My Gigabeat: My S30 Review: Video Management

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

My S30 Review: Video Management

It took me a while to get to the Video part on the Gigabeat S30. The reason was that I'm a total newbie when it comes to "backing up" my DVD's to my PC. Not as easy as I thought...

Syncing video to the Gigabeat
Transfering video to the Gigabeat is easy. Using WMP 11 (I have not tried 10) you go to the library. Once there you select Video in the top left text navigation. (See picture, you can click on it for a bigger version)

Once you are in the Video library you can drag and drop videos to the Gigabeat. As I said this is VERY simple. The only setting available that can effect your transfers and quality of the video are avilable if you right click on your Gigabeat in the library menu on the left. Select Advanced Options and then the Quality tab. Unless you want to lower the quality of your videos you should leave this set to "Select quality level automaticly". Unfortunatly, even if your videos are in WMV format, and the right size 320x240, it will still convert your videos. This takes some time. All together it took about 1 hr to transfer a pre prepped 89min wmv to the Gigabeat for me.

EverythingButIpod.com reported that their videos always converted to fullscreen. This was not the case for me. My widescreen WMV files maintained the format after syncing.

The quality of my synced wmv file were the same as prior to syncing. I could not detec any loss in quality. My settings on the wmv prior to syncing was:

Video Codec: WMV3x
Video Size: 320x240
Bit Rate: 1200
Aspect: 16:9
Audio Codec: wma7x
Bit Rate: 128
Sample Rate: 48000
Channels: 2 (Stereo)

I'm very satisfied with the result. Neither audio or video seems effected by the syncing.

Watching Videos on the Gigabeat
Your videos can be sorted by Name, Date and Source. Maybe a little bit limited if you have a lot of videos. Unfortunatly there are no thumbnails of you videos on the Gigabeat.

Once you select a video your can either play it or resume from the last time you watched it. This works for multiple videos, not only the latest video you watched.

When the video is playing you can pause/play, and FF/RW, using either the cross or the buttons on the side. FF/RW will speed up the longer you hold the button/cross. An 89min video took about 25 min to FF.

The only Settings that will effect your video are:

Video > Display (Landscape or Portrait)
Display > Brightness (1-5)
Display > Tv Out (off/on)
Display > Tv System (NTSC/PAL).

I recomend Brightness set to 5, as this is defenitly the best option. I had no problem watching a 2 hr movie with that setting. Obviously you will save battery life with less brightness.

TV Out looks just like a VHS video. Good enough, but nothing too exiting.

Vongo.com Service

UPDATE: Myself and other users here and over at dapreview.net have run into a problem with Vongo. After I successfully connected twice and synced two videos (after which I wrote this review...) I now no longer can connect and sync without having to re-register my device with the Vongo software. Vongo has told some customers that they have escalated this problem and are working on a fix rigth now.
Besides that problem I have also had a hard time to launch the syncing window in Vongo. It usually pops up after a while, but it does not repsond right away when I click on the "Portatble Media Player Titles".

One of the service's available to the Gigabeat is Vongo. Vongo is a subscription service that will cost you $9.99 after the first free 14 days. You will not find all videos on Vongo. Some of the popular ones are: The Incredibles, Stealth, The Grim Brothers, Kung Fu Hustle, etc. No major block bustser besides The Incredibles. Not all movies are available in portable format. I'm downloading a movie that is not in portable format and I will update this post if it works or not.

I would recomend you guys to give it a try though. First 14 days are for free. Allthough you will have to give up your credit card number and install their software.

Downloading the movies are very easy. You can either do it right away, or select to download it at a time you prefer. I've been doing my downloads at night.

When it is time to transfer your movies to your Gigabeat you just need to connected via USB and Vongo's software will detect your player. Transfering is fairly quick and I had no problems.

The Vongo videos shows up on your Gigabeat just as your own videos. Only differences are under the sort by Source option they show listed under VONGO.

The video and sound quality is very high. Much higher than the videos I have transfered (allthough that is most likely dependent on my own encoding and not WMP 11).

All and all Vongo is an ok service. Not sure if I would pay $9.99 for their limited library. But I probably will give it a try for a while to see if they get any new good content. I will follow up on that here in my blog. What I really hope for is that either Vongo or some other service comes out with a better library at the same price. Maybe Blockbuster or Netflix is next?

If you have any questions post a comment or use the forum topic for my review.

Previous posts on My S30 Review:

posted by Tomas @ 11:06 PM

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22 Comments:

Rob said...: Disappointing that the 14 day free trial wants your credit card details. One of the things that impressed me about URGE is that you don't have to give billing details (credit card) to sign up for the trial. That in itself might be just enough to get me to subscribe.; Wed Jun 14, 02:02:00 AM 2006
Jay said...: I don't understand why it tries to re-convert all videos to WMV. Isn't it supposed to play multiple formats?; Wed Jun 14, 06:37:00 AM 2006
Anonymous said...: it only plays wmv.I don't know where you seen it played multiple formats.; Wed Jun 14, 07:12:00 AM 2006
bmachine said...: Hey, Tomas...thanks for the great coverage of the S-Series players.

