In short:

The Archos Vision 43 …
• … plays AVI MPEG-4 (divx/xvid) ONLY
• … can’t play B-frames
• … can’t play mp4 or mkv
• … can’t play h.264

Tools to use converting:
EASY: PocketDivXEncoder
NOT SO EASY: Mencoder

You can go about this the easy way by using “PocketDivxEncoder”, but it’s rather limited when it comes to making custom configurations. It works however and if that makes you happy, why apply for a headache doing it the hard way. But for those who like to experiment: read on.

Mencoder is “sometimes” part of the Mplayer suite (but is hard to come-by). You’ll find it at Gianluigi Tiesi’s page. Current build is r34118, and you may choose a version for AMD (athlon), Intel Pentium3 (p3), Intel Pentium 4 or better (p4) or Generic 486 (rtm). I chose rtm. Extract the download in a folder on your computer. There is no installation, because it’s a command-line tool. To make it work, I use it in BATCH files.

The package consists of two main EXE files, mencoder and mplayer. A detailed manual with all the command-line options can be found in mplayer.html, also included in the package.

The simplest way to use mencoder is like this:

This will encode input-file into a MPEG4 file with a variable video bitrate of 750kb/s and a constant MP3 audio bitrate of 128kb/s. The container is AVI. The name is output-file.

For the Archos, we want to add some extra options:

This will encode a MPEG4 AVI, allowing 4 motion vectors per macroblock (slightly better quality), shape adaptive (fast) diamond with size 3 (fast encoding) and a variable bitrate of 750kb/s. We also scale/zoom the video so it fits the Archos 480×272 screen nicely. Aspect ratio is preserved by omitting the height.

You can find many more settings to tweak with by reading the mplayer.html. If you find any improvements, please post them in the comments. I’ll gladly test them out.

Now.. let’s automate.

I have a folder on my PC called “to convert”, and I’ve made a sub-folder called mplayer, where the above downloaded package is extracted. The structure looks as such:

Inside the “to convert” folder, I’ve some batch files: doall_mpg.bat and doone.bat.

doall_mpg.bat

doone.bat

What is does is simple. When I put some (*not more than 4) mpeg files (.mpg) in the “to convert” folder, together with the batch files AND I then run the doall_mpg.bat batch-file, the PC starts encoding ALL the mpeg files at once. (*) I use “start” to launch multiple jobs at once, because mencoder uses only ONE thread (core). To fully use the potential of a quad-core, you may launch at least 4 jobs in parallel without suffering a decrease in encoding speed. Mind that mencoder CAN use multiple threads, but the speed-increase is not that spectacular. AND I noticed that using threads=2 (or more) produced a lot of artifacts when playing the encoded file back on the Archos, thus we can’t use that option.

To convert other files, like AVI’s, MP4′s , etc.. just change the (*.mpg) to (*.avi),(*.mp4),..respectively. ( I know this isn’t ideal, but I’m to lazy to change it now). If you know about batch processing and for, you’ll know what to do when you want to change it.

A FEW NOTES:

• Depending on how fast and how big the SD cards is you’re using, video playback from that SD card may be choppy and out of sync. I found that the 16 Gbyte Sandisk SD-HC did not work for me. For smooth video playback, copy the video’s to the internal memory.
• You can use -vf crop=700:396,scale=480:272 to crop letterbox video’s. You may have to tweak the. All is explained in mplayer.html

Have fun.

When using GS_WMT216_V5.0_ACADEV_BLACK_EDITION, you’ll notice that the “hibernation” function is missing and that the device must be “shut down” or else it would drain the battery until it’s empty. Using this little trick, you can activate the “hibernate” option while shutting down:

- First, go to the market and download a shell app, I used “ConnectBot”.
- Once in the shell, type SU to become root
- Once root (the $ changes in #), type setenv hibernation_ui yes
- Then type reboot

Now your tabled will offer you to hibernate when shutting down (pressing the power button).

Note: I will update this list as I test more firmwares.

Note2: BE CAREFULL upgrading the tablet. You MAY brick it. I will take NO RESPONSIBILITY for your actions, when you damage or brick your tablet. I only provide this information as is.

I could not find the original firmware for the QPC617 from QMedia and I don’t know how to make a backup, so I took a leap of faith experimenting with this device.

WMT2.1.2_105_M3CSL_V1.0
This was the first firmware I tested. It works perfectly, but is not rooted. It has the market installed. Processor runs at 174 Mhz. Good performance.

