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Palmtop as a mp3 player

Hi!
I wanted to use my PDA to listen to mp3 while travelling in a bus, walking etc. The question is - how do you solve all that PDA-headphones-changing the music stuff? With mp3 player I had no problem - I could clip it to my chest and forget about any problems (+easily switch songs, folders etc.)
I mean - what are the ways that you developed to get maximum comfort? Is it the best to have your PDA hanging on a stripe round your neck (to minimize the distance to ears)? Or do you put your PDA to your pocket and have all that cable hanging?
I know these questions might sound funny to you but, in fact, I am asking seriously .
Best regards,
Theriel

[Q] converting DVD for mobile (touch HD)

Hi,
I've been searching the forum and reading a few posts but I still have some basic questions about converting my DVD's to play on touch HD. Apologies in advance if some seem a bit obvious but having never converted anything i'm sure what the best route is. OKay:
1: I've decoded some dvd's and copying them to my hard drive -i presume this is necessary for all dvd's?
2: I then have to convert them to 800x480 - which is the best software? SUPER looks confusing so haven't really used it much, and i downloaded a trial of iSofter which seemed a bit easier BUT which is the best software for a beginner? Something easy and obvious?
3: how long does it take? when I ran SUPER and iSofter it seemed to take 3/4 hours for 1 DVD. IS this normal? Or have do I have to change the settings and choose something to make it faster?
Once I've managed to copy over my first DVD I'm sure all the other posts about quality, resolutions, etc will make a lot more sense. Just want to try and watch one...
Cheers,
Paddy

I always do it a little differently. I use AutoGK to back up my DVD's, which will back them up to CD sized, whilst still being watchable on my TV using my stand-alone divx player, (or the TV out from your graphics card). This typically takes 3-5 hours using my 2.3ghz athlon. If I then want to watch on my PDA, I use pocketdivxencoder, which takes about 20-40 mins to reduce it down.
Both these pieces of software are free, and are very easy to use.

My thoughts....
I myself use Handbrake to rip any DVD that I have to my PC and then use either AnyVideoConverter or Format Factory to convert the files to an acceptable AVI quality for all my family's mobile devices. All 3 programs are straightforward and easy to use. Below are links for you to find out for yourself.
HandBrake
Any-Video-Converter
Format Factory
Hope that helps!!
PS. And as for the time it takes to convert the videos, yes those times are about right, depending on you PC's CPU. The CPU is the single biggest factor when ripping and converting video, with memory coming in 2nd and hard drive space a close 3rd.

DVD Catalyst is the best and will do it all. What format, how good of quality and whatever else you can think of. It is user friendly out of the box/download and as you get use to the settings you can adjust them accordingly. Google it and give the trial a shot. I have use this software for years now and have yet to find anything as good.

I use Magic DVD Ripper to convert DVD to AVI
To convert to .mp4 i use AONE FLV to AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod Converter it actually converts every format not just FLV very easy to use and good results.
All in all a very easy process

Hi All,
Cheers for the replies - really useful. So the timing thing was right, and it looks like that new PC I need will have be bought sooner rather than later as the CPU, etc on current one is pretty slow.
Just one more thing - what setting you guys use? I have a Touch HD so I presume the screen should be set to 480x800, but I haven't a clue about rates, frames pre second, sound quality, etc. Some pointers would be brilliant. So is AVI good for smaller file sizes. The files just have to be good enough to watch on the train etc without to much flicker or jumping. Hopefully I'll be watching The Wire on the train soon!
Cheers (again)
PAddy

padsmcnulty said:
Hi All,
Cheers for the replies - really useful. So the timing thing was right, and it looks like that new PC I need will have be bought sooner rather than later as the CPU, etc on current one is pretty slow.
Just one more thing - what setting you guys use? I have a Touch HD so I presume the screen should be set to 480x800, but I haven't a clue about rates, frames pre second, sound quality, etc. Some pointers would be brilliant. So is AVI good for smaller file sizes. The files just have to be good enough to watch on the train etc without to much flicker or jumping. Hopefully I'll be watching The Wire on the train soon!
Cheers (again)
PAddy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your going do display in widescreen so the device in sideways then the res will be 800x480 unless the media player automatically does this?
The frame rate want to be the same as original source you can find this by right clicking properties on the file and tab summary, the best format for mobile video is .mp4 as they hold the quality but are low in data, as the less data you have to pull @ a time off a memory card helps too.

[Q] Finding the Smart phone satisfies my requirements?

