video on pda

[Total PDA Forums]

I am looking to buy a PDA which will be suitable both for watching videos as well as GPS use.

Looked at a Toshiba and an Ipaq with PPC 2003 installed, but found two problems playing back a 16:9 aspect (widescreen) video off an SD card: (1)even in full screen (landscape) mode, the video looked horizontally squashed -does this mean that PPC 2003 /Windows Media Player do not support 16:9 or is there any way of getting widescreen videos to play without distortion -i.e. in letterbox format with black bars top and bottom? (2) Whilst the video played back smoothly, there was no audio. Should there be or is this another limitation of watching videos on PDAs? The video file I was playing was encoded in MPEG 4, having been recorded on the SD card on a Panasonic DVD recorder (H100). Should be grateful for any advice/ comment. Thanks. Tony.

[Total PDA Forums]

Try downloading PocketTV from http://www.pockettv.com/

Also, pocket pc's may be unable to play mpeg-4, so do you have any way to record in another format? mpeg (1) is the standard for video at the moment, and they tend to use mpeg-2 audio. Mpeg-3 is the standard audio-only format.
Try searching the net for an mpeg converter.

I didn't know pocket media player could play mpeg files at all, must be something they added in 2003. (I have 2002)

[Total PDA Forums]

Thanks, Dynamic. Have established that Pocket TV is only good for MPEG 1, so it wouldn't serve my purpose. If possible, I want to avoid the hassle of transcoding formats.

Having recorded a movie in MPEG4 (.asf format) on SD card on my Panasonic DVD recorder, I assumed I could simply take out the SD card, pop it into any Pocket PC and watch a full one and a half hour movie taking up less than 256 mbs. WMP in PPC 2003 is almost there, but it plays MPEG4 video only -no audio.

Having researched this further, I understand that JVC are bringing out a PDA early next year (MP-PV131) which, uniquely, will have a built-in MPEG4 player, so I guess I'll have to wait for that.

Meantime, if anyone hears of any software or patch to PPC 2003 which will allow viewing of MPEG4 files in 16:9 ratio on any existing PDA, I'd be most grateful if they'd please let me know.

Cheers,

Tony