WMT2.1.6_LF-X_V1.0B6
This firmware runs perfect. It is rooted too and has the market installed. Better performance.

PanImage_SGS_ACADEV_2.22.11_Full (link)
This firmware installs ok. HoneyComb (fake) interface. Performance is slow.

GS_WMT216_V5.0_ACADEV_BLACK_EDITION (link)
Installs fine. Nice interface. Rooted and Market. Performance is good.

LIST of NOT WORKING firmwares:
WMT2.50_RSX_TS_A_SPEC_V2

PS: None of the images/firmwares are overclocked. The two most popular overclock apps (OC Widget & SetCPU ) won’t work. Maybe in future versions.

Tips:
- When booting after a flash update, the animate boot-logo ( ANDROID ) may look like it is locked in a loop. Just be patient (maybe 2 , 3 minutes). All following boots will not suffer from this delay.

More info on modded tablet firmwares:
http://androidtabletzone.the-talk.net/f135-honeycomb-for-wm8505-wmt8505-rooted-rom-mod-firmware-development (updated link 2 nov. 2011)

Establishing a connection just by dialing *99# is impossible, you’ll get ” The answering modem has disconnected “. You’ll need to add a dial string to include at least the APN information.

To enter a dial string now requires the use of a registry editor. You can find a good one here

To enter the dial string, you’ll have to edit registry-entry “1″ in HKLM/Drivers/Unimodem/Init
change it to : AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”web.be”
“web.be” is the APN name (ISP).

You can then safely connect using just dialing *99#

In the security log ( firewal -> security log ) you’ll find entries like these:

According to many internet forum posts this can only be solved by rebooting the modem, but there is another, quicker and better solution, especially when you don’t want to reboot the modem.

To quickly resolve this issue without rebooting ( thus without disrupting services like streams, uploads, etc. too long — rebooting takes minutes, while this solution takes less then a second) telnet to the Sagem modem, enter username: admin and password: BGCVDSL2
at the command prompt type:

fw_restart

Close the telnet session. You’ll now be able to connect to other ports and NAT functionality will be restored.

There is no permanent fix.

Reason: Other VLAN interfaces are enabled and should be disabled when changing the LAN settings.

Solution: You do not need VLAN , so disable the VLAN circuits

- Go to advanced settings
- Choose Network Interfaces
- Click on LAN Bridge
- Click on settings (button)
- Disable the Wan ethoa0 … 12 ( disable everything exept LAN Ethernet en LAN Wireless – first and last ).

- Now you can change your LAN IP settings.
- Eventually return the state of the disabled interfaces ( only if required )

The Sagem 3464 is a (wireless) VDSL2 broadband internet router. It’s used by Belgacom, EDPNET, and maybe other providers using VDSL2 in Belgium.

Connect to the Sagem via a crossed UTP/STP cable into the Yellow port on the back of the unit (next to the power switch). The default IP is 192.168.1.1 Alternatively connect both router and PC to a hub or switch. ( Mind the unit’s DHCP server is active by default. )

1. Don’t buy an AMD chipset.
I’m not saying AMD is bad. AMD actually is great. But the motherboard comes with an integrated AMD chipset including an integrated ATI video card ( 4600 ). This motherboard has all features to watch TV and Video, don’t get me wrong, but you won’t get any acceleration. Not in Windows that is. ATI is less open to the open source community and as I’m using XBMC to watch video, which uses FFMPEG to decode the video, all decoding will be done by the processor. The X2 ADM can cope only just. ( 55% CPU ). I ended up buying an NVIDIA ( GeForce GTX 260 ) which is affordable and gives me hardware acceleration in ( the latest beta ) of XBMC. As an added bonus I can play GTA with all settings at highest, 40+ fps.

2. Don’t buy Cinergy S2 PCI HD.
This card is stable as a rock and gives average to good picture quality. It’s compatible with DVBviewer Pro. But the remote control doesn’t work for me ( can’t figure out how to configure it ), but more troublesome: the card generates a high pitched sound ( like an old CRT television set ) when tuning to HD channels. It gives me a headache. I’m going to try and find myself a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-4000 00 DVB-S/-S2/-T/analog on of these days.

3. Software: DVBViever Pro
I learned there is a lot of DVB software, but it’s expensive, can’t handle plugins or is just crap. I stayed with DVBViewer Pro which is just perfect.