Hi all dear friends. My budget is around 300 USD
I am finding a smart phone with those capabilities:
- Long Battery Life (the most important) -required
- Input Chinese by Handwriting (it should have touchscreen) -required
- Playing Youtube video well
- having Radio
- GPS / Wifi - required
- Listen music (can sync to my itune library)
- Watching movie (divx type- which I don't need to convert. Just copy and watch). I always watch DivX movies (file size=600MB~2GB) with srt subtitles. And I hope my phone can do it too.
Please help me to find a suitable and economical phone !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't find a proper internet radio stream player with custom playlist support

Hello, is there actually any lightweight internet radio stream player that supports custom playlist streams? everything i have tried was garbage
this is what i have found:
- either it's fast with low ram usage and it has it's own playlist with zillion crap radios and no 'add new...' support
- either it has a single stream playback and you have to manually enter the url every time - example a mplayer port whick actually connected fast
- either it has what i want -lets me add my radios into a playlist and select them when i want- but it takes ages to connect from one radio to another or it clogs my device making it impossible to parallel browse the web, consuming tons of ram for it's bad written interface.
These are small examples of many, many apps that failed big time today
please if anyone knows something, anything, i'd be even willing to buy from the market if it's good and if it connects from one radio to another in less than 30 seconds - thing that i can do in 3 seconds on my computer, 5 seconds in the iheartradio app and 8 seconds on my old N70 device with coreplayer - imagine that.
Thank you in advance!

Could you tell me which device you have and what apps you tried ?

LG optimus one --- i don't see how that matters.
Like i said many apps, like 20 and the most popular ones. I can't really name them because they were uninstalled immediately.
There just isn't anything good.

oh yea, the winamp app crashes and forces me to close it every time i try to open a .pls or .m3u pc winamp generated playlist
also tried the shoutcast client app, it opens my pls but nothing happens

nvm, found mplayer v2 with playlist support and swapping radios in 3 sec
dunno why the good stuff never makes it to the market
thanks for the great support, xda-jerks

Tips on making the best of 10GB of storage space when storing music

Tips on making the best of 10GB of storage space when storing music on the HTC One S.
What doesn't work:
1) Dropbox, Google Drive ..... you can store files there but finding and playing them is a bag of hurt because the players are so rudimentary and the music is not cataloged like it is for stock Android player and PowerAMP
2) An OTG USB cable and a 32, 64 or 128GB USB Flash Drive. HTC could have saved this phone for music collections if they had implemented this feature, but they didn't. The microUSB port on the One S doesn't provide power, so for mobile listening of music it really isn't as option even it you hack OTG into your kernel.
3) Wifi based systems. With a bit of effort you could probably get a working system when your phone on your own home network, but chances are you use your phone for music when you are away from home.
The Good News:
The HTC One S has really fast internal memory, a good memory controller and the USB I/O is very fast. If you have a decent computer file transfer very quickly to the phone.
The HTC One S has very good audio quality and a good output.
What You Need
1) Your music collection, most likely quite a bit larger than 10GB
2) Media Monkey Software for your PC computer (http://www.mediamonkey.com) Forget about the HTC Sync software
3) PowerAmp for Android or Stock Android Player (PowerAMP has lyric support and is quite well laid out)
The reason I picked Media Monkey is that it has great cataloging features and a very powerful and customizable file sync with Android devices. My HTC Ones S shows up as a Hero but all the sync functions work. ( I have used this program for years) I am sure most of the other popular player software would work too
What to Do
The nature of the beast is that you are choosing which music to leave behind. If your music isn't cataloged then you can't possibly do this efficiently. This takes a lot of time and is best done as you get new music. You need at least the rating filled in for each track. I also have mood and tempo which really adds to your options. If you don't want to catalog then this advice isn't going to help you so you may as well stop here.
1) Catalog your music in Media Monkey (or other player software)
2) Plug in your HTC One and set to Disk Mode ...... it should show up as a HTC Hero
3) Using Media Monkey, set up a new collection filtered with for tracks having 5 star rating
Presumably you would only want to transfer your best tracks
If you have a smallish collection this may reduce the number of files sufficiently to fit on the HTC One S (skip to 4)
4) Set up another Collection filtered for being added to your library less than 30 days ago
Presumably you would like to listen to your new music
5) Click on the HTC Hero node on the library and select sync options.
6) Select only the above 2 collections for sync
7) Chances are that there are still way too many files to fit into 9GB, so select the option to randomly sync files to your device matching the above filters leaving about 500-1000GB left unused OR just manually pick the artists and albums you want to sync.
8) Autosync the phone (takes about 2 minutes for me)
9) Autosync again once in a while to get a new random set
You could tell Media Monkey to compress the files as they are moved to the player, but this hugely increases the time required for the sync and you may loose album art and lyric support depending on which format you pick.
It is far from a idea solution but it works

