LD or PSP? Does the LD get 30fps playback?

[Mojo_LA]

Hi everyone, new forum member here.

So I had been holding off on getting a PSP to see what the LD could do as far as being a multimedia player... I don't really play games but I liked the PSP for it's MP3 and video playback. Of course, since memory sticks are the only storage option, it's VERY expensive to carry around a lot of PSP media.

The LD, with it's 4 gig drive, fixed this problem wonderfully. The screen is basically the same res as the PSP and plays more formats (mpeg 1, 2 and 4, divx, etc).

However, the reviews I've seen so far said that in video playback fast motion scenes got really choppy on the LD and their fastest Divx framerate was 18fps.

Can any LD owners tell us about their multimedia experience with the LD? I'd like to think this will beat the PSP as a media device but not if it can't play back at 30 (or at least 24) FPS!

Does anyone else think that the LD might be a PSP killer for multimedia?

[GadgetGuru]

Get a dedicated media player from the likes of Creative or Archos. It will fit what you want more...

[madmaxmedia]

At this point I think a Dell X50 Advanced with a microdrive would be the best PDA movie player. (I think they can take microdrives...)

[Mojo_LA]

I've considered portable media players like the Archos, but here is why I prefer something like the PSP or LD:

- Wide screen (most media players are still 4:3)
- Wifi for browsing
- smaller
- runs useful software!
- hi res screen (the Dell X50 is only 320x240)

If I'm going to pay $500 and my choices are a media player that only plays media or something like the LD which can also run software and browse, it's no contest.

The ONLY thing holding me back from the LD are confirmation about framerate and the non replaceable battery...

[GadgetGuru]

Dell X50 is 480x640, its VGA!

[Ezikial Anta]

Its not true VGA.

Or at least thats what i have been told. I think the PSP has the highest Pixel count... But, i have a PSP... Its not the media giant you think it is... I dont really use it for anything other than games (Despite the fact that i got a 512 MB PRO DUO for media)

[Mojo_LA]

Gadget Guru: Can you send me a link to where is says the X50 is 480x640? Dell's site must have it wrong, it lists it as 320x240!

The review sites must also be confused, I checked 3 and they all say 320x240.

Ok, sarcasm mode off. But really check these things out before you post them where everyone might see it and believe it!

http://www.davespda.com/hardware/pda/pocketpc/device.php?146

As nice as 640x480 is, I think it's a very hi res for a PDA. The video files are also larger... the LD's 320x480 really seems to be the perfect size.

[hope]

640x480 is VGA and the X50v runs both portrait and landscape, just in case you say 480x640 is not true VGA. I have the PSP too and well, you just haven't used your PSP to its fullest extent. A device can have everything spec in the world, if you don't use it doesn't mean the specs aren't there. Just because you don't use WiFi, Bluetooth, or long battery life doesn't mean a gadget doesn't have that. I have a TH and I've been struggling to use its media features because of my PSP. I have PSPware for Mac. The conversions of movies is simple, integration with iTunes and iPhoto is great and I'm able to fully utilize my PSP. I have even beaten both games I've purchased. The only thing I need is a 1gb MS Duo. I'll be able to fit 2 movies and roughly a hundred songs with a few pictures. Oh, the battery life on the PSP has been great. I have easily played 5 hours of NFS with battery still left. Battery life has yet to be a probelm. I do charge it every night by habit, as I do with every gadget I own and anyone who can drain the battery in one day really should be getting more work done. To answer the question, I think a PSP with a 1gb and a regular TE might be a better combo for the money. Plus you get to play incredible games and get the oohs and ahhs froms those around you.

[LupeValenz]

Movies look great on the PSP. The colors are so bright, the image very crisp and since I like to travel alot, this has become my portable movie player. Slowly starting to build up my UMD movie library. First was House of Flying Daggers, then I thought 'well if they got this out, where is Hero?', luckily my prayer was answered. "Hero" as well, and of course spiderman2, thinking bout getting Once upon a time in Mexico. Battery life is pretty good, can go through movies for 4 1/2 hours, but hey if need more power, get another battery.

Oh Yeah, I guess the games are kinda good too heheh ^_^.

[Ezikial Anta]

Guess my PSP is broken. I dont get anywhere near those battery times, even with screen on lowest settings (More like 3 hours since i know someone will undoubtly ask) ... And mine appears blocky and choppy, even on the Spiderman UMD with some "ghosting" in the back...

And yes, 480X640 is VGA - But the PPC doesnt run it in VGA or something, you need an app to turn "True" VGA on... In fact they may even call it True VGA...

(480X640 / 640X480... same diff.)

[Cyker]

Does anyone know what the bandwidth of the LD is?

One hurdle the TH has is that the MS/VFS isn't using the high-speed MSPro protocols so it chokes in high-bitrate scenes.