I have a couple of followup questions about Vongo:

You said that transfering the Vongo movie to your DAP is "fairly quick"...how long is that?

How long did it initially take to download the file onto your computer?

How much space does a movie take up on the player?

Thank you!
Randy
aka bmachine; Wed Jun 14, 09:14:00 AM 2006
Jin said...: When you use vongo, does the movies stop working after you cancel your subscription?; Wed Jun 14, 10:39:00 AM 2006
Tomas said...: bmachine: I forgot to time the transfer and download. I will do that tonight.

The movies are about 500MB.

Jin: Yes, just like Urge/Napster/Yahoo music, the videos only work as long as you are subscribing to the service.

Jay: It never supported multiple formats, but WMP will attempt to convert your avi's etc to wmv format. The thing that I didn't like is that even if your original file is in the right format it gets converted, which takes time. The actual sync is fast.; Wed Jun 14, 12:18:00 PM 2006
Gothic_Seraph said...: I would get vongo if they accepted paypal as a payment source; Wed Jun 14, 01:56:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...: Tomas,

The problem with WMP coverting your videos even though they were already in the correct resolution and WMV format may be due to your bitrate being too high.

You mentioned a a video bitrate of 1200 and and audio rate of 128. I'm not sure what your overall bitrate would be (probably close to 1200) but the specification of the Gigabeat claim that it can only handle a combined bitrate of under 800 Kbps.

So you might want to give it another try and drop the settings for your video bitrate enough below 800 so that the combined video and audio bitrate equals less than 800. WMP may very well still try to convert the videos, but I think until you get under 800, you can be assured that it will need to.

Cheers, Sean; Wed Jun 14, 04:23:00 PM 2006
Tomas said...: Bummer... Sean I was hoping that you were on to something. No luck though... I brought down my combined bitrate to under 800kpps and synced with my Gigabeat and it still converted the movie.; Wed Jun 14, 09:37:00 PM 2006
Mark said...: Check out my thread over at Dapreview.net on Vongo and the Gigabeat.; Wed Jun 14, 09:57:00 PM 2006
Tomas said...: Mark: Just tested Vongo again and ran into the same problem as you have... I updated the blog as well.; Wed Jun 14, 10:15:00 PM 2006
Peter said...: So I am wondering... you say that WMP11 will convert your videos even if they are already the right specs. Does this mean that if I decide to put a converted video from my player back on to the PC and then back on the player again, it will convert everytime?; Thu Jun 15, 04:34:00 PM 2006
Tomas said...: Good point Peter. I will have to test this.; Thu Jun 15, 04:53:00 PM 2006
Mark said...: I just posted another update about the Vongo issue on that same thread.; Thu Jun 15, 07:08:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...: When I started Vongo tonight there was an update to download. I don't have a Gigabeat or another player yet so I don't know if the update fixed the issue you guys were having; Thu Jun 15, 09:16:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...: yo dude, check out "auto gordian knot"
its a free program that encodes DVDs into a compressed avi format (xvid, divx, maybe wmv)

its real real real real simple to use...

outputs great results too; Fri Jun 16, 05:33:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...: Tomas,

Please do report back on Peter's suggestion. The one about having a WMV file already encoded by WMP11, put on the gigabeat, taken off the gigabeat and then put back on. Will it reconvert it?

If it does not, then there is probably some metadata that WMP11 writes to the converted WMV file. Usually this metadata is editable using some free editor you may find on the world wide interweb.

If this all turns out to be true we could just take our existing WMV files and bypass the unnecessary converting by just editing the metadata.

Just a thought.....; Thu Jun 29, 01:54:00 PM 2006
BMM - Los Angeles said...: I just got my MES60VK two weeks ago. So far i have not been able to synch my tv shows into it. I record all my TV shows through media center in high def. Is there a trick on synching them on the gigabeat? I recorded a show in non-HD just to test and i was able to synch that one just fine.; Wed Jul 12, 09:26:00 PM 2006
Tomas said...: WMP does not re-convert wmv files that you copy back to your PC and then re-sync them. So, yes there is probably a way too encode the wmv in the first place. I have not been able to do it with the software I use.

BMM: are the hi-def files in the same format?; Wed Jul 12, 09:42:00 PM 2006
Tao said...: Hey,
I'm contemplating the idea of buying a PMD. I really have a hard time deciding between the Gigabeat S30 and a PSP.
In the case of a Gigabeat could you tell me if there's a simple way to get a video streaming (in wmv or real audio) from the net to my gigabeat?

Thanks!; Mon Jul 17, 11:00:00 PM 2006
Dylan said...: What are you using to convert the videos? I purchased Crazi Video for PMC which converts to the PMC format. One of the main features I bought it for was the aspect ratio recognition. Like, If I have a movie that is taller than it is wide, it will convert it acordingly instead of streaching the video.; Wed Jul 19, 09:27:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...: If you have a wmv file you can tansfer direct throught Windows Explorer
Go to Toshiba Gigabeat S > Media > Video
and copy your files Direct to it.Note that hight bit rate file can cause Frame rate issue; Sun Jul 30, 05:56:00 PM 2006