I have recently bought a sendo x and i am dissapointed that smartmovie does not work properly. Can anyone suggest an alternative player which can play either divx or xvid video codecs without spluttering?

I'm also interested in this.

according to Stuclarck, you are all out of your mind and/or just lying to give sendo a bad name. Maybe we are all imagining things ?

smartmovie just doesn't work properly stu, accept it.

i would love to see your X, really !

according to Stuclarck, you are all out of your mind and/or just lying to give sendo a bad name. Maybe we are all imagining things ?

smartmovie just doesn't work properly stu, accept it.

i would love to see your X, really !
As I've said before...TRY TO QUOTE PEOPLE ACCURATELY!

i keep hearing how smartmovie doesn't apparently work with the X, yet it seems to work fine for me. am i the only one for whom it works?
are you using the latest version? i use to have problems with it before i got the latest version and firmware up and running. also, i use the nokia multimedia converter (the registered version) to create my files and it does a great job. it turns an average film into a file about 50-70MB in size (depends on the llength of the film). if you choose the correct options for kbps and importantly, the "reduce frames" option, then you can get perfectly acceptable results. especially for animation (Family Guy episodes! ^_^ ) but films are perfectly watchable too. sound is fine through the headphones and i just get the odd bit of pixelisation here and there (hardly unexpected) but it certainly doesn't splutter. are you trying too high a kbps rate?

I was just using the converter provided with smartmovie. So, the full Nokia converter does Xvid/Divx as well? What settings do I need to use then?

did u install the xvid or divx codec on your phone?

didn´t work on my 3650 until i installed the codec

I have tried using smartmovies windows converter. I have also tried using virtuadub to convert it. Tried playing about with framerates and bit per second. The frames still splutter and the sound is not good either. Personally i like my x. I have only had it just under a month. I used to have a SPV E200, I find it dissapointing that i can do things with my old phone better than with my new one..... Is there no other programs which play movies high quality in full screen?

yeah, you have to install the XviD codec onto your X. in the converter, it gives you a choice of which codec to use (you may have quite a few different kinds on your computer, and in theory, any of them should work the same) but i just use the XviD one as well.
hope this helps


ps - frenzied dancer, if by high quality you mean smooth, 25 fps video, then i'm sorry mate but it aint gonna happen. the X can only do 12 or 15 fps (one or the other, can't remember which). this is one reason why watching animated shows is particularly good, seeing as they already run at a lower fps anyway. but despite this, it still works surprisingly well for movies. it's only really a factor when there's a lot of very quick camera movement, which hopefully isn't too often. (maybe lay off the action films! ;) ). but i regularly watch movies when i commute to dublin (around a 2hr journey) and i have to say, when you get the right balance of quality and smoothness, along with good lip-syncing, the results are actually pretty good.
my advice would just be to experiment as much as you can. you'll get there in the end!

what settings do u use xiga?

i use either the XviD MPEG-4 codec or the DivX5.2.1 codec.
i usually encode in and around the 100-130 kbps range.
as for the regular smartmovie settings, they are:
landscape mode enabled
reduce frames enabled
audio options: 44100Hz (force mono disabled). 32 Kbps. 150% audio boost (not really important, i just like the option of extra volume should i need it)
crop mode: medium

also, under the smartmovie options menu on the X itself, i choose an audio preroll time of 0.68 secs. i also usually bump up the brightness to at least 150%.

works for me! hope this helps

I also find, that Smartmovie works well on the (my) Sendo X

Settings: 80kbps, audio 32kbps/22.000Hz
All other settings like xiga.
With this settings a DVD like Lord of The Rings (Special Extended Edition) becomes about 85MB ;-)
Quality is good, apart from fast action (like the ride of the Rohirrim), this is simple too much...