Some features I find very exiting are:

• Can handle plugins, needed to access the subscription card of you got no conditional access module.
• I can run as a service in the background, recording following a schedule
• It can wake-up the computer to record a tv show
• It can share the DVB card over the network so you can watch satellite tv on your laptop. It’s very easy and stable too!

4. Software: XBMC
For watching movies and MPEG4 or DIVX mkv or avi files, I got hooked on XBMC. It is by far the sleekest home theater software out there and it’s FREE. It supports many skins and can play almost everything. One of the coolest features is the ability to change synchronization of audio and video while playing a movie!! They are in the process of incorporating DVB receivers too. XBMC will also lookup your movie files and tv-shows in a few online databases, returning fan art and titles. The library is very comprehensive.

PS: Windows 7 is working great on this system, but try to keep it clean. Do not install to many things, as it will inevitably make your computer slow.

Media centers I tried but abandoned.

• Mediaportal: I didn’t like the design, but It’s the second best FREE mediacenter out there.
• Windows Media Center: Nice design, but it doesn’t show all files. Hard to get the library organised. Much like media player…

A comparison of many many media centers (wikipedia)

]]> http://www.walterdevos.be/my-2-cents-on-htpc-media-pc-and-dvb/feed 3 http://www.walterdevos.be/stream-marmitek-ip-robocam-21-via-videolan-vlc-player http://www.walterdevos.be/stream-marmitek-ip-robocam-21-via-videolan-vlc-player#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:43:19 +0000 walter http://www.walterdevos.be/?p=391 The Marmitek IP Robocam 21 ( Art No 9833 ) is a wireless, remote controletabel pan tilt, indoor camera. (link)

Watching the stream via the web is easy, just surf to the IP cam’s IP-address. Marmitek even has a complete suite (UltraView) to combine many camera’s, record the picture etc. But just looking at the video in VLC ( or any media player ) is tricky and virtually undocumented.

The IP Robocam 21 can deliver MPEG4,MPEG and 3GPP video. Here is how to get it working in VLC.

Open VLC, goto “media”, choose Open Network. Choose the RSTP protocol and copy paste this adress into the addressbar:

rtsp://admin:admin@x.x.x.x/mpeg4 ( where x.x.x.x is the IP address of the IP cam, usualy something like 192.168.0.3 and where admin is the username of the adminisrator who has “admin” as the password all which you can change in the setup of the IP cam via the web )

Mpeg4 video : rtsp://admin:admin@x.x.x.x/mpeg4
3gp video: rtsp://admin:admin@x.x.x.x/3gp
Mjpeg video: rtsp://admin:admin@x.x.x.x/mjpeg

To MOVE the camera: (port is the portnumber used to access the webcam over http like in: http://x.x.x.x:port . Usualy 80 )
down : http://x.x.x.x:port/admin/ptctl.cgi?move=down
up : http://x.x.x.x:port/admin/ptctl.cgi?move=up
left : http://x.x.x.x:port/admin/ptctl.cgi?move=left
right : http://x.x.x.x:port/admin/ptctl.cgi?move=right

I will post more tricks as I learn about them in the future.

]]> http://www.walterdevos.be/stream-marmitek-ip-robocam-21-via-videolan-vlc-player/feed 2 http://www.walterdevos.be/dreambox-dm-8000-review-reviews-links-info-informatie-test-beste http://www.walterdevos.be/dreambox-dm-8000-review-reviews-links-info-informatie-test-beste#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:38:59 +0000 walter http://www.walterdevos.be/?p=353 Review Dr Dish (Duits)

Interface

Dit is een uitgebreide review van de Dreambox in het Duitse blad SatVision. ( Duits ) (vind hier een vertaling in het Engels van hetzelfde artikel)

Links naar USER reviews :

• The box runs very smooth and is also faster than the DM800 because of the faster processor. link
• Dreambox DM 8000 draad in het Sat4all forum: link
• [DM800HD] Twijfel tussen DM800 of DM8000 aanschaffen : link
• The max res of the box is 1080i : link

Alternatief voor de Dreambox, De Kathrein UFS910 :

• De Kathrein UFS910 met “Dreambox” achtige software. link
• Engels Kathrein forum: link
• Duits Kathrein forum: link
• intern sharen met Kathrein?: link
• review op Sateelites.co.uk: link
• review op satplaza: link

Een dealer die beide ontvangers aanbiedt kan misschien op meer vragen antwoorden: Altsat (Aalst – België)