Sirandar said:
Tips on making the best of 10GB of storage space when storing music on the HTC One S.
What doesn't work:
1) Dropbox, Google Drive ..... you can store files there but finding and playing them is a bag of hurt because the players are so rudimentary and the music is not cataloged like it is for stock Android player and PowerAMP
2) An OTG USB cable and a 32, 64 or 128GB USB Flash Drive. HTC could have saved this phone for music collections if they had implemented this feature, but they didn't. The microUSB port on the One S doesn't provide power, so for mobile listening of music it really isn't as option even it you hack OTG into your kernel.
3) Wifi based systems. With a bit of effort you could probably get a working system when your phone on your own home network, but chances are you use your phone for music when you are away from home.
The Good News:
The HTC One S has very good audio quality and a good output.
What You Need
1) Your music collection, most likely quite a bit larger than 10GB
2) Media Monkey Software for your PC computer (http://www.mediamonkey.com) Forget about the HTC Sync software
3) PowerAmp for Android or Stock Android Player (PowerAMP has lyric support and is quite well laid out)
The reason I picked Media Monkey is that it has great cataloging features and a very powerful and customizable file sync with Android devices. My HTC Ones S shows up as a Hero but all the sync functions work. ( I have used this program for years) I am sure most of the other popular player software would work too
What to Do
The nature of the beast is that you are choosing which music to leave behind. If your music isn't cataloged then you can't possibly do this efficiently. This takes a lot of time and is best done as you get new music. You need at least the rating filled in for each track. I also have mood and tempo which really adds to your options. If you don't want to catalog then this advice isn't going to help you so you may as well stop here.
1) Catalog your music in Media Monkey (or other player software)
2) Plug in your HTC One and set to Disk Mode ...... it should show up as a HTC Hero
3) Using Media Monkey, set up a new collection filtered with for tracks having 5 star rating
Presumably you would only want to transfer your best tracks
If you have a smallish collection this may reduce the number of files sufficiently to fit on the HTC One S (skip to 4)
4) Set up another Collection filtered for being added to your library less than 30 days ago
Presumably you would like to listen to your new music
5) Click on the HTC Hero node on the library and select sync options.
6) Select only the above 2 collections for sync
7) Chances are that there are still way too many files to fit into 9GB, so select the option to randomly sync files to your device matching the above filters leaving about 500-1000GB left unused OR just manually pick the artists and albums you want to sync.
8) Autosync the phone (takes about 2 minutes for me)
9) Autosync again once in a while to get a new random set
You could tell Media Monkey to compress the files as they are moved to the player, but this hugely increases the time required for the sync and you may loose album art and lyric support depending on which format you pick.
It is far from a idea solution but it works
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Orr you can sync your music to Google Play and stream from there. IF you have the 2GB plan I almost never go over that, plus it only streams it the first play and stays in your cache for replay later. Best Solution for me, at least for Music. After that I have plenty of room for everything else and file With Drop Box and Box and Google Drive.

I usually just convert my files to ~40kbit (VBR quality 0.25) HE-AACv2 files. Unless you really really concentrate, you'll be hard pressed finding any difference between these files and CD quality. And I've got about 6,000 songs in under 7 GB.
I use dbPowerAmp for the conversion, and the Nero AAC codec.

djsubtronic said:
I usually just convert my files to ~40kbit (VBR quality 0.25) HE-AACv2 files. Unless you really really concentrate, you'll be hard pressed finding any difference between these files and CD quality. And I've got about 6,000 songs in under 7 GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holy jeebus, 40kbit and you cannot tell the difference? Time for some decent headphones or a hearing check!

edscholl said:
Holy jeebus, 40kbit and you cannot tell the difference? Time for some decent headphones or a hearing check!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, have you even tried HE-AACv2? That codec is pretty legendary. Of course you can tell the difference but it's very barely noticeable. Try it yourself.

djsubtronic said:
Dude, have you even tried HE-AACv2? That codec is pretty legendary. Of course you can tell the difference but it's very barely noticeable. Try it yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup. Very f'in noticeably different at 40kbps.