PRS-T1 Video capability???

[petercreasey]

Is the Sony PRS T1 good to view videos intended for Kindle, Nook, etc.?

Any details?

Thanks!

[AndrewH]

As far as I know it has no video capabilities. It doesn't play anything from YouTube...

[Xanthe]

Not to mention the black flash when you scroll an image intensive webpage. I can't even imagine video on e-ink.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

Is the Sony PRS T1 good to view videos intended for Kindle, Nook, etc.?

Any details?

Thanks!

Sorry, not even close.

The eInk manufacture has built experimental video screens, but the results so far are pretty lacklustre, and video is pretty much out of the question for the current generation of eInk Pearl devices.

The Sony PRS-T1 eInk screen is the limiting factor here, it's only 16 level grey scale black and white, and more importantly, can only update the screen about 2 or 3 times per second best case.

With really clever software, the T1 might be able to sustain something like 3 or 4 FPS by dropping down to fewer grey levels, but the video would still look horrible (and all that constant screen updating would quickly kill the battery, and dramatically reduce the screens usable life expectancy).

If you want video, consider another compact Android based eReader like the new Amazon Kindle Fire, or Nook Tablet, or a compact generic Android tablet device.

For example, I just got a Galaxy Player 4 which is also Android based, but which uses a more traditional 4 inch backlit LCD screen instead of eInk. If you want something that can act as BOTH a eBook Reader AND a Video Player, this will do the Job.

If you don't care about running other apps like Google Maps, and would like a larger screen, you might want to check out the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet.

[The-eBook-Reader]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I can't even imagine video on e-ink.

Take a look at this: Videos running on a Nook Touch. It's crazy what the development community has managed to accomplish.

[Xanthe]

That is interesting! Thanks.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by The-eBook-Reader

Take a look at this: Videos running on a Nook Touch. It's crazy what the development community has managed to accomplish.

Notice that, just as I said above, the end result is only a few frames per second, and even then the image quality suffers due to the reduced color pallet.

At first I thought someone had written real full blown video drivers, takeing advantages of the compromises I mention above (low frame rates, reduced grey scale), but sadly this is just a hack that apparently involves converting the video to a giant animated-GIF and playing it using the animated-GIF rendering in the web browser.

The reason it works at all is that the GIF rendering in the web browser on the Nook has already been tweaked a bit for eInk, and takes advantage of a reduced color palet and the quickest possible refresh.

In any case, animated GIFs have very poor video compression vs. image quality and no sound encoding capability, so it's really not practical to convert full length movies to this format, and even if you could, it will eat the battery and put a lot of wear and tear on the screen (an eInk screen is electro-mechanical and can eventually wear out

But it is interesting, though like the dog walking on its hind legs -- it may not be done very well, but the wonder is that it's done at all.

[schorsch-lukas]

The processor power of the T1 (ARM v7, 800 Mhz?) is quite sufficient to play SD videos, however you wil only be able to play Black & White (NO greyscale!) with it - however quite fluently. But as it may look artsy, you can't really watch movies with it.

You'll need no refresh mode, and a Media Player like MX Player with codecs for it.

There's a youtube video of a guy playing angry birds on it, so you can see what it looks like.