Semi

I have recently gotten myself a VZ90, however, I am very disappointed about its lack of performence during video play on TCPMP, the screen is amazing, and battery life is great, but when I use it to play video files with TCPMP, forget about 480x320, when I use 360x240 (yes, I do this alot to make it full screen) or 320x240, it zooms very well, very smooth, but on some video file where if they have fast/very fast movements, it will lag unless I turn the quality lower, which by then the quality becomes rather unacceptable for me, and believe me when I say I tried every kinds of settings, either go with quality and low fps, or 23.976FPS and lower quality, it just seems like it's never going to get good enough, I've so far found a good setting.

I am just wondering if it's ever going to be possible for TCPMP (CorePlayer) to get a DSP plugin, because all it has right now is GE2D support, but not DSP, and I am wondering if by adding a DSP plugin, it will be able to play video files at a higher setting.

Now, I realize that there's not alot of VZ90 flying around, but UX50 and TH55 both uses HHE, and I am really wondering why I don't see anymore supports/plugins for programs like TCPMP than what we have now, which is GE2D plugin, is it because there's not alot of people with UX50/TH55/VZ90? or it's because DSP is no help with video playback? or it's because TCPMP developer is now focusing on CorePlayer and is not intending to work on plugins for HHE?

In any case, I am just wondering that's all, I may ended up using my NX80V the most than my VZ90, after all, for me, NX80V does alot more things than VZ90 while VZ90 only looks better.

jjesusfreak01

It has support for the graphics processor, and uses it for video scaling, a task it is extremely good at. Only the Zodiac can scale video as cleanly. Unfortunately, the DSP has not been reverse engineered to the point where we can just throw audio streams at it and it will work. I would not expect this to happen unless someone takes the extra initiative on their own to finish reverse engineering it. That said, I can usually get fullscreen (320x480) video to play fine on my TH-55, as long as the bitrates are not outrageous. TCPMP (coreplayer) has very efficient codecs.

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CliePet

> ...why I don't see anymore supports/plugins for programs like TCPMP

Instead of dealing with (/complaining about) the limitations of TCPMP on the "HHE" models (requires a lot of CPU, and eats battery), why not use the built codecs and the built in player (or FullMoviePlayer) ?

The best battery life comes with using the built in software. You only need to convert the video format once.

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Or put it another way: I suspect the answer to your question is: people don't need it. They can use the built-in player which doesn't have this limitation.

Cyker

Well, I can understand the why someone might prefer TCPMP - FMV is far more limited - It only supports strict MPEG1, strict simple-profile MPEG4 and the funny MQV format, and videos have to be in very specific directories.

You couldn't download an MPEG or MQV using NetFront or Resco Explorer and be able to play it off the bat - You'd have to move the file to one of those folders, and move operations are really badly implemented on PalmOS (It copies then deletes instead of just changing the FAT entry like DOS/Win/Lin does )

CP is right 'tho - If you're willing to put the work in, FMP and the built-in MoviePlayer will give the best results.

I prefer TCPMP, but I only play 320x200 stuff in that and it works fine.


As for the DSP, it's ONLY for MP3 audio, and only for very specific format MP3 audio (44.1kHz, CBR). Very few small-screen video uses such format MP3 (They usually use 22k or 32k and VBR to save space), so the DSP support will not really add much to the speed...

Semi

I think I still prefer TCPMP since it's not so codec support limited, I do have somewhat the right setting for it, just not as sharp as 480x320.

I don't want to start up any arguements or flame war about HHE and stuff, so let's just leave this matter be then

Thank you everyone for the reply, and since it's abvious that DSP won't be much of a help, I guess I'll just live with it and continue on, too bad HHE can't be overclocked, or else it'd really rock even more

dragonsgames

I agree with CliePet
#1. It is too much work
#2. It isn't worth it, as you could just use the built-in player.

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totololo

Yes ... but unfortunately, as there is very few solutions for encoding in the FMP format, it's not easy to make videos in 480x320 (command line under Windows)

And even more difficult (impossible in fact) under Mac OSX.

So, i simply don't use my VZ for vidéo.

I would be happy too, if TCPMP could use the audio DSP ...

In comparison, on my NX80V, with a very gentle overclocking, the machine was perfectly able to play full resolution (480x320, 30fps) videos in very good quality, without any problem ...

Cyker

Just so you guys know, FMP and the Clie Movie Player also do not use the DSP.

TCPMP already uses the GE2D as mentioned, and runs almost as fast as CMP/FMP but with wider codec support (It's slightly slower because it has extra processing for brightness, contrast etc. which the CMP and FMP don't have.)

bunbuns

TCPMP hasn`t been updated in yonks since the team is working on their commerical coreplayer. As for more speed/bitrate in your videos. Switch to a older less CPU intense codec like DiVX 3.11 and use IMA/ADPCM for audio. I play 480x272 23.976fps videos no problem this way. I think CPU usuage dropped to around 5% this way for audio. There are my preferences thou and some people prefer XVID, MP3 etc.

There is no mention DSP support will be implemented by the coreplayer team possiibly due to the fact that CLIE is a discountinued product and the number of users shrinks everyday. Ideally if people request it enough on the coreplayer boards then they might consider it worthwide. But if Cyker post is correct about the MP3 limitation then it would be too restrictive consider the gobs of different audio format, bitrates and sample rates AVI files use. It seems they are flat out with all the work they created themselves being multi-platform.

Anyway there is a enough archived posts on this board that have information to please both MP4 and AVI users for both camps to play video at 480x272.

totololo

Cyker, i'm surprised to read this ...
All my tests showed that TCPMP is a loooooot slower than Clie Movie Player (VZ version).

Bunbuns, yes, there are a lot of threads, but it's all about not so comfortable solutions, that doesn't work on Mac OSX ... I think that, thanks to Sony and their very proprietary vision of formats ... HHE machines are not very good for video.

bunbuns

A Mac??? who in gods name uses those things

totololo

... at least me and my boyfriend ... that mean 100% of the population of our appartment (not counting the 2 cats, they are found of mice, but doesn't care the computers).

Macs rocks.
Windows beaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

Cyker

Do you have all the right plugins installed in TCPMP and set it to GE2D?

On mine, an MQV, M4V or MPG played in FMP or CMP will play near-identically as fast in TCPMP.
H.264 is virtually unusable, and anything with higher bitrates than about 1Mbps is also pretty unwatchable.
If I set the quality to low, TCPMP can play videos at higher framerates than FMP/CMP, but it looks really crap and is full of encoding artefacts (artifacts?)


But yeah, HHE's aren't really designed for hi-res video. My Zod2 OTOH... man, if only Sony had put that ATI chip in the UX/TH/VZ instead of the GE2D!

totololo

Yes, I have the plugins especially the one for HHE, and obviously activated (sony GE2D)

TCPMP is extremely slow on MP4, especially in 480x320 at 30fps, event with a bitrate around 500kbps.

I don't use low quality setting, it's too dirty !

H264 is too CPU hungry for such a machine ... you're right !