Amazon Unbox Videos - maemo.org

mart1928 | # 1 | 2008-01-11, 04:41 | Report

I haven't seen this discussed here yet, but I was wondering if the downloaded videos from a purchase or rental site like Amazon, Netflix, Blockbuster would actually play with the N800 tablet using mplayer. I know the Amazon Unbox video download specifically supports certain mobile media players such as Archos and Sansa. But I didn't know if the downloaded video file could be converted using media converter to make it playable on the tablet. Any thoughts?

timkawa | # 2 | 2008-01-11, 12:22 | Report

I have watched the amazon video ad for guitar hero 3 a few weeks ago while I was sitting in a coffee bar :-)

is it possible to convert those "unbox" videos?

Last edited by timkawa; 2008-01-11 at 13:32.

geneven | # 3 | 2008-01-11, 12:57 | Report

I've played Netflix movies on my N800. I used something called vobcopy to copy the dvd first.

(Unlike many people, I am not thrilled at taking a film made to be played on a giant screen and putting it on a tiny screen. I prefer sound and audiobooks, which can be played closer to the way they were intended to be played by the artist.)

GeneralAntilles | # 4 | 2008-01-11, 13:17 | Report

Originally Posted by geneven View Post

(Unlike many people, I am not thrilled at taking a film made to be played on a giant screen and putting it on a tiny screen. I prefer sound and audiobooks, which can be played closer to the way they were intended to be played by the artist.)

Ha. It's all a matter of relative distances. A 4.2" screen 2' front your face with a pair of nice headphones isn't that far off from a 42" screen 12' in front of you with big speakers.

Plus, you can't exactly lug the full home theater experience with you on a plane, or in a car, or to work.

mart1928 | # 5 | 2008-01-12, 20:45 | Report

I just wanted to follow up on my post about the Amazon Unbox videos. I gave it a try and downloaded a full movie. I was optimistic when I saw that the movie was a wmv file type. Once it was on my pc (after an all night marathon download) I used media converter to shrink the file. The amazon unbox player also provides a special .amzn file used for supported portable media players. Then I tried to copy the full 2.2 gb wmv file, the .amzn file, and the converted wmv file to the n800 and.....

nothing worked.

I tried to open all files in both the standard media player and in mplayer but to no avail. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, since the n800 is not one of the supported portable players. The closest I got was the full size wmv file showed some strange moving colors and shapes in mplayer.

Also, if anyone else decides to download movies from Amazon, be prepared to wait a long time, unless you have a super high speed connection ( I have DSL and it took over 10 hours!)

I think alot also has to do with the way DRM is adminstered as I can't open certain pdf files I purchased and downloaded on my pc and tried to copy to the n800.

Hope this helps anyone out. I still think the n800 is awesome!

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sunfell | # 6 | 2008-09-23, 17:30 | Report

I was curious about the new Amazon VOD feature, and took a look at their 'unbox' program. It specifically says that it is not compatible with Linux or iPods- which leaves us out- for now.

I am sure some enterprising tinkerer will come through with some sort of hack or patch that will fix that for us.

Not sure if I'll ever want to watch a movie on my N-800, but it would be cool to be able to do so. For now, ebooks are fine.

blowfish23 | # 7 | 2008-12-16, 16:10 | Report

I have some Pepsi points I was going to spend on videos for my n800. But I guess I'll just spend it on music or something else. Thanks for the info.

macr0t0r | # 8 | 2008-12-16, 23:41 | Report

Amazon Video on Demand (VOD) requires a Flash player. We have one on the N8X0, but I doubt the frame-rate is going to be good. Flash requires a bit more CPU-power versus a nice MPEG4 file on MPlayer.

- Jim

blowfish23 | # 9 | 2008-12-20, 05:09 | Report

I didn't really care about going to amazon.com on the NIT and watching videos, I would rather download videos onto my computer and then transfer them to the NIT. That's what I was asking about. After searching yahoo answer, it sounds like you can download videos as .wmv files, which can be converted to play on the n800, right?

Thesandlord | # 10 | 2008-12-20, 05:44 | Report

Well, first see if those files play in Mplayer on the PC. I highly doubt that they would be DRM free, so they probably need special software. If it works on Mplayer on the PC, then it should be fine.

Also, if Mplayer does not play .WMV, you can play and encode it with VLC so it does work with Mplayer. This is because Mplayer is the best player on the tablets, because the VNC port is not as good...