In a german forum, I read that problems with stagnat pictures were solved, after resetting the phone (not sendo, but nokia devices) with key "5"
But I never tested it.

this might help explain why some people get stuttering with smartmovie.
i've been using version 2.50 with no problems whatsoever. however, i recently got hold of version 2.63 (actually, the .sis file said it was 2.63 but when i installed it, my X it said it was 2.60). after installing it, i found that i had the same problem i had with earlier versions - s-t-u-t-t-e-r-i-n-g. so i went back to my trusty old v2.50 and it still works fine. of course, it is possible i just got a dodgy file, but then again it's not unimaginable to think that a more recent version might not throw up some new compatability problems with the X.
my advice - stick to the 2.50 version.

ps- i can post a link to it if needed, and if someone knows of a good place where i can upload it to. (assuming, of course, the Mods allow such a thing)

hope this helps

I've got 2.72 on my phone, and it has cured 90% of the problems I had with SmartMovie - even before I've re-compressed the files to follow the instructions above.

i cant seem to change the video bit rate above 80, how can i change it?

i dont know jack about programming, but aren't the GraphiX and SoniX chips supposed to accelerate video and audio processing by taking the load of the cpu?
would a programmer need to adjust his software (e.g. smartmovie) to take full advantage of those "little helpers" or is this done automatically? is that adjustment maybe a tricky thing? or do you guys think video performance might improve with future firmware upgrades?
also, if there's the audio-dedicated SoniX chip, why would changing a track within the mp3 player take so long? or making multi-tasking with music playback possible(without the hangs)?
sorry for all the questions, it seems this will be my only sentence ;).
cheers
LosOutlandos

i dont know jack about programming, but aren't the GraphiX and SoniX chips supposed to accelerate video and audio processing by taking the load of the cpu?
would a programmer need to adjust his software (e.g. smartmovie) to take full advantage of those "little helpers" or is this done automatically? is that adjustment maybe a tricky thing? or do you guys think video performance might improve with future firmware upgrades?
also, if there's the audio-dedicated SoniX chip, why would changing a track within the mp3 player take so long? or making multi-tasking with music playback possible(without the hangs)?
sorry for all the questions, it seems this will be my only sentence ;).
cheers
LosOutlandos
VERY valid questions :)

[DSP means Digital Signal Processor]

First off, I believe that there's only a dedicated DSP (chip) for graphics, I think audio comes off one of the others.

What is known is that yes, there is a seperate chip (DSP) for graphics work; but as Series60 doesn't support this as a core feature (no other S60 phone has a seperate chip for graphics) Sendo had to write the Symbian code to interupt the normal graphics calls and send them to the DSP.

As a result of hacking the base of S60, it is reasonable to expect that any graphics intense app. wil also have to be modified in order for it to be able to take advantage of this DSP. Otherwise, it's performance will be just as poor as on a handset without any screen acceleration.

VERY valid questions :)

[DSP means Digital Signal Processor]

First off, I believe that there's only a dedicated DSP (chip) for graphics, I think audio comes off one of the others.

What is known is that yes, there is a seperate chip (DSP) for graphics work; but as Series60 doesn't support this as a core feature (no other S60 phone has a seperate chip for graphics) Sendo had to write the Symbian code to interupt the normal graphics calls and send them to the DSP.

As a result of hacking the base of S60, it is reasonable to expect that any graphics intense app. wil also have to be modified in order for it to be able to take advantage of this DSP. Otherwise, it's performance will be just as poor as on a handset without any screen acceleration.True, so a special Sendo X version has to be done, to speed up things. Which won't, as far as i see, this GraphicX thingy simply does not work as it should be. Just have a look at the poor Video recording / playback qualities of the X ...

True, so a special Sendo X version has to be done, to speed up things. Which won't, as far as i see, this GraphicX thingy simply does not work as it should be. Just have a look at the poor Video recording / playback qualities of the X ...

But then look at the very high framerate in the camera viewfinder! :)

as i dont own a X myself (plan on buying the X2), i cant judge neither the viewfinder refresh rates nor the video playback performance, i read a lot about it on forums though. i dont think (but don't know) if the viewfinder refresh rate is the same as the recorded video file (from what i read it's not), but does it make a difference in performance when playing the recorded file on a pc? is it really the X being the bottleneck or is it just the bad source quality?
i am also wondering if the built in player for video (realone, right?) has been adjusted to take advantage of that video DSP, as i could imagine sendo's license of it didnt cover modifications on the software (again, only guesses). of course not using the DSP would be a waste, but i think sendo was (from their point) better off with realone than their own creation, as they are well known on other platforms.
my question in short: do you think that current video software/the current firmware have taken full advantage of that particular sendo graphix thing?
btw: great forum :icon14:
LosOutlandos

as the thread list marks mart_is_good as the last poster (that php stuff hates me ;), i'll just make this reply a friendly "hello to all!"
hope this doesnt offend any mods :rolleyes:
LosOutlandos

i dont know jack about programming, but aren't the GraphiX and SoniX chips supposed to accelerate video and audio processing by taking the load of the cpu?
would a programmer need to adjust his software (e.g. smartmovie) to take full advantage of those "little helpers" or is this done automatically? is that adjustment maybe a tricky thing? or do you guys think video performance might improve with future firmware upgrades?
also, if there's the audio-dedicated SoniX chip, why would changing a track within the mp3 player take so long? or making multi-tasking with music playback possible(without the hangs)?
sorry for all the questions, it seems this will be my only sentence ;).
cheers
LosOutlandos



