I thought I'd give a quick overview of how I convert movies from DVD to my NPower Fusion Media Player. Now, while some people like prepackaged conversion utilities I've not had much luck with them. The quality is just not high enough for my liking. The tools I use are free and produce such a high quality result that you can read the words on signs in the final video, something I was unable to do when I tried to all-in-one packages.
- First you have to decode your DVD to a file on your hard drive. I use DVD Decrypter (from Doom9.org, a great source for DVD and general video editing.)
- I use AutoGK to convert the DVD information to an AVI. While AutoGK is technically out of date it still does the trick and does it with a single button.
- Alternatively you can do it yourself with the Gordian Knot rippack (again, from Doom9) and do it yourself.
- Don't make your video any bigger than 700mb since we've still got to down convert it after this.
- Then I use Windows Media Encoder to convert the AVI to a WMV as described in an earlier post.
- Then I split the resulting file into 5 minute segments with ASFbin as described in the same earlier post.
I still use mine every day. When I'm not watching old movies or TV shows or listening to MP3s or AudoBooks I mostly play Bomberman or Arkanoid. Little tip for Arkanoid, be sure to go to the menu and exit out before you switch off the machine and it will save your current level so you can start there. I'm currently on level 71. The get tought after level 66.
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15 comments:
WOW. thanks for blogging so fast. You are a credit to the community! I dinked around with pocket DVD last night, and got it to work, but the quality was poor, like you said. Will work some more, on your solution, let you know. I loaded your games, and my boys are psyched! MANY MANY appreciations for this fairly obscure hardware help!
I have one of these, but have misplaced the software CD.
I'd like to create MP3 playlists. Are they stored as files on the device that I can manipulate? Would someone with the software be willing to create a playlist and send it to me?
There was no software CD included. The mp3s and videos are synced with Windows Media Player. All you need is a USB cable. And yes, you can directly open up the files on the device and manipulate the files. All you need to do is do it.
OK, so I tried that and apparently broke something.
I tried to sync a single MP3 file with Media Player and now nothing shows up on the device. When I try to reset it I get a message "Free up 10MB to reset the device".
Is there a hard-reset key combo?
You can push the reset button with a paperclip, but possibly you need to re-format the internal memory of your machine, but be warned that you will lose the games that came with it. You may consider getting a few new ones.
To reformat when you are connected on your computer open up My Computer, double click on the media player icon (don't remember what it's called of the top of my head) right-mouse click on the internal memory, and choose format. When it's done try again.
That sorted it. Thanks!
Some Windows-specific thing, I guess, since I had wiped the player under OS X with a rm -fr * to no avail.
Unfortunately I see now that the playlist file is an opaque binary blob; I'd hoped it was an XML file or something like that I could edit or generate from a script, rather than use Windows Media Player.
Has anyone had trouble with unit freezing up? I have one but none of the buttons work and you have to reset it to get it to turn off.
I'm trying to get a grasp on this. I just bought the Nfusion for my kids. Would you happen to have a more detailed explanation of how to use each of the software programs you have here?
Hi, Great site!
I just bought 2 of these for my kids. I have a few questions.
Is there a limit to the size of the SD card? Or a type of card (old generation vs. new generation (faster) SD cards?
What happens is you don't split the video up into 5 minute blocks? Is it because you can't FF more than 5 min. and if you stop a movie in the middle and come back to it later, you'll never be able to get back to where you left off?
Chaz, I see you are using a MAC. Any specifics on the SW you used and how it all works?
Thx.
Is there a limit to the size of the SD card? Or a type of card (old generation vs. new generation (faster) SD cards?
Gotta be the old which limits the size to, I think, 2 gig.
Personally I only use 1 gig cards, so I can't talk to the 2 gig limit for sure.
What happens is you don't split the video up into 5 minute blocks? Is it because you can't FF more than 5 min. and if you stop a movie in the middle and come back to it later, you'll never be able to get back to where you left off?
Exactly. The fast-forward function requires you hold down the button or skip to the end of the movie, and if your finger twitches that's it.
It's been a while since I did anything with this device, but I think I tried to use ffmpegx on the Mac to convert videos and had spotty success due to the very specific windows media conversion requirements.
I ended up buying Pocket DVD for something like $15 and using that for the few movies I converted. Music I just copied onto the SD card, and didn't bother with playlists because I didn't want to have to reboot into Windows to do that.
So I think I bricked the device. I got everything working great. Took 2 of the players on a long car trip and the kids loved them. I tried moving some videos around and it all seemed to go well, but when I turned on the player I got the "Free up 10MB to reset the device" message. Had to reformat the drive and after I did, the thing is now frozen on the Npower startup screen. Using the paperclip reset does not do anything. No buttons work and I cannot even turn the unit off. The device no longer shows up on my computer when I plug in the USB cable so I can't even try to reformat again.
Is there a key combo that anyone found that does a hard reset, or alternatively, has anyone cracked one of these open? How hard was it? Is there a SD card inside that I could take out and either reformat or replace? I didn't pay much for these, but the kids really like them, so I'd like to get it working again.
Thanks
THANKS for the blog.
I popped by 4GB SD from my camera into my new Spongebob players, and it worked fine. 12Megapixel pictures load kind of slow, but the screen on these is comparable (or better) to my new Nikon Coolpix camera.
I am using Windows7 and I downloaded Windows Media Encoder 9. When I go to drag and drop videos onto the player, it automatically encodes them correctly for me. No extra steps needed.
Hello. Hopefully, someone can help me. I accidentally deleted the software on my NPower Fusion. Now, I can't, for example, play movies from a SD Card. Could someone direct me to a place to download the software that this thing came loaded with? Thank you very much.
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