Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

I recevied my new N810 from Buy.Com a few days ago and have already posted on the N810 board about my poor experience with playing video on the N810, even small files directly from the unit itself, but.....

I'm getting concerned that I may have gotten a bad unit or bad OS.
As I research issues online I noticed people posting review videos about the N810 and they all seem to run fairly quick. My unit seems to lag during menu drops, browser window clicks, switching apps and yes, playing resident audio/video.

What are my options here?
Is there a way to check performance on the N810, bencharks, etc?
Other then clearing the browser cache, it there a system cleaner?
Obviously, I cannot return it without some proof it has a problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

May be just reflash the os. And did you extend the virutal memory?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Corrupt internal card + swap = lots of slowdown.

Have you formatted the internal card yet?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Assuming that "extending the virtual memory" (as well as "formatting the internal card") is something desirable, that should be done to increase viewability of streaming vids, yes?

Hoping it's not a negative - also is there an ideal size that I should increase my virtual memory to in order to maximize streaming playback?

Don't mean to hijack the thread . . . will sit back and read now . . .

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

yes the whole tablet responsiveness will definitely increase. I would max out on the 128 mb.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

"Formatting the internal card" is mandatory; these devices shipped with a filesystem larger than the available space; that means it's just a matter of time till something falls off the edge, so to speak, and causes corruption of the whole fs. (Making a new fs ("formatting") is required to fix this.)

The only bad thing about increasing swap is that it uses that much space; but up to 128 MB is probably no concern that way.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Good advice, but I already loaded the newest OS version (from nokia) the day I bought it (is this the same as flashing?). I also re-formatted the internal memory and maxxed-out the VM to 128mb. I did this before loading any additional apps.

Is there anyway of extending the VM beyond 128mb? Do I need to do anything to the IM other then just re-formating? (I used file manager)

I tend to use Google apps which seem heavy on the processing. I have even had to resort to using Bloglines Mobile over the Full Bloglines site because of the lag.

I also tried watching the same video file loaded from the SD card and the IM, both seems similar in performance.

Is it possible my codecs are buggy or can I download new/different codecs?
Mediabox Media Center plays video better then Media Player, why is this? Canola is not bad but it doesn't find all my media.
Is there an optimum video file format to use? WMV and flash is just tolerable with lag, but mov, xvid, mp4, etc are almost unviewable.

Some people might think I'm expecting too much from this machine. I don't expect it to be a laptop replacement, but I do expect to get the same performance I am seeing from other N810s out there.

Should I re-flash the unit again? Any ideas on this?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Maybe the bit-rate and/or the resolution of the videos are too high for the n810 to handle. Find out what works for others and try doing the same.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Google Reader is terribly slow with the default interface, the N810 doesn't have the "oomph" for it IMO.

If you want something quick and easy to get the right format, use the Internet Tablet Video Converter from Nokia's site http://www.nokia.com/A4688059

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Have you tried using just plain mplayer to play videos? That's pretty much all I use and I can play just about anything in my library with good speed. Even over sshfs, which involves streaming the video and encrypting/decrypting traffic at the same time. Canola uses mplayer also, if it's installed, although it seems a tad less efficient that way.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I've never had very good luck with playing videos on the default media player.

Also, you can start up the terminal application when the device seems to be getting slow and use the command 'top' to see what's using your CPU.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Mplayer is a lot faster than the internal media player. So for large files better use it, than the Media Player. Mediabox uses Mplayer. Best resolution for videos is 400x240.

