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Jason Self | 10 Jun 22:16

Portable Theora Player

I would like to find a portable device to watch Theora-encoded videos
while commuting on the bus to/from work. In a perfect world it would
be similiar in size to the iPhone or some such other device (i.e., not
so big that I can't shove it into my pocket when done.)

I have been searching on and off for a couple of days now with no
success. I can find lots of things for Vorbis. When I turn my
attention to Theora I cannot find any portable devices. Surely they
must must exist?

I am happy to update http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/TheoraHardware
with anything found.
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"Ivo Emanuel =?iso-8859-1?q?Gon=E7alves=22?= | 10 Jun 22:33

Re: Portable Theora Player

On 6/10/08, Jason Self <jason.self <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> Surely they must exist?

Er, no.  Even though Theora is quite less CPU intensive than most
video formats out there, which would make it ideal for the portable
market the adoption rate has been unfortunately small.  I reckon if
Opera starts shipping with built-in Theora support like it has been
mentioned on several occasions, you'll see quite a bunch of devices
perfectly capable of playback.

Aside that, users can (and should) contact corporations like Samsung
and Apple to support Theora natively.  That's all we can do.

-Ivo
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Bram Neijt | 11 Jun 00:18

Re: Portable Theora Player

I can only come up with some suggestions, but they might help.

a) Linux on a portable player, if you can modify it you might be able to
get Theora on it one day. Try digging around in video playback on
devices like:
  - An iPod with linux on it (I have no idea wether this is already
done)
  - The opensource game console, GP2X: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X
  - The upcoming OpenMoko neo freerunner: http://openmoko.com/

b) Something which will cost you much more, but probably will be
workable:
  - A PocketPC with VideoLan player support (like Zaurus, YOPY) etc.
  - A full blown thing like the Nokia Internet Tablet (N800)
  - An Eee PC?

I haven't looked into the specs to see if any of these things work or
are even possible, but you might be able to find some user experiences
on this.

Good luck! I'd be happy to hear of the results.

Bram

On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 21:33 +0100, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
> On 6/10/08, Jason Self <jason.self <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> > Surely they must exist?
> 
> Er, no.  Even though Theora is quite less CPU intensive than most
> video formats out there, which would make it ideal for the portable
(Continue reading)

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Jason Self | 11 Jun 05:53

Re: Portable Theora Player

Bram Neijt wrote:

> a) Linux on a portable player, if you can modify it you might be  
> able to
> get Theora on it one day. Try digging around in video playback on
> devices like:
>  - An iPod with linux on it (I have no idea wether this is already
> done)
>  - The opensource game console, GP2X: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> GP2X
>  - The upcoming OpenMoko neo freerunner: http://openmoko.com/
>
> b) Something which will cost you much more, but probably will be
> workable:
>  - A PocketPC with VideoLan player support (like Zaurus, YOPY) etc.
>  - A full blown thing like the Nokia Internet Tablet (N800)
>  - An Eee PC?
>
> I haven't looked into the specs to see if any of these things work or
> are even possible, but you might be able to find some user experiences
> on this.
>
> Good luck! I'd be happy to hear of the results.

Thanks to everyone for their input. These are some interesting ideas.  
I'll try some of these out and report back.
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Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y | 12 Jun 17:19

Re: Portable Theora Player

Bram Neijt wrote:
> a) Linux on a portable player, 

For instance: the Nokia N880 or the Archos' devices.
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Jason Self | 12 Jun 19:33

Re: Portable Theora Player

On 6/12/08, Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y)
<mihamina.rakotomandimby <at> etu.univ-orleans.fr> wrote:
> For instance: the Nokia N880 or the Archos' devices.

Nokia's tablets don't currently have support for Theora, nor does it
seem to be forthcoming, and I don't have the ability to add such
support myself, so Nokia's tablets have been disqualified from my
consideration. It appears to be the same case with Archos' devices.
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michel memeteau | 12 Jun 19:56
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Re: Portable Theora Player



On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Jason Self <jason.self <at> gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/12/08, Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y)
<mihamina.rakotomandimby <at> etu.univ-orleans.fr> wrote:
> For instance: the Nokia N880 or the Archos' devices.

