Should be getting my SC soon, have a few questions

shytface · July 21, 2005, 03:53:13 AM

I've been looking into what CF card I should buy. At first I wanted something with a fast write speed so it would load files quickly. But the SC only moves about 32Mb/4 sec, does this mean it'd be a waste to get a high speed CF card that writes faster than the SC? Or does write speed even matter for anything other than the PC to CF phase, during the transfer from CF to internal SC memory are the files being read by the SC or written by the CF card?

Also, for movies, is the playback smooth or kind of slow? Since the SC can only handle like 32MB at a time, is there a long pause while the next chunk is being loaded to the SC or is it on the fly?

Does the CF card stick out of the SC? Looks like it from some pictures I've seen. Does the SD version go all the way in?

I think that's it for now, TIA.

isomorph · July 21, 2005, 05:52:22 PM

Quote from: "shytface"I've been looking into what CF card I should buy. At first I wanted something with a fast write speed so it would load files quickly. But the SC only moves about 32Mb/4 sec, does this mean it'd be a waste to get a high speed CF card that writes faster than the SC? Or does write speed even matter for anything other than the PC to CF phase, during the transfer from CF to internal SC memory are the files being read by the SC or written by the CF card?

Also, for movies, is the playback smooth or kind of slow? Since the SC can only handle like 32MB at a time, is there a long pause while the next chunk is being loaded to the SC or is it on the fly?

Does the CF card stick out of the SC? Looks like it from some pictures I've seen. Does the SD version go all the way in?

I think that's it for now, TIA.

I have not noticed any load time differences on the SC with different speed flash cards. You'll only get the benefit transferring to the card with the PC.

Movie playback is pretty smooth. The player streams the movie from the CF card so there's no pauses in it. I did a few short 30 min videos (skate/wake/ATV videos) when I first got the card and was pretty impressed with the sound and video with the normal setting on the encoder.

CF Card sticks out about a half inch from the bottom of my GBA. Haven't seen the SD version so I'm not sure.

stupid2ass · July 21, 2005, 08:20:43 PM

CF version and also the SD version sticks out. The SD is more like a GB cartridge but the SD card is fully inside the SC cartridge.
The CF sticks out dangerously IMO. Not much support either.
The movie is the hacked movie player advance so it's the same playback.
Don't go expecting your divx movies to look as good (the GBA can't decode >12 fps at the native rez so it can get very pixellated and slightly choppy).
I've spent days playing around with the video encoding and it's a painful process at best (slow encoding times, sometimes out of synch, horrible picture quality, etc).
As for the high speed stuff, personally, I haven't noticed a thing once you use it in the SC. I have a high speed CF card as well as a regular Kingston 1GB card. The load times are the same.

shytface · July 22, 2005, 12:22:46 AM

Thanks for the responses, what's the native res of a GBA?

NT · July 22, 2005, 08:41:01 AM

Quote from: "shytface"Thanks for the responses, what's the native res of a GBA?

240 x 160

shytface · July 22, 2005, 08:16:54 PM

So anything in 240x160 is only gonna run at 12fps? Only half of what a movie would normally run at... Would a movie encoded at a lower resolution run full speed?

stupid2ass · July 22, 2005, 09:56:37 PM

Quote from: "shytface"So anything in 240x160 is only gonna run at 12fps? Only half of what a movie would normally run at... Would a movie encoded at a lower resolution run full speed?

The encoder only does that resolution. If you can encode at a different resolution, let us know

isomorph · July 23, 2005, 01:26:20 PM

Quote from: "shytface"So anything in 240x160 is only gonna run at 12fps? Only half of what a movie would normally run at... Would a movie encoded at a lower resolution run full speed?

It's definitely not something you'll watch a lot of movies on. But it is watchable.

shytface · July 23, 2005, 06:19:55 PM

Quote from: "stupid2ass"
The encoder only does that resolution. If you can encode at a different resolution, let us know :D

Oh ok, so even if you encode a movie at say 160x120 on the PC when you play it on the GBA it's gonna automatically be resized to fit the GBA screen?

stupid2ass · July 23, 2005, 08:15:45 PM

Quote from: "shytface"
Quote from: "stupid2ass"
The encoder only does that resolution. If you can encode at a different resolution, let us know

Oh ok, so even if you encode a movie at say 160x120 on the PC when you play it on the GBA it's gonna automatically be resized to fit the GBA screen?

Yes, the encoder knows only one resolution. You will not get more frames than what the encoder can/will do.