Javascript is not very fast. Its an interpreted language running on a slow device :) And Google Reader uses a LOT of javascript.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

I believe it depends (as other people have stated) on the frame rate, scale, the crop, and the format of the video. I use a linux operating system on my pc and I use this code to make all my video files into files that play very smoothly in almost DVD quality without any pauses or breaks in the video at all. If you use windows maybe you could look at the settings I have and use the appropriate program to create a video file with these settings. I have had the best video experience with these settings on the N810. Its too bad you have to re-encode the video but after you do it looks sweet, espically if you rip it directly from a dvd then re-encode it!

mencoder "originalvideoname.avi" -o "newvideoname.avi" -srate 44100 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vol=4:vbr=0:br=96 -af volnorm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=600 -vf-add crop=812:480 -vf-add scale=400:240 -ofps 14.985 -ffourcc DIVX -noidx -force-avi-aspect 1.69230769230769

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

MPlayer is not always faster than the one that comes with the OS. I have lots of files that get audio out of sync crap with MPlayer but play just fine with the other media player..

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Meidabox is just a frontloader for Mpalyer, which I find plays wmv files better (less choppiness) then Media Player, even though the audio/video is out of sync.
Its amazing that something like TCPMP is so robust and adjustable on a small pocket pc platform. I wish these N810 players would be more GUI friendly.

Anyway, I tried the TOP command in osso xterm, but is there a way to cut and paste the info into this forum? One listing was showing 71% cpu. The edit:copy feature is greyed out.

Are there any GUI based task manager or memory cleaner type programs that could help here?

I'll try the converter soon, even though I bought the N810 to avoid this step. I upgraded from a pocket pc that was become a chore to watch video on.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

This isn't VMS; the command is top, not TOP. :p

htop is probably a better choice than top; in either case, you have to select the text you want to copy in the xterm, then choose copy (before it updates the screen). Or use one of the screenshot tools -- mh-shot-tool is one good choice.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Good news! Update on video:

Well, I tried the Internet Tablet Video Converter and it works great. Finally video that is a pleasure to watch. Of course the major drawback is requiring a PC, encoding time, copy to N810 time over network, etc. I bought the N810 to avoid these steps with my Pocket PC. Is there anyway to automate the convertion process upon downloading?
One interesting note. The video files AFTER conversion are about the same size, so what exactly are they converting and why cannot the N810 encode resident or network streaming video on the fly?

The latest version of ORB (on pc) over the internet works, but over my network does not, I get snapping, popping audio. Has anyone downgraded to the N800 version of ORB for their PCs and does it work with streaming? After conversion, what wireless network streaming options do I have?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

The N-series tablets are not fantastically good at video playback; For optimal performance, most videos need pre-conversion.

Also, what kind of videos are your trying to play and what's loaded?

For instance - Doing anything while Web is loaded will ****** the Nxxx tablet performance by an order of magnitude!
This makes watching a lot of youtube videos above 320x200 or using H.264 very painful.

Heck, even the Zero Punctuation videos are jerky and there's hardly any movement in them!

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Sirfelix, bear in mind the Internet Tablet Video Converter is still in Beta and the team behind it would appreciate if you tell them about problems (they really would, I've sent them feedback and they were very enthusiastic about getting it). There's a feedback page here:

http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/videoconverter/feedback

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

vbrilon would be the man to credit for NITVC :)

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Most of the videos I download are via Revision3.Com
They offer many formats in small and large file sizes including WMV, XVID/AVI, MOV and their flash player in low and high.
I was using a Pocket Pc and the small WMV worked great without conversion.
The N810 chokes on the small WMV, but plays great after conversion with NITVC.
The funny thing is the converted file is still a wmv and about the same size. Not sure why the N810 chokes on the Rev3 video other then they may use different codec when encoding that N810 doesn't like.

My next goal is to eliminate as many steps in the DL to PC, conversion, copy to shared PC folder, and upload to N810 via wifi. I'm hoping I can stream the converted file right into N810's player.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

NITVC's output is to MP4, not WMV. You might want to check that file again.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

I have directly downloaded xvid small files from tekzillla which i think is a part of revision 3. They played wonderfully in mplayer. please please try it out.

Video tests and memory checks...Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

I'm spending a lot of time trying to improve my new N810 experience and the community here is great. I'm not one to give up and I hope these efforts help other users. Got a few replies to hit here. Again, thanks for the feedback.

