Video Playback = HARD RESET (was 'Great - my 1 day old 5455 hard reset...')

[pixelator]

HP, you need to fix this! We don't deserve a device that hard crashes just because we're watching video... Especially at $700.

b

[Supacat]

Hey Pix,

We have something in common, I also used to own the E550G and also returned it for resons of dust madness! I recently purchased the 5400 and as much as I want to love it has numerous bugs. HP rushed this out the door so quick that even software that comes with the unit is not tested and some apps actually do not work at all(Try the BustM game that came with it, it crashed on every 5400 i tried after 40 sec of play). I also have tried Pocket TV which also plays video choppy and far worse then the E550 I am a mega gamer so as you can imagine I ve hit it with every game i could think of. Pocket Everquest and Age Of Empires to name a couple both play but pause every few seconds. Now lets get to the sound, it is horrible! The volume is for to low. If you are using this in your car like I do you can hardly hear the speaker and if I plug it into my car stereo through the audio in I must crank my system to Max to hear the music loud unlike my previous Ipaqs and Toshibas. Here is something that is weird though even though the 5400 has all these problems it still does not annoy me like the E550G and its dust and support problems. Oh what to do? THe way I look at it the 5400 is still an amazing unit and hopefully HP can fix most of these problems with a patch. The thing that upsets me is when a company does not admit there is an obvious problem much like the infamous Audiovox. HP if you are listening learn from Audiovox's customer relation mistakes and fix these issues soon before you lose as many customers as Audiovox/Toshiba did with the E550.

[AristoBrat]

Originally posted by pixelator
HP, you need to fix this! We don't deserve a device that hard crashes just because we're watching video... Especially at $700.

b

I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to videos, but doesn't PocketTV have tweaks in it to enhance video playback?

I thought it was pretty odd that the PocketTV folks were asking if PocketDivX caused the same results.

My question is -- is it know for sure that it's an HP problem and not something specific to their app?

[Supacat]

Yes you are correct Pocket TV does have tweaks to make it run better but unfortunately they do not work in the 5400 case. As for it not being an HP problem, why is it that these apps all work fine on the other leading Xscale pocket PCs? The fact that the sound output is horribly low is also a problem specific to the 5400. I m not saying that the 5400 is horrible, im just saying that from a user who has pretty much owned every pocket pc since the Ipaq 3600 series the 5400 does have problems that COULD have been noticed by quality control and testing. Once again im not jumping ship yet, I would like to see how HP handles it because I do love the unit when it is running an app that works

[Eitel]

Well, the sound of the 5450 is still better than the sound of the e740. Also, remember that the 5450 has the QMedia video chip. The e740 had the same problem with Pocket TV and Pocket MVP when it came out, due to the ATI video chip.

You can't really blame HP or any other manufacturer for not trying every program that users could use.

Does the 5450 has problems? Of course it does. Now, can anyone tell me just ONE Pocket PC that didn't had problems when it came out?

[ottoman2]

The video problem is because of HP, not the application. Like Supacat I have owned pretty much every PPC in existence and own a few currently (5455, TMobile, E740). The 5400 is very buggy in the areas video performance. The pausing affect that Pixelator mentioned before which has already been posted in this forum (I think I mentioned it a few weeks ago actually) is just one example the funky nature of the 5400. Is it software, is it hardware? And will HP fix whatever is ailing this device? They didn't or couldn't fix the GAPI problem with the 3800 so I am not expecting much from HP at this point.

I have come to terms with the fact that the 5400 is an enterprise device. Video playback, games, well I save those for the PPCs.

[ottoman2]

Eitel, my TMobile hasn't had any problems. Buttons work great, fast video, good sound, dust free. I wish I could say the same for the other PPCs that have owned and still own.

I know HP cannot test every piece of software out there but this pausing problem should have been detected. I have to play AOE on my E740 because the pausing just drove me nuts when I had it on my 5455. Even the E740 video performance is better than the 5455. Heck, my wife's H1910 runs games better than my 5455. It just is right. Oh well, I just keep telling myself 'this is not a gameboy, this is stricly a business tool'.

[KraziKid]

Originally posted by ottoman2
Oh well, I just keep telling myself 'this is not a gameboy, this is stricly a business tool'.

That's exactly what it is. It is meant to be a business tool, in which respect, it performs better than any other Pocket PC's I've owned. I've had the Jornada 548, Jornada 568, Toshiba e740, Toshiba Genio e550g, and a few others that do not come to mind. The 5455 is far superior, IMO, than the others that I have owned. I do play a few games here and there, but not as if it were gaming hardware. I'll play PacMan, Cubicle Chaos, things like that. I'll also play mp3's. This device does what I need flawlessly, and if one application like Pocket TV doesn't work because of the new Video Chip, it is not HP's fault, Pocket TV has to fix this. In the case of the e740, there ATI chip had a lot of potential, but in the time I onwed it, they never released proper drivers for it, so it never worked to its potential. In HP's case, the QMedia chip seems to have the drivers installed, because the games I play, play much better and smoother than my previous devices. Maybe HP should have noticed that Pocket TV doesn't work, but it's not there problem to fix a flaw in Pocket TV that will not allow it to work properly with the QMedia chip. HP has released a lot with this device, at a low price compared to buying a pocket pc, and then adding everything inside the 5455. I have not had the problems everyone descibes, and some of those problems aren't HP's fault, they are Microsoft's. As in the WiFi/Bluetooth Memory error, that is Microsoft's problem, because the driver memory does not dynamically allocate enough, so it runs out of space. So suck it up, this device works properly for everything HP said it would, and if a game doesn't work, talk to the game designer.

[Gamera]

Originally posted by pixelator
HP, you need to fix this! We don't deserve a device that hard crashes just because we're watching video... Especially at $700.

Have you tried turning off the "Fast Video" option? That seemed to stop the resets in my case. I've been watching alot of ripped DVDs and haven't had a hard crash in weeks.

[imported_TMAN]

Originally posted by Eitel
Does the 5450 has problems? Of course it does. Now, can anyone tell me just ONE Pocket PC that didn't had problems when it came out?

The 3970, at least in my case, has no problems, bugs or idiosyncrasies that I have to work around just to use the device in my daily life. When I look through my PDA Lineage, the 3970 may be the only Pocket PC where I had to only buy one.

The 5450 is the ONLY device that I have ever owned that has had several spontaneous hard resets. What makes it worse is these hard resets took place in the first 2 weeks of ownership.