iPlayer hands-on impressions

[bollocks]

at least without rom support it won't be on big N's assassination list

but given that its supposedly based on Acekard hardware, how long before someone adds it?
AKAIO might even work.

 

[Defiance]

Personally to me, it looks almost about as useful as the Mario Clock for the DSi.. But hey, what do I know?

 

[Anakir]

Awesome. You answered my question about the .mkv format.

Now I'm awaiting the external subtitles and battery life to be answered. Thanks for the heads up. Looking forward for more answers!

Thanks again.

 

[kohkindachi]

Hope we'll be able to get a review today or tmr

 

[elixirdream]

It looks very cool..
just hope the final review would be good and hope the price tag won't be scary

 

[triassic911]

If only this thing would play roms and had 3in1 support it would be an automatic sale.

 

[Virgil]

I was waiting for a "impression" topic on this, so I can get a good look and view of the card. Looks pretty promising, but I do hope the card's extra CPU will be able to be used for homebrew apps; does anyone know of how much CPU power and RAM is contained in the iPlayer anyways?

 

[The Viztard]

Is that Up i saw in the vid?!?! haha, it was a good movie though. the cart sounds awesome too.

 

[Normmatt]

If it is indeed based on ak2 hardware adding rom support should be easy assuming they didn't remove anything and simply added stuff.

 

[da_head]

hmm impressive. i wonder if other companies will be able to incorporate this into their flashkarts. but meh, i don't think i'll buy a new card just for videos. moonshell is good enough for that job, and everythin else, i have my laptop.

 

[wchill]

How fast was the onboard processor? Jdbye thinks we can emulate a PSX/N64 with that if it were to be run in DSi mode.

 

[imgod22222]

When you do the review, please test the battery life difference.

Other than that, ask them if they'll release an API that allows other devs to utilize that hardware.


Hardware Overview:
I can't find a datasheet for the AML3405, nor could I see a model number printed on the chip next to the MicroSD slot.

The 39VF040 is a flash chip that holds 4Mbit (8x512kbit banks) - This is probably where your "kernel updates" are stored... where necessary codecs etc are.
http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf...ST/39VF040.html
The Winbond chip is 256 Mb SDRAM that can run @ 133 or 166MHz [32MB of RAM, up from the DS' 4MB] - probably some of your video is buffered to here.
http://winbond-usa.com/products/winbond_pr.../W9825G6EHd.pdf

The above overview is based off what I've taught myself over the past 2 years, so I could be terribly wrong as to what each part actually DOES, but I do know what they are.

 

[Normmatt]

When you do the review, please test the battery life difference.

Other than that, ask them if they'll release an API that allows other devs to utilize that hardware.


Hardware Overview:
I can't find a datasheet for the AML3405, nor could I see a model number printed on the chip next to the MicroSD slot.

The 39VF040 is a flash chip that holds 4Mbit (8x512kbit banks) - This is probably where your "kernel updates" are stored... where necessary codecs etc are.
http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf...ST/39VF040.html
The Winbond chip is 256 Mb SDRAM that can run @ 133 or 166MHz [32MB of RAM, up from the DS' 4MB] - probably some of your video is buffered to here.
http://winbond-usa.com/products/winbond_pr.../W9825G6EHd.pdf

The above overview is based off what I've taught myself over the past 2 years, so I could be terribly wrong as to what each part actually DOES, but I do know what they are.

That winbond chip is most likely the chip that contains the official game that they use to bypass the dsi protection. Same way as ak2i (this being a clone would indicate this works in a similar fashion to the ak2i).

 

[shatter]

thats awesome...aslong as its not expensive im goin for it

 

[anaxs]

man im gonna get this for sure

hope it's not expensive and i hope that its as good as it looks

 

[imgod22222]

Normatt, sounds probable--after all that's how old passcards used to work. (I'm sure 80% of this forum's community either doesn't know what passcards are or can barely vaguely remember it)
EDIT: Then why get one that's rewritable? I long closed the PDF, but IIRC its rewritable.

 

[Normmatt]

Normatt, sounds probable--after all that's how old passcards used to work. (I'm sure 80% of this forum's community either doesn't know what passcards are or can barely vaguely remember it)

Passcards did nothing but redirect the input and output to the actual ds card and any reads to the card header were altered to jump to the slot2.

 

[Cortador]

Thanks for the vid, Shaun!

Overall? It's MORE THAN AWESOME

Too bad to see how it fares with h264, but other than that, it is incredible!
With this the DS is officially more powerful than a PSP in the media department

Dream on lol.

Anyways, good job with this media player. Won't be using it though.
I would rather use my Phone or Psp to watch videos on the go.

 

[mrfatso]

well, at least that answer one of my questions on if the processor will stick out like a sore thumb or something

well, can't wait for the full review and to see the price range and whether does it appear in different color.

 

[rockstar99]

nice review i might get it if its not too expensive