Sonix and Graphics chips are nothing but MARKETING LIES!!


Seriously, who would believe this after using the sendo X?

Reasons are well justified. No one can believe its uselessness until you buy it.
Sorry Stu, wish I had something positive to say here.

.

i think it is a shame that the X has these processors and doesnt put them to "general" use to improve "general" symbian software and programs, things like smartmovie, games like colin mcrae rally 4 (2 that jusy sprung to mind) they actually run worse than the 6600 that i used to have, i thought all my software would run better from using there processors but they dont even touch them!?

The problem is hooking into the application at the right level to make things run faster. I'm not familiar with the Symbian drawing primitives, but most platforms have function to draw pixels, lines, rectangles etc. More advanced APIs include flat polygons, and then it jumps up to 3D rendering.

If you have a program that draws graphics a pixel at a time, the best a hardware accelerator could do is draw that pixel for you, and the chances are that it would take longer to set up the hardware to draw that pixel than it would to do it directly in software. The larger the basic operation the greater the speedup could be. Line drawing could go faster, and filling a rectangle almost certainly would, especially if the main processor can get on with something else at the same time.

I have seen evidence that individual pixels might be drawn by the accelerator, because sometimes the last pixel is not flushed properly. Moving the cursor up and down on the Now! screen I noticed that the last character in the item name is not always completed - the bottom-right-most pixel is not drawn immediately, but if you wait until the clock updates then it will appear. It think this would also account for the occasional transient white or black speck.

The real benefit of the extra hardware is in rendering the preview from the camera, an area where the camera application (Sendo's application) can just set up the plumbing between the camera, the graphics processor and the screen, and then say 'go'.

this might help explain why some people get stuttering with smartmovie.
i've been using version 2.50 with no problems whatsoever. however, i recently got hold of version 2.63 (actually, the .sis file said it was 2.63 but when i installed it, my X it said it was 2.60). after installing it, i found that i had the same problem i had with earlier versions - s-t-u-t-t-e-r-i-n-g. so i went back to my trusty old v2.50 and it still works fine. of course, it is possible i just got a dodgy file, but then again it's not unimaginable to think that a more recent version might not throw up some new compatability problems with the X.
my advice - stick to the 2.50 version.

ps- i can post a link to it if needed, and if someone knows of a good place where i can upload it to. (assuming, of course, the Mods allow such a thing)

hope this helps

xiga an upload of version 2.50 would be splendid. :)

The problem is hooking into the application at the right level to make things run faster. I'm not familiar with the Symbian drawing primitives, but most platforms have function to draw pixels, lines, rectangles etc. More advanced APIs include flat polygons, and then it jumps up to 3D rendering.

If you have a program that draws graphics a pixel at a time, the best a hardware accelerator could do is draw that pixel for you, and the chances are that it would take longer to set up the hardware to draw that pixel than it would to do it directly in software. The larger the basic operation the greater the speedup could be. Line drawing could go faster, and filling a rectangle almost certainly would, especially if the main processor can get on with something else at the same time.

I have seen evidence that individual pixels might be drawn by the accelerator, because sometimes the last pixel is not flushed properly. Moving the cursor up and down on the Now! screen I noticed that the last character in the item name is not always completed - the bottom-right-most pixel is not drawn immediately, but if you wait until the clock updates then it will appear. It think this would also account for the occasional transient white or black speck.

The real benefit of the extra hardware is in rendering the preview from the camera, an area where the camera application (Sendo's application) can just set up the plumbing between the camera, the graphics processor and the screen, and then say 'go'.


... then spell g o, then count to 5 plus 3 seconds and you have a crash after 3-5 shots.

Want to check your missed calls? Count to ten, then give yourself a cigar.



