Movies and Battery LIfe

[ElAguila]

I was just curious if anyone has tested the battery life with watching movies. I was wondering what kind of drain an hour long mp4 video would have on the battery.

 

[apollomaker]

Without having any specific numbers to give you, I can say for certain that movies are battery eaters. They have to be --- you are looking at an intense amount of bit shuffling. I see the same thing on my older PDAs and my Ipod when viewing movies. It is one of the reasons I always opt for the largest extended capacity battery I can have for a specific device.

Good Luck -- and enjoy your favorite flick!!!

 

[ElAguila]

I currently have a 4.3" mp4 player but I was just wondering how this thing did. My touch pro need to be plugged in after about 15 minutes.

 

[pdragon]

I haven't played any movies myself, but I have had some GameBoid sessions pushing on 2 hours straight. From an almost full charge, I was down around 50%. While probably not as much of a battery drain as a movie, I'd think an emulator wouldn't be far behind. So, seems like it was taking about the expected talk time for a single charge.

 

[ElAguila]

I have an animated movie that is 45 minutes. I converted it to an mp4 using format factory. The video was 512kbs and the audio was 96kbs. The resolution was 480x272 and the fps was 24. I started watching with the battery at 100% according to power manager. At the end of the movie I checked and the battery was at 86%. So if this is an accurate reading and it holds through, theoretically I could watch an hour and a half movie and still have 72% battery life left. If this is true, then that is very good. I will test it tomorrow on a longer movie.

 

[apollomaker]

I have an animated movie that is 45 minutes. I converted it to an mp4 using format factory. The video was 512kbs and the audio was 96kbs. The resolution was 480x272 and the fps was 24. I started watching with the battery at 100% according to power manager. At the end of the movie I checked and the battery was at 86%. So if this is an accurate reading and it holds through, theoretically I could watch an hour and a half movie and still have 72% battery life left. If this is true, then that is very good. I will test it tomorrow on a longer movie.

Those are impressive numbers! I think I will do some tinkering by downloading a couple of MP4 movies and trying them out ..... but I would try a full-length feature. (90-110 mins) or so. Much too has to do with what you convert your movie to...in terms of the resolution and data rates.

Thanks for sharing

 

[ElAguila]

You are right about the movies. I will convert an action movie like Iron Man later and see how it does.

 

[quentinfisher]

I haven't played any movies myself, but I have had some GameBoid sessions pushing on 2 hours straight. From an almost full charge, I was down around 50%. While probably not as much of a battery drain as a movie, I'd think an emulator wouldn't be far behind. So, seems like it was taking about the expected talk time for a single charge.

GBA emulator on Android? You sir have just changed my life.

I watch 45 minutes of CSI at pretty decent quality, battery widget went from 100% to 80% so not too bad.

 

[ElAguila]

I converted Underworld 3 using the same settings as above. I charged the phone to 100% and shutoff the wifi and the mobile broadband. The movie is about an hour and 28 minutes long. I played though until the end of the credits. I checked the battery with power manager and it was still at 80%! I am very impressed with these results. You could pick up one of the rechargeable backup battery packs and watch several full lenth movies.

 

[meangreengdub]

What program do you use to convert the videos to play on the Hero?

Also, how do you put them on the Hero? THANKS!

 

[ElAguila]

I use a free program called Format Factory. It has a lot of preset templates. I copied the movie to the microsd card that is in my hero. I just connected to the pc and mounted the sd card as a usb drive.

 

[dvalmont]

I frequently watch video on my Hero. My experiences have been similar to those posted. 1.5 hour movie, full charge, seems to leave me at between 60-75% charge.
I use Act1, seems like a pretty decent player.
My understanding is the video format is the same as iPhone, so any conversion software or video converted for iPhone will work. This does seem to be the case.
I also own an iRiver E100 and programs i'd converted (using it's proprietary software) do play on my Hero, about 50% of the time!! Pretty strange, can't explain yet, but if I just keep trying to load it usually it eventually will!

 

[ElAguila]

This is the best pda/smart phone that I have seen as far as battery drain when watching video. The only background apps I had running were advanced task manager, chompsms, and power manager. I hope this holds with the new update coming out as well.

 

[pdragon]

Wow... so seems like the emulators are even more of a drain than movies.

 

[ElAguila]

I haven't tried any emulators yet if this holds true after the eclair update, I may have found my all in one instead of having an mp4 player separate from my phone. Also keep in mind I don't have much else running on the phone as I am a new owner and am still getting a feel for it and what it can do.

 

[meangreengdub]

I use a free program called Format Factory. It has a lot of preset templates. I copied the movie to the microsd card that is in my hero. I just connected to the pc and mounted the sd card as a usb drive.

Did you create a folder on your SD card called "videos" or "movies" or did you just drop them straight on the card?

 

[ElAguila]

I created a folder called Video and then just tapped the file. You can also use Meridian and it will scan the folders for you for audio/video files.

 

[doublebullout]

I use the built-in Album app to play video. You can create sub-folders in the Video folder on your card; Album can find them with no problem. My tree looks like this:

• Video
  • Movies
  • Music Videos
  • TV Shows

I use Handbrake to rip DVDs to mp4. The iPhone preset works great, although I have to bump the resolution down to match the screen resolution on the Hero. Also worth noting is that Doubletwist can download video from YouTube. These also play great on the Hero.