Play Video in Hi-Res+ with Kinoma
Kinoma Player is a new hi-res digital media player for Palm handhelds. It supports playback of video, animation, and still images along with digital audio. Movies can be stored in RAM, as well as on external memory cards. It can also play content encoded in the gMovie format. Kinoma Player is free while Kinoma Producer, which is needed to encode content into the proper digital format, is $30.
Kinoma Player provides support for playback of hi-res content on Sony handhelds with hi-res displays. The video must be encoded specifically for hi-resolution playback to use this capability.
The player also supports collapsing the virtual Graffiti area on the NR series. Video can be encoded to be 320 by 480 and fill the whole screen.
The Kinoma Player supports several different kinds of audio. It can play uncompressed and ADPCM audio, which is used by most Palm OS handhelds. It can also handle Yamaha ADPCM audio using an audio co-processor built into some Sony handhelds and available as a Springboard module for Handspring devices. Finally, it can play ATRAC3 audio on Sony handhelds which have a specialized audio co-processor or peripheral.
It can play files stored on external storage such as Memory Stick, SD cards, Compact Flash, and MemPlug storage devices. This is necessary as files can easily become very large. A 30 second hi-res video with audio is 1.4 MB.
This app has been designed to operate on all Palm handhelds running Palm OS 3.1 or later. Kinoma Player has been successfully tested on handhelds made by Palm, Sony, Handspring, HandEra, Kyocera, and Samsung.
Kinoma Producer
Every player needs a way to create content and Kinoma Producer can do so can from a wide variety of file formats, including QuickTime, MPEG-1, AVI, MP3, WAVE, AIFF, Macromedia Flash, animated GIF, PNG and JPEG.
There are versions for Windows 95 and better, including NT, and the Mac OS, from 8.6 through OS X.
This month, a $20 competitive upgrade is available for owners of any other digital media product for Palm OS handhelds.
Origin
Kinoma's apps are an offshoot from Generic Media's gMovie. According to Kinoma, "Some months ago, Generic Media made a decision not to pursue further development of the gMovie technology. Kinoma has acquired the rights to move that technology forward and Kinoma Player and Kinoma Producer are the result."
Thanks to Bmann for the tip and Reggie for his help with the article. -Ed
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Lineage
Smart move on their part!
No T415 Audio
RE: No T415 Audio
RE: No T415 Audio
RE: No T415 Audio
I believe the media has to be encoded for the T415 in order for you to hear it thru the speaker since Sony makes changes to their audio encoding technology from machine to machine.
RE: No T415 Audio
Kinoma Player and Producer has full support towards the yamaha chip in the T series.
Alan
----
Read your manuals before you ask!!
RE: No T415 Audio
One Wish
RE: One Wish
we don't even see landscape mode of spreadsheet app yet, let alone asking for video in landscape mode.
RE: One Wish
"Note: We are in the process of preparing wide screen sample content for playback on the Sony CLIÉ NR series. Please check back in a few days."
RE: One Wish
I don't have an NR, but I'd be very interested if someone out there with an NR could download the player and producer trial, and try and make a landscape 320x480 movie.
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What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html
RE: One Wish
While there are no hi-res+ samples on Kinoma's site, people can make their own with Kinoma Producer. If someone will send me one they have made, I'll post it here.
---
News Editor
RE: One Wish
I experimented with the trial version last night and had trouble encoding my AVI files. I found a patch in the FAQ today and hope it fixes that. I'm going to get the full version because I have some music videos of my band and other local band that would be perfect for showing. I can't wait to see these, because they looked pretty good in gMovie and impressed everyone, but at 320x320 - oh yea
Oh, Genie Ed
RE: One Wish
Encode in 320 x 480 and fill the whole screen is not equal to play movies in landscape mode!
does anybody really try play movies in landscape?
JW
480x320 in landscape works !!!
i got me the kinoma producer today and only can say:
AWESOME !!!
grab a widescreen movietrailer from quicktime.com - rotate it 90 degrees (did this in QT-Pro) so that it is 480 tall - choose custom size in the advance settings of k.-producer - drag with mouse to fit / place -- 12 fps / 720 kbps // clie audio mono or stereo: 47.000 kbps -- and there you go:
fluid crisp graphics and very good sound with the earphones!!!
due to the small but very hires screen of the nr70v it looks sharper than on my g4 powerbook !!!
show this to ppc users and the will drop their jaw!!!
sorry for my grammar
alex cologne/germany
link:
the links to the 480x320 ws-movies are starting at page 5 or so ...
alex
Frame rates/Playback quality
RE: Frame rates/Playback quality
I was surprised with how well it played directly from memory stick.
I was even more surprised that it seemed to play 320x320 movies much better than gmovie @160x160, although it's not 100% perfect... it's SLIGHTLY choppy at certain points... I'd rate it as 95%-97% speed on playback.
Obviously, I don't have audio on my clie n610c, so can't comment on it.
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What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html
RE: Frame rates/Playback quality
It is using a new Cinepak Codec in Kinoma, which I believe is the reason why the decoding is much smoother.
Alan
----
Read your manuals before you ask!!
RE: Frame rates/Playback quality
RE: Frame rates/Playback quality
No Difference in Quality
RE: No Difference in Quality
As far as I can tell, there isn''t a benefit to this app if you are using a 160 by 160 handheld. It seems to be just about identical to gMovie at standard resolution. But Kinoma is great for people who own Sony handhelds.
I wonder if this app is OS 5 compatible? Hopefully it is, as Palm Inc.'s next generation of handhelds will also have 320 by 320 screens. Plus, playback should be improved by the faster processors.
