Wonder what the compresson is? 80x80 16bit B&W. Hum. A vcd is 320x240 30fps Stereo. So 80x80 with mono audio would be easy to decompress to. Wonder if they are doing a version of MPEG-1. Be intersting to get a disk and bit dive it. This sound slike the VCD-CD player that were out in Asia some years back.
Cant be much. its basically a CD drive feeding a decompressor into a lowrez LCD screen. Be fun if possible to "build you own" disk. I asume this is the video verson of hipclip.
I put my hands on one of these things at the Walmart in Southaven, MS. It's a neat little device. Screen is a little bit hard to stare at for a while, because it's somewhat of a nussiance, like the Game Boy Advance screen. If you could minimize the glare, it'd be much more eye-friendly. Someone needs to pick up one of these things and hack into it...I'm dying to know.
Saw one of these at Wal-Mart yesterday. Looks interesting, also my store had a light/cover to improve visibility of the unit for like $20. The 3" disc was really intreging. I, like you, wonder what format the thing uses for video. I didn't buy one however.
Official website of the device:
http://www.hasbro.com/videonow/
Target has it in this weeks Sunday ad for 5 dollars off list. Also the site looking into that video has a link to another player for 99 dollars. I agree it sounds like vaporware.
Looks like the codec used right now is proprietary. They say they will add MPEG4 support by way of a firmware update next year.
I will wait to buy one until then.
I'd shie away from the ZVUE until I saw one in action in a retail store. This has all the hallmarks of snake oil sales. Sure, it might work "fine" but don't expect even NTSC quality from the thing and don't be waiting for MPEG4 support to arrive in the form of a firmware upgrade (The dragonball really doesn't have the oomph to make MPEG4 happen...).
color version was announced. price still high on original model. it's got to come down now, but now I want a color one! saw the (non-operating) zvue at the discovery channel store.
Hasbro's FAQ says the color discs are 4.25", and that it plays the originals in black and white. Saw a color disc for the new player at Target, but no new color players.
Got a Toys `R' Us circular this weekend that had the color VideoNow player in the back for $69.99. I'm not really so intriqued by the player itself, but the LCD looked pretty nifty. I'd be interested in if they can be fed a vanilla NTSC signal, or can have a suitable VGA interface added reasonably simply. I'd like to try hacking a pair of them into a custom VR helmet.
Prolly more cost effective to just go directly to the surplus market to get the LCDs.
Forget any ideas about using the LCD from the color version for ANYTHING useful, it's the lowest resolution color LCD I've ever seen, a pocket Casio TV has much higher resolution than these things. It's cool for what it is, but not much beyond that, just go see one in the store and you'll have seen enough to know that the screen is so low-res it's not even worth extracting...
Tom
walmart and target have videonow and juicebox for $60-63 in their big holiday toy flyers that came in Sundays paper. Walmart showed a kids portable DVD player with 3.5 inch screen for $119. I can't find it on their web page and I may be remembering the details wrong.
The black and white Video Nows are $15.88 at Big Lots. At least at my local Big Lot in Sacramento, CA. Put out today. The disk packs are $2-3 each. Kids are having to much fun right now for me to grab it and open it up. :)
Does anyone have a copy of MyStuffNow they can post/send? I can't find it ANYWHERE. mystuffnow.com appears to be down and the software discontinued. All sites I've found on google link back to mystuffnow.com.
This software sounds great in that it converts avi, mpg, asf to videonow formats without the need to "fake out" the player in to thinking it's still closed.
i-opener opener laptop notebook computer help
drivers dll free windows dos repair fix linux mac macintosh 2000 95 98 nt pc
configure hardware software sound video netscape explorer network networking
lan wan software cmos fat bios printer card mouse modem ide scsi cd rom
controllers scanner tape hard drive cgi scripts source code mp3