Nokia's tablets don't currently have support for Theora, nor does it
seem to be forthcoming, and I don't have the ability to add such
support myself, so Nokia's tablets have been disqualified from my
consideration.

N8x0 stays one of the only Linux base easy hackable handheld, and thus easier to add such support

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/ogg/

Still a shame Nokia does no ship it though.

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Fixe : 0874763294 Mobile : 0624808051
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Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y | 12 Jun 21:31

Re: Portable Theora Player

Jason Self wrote:
>> For instance: the Nokia N880 or the Archos' devices.
> Nokia's tablets don't currently have support for Theora,

I read somewhere that mplayer has been packaged for it, and as far as I 
know, mplayer supports theora, unless the packaged mplayer is a limited one.
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Nils Pipenbrinck | 11 Jun 00:57
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Re: Portable Theora Player

Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves schrieb:
> Er, no. Even though Theora is quite less CPU intensive than most
> video formats out there, which would make it ideal for the portable
> market the adoption rate has been unfortunately small. 

Nothing promised, but a port of the decoder for the Texas Instruments 
DaVinci platform is on my personal todo-list. All I need is a device to 
code on at home (I have a bunch of them at work, but well - at work I 
don't do hobby-projects).

If I get my hand on a device and get my a** down to finish the decoder 
port we would have an open source plug-and play decoder for DaVinci and 
as a side-product a decoder for the new TI Omap3 platform as well.

I've ported the recon stuff for fun one day, and I got 
performance-figures of 0.25 cycles per pixel using the DSP.And don't get 
me started on the IDCT performance.. DSP's are made for this task. That 
will be a hell of a decoder.

Anyway, there are quite a few portable devices comming up with these 
chips, and the availability of a free decoder may make a differnce.

  Nils
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John Abreau | 10 Jun 23:25

Re: Portable Theora Player


On Tue, June 10, 2008 4:33 pm, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves said:
> On 6/10/08, Jason Self <jason.self <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>> Surely they must exist?
>
> Er, no.  Even though Theora is quite less CPU intensive than most
> video formats out there, which would make it ideal for the portable
> market the adoption rate has been unfortunately small.  I reckon if
> Opera starts shipping with built-in Theora support like it has been
> mentioned on several occasions, you'll see quite a bunch of devices
> perfectly capable of playback.

I would imagine devices like the Nokia 810 should be able to play
Theora videos. They're bigger than an iPod, and I'm not sure if
they'll fit in a shirt pocket, but if not, they can probably fit
in a pants pocket.

Has anyone used one of these to play Theora videos? Does the built-in
video player support Theora, or do you have to download a driver or
a different video player first?

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"Ivo Emanuel =?iso-8859-1?q?Gon=E7alves=22?= | 11 Jun 00:56

Re: Portable Theora Player

On 6/10/08, John Abreau <jabr <at> blu.org> wrote:
> I would imagine devices like the Nokia 810 should be able to play
> Theora videos.

If you can install the respective gstreamer plugin, you should be able
to play Theora videos in most Linux smartphones.  I'm not aware of any
that ship with native support, gstreamer or not.

On 6/10/08, Bram Neijt <bneijt <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>   - An iPod with linux on it (I have no idea wether this is already
> done)

There is indeed a Linux on iPod project, but it's incredibly slow and
very likely won't be able to play Theora decently.

>   - The opensource game console, GP2X: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X

Ah, this is one I had forgotten.  I have a friend who has all his
(Vorbis) music collection in it.  I should ask him if he ever tried to
play Theora in it.  Small-res videos should in theory work just fine.

>   - A full blown thing like the Nokia Internet Tablet (N800)

Expensive, and it's from Nokia who apparently dislikes Theora with no
basis other than "we invested too much in 3GPP you goddamn hippies!".

>   - An Eee PC?

They work well, so do the XO from the OLPC project (I have one of
these).  However, Jason wasn't looking for laptops, I think.

-Ivo
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