I think the PSP may have the same problem but haven't tested it.

The LD's playback will depend on whether the HD & VFS bus can keep up - The CPU should be more than adequet, esp. with somethink like TCPMP, even if the LD doesn't have a video accelerator like HHE Clies.

I doubt either can touch a PSP+UMD Movie - Those look fantastic! V. expensive IMO 'tho...

[foghead]

Time to clear up misconceptions.

The PSP screen resolution is 480x272. This is lower resolution than the LD or a VGA PPC. What it does have is very good video acceleration and a 24-bit color depth. Although, because of persistence of vision, 16-bit is more than enough for video and games. The 24-bit is mainly useful for still photos.

As far as the X50 is concernd, Dell makes two different X50 units. The X50 is 240x320. This resolution is referred to as quarter-VGA, or QVGA. The second model is the X50v. The X50V has a 480x640 display. This is VGA resolution and it is fully utilized. The confusin about "true" VGA is caused by people who don't understand what they are talking about and pass along their ignorance as fact.

On Windows Mobile 2003 SE (WM2003SE) and Windows Mobile 5 (WM5), VGA usage is optimized to provide the most usable display for all users. What happens is that the top and bottom bars are scaled so that they are the same size as in previous versions of Windows Mobile. Also Fonts and other resources like dialog boxes are scaled up to be the same size on screen. This is similar to picking large fonts for your display mode in desktop Windows.

The actual scaling happens in one of two ways. In apps that don't know about hi-res displays, the pixels are just doubled in each direction so that the app thinks it is running on an old 240x320 display and each lo-res pixel is really a 2x2 cel of hi-res pixels. The app is happy, everything is great, and the app thinks that it is running in exactly the environment that it was written to run in. The second case is for apps that have been written to recognize the hi-res screen. These apps are running with hi-res fonts, bitmaps, etc. They look absolutely fantastic and are very usable. If the user wants to make the fonts smaller to fit more text onscreen, he (or she) can go to the screen control panel and set the system to use smaller or larger fonts in all apps. Again this is much like desktop Windows. But make no mistake, the apps are absolutely running in VGA mode.

What the clueless people refer to as true VGA is just forcing the device to use the QVGA dot pitch and then set the screen to VGA mode. This causes all UI elements to be 1/2 the size vertically and horizontally. Fonts are also only half as big, as are the top and bottom bars, scroll bars, etc. Well behaved apps will fill the full screen and you will be able to use the huge amount of data onscreen if your eyes are good enough to read it. Outside of needing to carry around a magnifying glass, the other downside is that poorly behaved apps will only use the top-left quarter of the screen. Most dialog boxes will also exhibit this behavior. I'm not saying this usage is bad, it is just dumb to think that it is VGA and the standard usage isn't.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but misconceptions and incorrect facts cause too many problems and are so easy to straighten out.

[GadgetGuru]

Thanks foghead for clearing everything up...maybe dell should have named it differently to avoid confusion.

Here's Brighthand's take on the X50VVVV:
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Dell_Axim_X50v_Review

BTW, Brighthand is also reporting unsubstantiated rumors that Dell is hard-at-work creating a PDa with built-in harddrive. Expected delivery date is November 2005. If you can wait that long, it might be a great device...it's just a rumor though...

[tungsten t5]

there are actually 3 models an x50 416mhz, x50 512 mhz, and an x50v 624 mhz VGA. I own an x50v and love it! it has 64mb of ram 128 mb of rom. also has a compact flash type II slot and an SD card slot. you can put an 8gb microdirve and a 2gb sd card in here! 10gb! the x50v also has an intel 2700g graphics acclerator with 16mb of memory. later this year it is dell will offer an upgrade to upgrade it to windows mobile 5.0. It does show movies in VGA too. I use betaplayer to watch movies and it's free. you can also watch movies with the windows media 10 player on it. It also has wi-fi 802.11b and bluetooth 1.2.

Go for the x50v

[hope]

No one is going to argue that PPC's are hardware wise better. Like the X50v: WiFi, BT 1.2, CF and SD, VGA screen, removable battery ( I think). I mean com'n that's freakin awesome. Same could be said for the BenQ P50. It's the OS their running. I've tried PPC and it just doesn't compare to Palm. Yes Garnett is getting old but it's still stable and works for pretty much every need we have. Windows Mobile 5 may be different but than again, it's still Microsoft. I guess I could be more bias since I'm a Mac owner and really don't want to deal with Microsoft. As to not make this a PPC v. Palm, my point is looking at what's availbe for Palm and other options such as the PSP or Archos which aren't quite competing yet still share some features. Remember, you wouldn't be on these message boards if you had a PPC.

P.S.
It makes me uncomfortable to talk about the dark side. Especially after seeing Revenge of the Sith.