Vlog: Mystery China HD PDA
p2p news / p2pnet: You may remember in September we ran item which kicked off, “BMG of Sony BMG fame recently unloaded GNAB, an alleged p2p application from its Arvato subsidiary.”
It was based on input from Charbax who not only had info, he also had footage.
Vlogging, in short. So, “How about becoming p2pnet’s roving video reporter?” we asked him. “Cool! That sounds great!” he said. “You could then link directly to the BitTorrent file that`s the high definition video from within the news article.”
So here’s Charbax again, this time reporting from Beijing in Communist China.
“I made a hidef video demonstration of what I believe is the second ever PDA with a harddrive,” he says in an email. “The Archos PMA430 was the first one released in February 2005. This one is anonymous, I think. It is called the PEC-A8 by JJS or Ascend maybe (JJS is the logo on the device, Ascend is the logo on the wallpaper in PMP mode).
“There is a http link that expires after 200 clicks, if you want you can link directly to the torrent.
“This gadget is the best I have found during my first three weeks of looking around eastern China electronics markets.”
And on the web page >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the past few weeks I have been exploring the Chinese electronics market to see if there were any interesting PMA430 or AV500 competitors. Very few devices impress me. This video is of the first PMA430 competitor I have seen. It runs Windows CE with a 20GB harddrive inside and can “switch2pmp” and switch back to PDA mode, which takes a couple of seconds.
The PMP mode seems to support Mpeg-4 simple profile and a few other things, but my tests so far of Mpeg-1 and wmv9 seem to be not smooth. B-frames and bitrates over 1500kbit/s are unstable, cmg and qpel show lots of artifacts. This device is running on an AMD Alchemy 1100 400mhz processor. It does not seem to have any built-in wifi, nor any built-in video-output and video-input. It does have usb-host 1.1 and cf-sd-mmc slots.
For now, this device’s firmware seems to be totally in Chinese, so I am hoping for an English version for the pda and pmp parts of this device so I can test it more thoroughly. So check back later, and also I will probably sell this device from my website once I am back to Europe on 10th December. I got it at the Beijing electronics market for 460⬠with two extra batteries.
While the PMA430 has a bit of emulation development going on at the forums at Pma eXtended OS, GliGli fantastically hacked the Gmini400 to run a great Sega emulator on that device. Read more about the Gmini400 emulator here.
Someday, Archos should be supporting emulators officially. The Chinese device has a NES emulator and 80 games pre-installed.
On the whole internet, I have only found a couple of websites talking about this mysterious PEC-A8 Chinese windows ce 20gb pmp device, here and here in Chinese. A google english translation is here. If anyone can help me find a firmware upgrade for it to support english and other stuff, then please send me the link.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
kicked off – Charbax at the IFA show, September 7, 2005
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
November 9th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
I am a big fan of peer to peer software, but I do have to say the BitTorrent really sucks. I have never been able to get anything to completely download. I only have waited for days only to have partial files. If I can find this video somewhere else, I would put it in my LimeWire shared folder. Anyone know where I can download this video for real?
November 10th, 2005 at 4:23 am
An **AA tool either way bug off!
November 10th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Having to wait days for some transfer that should take less than hours is not exactly being a crybaby. However since you can only think of names to call me rather than present anything intelligent to rebut what I say makes you the moran. My opinion still stands Bittorrent sucks!!!
November 11th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
Clicked on the BT link.
Started the DL
Very FEW people have the kind of problems with BT that you describe.
If you are having that much difficulty with BT, the proble is likely to be on YOUR end, and not a result of “BT Suckage”
Since I don’t know anything about your system, I couldn’t tell you
what the problem is but some suggestions …..
1. Not all BT clients are equal. Try other clients until you find one
that works best for you. BT the protocol is FANTASTIC, but some
CLIENTS do, in fact , suck.
2. You may have to open a port on your firewall for BT clients to
perform their best.
ooops !
Download finished
I hope these suggestions help