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The Problem with Video Podcasts on a Windows Mobile Device

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todd

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Video, unless specially prepared, is often an unsettling experience on a Windows Mobile device. Although I’ve been using Ilium Software’s NewsBreak since its 1.0 release, I only recently tried the podcast retrieval feature added (I think) with their 2.0 release. I decided to try the Geekbrief.tv video podcast since it was included in Ilium’s default list. The video podcast looked like an old stop-motion movie when viewed on an HTC Vox smartphone. So, I decided to try it on a Dell Axim X50v. Although this is an older device, it still has a fast CPU and video accelerator. Video motion on this was much smoother than on the Vox with its relatively slow CPU. However, the video and audio were out of sync.

Although I haven’t tried to view this specific video podcast on an iPod video, I do subscribe to other video podcasts on the iPod and do not see any video or video/audio-sync issues on that device.

Comments

2 responses to “The Problem with Video Podcasts on a Windows Mobile Device”

  1. todd Avatar
    todd

    Cali: Thanks for the comments. If I wasn’t clear, my blog entry complaints were aimed squarely at Windows Mobile Media Player’s inability to playback video unless specially prepared for for it (small with a low bitrate). The GeekBrief.TV video podcast was identified so that others could check out the problem for themselves if they wanted to. And, frankly, even videos prepared for Windows Mobile tends to look blocky (low-res) and jerky (at 15fps). Best wishes with GeekBrief.TV!

  2. Cali Lewis Avatar
    Cali Lewis

    Thanks for trying out GeekBrief.TV on your Windows Mobile devices, Todd. The WMV version of the show is encoded to favor people who watch on their Xbox 360s, although, since Xbox now supports .mp4, we might change that.

    The biggest problem with Web delivered video is supporting as many formats as people have devices.

    Our network, PodShow, is working on a serverside encoder that dynamically generates a wide range of formats. Right now, we do it format by format and each one takes about 30 minutes to compress and upload.

    You shouldn’t see a sync issue if you give the Brief a try on your iPod.

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