This is a first for me. Having to contradict what I've written in a previous post. Well, not all of it. Still somehow I don't feel bad about this, I'm happy I found a few solutions for the things I had issues with.
Now, I'll say this again, I normally can't be bothered to convert anything into anything else. Especially not video. My reasoning is quite simple, conversion usually takes more or less the same amount of time it would take to actually watch what I'm converting. And since my computer is not exactly top-notch, multitasking while a conversion is in progress is painful.
So the whole point of my N810 review(s) was to look at it from an 'average consumer' perspective. I have to tell you that I've never done this before, so hopefully my take on the Video capabilities of the tablet from this perspective was accurate.
Problem is, I couldn't let it go. I turned back into the usual me after writing that piece on Video. So I began digging, and digging. This post details my findings. Since it's clearly off the 'consumer perspective' path, there won't be any silly question answered at the end of it.
Here goes.
First, the Internet Tablet Video Converter. I was harsh, yes. Then I tested it some more. Got the conversion time (at "Better" quality setting) down to an hour for a ~700 MB .avi XviD file. Just conversion time, copying is a different story. An hour for converting what presumably is an hour-and-a-half video. Not exactly good enough for me. It might be good enough for everyone else, though. And one more thing. I achieved this conversion time by only running the ITVC, and turning off all background processes that aren't needed by the system. Which was good for testing purposes, although I don't think I'd ever use it like this in 'real life'.
Do keep in mind what I needed to constantly remind myself of: this is a beta product. It will certainly be improved in time.
Now for feedback for the ITVC team (I will also post this here, where I strongly encourage you to give feedback too):
- I'd like more 'Advanced' settings. The main Settings menu is fine for a 'normal' user, because it is so easy to use. The 'Advanced' tab, however should have customizable bitrates, customizable audio quality independent of video quality and so on.
- I'd also like the ITVC to support decoding for more codecs and containers (Matroska, for example, is not recognized, even if I have the necessary codecs installed).
- There's something wrong with copying speed. I connected a card reader with the MiniSD card in it, and copying was still as slow as if I had connected the tablet directly, even if it should have been around 4MB/s.
MPlayer has just received an update. Which, for me at least, has managed to make this the single most useful Video app for the tablet. Version 1.0rc1-maemo.26 handles .avi XviD encoded files a lot better than I expected. Audio and video are almost always in sync, and even when they aren't, the sync is regained shortly. The only obvious downside is that frames do get dropped from time to time, but that really is normal given the device's hardware. It plays a lot smoother than Core Player does on my N95, so I'm finally happy. I can finally throw unconverted XviDs at the tablet and they play just fine.
It's not all wonderful, though. MPlayer does have its disadvantages. One is the fact that it doesn't have a touch-enabled on screen display (OSD). And while it does have keyboard shortcuts, they are not easy to find unless you try pressing every single key to find out what it does. Until now, I found that the 'Menu' key on the keyboard opens the OSD. Spacebar pauses and resumes playback. Left or right D-pad keys skip backward or forward a few seconds, while Up and Down skip backward or forward more. If you can't get rid of the OSD, press the hardware 'Back' key.
(Yet another) Rundown of the video players for the N810:
- MPlayer has been explained above
- Canola has the best UI, in my opinion. It will play everything the default player can, and rather smoothly. Since this is a beta app, there are unexpected hangs from time to time. One very nice feature is that the folders where you store your (different types of) media are fully configurable. This ensures that you only get what you want in the Media Library. Also of note is its YouTube plugin, which works wonderfully, however I would have appreciated having the ability to choose aspect ratio. Right now it doesn't have that, and automatically transforms YouTube videos, which are all in 4:3 format, into 16:9. Now that creates a rather disturbing stretch effect. What is nice about it is that "full screen" means almost full screen, there are only tiny horizontal letterboxes. Viewing them in 4:3 aspect ratio would create bigger and more nasty vertical letterboxes. Anyway, choice would be wonderful. Another good standalone YouTube player is mYTube. This does leave the aspect ratio unchanged, however it works rather differently. What it does is it downloads the video to your device, and uses the default Media Player to start playback whenever a sufficient part of the video has been transferred. Works very good, if you remember to delete the downloaded videos from time to time (otherwise it can use up a lot of space).
- The default Media Player will work very well for most people. It plays videos that have been converted using the ITVC better than any other player (which is surprising, to some extent).
- Video Center is the best choice for podcasts, both video and audio, believe it or not! To add a new podcast, just go to Tools->Services->Add, and enter the URL of the podcast feed. It will then show you the list of episodes, which you can download and view or listen to in the default Media Player. More on audio podcasts in a few days in the dedicated post about the Audio capabilities of the tablet.
- It has been my personal experience that all the other Video players for the tablets are not worthwhile. However, I strongly encourage you to try them all, so as to find out which suits you best.
If possible, insert your miniSD (or SD, in the case of the N800) card into a card reader whenever you have to copy large files. If you connect the tablet directly, the best speed you'll get will be around 900 KB/s, whereas with a Class 4 card in a card reader you get about 4 MB/s (Class 6 cards reach speeds of up to 6 MB/s). Until copying speed is fixed in the ITVC (see my feedback above), try not using it for copying the converted videos to the tablet. Instead, in the ITVC, go to Settings, click on the Advanced tab and see where exactly it stores the converted files (the path can be changed, if you want to). Then manually copy from there to the card, either by using Windows Explorer ("My Computer") or software such as Total Commander.
Please note:
I honestly doubt that I would have found out what is described in this post had I continued to go on the 'average consumer' path. To give you an example, Gerry Moth made me aware of the update to MPlayer via Jaiku. And so on. The consumer-oriented review will however continue in future posts, this was hopefully a one-time thing.