.

has anyone encountered this:

everything has been running fine since i got my X back in October, smartmovie included. however, recently while watching a movie on it i got an error saying "App Closed. Smartmovie". and ever since, anytime i try and watch a file, after about 10 secs i get the same message. everything else on the phone seems to be running ok. i tried uninstalling and reinstalling, i tried installing it on my SD card instead, nothing seems to work. my only guess is that i need to reset the phone memory (thus having to reinstall everything on it - some of which i no longer have on my pc) but obviously i don't want to do this unless it's absolutely necessary. i also installed an antivirus program and it didn't find anything.

also, i got a strange thing the other day when the phone seemed to return to it's original display settings. the panes i'd set up on the Now screens all disappeared and the original ones returned (y'know, with the sendo screen etc). nothing was wiped from the phone, but could this indicate that the memory has somehow become corrupted and needs to be reset?

any help would be appreciated guys.

in the mean time, if you're looking for smartmovie v2.72 and the codec, then go to:
http://www.ezfileshare.com and at the bottom where it says "View your friend's files..." login with email: homersimpson@springfield and password: elusory

but be quick, they'll only stay there for 3 days!

It does sound like something's become corrupted in your phone's memory, and a reset is probably what's needed.

However, if you do a backup of your phone to SD card before you do the reset, you can then restore that back to your phone once you've done the reset, and you'll then get back all the programs you had installed on your phone :)

i tried doing the backup as you said stuclark, but infortunately it hasn't solved the problem. still getting the "App Closed" message around 10 seconds in to watching an avi.
any other ideas anyone? i don't understand how it was working fine minute, and not the next...

Im just glad i got myself a PSP, i dont have to worry about using Smartmovie anymore :)

Its possible your smartmovie codec on the system has become unstable. Have you tried redownloading and reinstalling?

Im just glad i got myself a PSP, i dont have to worry about using Smartmovie anymore :)

Its possible your smartmovie codec on the system has become unstable. Have you tried redownloading and reinstalling?
whats a PSP??

i upgraded the codec to the latest one off lonelycat games' website (1.10) but it also hasn't done the job. i've now tried uninstalling and reinstalling smartmovie, i've tried many different versions of smartmovie (but i'm convinced this isn't the problem), and i've even tried rebooting the phone, all to no avail.
i'm completely at a loss, i just don't know what else i can do now.

ps - in the event i can't get it working again, does anyone know if are there any other applications around that could do a similar job?

maybe a background application that interferes with smartmovie?

A PSP is Sony's new portable PlayStation console: http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx

If you have reinstalled all the codecs try converting different files, maybe the source file is the problem. If not, try using FExplorer and closing down as many apps as you can and try running SmartMovie again.

stuclark,

do you think it's possible that when i rebooted my phone and then restored my data using the backup option on my SD card, that it also could have restored the problem i'm having? do you see any use in me doing a fresh reboot again, but this time without using the backup option, then just manually installing everything again? is it logical to think this might solve the issue or does it not make any sense?
i'm struggling to think of any other actions i can take. how on earth can i be sitting on the train happily watching my files for a good hour and a half then, out of the blue, i get the "App Closed" error and ever since then i now ALWAYS get it 10 secs into any file??? it doesn't make any sense. it's not like i installed something then suddenly it stops working, that i could understand, but not like this...

stuclark,

do you think it's possible that when i rebooted my phone and then restored my data using the backup option on my SD card, that it also could have restored the problem i'm having? do you see any use in me doing a fresh reboot again, but this time without using the backup option, then just manually installing everything again? is it logical to think this might solve the issue or does it not make any sense?
i'm struggling to think of any other actions i can take. how on earth can i be sitting on the train happily watching my files for a good hour and a half then, out of the blue, i get the "App Closed" error and ever since then i now ALWAYS get it 10 secs into any file??? it doesn't make any sense. it's not like i installed something then suddenly it stops working, that i could understand, but not like this...
It's certainly possible that you did restore whatever the corruption is. I would think that a reset of the phone, then clean install would be worth trying. (and if you only install SmartMovie, then it won't take you long to find out if this is the real problem).

