in D-Vision. Then select your destination. Settings are as follows.

For video:
I use DivX4 or Xvid. Both will work well.
I check Deinterlace
2-pass encoding
15 Fps
Use the Auto crop function to minimise output size
I set my width to 480. Use the auto scale and it'll keep video in proportion.
You can set final output size and it'll determine the birate for Video. This is great if you need the movie to fit specific cards (256 MB).
For Audio:
I select MP3 at 64kbits
Set audio gain to 10 and mono (if you listen through speaker)
or to 5 and stereo if you use headphones
Audio channel is usually 1.

Then just press encode and wait....(may take some time depending on your Mac.)

The final file won't play in quicktime unless you have the AVI plug-in but MPlayer for MacOSX will play it fine (came with D-Vision). It will play perfectly in MMPlayer and produces really nice quality video.

[MrYuk]

Thanks for the setup info KenSong. Once I figured out you have to drop the whole "Video_TS" folder into the Source File feild in D-Vison (v2.2) encoding "Batman Beyond" took about 2 hours on an 800MHz G4 (eMac). The file could be played in VLC (freeware Mac OS player)

But the file won't play in mmplayer (v0.2.11):
"Failed to create stream This is probably caused by an unsupported audio sampling frequency."

I used the settings you suggested except at 320 X 240 (I have a T2). D-Visions wouldn't let me use the Xvid codec with 2 passes because of "permission" issues; so I used the DivX4 codec as you suggested.

I'll wander over the the mmplayer forum and see what I can find there.

[krispy]

I've finally tried, but mmPlayer still wins... With minor tweaking when converting various video formats with Virtualdub, (freeware), I can put 3hrs of watchable video on a 256M card. If something comes along that beats this, I'll change.

[derekweb]

So how do I specifically take a DVD movie and encode it onto a media format that I can watch on my Palm T3?

I don't care if it's Kinoma, MMPlayer, or something else.

But will military service and Laptops being WAY to expensive (and bulky), I want the ability to take a movie or two with me and watch them on my T3.

I have Windows XP for the Base Computer OS, Palm OS 5.2.1 (of course, since they havne't updated anyone up to OS6 yet).

[eurisko]

I'm curious as to file sizes between the two.

What's the size of a video created with SmartMovie of comparable quality to one rendered for MMPlayer with Divx 5.1?

[bestoverall]

Originally posted by gero
I have just tried Smartmovie (on the PDA 24/7 website) and WOW... Its as good as MMplayer, but for the extra 5 bucks (its 19.99, you get a desktop converter, the neccessary Xvid codecs (better than DivX)... it converts files at 5x quicker than playback speed (so 25 minute movie emcoded in 5 minutes) and makes the files very small!..

Gero.

Where did you find Smartmovie for $19.99? The price I've found was $29.99 at Handango. A bit expensive!!

[jcasmd]

I had the same error message. I emailed the developer and I was told that T2 is not supported. Oh well, I'm back to MMplayer.

Originally posted by Spence
I loaded everything that came with it, it sayes 'XviD codec:not enough memory for initialisation'

Instead of buying all of the software such as smart movie and pqDVD studio id rather do it the long way with freeware i have.

Although it would be nice to try it out.

[SoS]

Originally posted by MrYuk
Thanks for the setup info KenSong. Once I figured out you have to drop the whole "Video_TS" folder into the Source File feild in D-Vison (v2.2) encoding "Batman Beyond" took about 2 hours on an 800MHz G4 (eMac). The file could be played in VLC (freeware Mac OS player)

But the file won't play in mmplayer (v0.2.11):
"Failed to create stream This is probably caused by an unsupported audio sampling frequency."

I used the settings you suggested except at 320 X 240 (I have a T2). D-Visions wouldn't let me use the Xvid codec with 2 passes because of "permission" issues; so I used the DivX4 codec as you suggested.

I'll wander over the the mmplayer forum and see what I can find there.

Hi Mr Yuk..

Im the 'guest' on the mmplayer forum that has the same problem! Magnus seems to think that it is the audio frequency that is the problem. D-vision is hardwired at 48kHz which is too much for the T and T|2 yet I managed toi play a short clip fine on the T encoded with D-V...However, I redid it using ffmpegX at 22050Hz (40kps) and i still get the same message so there is a problem here it seems. Im still waiting for Magnus to post again...

