Movies on high-capacity CF

[IMAX]

First of all: Hello everyone, I am new to this forum!
As always when I'm new on a forum, I read and then I talk.
I couldn't find any answer to my questions, so here we go:
Has somebody actually succeeded viewing full-length movies from a large CF?
I played (with) some Divx files and they look great, but I would like to go further and get a 512Mb CF (24x) to can play the whole movies.
RommelS, I read your posts, but my concern is how reliable will be the CF card itself. It's not cheap at all so I do not want to spend $120 on it before hearing your opinions.
Did you encounter any problems when playing movies from the CF?
I want to go with a 24x because I have a strong feeling that will perform better than the regular 512Mb ones.
By the way here's one interesting link for movie trailers:
pocketmatrix
Thanks for reading my first post here !

[RommelS]

Originally posted by IMAX@Apr 8 2003, 06:45 PM
First of all: Hello everyone, I am new to this forum!
As always when I'm new on a forum, I read and then I talk.
I couldn't find any answer to my questions, so here we go:
Has somebody actually succeeded viewing full-length movies from a large CF?
I played (with) some Divx files and they look great, but I would like to go further and get a 512Mb CF (24x) to can play the whole movies.
RommelS, I read your posts, but my concern is how reliable will be the CF card itself. It's not cheap at all so I do not want to spend $120 on it before hearing your opinions.
Did you encounter any problems when playing movies from the CF?
I want to go with a 24x because I have a strong feeling that will perform better than the regular 512Mb ones.
By the way here's one interesting link for movie trailers:
pocketmatrix
Thanks for reading my first post here !

First I don't use DIVX. I use WMP for the Pocket PC or Pocket TV
Second it would be hard to fine a 512 MB CF card for $120. If you can shell about $150, then you might be able to purchase a Lexar 512 MB with 24x Speed.
Third I would not give an opion on 512 MB because I don't have a 512 MB CF card. The most that I have are 256 SD and CF.
Good Luck finding your answer.

[IMAX]

Cool, thanks RommelS !
How's your experience with the 256 CF so far?(with movies anyway, the format doesn't really matter , I guess)?

[Duckman]

Hey IMAX:

You may want to check out This Site to download some good movie trailer mpegs.

Pocket TV is available as a free download to view them on your Axim.

Have fun!

[RommelS]

No problem with 256 MB Card. In fact it allowed me to give a movie a higher bit rate and better audio quality - less pixelization.

Of course having 512 MB Card will eventually give you a better quality picture and sound if you set your encoding that way. I guess you already know that I capture and encode movies. Or you could encode it to where you it would fit in 128 MB (like I did with Spider-Man), and have 2 movies in one card.

[IMAX]

Thanks for the link Duckman.Not bad at all !, but I'm more into PocketDivx so I want to explore more of its possibilities for now.
RommelS , thank you for your response.I think I'll go for a 512.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in asking the previous question...I was just curious how the CF performed when Axim was accessing it during a movie(choppy picture/sound, slow performance etc.)compared to movie file stored on Axim itself.

[RommelS]

Since you're using a CF card, it should be fine, but I think the 24X speed is only for writing data / photos from what I have heard.

In fact I did Spider-Man in a 128 MB SD card, and it was pretty good. Of course the movie would drop a few frames when the action was fast - it would actually pause for a second or two, but nothing that would bother me since I'm viewing it with a Pocket PC.

Whenever I do my next movie, I will let you all know and the process on how to convert a DVD movie to a WMV files.

[IMAX]

That will be interesting !

[sincitymedic]

I'd be interested in knowing how to convert DVD's, too. You using Flask and DVD Squeeze?

I have a 256mb that I've used for watching movies. Unfortunately, with the size of some the mpegs out there, I could only watch half. It did seem to be good quality, though (we're talking for a handheld). Something I definitely would use on a plane or long road trip.

Rommel, let me know how you are doing your encoding.....PM or here. Thanks....

[4volt]

I'm currently running the axim 400, with both a 1gb SanDisk CF card and a Sandisk SD 256mb, both seem to work very well for movies, the problem I run into is that the hardware (axim its self) isn't quite fast enough to decode the video smoothly, rather then the speed of the card.

For instance:

A 24x CF card is capible of transfering at speeds of 4000K a second (roughly) as the SD card is in the same ball park. (A 12x runs at 2000k)

When I compress movies In divx OR Windows Media Player format, they end up being about 120-150 mb for 1 to 1.5 hours, at a bitrate of 264k a second (audio and video) at 300 by 180 resolution (aprox, varies from time to time)

Doing the math:

CF card capible of 2000k a second (12x)
Movie bitrate (Average) 264k a second

That means that watching a movie only uses about a tenth of the total speed that the 12x CF card can handle, the rest is up to the Axim.

On a Un-unrelated note:

I've found the Windows Media Player format alot less buggy and efficient then the Pocket PC version of DIVX, although DIVX is much better for regular PC use I'd say.

You can find the Windows Media Player 9 Encoder (capible of converting any movie you can regulary play) here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...er/default.aspx