O2 XDA Mini Beats iPOD!. Thanks to Knights@MobileReview.com

This a simple and cheap way how to knock off any apple ipod (mp3 player)and archos (vedio player) with your [XDAIImini, i-mate JAM, Magician)

How: (mp3 player)

- Buy headphone jack adapter which will convert 2.5mm to standard 3.5mm. ex. Treo headphone jack adapter from PALM.. (im using the one that is in package with “nokia n-gage)

- Download GSPlayer from any freeware site. Ex. www.freewareppc.com
- Buy good quality headphone. I highly recommend Sony MDR-e829 because its cheap and offers high quality sounds (very crisp treble, and distinct low bass).
Note: Don’t forget to put on the black comfy budz in the headphone. It traps very low bass and help block external noise.

- Download the GSPlayer to your mini. After downloading, set the “Bass Boost” to
5/10.
Set the equalizer to this pattern

There’s no preset equalizer so I came up with this pattern. The quality is excellent

Here are some of the features of GSPlayer:

1. Playlist editor (create and play)
2. skinable
3. easy interface
4. lots of Sound effects ( Surround, 3Deffect, Reverb, Echo)
5. Customized hardware button
6. play in “screen off mode” to maximized usage time.

How: (Video Player)

- Download Pocket TV video player from any freeware sites
- Download mpeg (vedio) converter. Ex. TMPGen video converter at www.tmpgenc.net
- Here are the simple guide for making mpeg files optimize for pocket your pocket pc:
-
1. Get TMPGEnc (free!) from www.tmpgenc.net. TMPGEnc is a very good free MPEG converter.
2. Download our templates (.mcf files) from http://www.pockettv.com/template and place them in the Template sub-folder of TMPGEnc. Download the all-templates.zip file to get all the templates.
3. Start TMPGEnc and select Cancel to exit the wizard.

Now, for each of your video files, do steps 4 to 7:
4. Load your video source with the upper “Browse” button.
5. Load the template you want to use with the “Load” button. Note: The order of steps 4) and 5) is crucial!
Quote:

- Smartphone portrait 176×136 is for portrait video that plays at full framerate. The average bitrate should be around 120 Kbit/sec, i.e. about 100MB for a 2h movie! (not sure I’d want to watch an entire movie on my phone, though…)

- Smartphone fullscreen 224×176 is for fullscreen video (lower fps). The average bitrate should be around 160 Kbit/sec.

- Smartphone widescreen 224×128 is for widescreen video. The average bitrate should be around 140 Kbit/sec.

- Pocket PC portrait 240×196 is for portrait video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 270Kbit/sec.

- Pocket PC fullscreen 320×240 is for fullscreen video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 420Kbit/sec.

- Pocket PC widescreen 320×176 is for widescreen video (stereo). The total bitrate should be around 330Kbit/sec.

The “fast” templates will encode a lot faster although you’ll get a slightly lower video quality and in the case of Smartphone, a slightly larger file.
6.
7. Check the name of the Output file and change it if necessary (with the lower Browse button)
8. Hit “Start” and wait…
9. Copy the output MPEG files to your device or a Storage Card and play them with PocketTV! Before making the copy, you should check the files by playing them on your PC with Windows Media Player. Learn How to copy MPEG files into your device or Storage Card.

Common problems and solutions:
Quote:

1. TMPGEnc is too slow: Go in the “Options > Task Priority” menu. Change the priority to:
- When Active, High priority
- When not Active, Normal priority
2. TMPGEnc is still too slow: Use a “fast” template. This is much faster although the video quality will be slightly lower.
3. Will my video play better/faster if I use the “fast” template: No. The “fast” template is only for a faster conversion. The video playback performances will be about the same. The video image quality will be slightly lower when you use the “fast” template.
4. There are black bands around the image in the output video: You can see the black bands around the video displayed by TMPGEnc during the encoding. That’s because the your source video does not have the same aspect ratio as the template rectangle.

- If the black bands are small, select “Settings > Advanced” and change “Video arrange Method” to “Full screen”. If will slightly distort the image to fit the entire rectangle.

