TCPMP Blues on a Friday, Big-time

[Glennski]

Hi all,
I just cannot get TCPMP to work properly on my Tungsten E2. It worked for awhile but now the AVI files are really jerky. The sound comes through in chunks. I can't make heads or tails of TCPMP's user interface which has 3 menus:
Preferences
Advanced Options
Tweaks

Most of all, I don't understand what "Benchmark" is supposed to do. If I do "benchmark," for example, it plays a video super slowly and then displays some results, apparently it thinks I'm like one of the smarter members on Brighthand or something! I have no idea what the results mean...
For example, Benchmark results show as:

Average Speed 24.99%
Benchmark FPS: 3.75
Benchmark time: 1:14:159
Original FPS: 15.00
Original time: 0.18.533

My system info:

TCPMP Version 0.72RC1
Palm OS 5.4.0
also other info I don't get but here it is:
ARM Intel PXA25x/26x ~206Mhz
Storage heap: 2808KB (523KB)
Dynamic heap: 2040KB
(I did download a whole slew of plugins hoping that would fix the problem but no go)

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
Gski

[jigwashere]

If your videos aren't playing well, then you need to fix the videos. I think you've done everything you need to do with TCPMP.

The benchmark you ran is simply a way of telling you how a particular video performed. In your case, you can see that the video was created (encoded) at 15 frames per second, but when played back, it was less than 4 frames per second. Not very good. The average speed was only about 1/4th (25%) of what it should be for good results.

What's causing this? Something about the video itself is too much for the E2 and TCPMP to handle. You need to recode the video for better performance.

Tools that can help you include PocketDivXEncoder, Handbrake, and many others. There are various threads around here that will help you. Search for either of those apps with posts by raspabalsa and you'll get lots of helpful advice.

[raspabalsa]

As jig said, probably the videos you're trying to play are too much for the E2. There are two main properties in a video that affect how much processing power will be needed to play them: frame size and bitrate. The frame size is the size in pixels of the video image. If the frame size is larger than the E2's screen resolution (320x320) then the E2 will have to rescale the video to make it fit in the screen, and this demands a lot of processor power. Bitrate is a measure of how much data is contained in every frame. It describes how much detail the image has, and can be used to get an idea of how good is the video quality. As bitrates increase, more processing power will be required to decode the video.

Probably your videos have too high bitrates, or large frame dimensions, or both. You will need to re-encode them to lower values. In the meantime, you can try turning of TCPMP's options of Color Dithering and Smooth Zoom. This will improve playback in the E2 (especially turning off smooth zoom) but I wouldn't expect the fps to get near the original value of 15fps for your video. The difference between the original fps and the value the E2 can sustain (3.75 fps) is too large, meaning the E2 simply can't keep up with it.

Some threads you can check for encoding tips and settings are:

Settings: Palm TX & PocketDivX Encoder

what encoder do you use?

HandBrake and Palm thread

The first two threads are somewhat old, but the settings will help you get started. Besides, the lower quality I used back then will probably run ok in the E2.

In the third thread you will find my current choice for encoder program (Handbrake) and settings. These yield much higher quality, but at larger file size and require more processing power, which probably your E2 won't be able to yield. Better try the settings in the first thread.

Hope this helps

[Glennski]

Thanks you two!

The AVI's I'm looking at were made on a really low-grade Canon camera but I guess they're still too much for Palmie.

I will look carefully at the links you provided and see what needs fixin'... onward with the techno-chase!

cheers,
Glennski (who doesn't know what a Codec is, although it sounds like the brand of 35mm film)