Sunday, February 17, 2008

VIDEOPODCASTS.TV | The Video Podcast Directory

VIDEOPODCASTS.TV | The Video Podcast Directory

In looking at the CBS feed that I entered into Video Center, I realized that it is just a simple Video Podcast feed. So, logic leads me to believe that any and all video podcast feeds should work. I'll test that theory and report back. The streaming video from CBS was decent quality with only slight hiccups.

*****ADDITION*****
In browsing through the various video podcasts, there is an adult section that is pr0n! That's too funny. Streaming pr0n... lol. Still haven't tried any of the feeds yet, but I had to post that. :-P

*****ADDITION*****
Okay, I chose a bunch of feeds and most of them worked. Some were apparently formatted to enter into iTunes, so they didn't work by copying them. I'm sure if I looked at them closer I could figure out how to get them, or perhaps they just have to be downloaded. Anyway, some of them view great on the N800 using the built-in Media Player which is what Video Center is coded to launch, but some of them are no good at all with only a frame change here and there. What I figured out is these seem to be m4v files designed for the iPod. In my previous video tests I found these to only display well using 'mplayer', and even then they weren't that great and tend to freeze up the unit. I may download one of these episodes to see if it plays better when not streaming.

I decided to start it from Video Center right after typing that. I'm pulling down a 37MB file and it is coming down quickly. It didn't ask me where to store it, but I think I remember Video Center creating its own folder on the 'Internal Memory Card', so I'm guessing it's there.

It finished downloading so I'm going to look for it... Yep, that's exactly where it put it. That's actually a really good place since it's where I would have told it to put it anyway. ;-) I have two 16GB SDHC cards in my N800, and while I have a lot of music and videos already, i still have about 4GB free on the card it put it on (I left room on that one for this very type of reason). Going to try playback using mplayer when it's on the card and not streaming.

Okay... that didn't go well at all. mplayer pretty much locked up, gave a squelchy sound and nothing. So, I'm not sure what that means entirely, but so far I haven't found a decent performing h.264 player for the N800. And that will be a pain considering how much h.264 content is already ripped and ready to view. I know you can re-encode it, but that kinda steals the thunder.

****ADDITION*****
The feed/shows for The Discovery Channel looks AWESOME, but... it seems all the files are m4v and REALLY don't play well on anything I've tried so far. If I can remember, I will look hard for a good m4v player for the N8*0 since there are so many m4v files out there. I even have a bunch since I also have an iPod and had encoded a bunch of movies in that format. If anyone knows of something that plays these well, please post what it is.

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