Kenny, do you still have your T (T2??). If so, could you try it out??

cheers

steve

[SoS]

Originally posted by MrYuk
Thanks for the setup info KenSong. Once I figured out you have to drop the whole "Video_TS" folder into the Source File feild in D-Vison (v2.2) encoding "Batman Beyond" took about 2 hours on an 800MHz G4 (eMac). The file could be played in VLC (freeware Mac OS player)

But the file won't play in mmplayer (v0.2.11):
"Failed to create stream This is probably caused by an unsupported audio sampling frequency."

I used the settings you suggested except at 320 X 240 (I have a T2). D-Visions wouldn't let me use the Xvid codec with 2 passes because of "permission" issues; so I used the DivX4 codec as you suggested.

I'll wander over the the mmplayer forum and see what I can find there.

Hi Mr Yuk..

Im the 'guest' on the mmplayer forum that has the same problem! Magnus seems to think that it is the audio frequency that is the problem. D-vision is hardwired at 48kHz which is too much for the T and T|2 yet I managed to play a short clip fine on the T encoded with D-V...However, I redid tghe longer movie (animatrix) using ffmpegX at 22050Hz (40kps) and i still get the same message so there is a problem here it seems. Im still waiting for Magnus to post again but ill keep trying! Jeez, this movie stuff is time consuming...

BTW Kenny, do you still have your T (T2??). If so, could you try it out with a movie encoded with D-V??

cheers

steve

[MrYuk]

So it looks like the T2 isn't supported on Smartmovie and there are issues with mmplayer and the T2 as well... and this "trial and error" method kinda sucks with 2-4 hr encoding times. What I need is a short commercial DVD to run the tests and verify efficacy. Maybe I should wait until the technolgy gets a bit more mature (or I upgrade to whatever)

On the flip side I now have a bunch of Batman video (animated) files on my hard drive. Only 90 MByte each at 320 X 240 @ 15 fps. The Bionicle movie too (only 268MByte)

Just for kicks I'll try and encode it with Kinoma and see how big it gets. Thanks "Guest" and KenSong for your advice.

[KenSong]

Originally posted by SoS


Kenny, do you still have your T (T2??). If so, could you try it out??

steve

Sorry Steve, I only have the T3 and the encoded clips based on my settings played flawlessly. I did have to run the encoded file through VirtualDub and resave as an AVI to get the Audio Sync to be spot-on (with D-Vision, it was about 1 sec off). I'll try get hold of a T2 and give it a whirl and get back on this.

[micro]

Anyone looking for a freeware dvd to avi conversion program that works well with mmplayer check out http://fairuse.free.fr/index.html This software is a simple one step process and looks great in mmplayer. Also please check out my post in this thread for a full walk thru of the software http://www.palmonecity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3027&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

[Gordon Goldberg]

I had no problem getting the desk-top converter to work on my Windows box at work, and while it took a little finagling to get an equivalent set-up working on my Linux box at home, I finally did it.

For other linux-ites, what I did was compile and install the LAME mp3 encoding package (from http://lame.sourceforge.net/) and then compile and install the codec packs and MPlayer package (from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/) which includes the awesome Mencoder as part of its build.

To convert pretty much any file to a SmartMovie compatible version, I use the command line:

mencoder INFILE.EXT -vf scale -zoom -xy WIDTH -o OUTFILE.EXT -ofps 15 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64:vol=5 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=144

where INFILE.EXT is the name of the original file, OUTFILE.EXT is the name of the file you'll be creating (obviously the .EXT will be .avi) and WIDTH is the WIDTH in pixels that you want the output file to be (don't bother making it more than the maximum screen width of your palm, which is 480 for my Tungsten T|3 in landscape mode).

If you want to use two-pass encoding, just run that same line twice, adding :vpass=1 to the end of the options on the first pass, and :vpass=2 to the end of the options for the second pass.

Needless to say, as Linux user and a former Kinoma user who could only run Kinoma's Producer from my work (Windows) machine, SmartMovie's made me a convert.

[akiracom]

Hi,
Does any body know where I can download a software for Mac platform(OS9.2.2) to convert DVDs to Palm format and store it on a momery card? Thanks for your reply!!

akiracom