Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Open-Content GBA Movie Player Reviewed

Posted by simoniker on from the start-your-encoding-now dept.

wraggster writes "The helpful people over at EAGB have done a great review of a new third-party GBA SP Movie Player Adapter. According to the review: 'This adapter... uses Compact Flash Cards (CF)... [and] comes with its own encoder software which gives the user free reign to encode any movie or music he wants.' They note the 'steep learning curve', and a 'rudimentary' feature set, but conclude: 'nothing beats that wow! factor when you see your first movie playing on the GBA/SP'." This is an interesting alternative to the recently announced U.S. and already-released Japanese GBA movie players, both of which restrict the movie content you can put on your Game Boy in some way.

20 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Big Hairy deal. by Curtman · · Score: 2, Funny

    They note the 'steep learning curve'

    Start grepping, I bet they stole that part from Mplayer too. ;)

  2. Hahaha... That's Great. by still_sick · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you look, one of the sample movies he encoded as an example was the MTV clip of Modanna and Brittney kissing.

    Kinda shows what this is actually going to be used for in the real world.

    --
    ...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
    1. Re:Hahaha... That's Great. by TechnoPops · · Score: 1

      Damn right. Porn and gaming... right in your pocket!

      --
      "Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
  3. Compatibility by Klatoo55 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Is it possible that the popularity of the game boy in connection with CompactFlash connectivity could boost the CF cards ahead of their competitors?

    --
    ------- "A true friend stabs you in the front." -Eliot
    1. Re:Compatibility by Ianoo · · Score: 1

      CF already is ahead of its competitors in terms of cents per megabyte. This is largely because it's physically bigger, I guess. Too big for a lot of handhelds and smartphones, which tend to go for something smaller these days like SD/MMC.

      Who cares what format is "top" anyway? Provided the cards are still made by a large number of people and supported by lots of companies and hence are at a reasonable price (I'm talking to you, Sony Memory Stick!) a few million in sales one way or the other doesn't really matter, does it?

      Just for reference, The NPD Group reckons SD has 30% of the market, CF has 28.8% and MemoryStick has 22%, in the United States.

    2. Re:Compatibility by anotherone · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes. The 45 GBA movie players that will sell will definitly boost the CF format, no longer will it be confined merely to millions of digital cameras and PDAs.

      --
      Username taken, please choose another one.
  4. Come on apple. We want iVideo! by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I got an mp3 hd player but watching videos as well would so good for those of us who use public transport (and live in countries were street robbery is still rare).

    This sounds like a nice device but ideally you want something that can just play any format. Including just copying dvd to it and play. (nothing illegal about that is there?).

    Oh and please don't say laptop. I mean something that fits inside your trouser pocket and can survice a little bit of rough handling.

    Steve Jobs get a move on.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Come on apple. We want iVideo! by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, Robert Cringley, whose predictions end up being right about 70%-80% of the time predicted that Apple would in fact announce such a device next Christmas. So now you just have to hope that he's right again. :)

    2. Re:Come on apple. We want iVideo! by damiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cringley's predictions are right only because they're too vague/obvious to be wrong. Apple's put out job ads for a developer position involving a video iPod. That's all anyone knows, including Cringely.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    3. Re:Come on apple. We want iVideo! by burns210 · · Score: 1

      can we say 'battery life'? Come on, how long do you expect to be able to play this iMovie? I mean, 2 hours? that doesn't give you much room to play solitaire on the thing... Just charge it up, turn it on once to play the movie, nonstop, and during the credits(hopefully not earlier), the battery dies. O doubt the battery would be long enough for a full movie, let alone a longy like LoTR or Braveheart.

    4. Re:Come on apple. We want iVideo! by paxcirca · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's true, but remember, this is the same guy who was whining about Linux's organizational structure because of the SCO fiasco. Mac Rumors had this story a few weeks before Cringley did.

  5. 10 FPS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    One thing that wasn't pointed out in that otherwise excellent review is that the player maxes out at 10FPS, even at the higher quality settings.

    Or as they put it in Engrish on their site:
    "Photo scan rate: 10fps, photo playing quality equals to a digital camera! Our digital photo enhancing technology ensures you fresh display in your GBA (SP) screen!"

    Very simple cartoons like South Park looks ok at 10FPS but Simpsons etc start to look a bit wonky. Action scenes are completely unwatchable. You can't descipher what's going on.

  6. Re:Big Hairy deal. by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    "Damn. A movie player for a gameboy. It almost can do what a full computer can do.."

    Too bad a full computer can't do what a GameBoy can do. Fit in your pocket.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  7. When will they have roms for download? by MichaelGCD · · Score: 1

    I can't wait to play this on Visual Boy Advance!

    --
    hate titty pee colon slash slash
  8. Re:Big Hairy deal. by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Too bad a full computer can't do what a GameBoy can do. Fit in your pocket."

    I bet you could fit multiple shuttle cases in XXXL cargo pants. YMMV

    --
    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
  9. Re:Big Hairy deal. by bobthemonkey13 · · Score: 1
    It can't?

    Or, if that's not enough of a computer, try the Sony U101 Yes, it does fit in a pocket.

  10. roms on CF? by gearheadsmp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just want an adapter that lets me run rom's off a CF card. Buying a 128mbit rom device is expensive, considering quite a few rom's are 64mbit. I'm sure there's some technical reason behind not using CFlash, but it sure would be cheaper.

  11. Why should we even care about those things?! by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The GBA is definitely not powerful enough to run movies at a decent quality (even with an extra peripherical that does some of the decoding work, there are limits), and besides the resolution is way too small.

    1. Re:Why should we even care about those things?! by Firehawke · · Score: 1

      The GBA itself isn't, but if they offloaded all of the processing to hardware it'd be okay. They didn't, though, and that limits it to 10FPS. Really nothing worthwhile except for the "wow" factor.

      Odd, too, since I've seen a software based system that was a whole lot better on the GBA. A friend of mine dumped a copy of the Matrix trailer onto a flash cart and the quality WAS pretty good.

  12. Nice device by StarBar · · Score: 1
    The neat trick they are doing is the reencoding that transforms the video format from something known, to whatever the adapter or GBA/SP can support in hardware. Mainly the lower resolution will make it shrink to 256 Mb for 60 minutes of video. A DVD quality movie takes up aproximately 2 Gb of disk storage per hour.

    Does anyone know what video decoder hardware sits in the adapter or GBA/SP?