How Is Your Pilot Video Experience

[dhartsoc]

Hi,

I wanted to get a sense of how well video is working for Pilot owners.
Personally, when they play well it is a very good experience. However I have some significant problems which I do not know if they are common.

This applies both to converted MP4 and WMV files, converted either with the included ArcSoft Media Converter2 of Any Video Converter.

Fairly often when I start a video the first several seconds are skipped, followed by a hopelessly stuttering audio and video. Using the skip back button to go to the beginning sets them playing correctly.

I cannot use the fast forward or fast reverse button at all because the video "always" goes into severe audio and video stuttering. Pause generally works okay, but sometimes leads to the same problem seen with FF, etc. Thus if I am interrupted while watching a video I usually have to start all over again. It does not seem to matter if if the video is short or long.

Conversions are to 320x240, 512 video, 128 audio. For me the ArcSoft software seems to choke on longer video files, having seen lots of failures trying to convert 30 minute WMV files. Either the conversion simply stops or I get a failure to write the file at the end. (I am writing to a folder, not directly to the Pilot. XP Home, 512Mb memory, lots of drive space)

This is my second Pilot, the first returned to see if a new one would clear up the video problems I describe. So I am having a hard time discerning if I am dealing with a software or hardware problem, lacking other user experiences.
One problem could be most of the files I convert are either Flash Video off of YouTube, or M4V files.

Dana

[CrowdAds]

[Digital Assassin]

Might try the Media Converter 2.5 intro (trial) version on the Arcsoft website. I tried it and converted a couple of DVD movies (90+ minutes each) with no problem. It ripped, converted and copied them to my Pilot in roughly 60 minutes a DVD.

As far as stuttering, I get it every once in a while but I don't have to go back to the beginning, I just reverse a couple of seconds and it's fine. I also use fast foward and fast reverse with no synch problems. My last player was a Samsung T-9 and I'm much happier with the video on the Pilot.

[Tazman69]

apparently its to do with the player software itself since it does this with music too. so, i await the firmware update we all have been waiting for awhile now to fix this and other issues.

[dhartsoc]

Digital Assassin,

Your video performance is more reliable than mine, FF and FR are useless to me. On the other hand I have not seen the same problem with songs as Tazman69 alludes to.

I am considering exchanging for a new one, one more time. If I don't have better luck with a 3rd one I'll have to pin my hopes on a firmware update.

I'll have to look at the 2.5 version of MediaConverter... does it have expanded ability to handle more codecs? M4V is by far the most common video I download.

I noticed with the included Mediaconverter it is creating files for the Pilot using the WMV9 setting.... and as I mentioned it seems to be choking on large files.

[DigitalAxis]

I haven't seen any of that; the most I've noticed is diagonal banding when watching videos with fast motion- it's akin to video tearing, but only seems to occur on certain diagonal lines.

I have on occasion gotten the video out of sync... but that seems to be fixed by fast-forwarding.

I have only used ArcSoft to encode to avi format.

[Digital Assassin]

Originally Posted by dhartsoc

I'll have to look at the 2.5 version of MediaConverter... does it have expanded ability to handle more codecs? M4V is by far the most common video I download.

I don't know that it supports any more codecs, it just seems a bit more stable and it looks like they have added the ability to rip and convert directly from DVD, which is something I'm interested in. Tested it over the weekend and I was able to point it toward a DVD with my Pilot hooked up and came back about 90 minutes later and it was ripped, converted and loaded on my Pilot and ready to watch.

My big question now is whether I can upgrade from the included MC 2 to MC 2.5 for the upgrade price.

[akshunj]

Bear in mind that AVI is not a format, just a container. Lots of different MPEG4 implementations (DivX, Xvid, H.264, etc.) end up going in that container and the player's firmware probably renders them with varying levels of success, depending on what it's equipped with. It would be more accurate to benchmark the player's performance on identical video clips encoded via various MPEG4 implementations. That way we could figure out which one it sucks at rendering.

That said, my experience has been very good using iriverter to convert videos. I think it uses Xvid. Every once in a while I get playback stutter, but it's pretty rare, and it goes away after a second or two.

--Akshun J

[dhartsoc]

What is the limitation on the trial version?

Originally Posted by Digital Assassin

I don't know that it supports any more codecs, it just seems a bit more stable and it looks like they have added the ability to rip and convert directly from DVD, which is something I'm interested in. Tested it over the weekend and I was able to point it toward a DVD with my Pilot hooked up and came back about 90 minutes later and it was ripped, converted and loaded on my Pilot and ready to watch.

My big question now is whether I can upgrade from the included MC 2 to MC 2.5 for the upgrade price.

[dhartsoc]

That is a good point. I don't begin to understand the differences in MPEG4 implementations.

For instance, a lot of video I download is M4V. My understanding was that this is just a file extension change to reflect that it is an MPEG4 video file. But when I convert it for the Pilot with the bundled ArcSoft software it plays with vertical bars and audio stuttering. On the other hand Any Video Converter creates a file that plays well in the Pilot with the exceptions I've noted regarding using FF, etc.

It appears there is something different about the M4V files I am downloading.

On a positive note I have now found that WMV and MP4 files I convert with the bundled software don't get out of sync when using FF, etc. The dark side is now when converting large WMV files (30 minutes/150Mb) the files will not write to disk or aborts at the very end of the conversion. (Bundled ArcSoft software)

What version of ireverter, 16? I think I may take a look at it, having heard some encouraging reports.

Dana

Originally Posted by akshunj

Bear in mind that AVI is not a format, just a container. Lots of different MPEG4 implementations (DivX, Xvid, H.264, etc.) end up going in that container and the player's firmware probably renders them with varying levels of success, depending on what it's equipped with. It would be more accurate to benchmark the player's performance on identical video clips encoded via various MPEG4 implementations. That way we could figure out which one it sucks at rendering.

That said, my experience has been very good using iriverter to convert videos. I think it uses Xvid. Every once in a while I get playback stutter, but it's pretty rare, and it goes away after a second or two.

--Akshun J

[Digital Assassin]

Originally Posted by dhartsoc

What is the limitation on the trial version?

It puts a watermark in the upper left of the video. It's actually not that distracting. However, I think some of the encoders it comes with expire at some point. Interestingly, I haven't had any audio/video synch problems in either movie I ripped with 2.5.

What sucks is I can't find a serial # to be able to create an account on the Arcsoft website and the only way you can get contact information or support from Arcsoft is by creating an account.

If I can pay the upgrade price of ~$15 I'll likely upgrade to 2.5 and be done with it. The convenience of having an all in one solution is nice.