Hacking m3 ds real videos

[MichaelJackson]

Hi,
i got my m3 ds real now with a 2 gb kingston micro sd. i started with download a system folder and putting files on the sd card.nds games work perfectly but i cant run videos or pictures. i drag and dropped a converted video (.dpg) and some pictures on my micro sd card. when i use the on-card-multimedia center which is supposed to play music,videos and pictures it just dont open

. p.s.: i configurated the system language to german

 

[Sonius]

what happens when you start moonshell?

 

[MichaelJackson]

so this multimedia thing on the m3 is moonshell? well it opens. there are icons with "my videos" "my pictures" "my music" etc. but when it comes to the direction browser and i select my video file, it just dont play it

 

[visitor000]

so this multimedia thing on the m3 is moonshell? well it opens. there are icons with "my videos" "my pictures" "my music" etc. but when it comes to the direction browser and i select my video file, it just dont play it

m3 real firmware's built-in video player is terrible, it does not support newer versions/extensions of DPG format (like DPG3 and or / OGG audio streams etc), is very slow and very outdated.
You'd better download moonshell 1.71 and use it instead (search the web for it).

Or even better to start using Sakura firmware - its built-in video player is superb.

 

[kobykaan]

use SAKURA in the triple boot it has a much better media player (upgraded version of moonshell)

 

[ColinTaylor]

m3 real firmware's built-in video player is terrible, it does not support newer versions/extensions of DPG format (like DPG3 and or / OGG audio streams etc), is very slow and very outdated.
You'd better download moonshell 1.71 and use it instead (search the web for it).

Or even better to start using Sakura firmware - its built-in video player is superb.

I found the same thing. However, a bit of advice:

With Sakura, if you select your video file from the default file browser it will play BUT you will probably experience quite bad pixilation. I guess this is because it’s doing other stuff in the background. On the other hand, if you go to the list of applications and run the stand-alone version of Moonshell the videos will play perfectly.

At least that’s what I found.

 

[thedicemaster]

i think you're doing something wrong then.
i see a lot LESS pixels when using m3sakura.
i do see a faint grid, but this is a system to allow more fluent color changes(try a dark movie, most DS movie players show clear edges in the middle of dark gradient spots.)

this is a rough simulation of how 1 video displaying a gradient from black to dark grey would be shown on most DS video players(moonshell, m3real media player, etc), on m3sakura, and on a PC(using the original full-size video).
note that effects such as seen in pic1 can occur on any media player, including PC media players, however in that case the encoding is to blame.
also note that the effects in pic1 occur almost only with dark colors, lighter colors will still appear smooth.
EDIT: image fixed.

 

[MichaelJackson]

i hope i dont missunderstand something, so sakura is a completly new firewire, which has a movieplayer as well as a mp3 player and plays your nds games?!

 

[thedicemaster]

i hope i dont missunderstand something, so sakura is a completly new firewire, which has a movieplayer as well as a mp3 player and plays your nds games?!

yes.
you know how the m3real's original firmware has the mycard function to boot homebrew from a filebrowser?
m3sakura has only that screen, however it's much faster and it can launch commercial games and media from that screen too(such as dpg movies, mp3 music, and jpg images)

 

[ColinTaylor]

i see a lot LESS pixels when using m3sakura.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself correctly.

I wasn't comparing Sakura to other firmwares, but to the two different (built-in) ways of playing video within Sakura itself.

Also, I shouldn't have said "pixelation" but rather "blockiness" (Artifacts Caused by Compression) see http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/jo...port.html#probs

I'm sure you are correct about the gradient thing

 

[thedicemaster]

what converter do you use and what settings?
never had that with m3sakura, unless you count the cutscenes in commercial DS games.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I was using dpgenc.exe from moonshell171p1_with_dpgtools131-M3R.zip. . Default settings for 4:3 AR.

I have to admit I only tried converting 2 videos and they were animations with lots of fast movement and detail, so it was probably pushing the limits of what is possible at such a low bitrate.

 

[thedicemaster]

ah well, i recommend unofficial batchDPG.
with these settings:

[Video]
Framerate=auto
Profile=Ultra
Width=256
Height=192
VideoBitrate=256
VideoBitrateMax=384
Passes=1
Resizer=Bicubic
[Audio]
AudioBitrate=128
Samplerate=32768
Mode=Joint stereo

i get good quality video files that run at a constant 100% speed.

 

[MichaelJackson]

i found a wonderful programm, which converts many video formats to dpg but it has also a lot of other functions. its called SUPER. here. the problem with dgcconverter is that i got to much trouble issues with it. but SUPER programm is just wonderful

 

[geokilla]

M3 Sakura plays only plays video in .DPG format right?

 

[thedicemaster]

it plays dpg1 dpg2 and dpg3, all in the dpg "container".
dpg2 and dpg3 are simply upgraded versions of dpg, and they all carry the dpg extension.

to see what version of DPG your movie uses open it with a hex editor.
first few bytes say the version:
dpg0=dpg1
dpg2=dpg2
dpg3=dpg3

if possible try to use dpg3 as much as possible, since m3sakura has lightning fast searching/resuming with dpg3

 

[visitor000]

yes Sakura's player supports DPG (all versions/extensions). However, it does not play DPG files with OGG audio stream. If you have videos with OGG audio streams you should use moonshell instead.
Luckily OGG is not used often. Actually, I never seen any DPG file with OGG audio on the web, however had few of my own videos with OGG audio, and had to re-encode them with mpeg audio in order to solve this problem.

To ColinTaylor about pixelation in the video player:
I can see pixelation (blockiness) only after seeking to some position in video file (only if file has seek index). But this quickly disappears after it hits "key frame", so this blocking usually disappears in 1-2 seconds after seeking. never seen any blockiness/pixelation if starting movie from the beginning. The video quality, smoothness of playback and speed of seeking is better than in moonshell.