[maemo-developers] DVD content playback possible or not? Re: Wishlist (was:Re: N800 and USB host mode)

[From: Hanno Zulla]

Hi,

Klaus Rotter schrieb:
> Hanno Zulla wrote:
>> Video playback is my biggest wish for improvement on the N800. See
>> http://www.hanno.de/blog/2007/02/16/video-on-n800/ for some comparisons
>> of video playback on the N800 as it is today and how it could be on an
>> 800x480 screen.
> 
> Why do you want DVD MPEG2 Playback?

"Because it's there."

There's lots of content available in MPEG2, either on DVD or coming from
DVB broadcasts.

MPEG2 needs little CPU resources, is well understood by developers and
is well supported by several apps. Including vlc which even understands
DVD menus.

I would love to just copy a DVD disc image or a DVB recording to my N800
and watch it on the go.

> MPEG2 is IMHO not the way to go, it needs big files.

This is true. One DVD is up to 9 GB of data, but usually less.

SDHC is coming and the N800 can support it. Flash is getting cheaper by
the minute. In just a few months, 8 GB of flash storage on an SDHC card
will be affordable to anyone and 16 GB is just around the corner.

> Better support for MPEG4 and the media player is
> needed. Media Player often says "playback of this format is not
> supported" but the files play fine in mplayer. And AFAIK mplayer only
> uses the CPU and not the DSP. (Ok, it may use the MP2/3 DSP codecs vor
> audio decoding.)
> 
> Better support for 400x240 MPEG4 would be fine. One can store about 5-6
> houres of video on a 2 GB card. With MPEG2 this would be only about 1h.

You are, of course, right that MPEG4 is far superiour to MPEG2.

But MPEG4 needs more CPU power AND you have to transcode the existing
material we already have on DVD or DVB before you can watch it. It's
kind of pointless to waste desktop CPU power to transcode existing
material if you could watch it in original form.

Regards,

Hanno