- If the method above causes too much distortion (e.g. your source is in wide-screen/letter-box format), you should change the size in “Settings > Video > Size”. If the black bands are at the top and bottom of the image, reduce the vertical size to fit the aspect-ratio of the source format. If the black bands are at the right and left of the image, increase the vertical size or reduce the horizontal size. The size values must be multiple of eight.
5. I selected “Video arrange Method” = “Full screen” but there are still black bands: That’s because there are black bands around the image in your video source. You can remove them as follows: Go in “Settings > Advanced”, check the box in front of “Clip frame”, double-click on “Clip frame”, check the box “Resized image is used to display preview”, move the slider to a position in the file where you can see the black bands, then increase the values for Top, Left, Bottom and/or Right until the black bands disapear.
6. Quality of video is too low: You can increase the video quality, but that will also increase the file size. Go in “Settings > Video”.
- Smartphone: click on the second Setting button on the right, in front of “Rate Control Mode: Automatic VBR (CQ_VBR). Increase the quality value to 12 or 13 (it is set to 11 by the template).
- Pocket PC: Below “Rate Control Mode: Constant bitrate (CBR)”, increase the Bitrate.
7. Video does not play smoothly: If you are using the fullscreen template, try using the Portrait template. The video image size will be smaller, but it will play more smoothly. You can also try decreasing the video bitrate. It will reduce the image quality but the video will play more smoothly. Go in “Settings > Video”.
- Smartphone: click on the second Setting button on the right, in front of “Rate Control Mode: Automatic VBR (CQ_VBR). Decrease the quality value to 9 or 10 (it is set to 11 by the template).
- Pocket PC: Below “Rate Control Mode: Constant bitrate (CBR)”, decrease the Bitrate.
8. Audio is mono, I want stereo:
- Smartphone: Go in “Settings > Audio” and set “Channel mode” to “Joint-Stereo”. The output the file will be larger, since stereo increases the bitrate by 32Kbit/sec.
- Pocket PC: The Pocket PC templates are set for Stereo, so if you get mono it’s because your source is mono.
9. Audio volume is too low: Go in “Settings > Audio”, click on “Settings”, set the check-mark “Change Volume”, then click on “Normalize”. Value should be 75. Click OK. The value in the “Change Volume box will be set automatically for optimum volume level. You can adjust it if necessary.
10. Quality of audio is too low: You can increase the audio quality, but that will also increase the file size. Go in “Settings > Audio” and increase the Bitrate.
11. TMPGEnc cannot read my MOV files (Quicktime): To allow TMPGEnc to read MOV files, you just have to:
- install the free Quicktime player from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
- download the file http://www.pockettv.com/bin/tmpgenc/QTReader.vfp and place it in the TMPGEnc folder.
12. How can I convert my DVD’s: There are some useful links on this page: www.pockettv.com/encoding.html .
13. How can I convert my VCD’s: Insert your VCD in your CDROM drive, then follow the normal instructions. In “Step 4″ (Load your video source with the upper “Browse” button), you need to open the MPEGAV folder of your VCD, and select File type = “All files (*.*) to see all the files in this folder. Open the files with the .dat extension. Those are in fact high-bitrate MPEG files that TMPGEnc can read and convert.
14. What templates should I use for Handheld PC: The Pocket PC templates will work also for Handheld PC.
15. I have some problems with tMPEGEnc. Is there another tMPGEnc FAQ: Try afterdawn.com.
16. Where can I get more informations and resources about video conversion: There are many useful links on this page: www.pockettv.com/encoding.html .
17. Do I need to convert my MPEG files with this Guide: It depends. If you are certain that your MPEG files are already optimized for your device (e.g. you downloaded them from PocketMovies.net), then you don’t need to convert them. But if your MPEG files come from random sources or from a VCD, or if they seem to play slowly on your device, or if they are very larges, or if they have a bitrate larger than 400 Kbit/sec, then you should use this Guide. MPEG files optimized for Pocket PC or Smartphone (using this guide) are much smaller in size and will play much better on your device.
18. The MPEG file created by TMPGEnc has no audio: This may happen if you convert a file that is in a format not fully supported by TMPGEnc (see TMPGEnc FAQ). For exampleTMPGEnc can not read AVI files in Type-1 DV format. Type-2 DV format should not cause this problem, however, there are still chance not to be able to read the file if you are using general IEEE1394 board without codec for VFW.

A solution is to first convert the AVI file to WMV using Windows Media Encoder and then use TMPGEnc to convert the WMV file to MPEG (thanks to mvsmith07 for tip).

Mail me at: jaytechnomaniac@yahoo.com