---
News Editor
RE: No Difference in Quality
I saw no diference when I played my gMovie files with Kinoma though. Then again it's not like Kinoma can add frames back in that were removed when the gmovie was made, or up the resolution so I don't see this as a good test.
The sound play back was just as good as gMovie.
My one concern is that the demo movies available didn't have sound. I only downloaded a few of them for testing so maybe I missed one.
I'd like a hi-res movie with sound that's over 15 seconds long (the max length the demo will allow you to create) so that I can get an idea of what file sizes will be. As it is a 30second clip with no sound is 1.4M
RE: No Difference in Quality
Not surprisingly, sound quality isn't great on handhelds with the standard speaker. "Waffles" sounds just awful while "Wildlife Waystation 2" sounds OK on an m505.
---
News Editor
RE: No Difference in Quality
The first set of clips I downloaded were the standard and they were low res and no sound and I was saying 'bunk', but after I downloaded the HiRes they had sound and killer images.
RE: No Difference in Quality
I downloaded the hi-res Boxter R and both of the Wildlife demos. Only one of the Wildlife demos has sound and it's BAD (sounds clicky and like a bad midi file). But my gmovies with sound play great. Sound quality is wonderful.
For Boxter R, and other demo movies the volume display doesn't even show up (to me denoting that it doesn't think there is sound as part of the file)
I have a Sony clie 760C
RE: No Difference in Quality
That's on a N770c.
I have sent their support an email about it.
Still a great product, and 1.5Mb / 30 secs at 320x240 is not bad at all.
Hmm, when is that 256Mb memory stick out?
Edward Green
--
http://www.khite.co.uk
RE: No Difference in Quality
The Kinoma player seems to have slightly better resolution (even in 160 x 160 mode) IF you compare the same clip coded by the two different converters.
TealMovie clips appear brighter, but the 16 bit color of Kinoma is better. I think TealMovie gives you more control over the encoding process, but since I can't get to the advanced options of Kinoma in the demo version...
The kicker for me is the fast forward and rewind, plus the draggable progress bar. If you leave a movie somewhere in the middle, you can get back to the same spot just by dragging the progress bar.
RE: No Difference in Quality
Hmmm.
Sounds like a rather major bug if some Clie's wont play audio!
Edward Green
--
http://www.khite.co.uk
RE: No Difference in Quality
RE: No Difference in Quality
Alan
----
Read your manuals before you ask!!
RE: No Difference in Quality
I have encoded some clips in Clie Audio Format and am suitable impressed enough to register it, using my MGI Photosuite Registration for the $10 discount.
Top product.
Edward Green
--
http://www.khite.co.uk
A reply from Kinoma
============================================
----- Original Message -----
From: Kinoma Support
To: reggie@cliesource.net
Cc: support@kinoma.com
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2002 10:55 AM
Subject: RE: Kinoma Player
Reggie –
Thanks for your note. We’re very happy to hear that the ClieSource community has such enthusiasm for our new Kinoma Player and Kinoma Producer products. We’ve worked really hard to take full advantage of all the cool features that Sony has built into the CLIÉ.
Regarding your questions about widescreen movies:
We’re working with a partner to prepare some widescreen movie samples. Those should be available next week.
We’ve also just updated our FAQ page for Kinoma Producer to include instructions on how to create your own widescreen movies. As noted on that page, the process isn’t as straightforward as we’d like and that’s something that we are actively working on improving.
http://www.kinoma.com/faqproducer.html
If members of the ClieSource community create any widescreen movies that they would like to make available through our on-line gallery of sample content, they can contact us at gallery@kinoma.com for more details.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Thanks
-- Kinoma Support
-----Original Message-----
From: Reggie Suplido [mailto:reggie@cliesource.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 8:36 PM
To: info@kinoma.com
Subject: Kinoma Player
A lot of enthusiasm has been shown by our members in ClieSource regarding your new product. A lot are looking for 480x320 movie samples. We hope you can email us hi-res+ samples and ClieSource would be glad to be a download mirror site.
We would also like to ask for instructions on creating 480x320 videos. We hope you can give us more information so we can relay them to our members.
The ClieSource Kinoma discussion can be found here: http://www.cliesource.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?number=43&thread=000929
Kind regards.
Reggie Suplido
http://www.cliesource.com
============================================
Relationship of Kinoma with gMovie
Taken from: http://www.kinoma.com/faqproducer.html
======================================================
What is the relationship between Kinoma Producer and Generic Media's gMovie Maker?
Kinoma Producer and gMovie Maker share a common heritage. Some months ago, Generic Media made a decision not to pursue further development of the gMovie technology. Kinoma has acquired the rights to move that technology forward and Kinoma Player and Kinoma Producer are the result. In that short time many significant improvements have been made to create Kinoma Producer. Those include:
- Addition of Cinepak Mobile encoding
- High resolution video encoding
- Full screen encoding
- Data rate limiting of video encoding for Cinepak Mobile
- Support for Mac OS X
- Support for HotSync output direct to external storage
- Custom layout authoring capability
- Encoding of image sequences for support of PowerPoint slideshows and personal still images
- Audio only playback
- Chapter track authoring
- Yamaha ADPCM audio encoding for Sony CLI T and NR Series
- Over a dozen new handheld device encoding presets
======================================================
Reggie
http://www.cliesource.com
Clie T-series
I haven't been able to encode my own movies at a similar quality yet, however. I'm debating whether to get the full version of the encoder or not...
RE: Clie T-series
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Supports Mac!!
Now, the 'producer' looks way too much like the gMedia builder. And gMedia said they were not going to build a high rez version... Hmmm... I'm thinking they had a contract that they didn't want to tie up their high rez version into. Either way, it works and movies are looking very clean and smooth... from my Mac to my NR70
Thanks folks.