]]> http://www.walterdevos.be/dreambox-dm-8000-review-reviews-links-info-informatie-test-beste/feed 0 http://www.walterdevos.be/het-proc-bestandssysteem-op-de-dreambox http://www.walterdevos.be/het-proc-bestandssysteem-op-de-dreambox#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:57:34 +0000 walter http://www.walterdevos.be/2009/03/08/het-proc-bestandssysteem-op-de-dreambox/ De /proc directory is een (virtueel) bestandssysteem dat denkbeeldige bestanden bevat met informatie over het systeem en de processen die er op draaien. Het bestaat niet op een disk, maar wordt “on the fly” gecreëerd door de kernel. We kunnen de structuur zien met ls /proc en we kunnen specifieke bestanden lezen met cat , bvb cat /proc/uptime (geeft de tijd dat het systeem operationeel is).

Een aantal specifieke toepassingen met proc op de dreambox:

/proc/{PID}
Een directory met bestanden die informatie bevatten over het proces met nummer {PID}. Elk proces heeft een directory onder /proc waarvan de naam gelijk is aan het {PID} PID = proces identificatie nummer. Vind PID’s via ls /proc of via het programma top.

Uitvoer van top (PID in vet):

Mem: 29604K used, 424K free, 0K shrd, 1404K buff, 4264K cached
Load average: 1.12, 1.27, 1.36 (State: S=sleeping R=running, W=waiting)

PID USER STATUS RSS PPID %CPU %MEM COMMAND
13733 root S 1832 13720 31.1 6.1 cammy
8076 root R 712 8056 7.7 2.3 top
13676 root S 12M 303 0.0 42.0 enigma
13691 root S 12M 13676 0.0 42.0 enigma
…

/proc/cpuinfo
Informatie over de processor, zoals het type, merk, model en de performance.

root@dm7000 ~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : STB04xxx
clock : 252MHz
revision : 8.209 (pvr 4181 08d1)
bogomips : 250.88
machine : Dream Multimedia TV Dreambox
plb bus clock : 63MHz

/proc/interrupts : Laat zien welke interrupts er in gebruik zijn

root@dm7000 ~ # cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
1: 33803163 IBM UIC Level dmx
2: 1738 IBM UIC Level audio
3: 274876 IBM UIC Level mpeg
7: 27391 IBM UIC Level pvr
8: 2509441 IBM UIC Level card
9: 2922158 IBM UIC Level IBM IIC
10: 2 IBM UIC Level IBM IIC
11: 127528 IBM UIC Level GPTC
16: 992074 IBM UIC Level card
18: 0 IBM UIC Edge ohci_hcd
25: 137130 IBM UIC Edge ide0
28: 3283082 IBM UIC Level eth0
29: 5 IBM UIC Edge fp
BAD: 1

/proc/ioports : Welke I/O poorten op het moment in gebruik zijn

/proc/kmsg : Kernel meldingen. (Een lange lijst meldingen die ook via SySlog kunnen uitgevoerd worden.)

/proc/net : SUBDIRECTORY met informatie over het netwerk

/proc/loadavg : De gemiddelde belasting van het systeem. De eerste drie getallen meten de CPU belasting van de afgelopen één minuut, vijf minuten en 10 minutes respectievelijk. Het getal staat voor het aantal processen dat gemiddeld in de rij staat om uitgevoerd te worden. In een systeem met één processor is dat 1 bij 100% belasting, bij een systeem met twee processors is dat 2. Er wordt ook rekening gehouden met processen die op invoer/uitvoer wachten (IO). Hoe kleiner het getal, hoe beter. Daarnaast staat het aantal lopende processen tegenover het totaal aantal (slapende) processen. Het laatste nummer tenslotte toont het PID van de laatste taak die gelopen heeft. (Het commando TOP laat deze cijfers ook zien)
Radio luisteren:

root@dm7000 ~ # cat /proc/loadavg
1.28 1.38 1.35 1/58 7967

Radio luisteren en tegelijk SAT-FIND functie aan:

root@dm7000 ~ # cat /proc/loadavg
2.63 1.84 1.48 1/57 7998

/proc/meminfo : Informatie over geheugengebruik, zowel fysiek als swap
/proc/stat : Diverse statistieken over het systeem
/proc/uptime : Hoelang het systeem al ingeschakeld is
/proc/version : De kernelversie

bronnen:
doc.nl.linux.org
redhat.activeventure.com

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