1. Regarding slowdown of OS, menus, etc. I downloaded both MH-Shot-Tool and one called Load-Applet. Any preferences between MST and LA? Both seem to work the same but LA runs in the taskbar and allows you to kill processes. I used both to screenshot my xterm's "top" results after 3 conditions:
a. Screenshot after turning the unit completely off then back on:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...hot-2008-1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...reenshot01.png
b. Screenshot after running a video in both Media Player and Mplayer separately, then closing the apps:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...hot-2008-2.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...reenshot02.png
c. Screenshot after running the browser, surf Google and then clsoing the app:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...hot-2008-3.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...reenshot03.png

The loss of free memory even after all apps are closed is huge. What does this mean and how can I improve this or does the OS do this automatically? I'm also looking at one process 1135 called osso-media-server, I've seen this %mem get as high as 73%. Is this a concern?
Is there anything in these screenshots that would explain the slowdown? Are N810 users expected to soft reset often? It gets worse, see PS below.

2. Regarding MP4 video. ghoonk, you are correct. I saw WMP in windows and assumed Windows Media Player, so I did an experiment with the following links:
a. http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffda...eeks.109.i.mp4
b. http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffda...ygeeks.109.mp4
c. http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffda...ygeeks.109.wmv
File "a" is labeled as "iPod/PSP" and played just fine without conversion!
File "b" is labeled as "MPEG" and crashes MPlayer and N810 home page, had to reboot.
File "c" I converted in NITVC and it played great.
Why "a" and "b" are so different I'll never know. They are same file type and about the same file size. Anyway, it looks like MP4s designed for smaller players is the way to go if you don't want to convert. But not everyone has these downloads... read on.

3. Regarding XVID, WMV and MOV at Revision3.Com, I downloaded the small versions and here are the results:
XVID: Opened in MPlayer. Good video quality, but audio out of sync.
WMV: Opened in MPlayer. Good video quality, but audio out of sync.
MOV: Opened in Media Player: Fair video quality, but audio out of sync.
So one question that comes to mind: Is there a way to shift the audio on these players via some settings? I used to do this in TCPMP when playing MOV files.

PS: I thought I would run a final screenshot after doing the video tests. Keep in mind all apps are closed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...reenshot04.png
This is just crazy. I even saw the free mem drop to 6000K at one point.
Any code guys out there that can confirm that this is normal?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

The problem did not affect all units, but still, better safe than sorry.

Re: Video tests and memory checks...Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

top is really a bad tool to gauge these things with. Besides, what's wrong with using RAM that's available to it? Most of this stuff will be freed up as it's needed for more essential stuff.

Re: Video tests and memory checks...Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Specifically, the last item on the top line: "63796K cached"
That means that 63 MB of RAM is being used to keep programs or data in memory so it doesn't have to load them; but any of that memory can be freed like <finger-snap /> when more memory is needed, since it's just a copy of something that lives somewhere on secondary storage.

As far as which screenshot tool, I've discovered that the load-applet one doesn't work on (scrambles) portrait mode. So I'm now using mh-shot-tool.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

You may want to eliminate the metalayer-crawler process. You can see that it's taking up around 60 MB of RAM after running and closing mplayer. If you search the forum regarding the metalayer-crawler, you will find that it consumes lots of cpu cycles searching for media files and runs down your battery as well.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

The dilemma is this one: checking for the problem is a very complex procedure which involves using the command line, but curing the problem is very very easy and just involves formatting with the GUI file manager. Given that choice, it's easier just to tell everyone to reformat.

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

Well, I didn't even check whether I got a badly formatted card, I just went ahead and reformatted the Int Mem card via File Manager right after receiving N810. I also disabled the VM before doing it.
If you think doing it again will help I'll need to find a way to backup my maps first.
How does a badly formatted card even affect the slow OS if its not getting close to filling up?

Re: Disappointed with slow OS, lags, problems?
 

File systems are complex and don't necessarily fill from the bottom up as you might expect. Not knowing that the bit at the end isn't there, the OS sees no reason to wait till last to put some data there (if you'll pardon the anthropomorphism).