The other option that just came to mind is a corruption on the SD-card - if you can, it might be worth copying the data off that and then doing a reformat of the card. (this will mean you have to re-install any applications on there though)

actually, now that i think about it, formatting the SD card could well be the answer. it did , once before, manage to corrupt itself and failed to recognise any of the files i had on it. re-formatting did the job in the end. plus, i'm pretty confident the X itself is fine (it had better be!) so i suppose that only leaves one remaining factor.
i'll give it a whirl later on when i get home from work. hopefully it'll solve the problem, i REALLY don't want to have to reset the phone again and manually install everything again (i no longer have a lot of the installation files :( )
one other thing stuclark, does it make any difference if i format the SD card on my computer or onthe X itself? memory cards can be a little unstable sometimes, does one method provide bettter/more stable results than the other? and if i remember right, doing it on the computer means choosing FAT32 right?
cheers

actually, now that i think about it, formatting the SD card could well be the answer. it did , once before, manage to corrupt itself and failed to recognise any of the files i had on it. re-formatting did the job in the end. plus, i'm pretty confident the X itself is fine (it had better be!) so i suppose that only leaves one remaining factor.
i'll give it a whirl later on when i get home from work. hopefully it'll solve the problem, i REALLY don't want to have to reset the phone again and manually install everything again (i no longer have a lot of the installation files :( )
one other thing stuclark, does it make any difference if i format the SD card on my computer or onthe X itself? memory cards can be a little unstable sometimes, does one method provide bettter/more stable results than the other? and if i remember right, doing it on the computer means choosing FAT32 right?
cheers
If you do the reformat on a computer, it will be one hell of a lot quicker, but, you HAVE to make sure it uses FAT, as the X doesn't understand FAT32.

Other than that, the format you get should be identical between the phone doing it and the PC doing it.

well, i formatted the SD card but (you guessed it), it didn't work.
so i bit the bullet and reset the phone without using the backup and (HALLELUJAH!) - problem solved! my movies are back in the game!
strangely though, since resetting the phone, for some reason none of the installation files i had stored on my computer work anymore. if i try installing them, the Sendo Connect software just tells me the files are corrupt.
wank.
so now i have to find them all over again on the net and downlaod them again. :(
painfull, but at least i now know it was all worth it.
just don't do it again X y'hear? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DO IT AGAIN! 8)

ok, i have the newest version of smartmovie uploaded by xiga, i have encoded the movie several times in different qualities. and it STILL stutters....... can somone post a sample movie which doesnt stutter on thier phone so i can test it?

Well, i tried several codecs, and still the stuttering... Very annoying. And i don't know better alternatives. Ok, you can try the ro-player, but that's a crappy program imo. If you convert a movie with audio in wb-amr output then ro doesn't play the sound. Then if you use worse settings like amr it does play the sound, but don't mention the quality...Sendo knows this and i hope the problem will be fixed in the next software update.

stuclark,

do you think it's possible that when i rebooted my phone and then restored my data using the backup option on my SD card, that it also could have restored the problem i'm having? do you see any use in me doing a fresh reboot again, but this time without using the backup option, then just manually installing everything again? is it logical to think this might solve the issue or does it not make any sense?
i'm struggling to think of any other actions i can take. how on earth can i be sitting on the train happily watching my files for a good hour and a half then, out of the blue, i get the "App Closed" error and ever since then i now ALWAYS get it 10 secs into any file??? it doesn't make any sense. it's not like i installed something then suddenly it stops working, that i could understand, but not like this...

Yeah, same here plus "a few" extra problems wich made my X useless (i couldn't make a phonecall anymore...) so i had to send it back. I think it has to do with the last update. Because before i never had that annoying error message, but after...

That's wierd. I know they did do something in the last update which slowed down screen re-draws (I think it was something to do with enabling more colour depth in more applications), but I haven't seen the latest firmware cause any other problems. (at least not on my phones)

Actually, that wasn't the only problem. Others were, not being able to acces the menu, calls being redirected to voicemail automatically, (while voicemail was switched of...many times...) sd cards getting corrupted (even when formatted on the phone, only carrying mp3's), rebooting@random... and of course the mic problem. It was terrible...So, please Sendo hurry with that update!
And gimme back my phone ;)

:frown: i can only get 80kbs also, how do you get a higher rate?

hey wats goin on...i just recently installed pvplayer and smartmovie on my sendo x...both r good players...but it seems like the players can only play files from the phone only and not from my sd card...is there a way around this to make it play videos from my card instead of the phone...so i can have more room to work with my videos???