Dr Bruce Banner's Good vs Bad

[BruceBanner]

Hi PUNY HUMANS,

Thought i'd give you some feedback on the o2 so far, kinda like a review but more split into a good and bad section.

I'll start with the negatives as they're easier to identify.

BAD

1) It simply doesn't do what it says on the label. Many reviewers have complained at it's lack of ability to play .mkv and h.264 files. It is advertised as being the best codec compatible player out there able to play most files thrown at it without conversion. In reality this is not true. I have a rapidshare account and a 150gb dl limit per month. I don't even have a TV aerial so I rely on downloads exclusivly for my viewing pleasure. The 100+ movies i have are in various formats, most are .h264 .mkv files and the 02 player claimed to be able to play these. It can not. I'm sure (hopefully) that they will play successfully at a later time after firmware updates but i find this pretty unsatisfactory. I don't know what h.264 files or mkv files they got to play successfully in the factory to make this claim but i feel genuinely lied to. It says it can play these files, it can't.
I also have wmv files that play without audio codec support. I have .mov files that i threw at the jet audio converter which it converted successfully but when playing on the o2 got audio only and a lovely still green image on the screen.
So even when HAVING to convert files (that convert and play fine on pc) the o2 doesn't handle the conversions very well (and yes i had all the settings in the video converter correct).

2) People have complained that it doesnt handle the 720p res files as well as it claims. I am yet to find out for myself as i hit another road block, the 4gb file size limit!
Now i know that playing a 720p file on the o2 is WAY overkill but remember I (and countless others) have these type files/films on our pc's and we just want a quick drag and drop function with this player (thats why we bought it right?). So Iron Man and 2001 A Space Odyssey are 4.37gb and 6.5gb respectively which means they cannot be drag and dropped across due to their excessive file size limit (4gb is the max file size for a FAT32 formated system to which the o2 is). It's an annoyance and means I have to hunt and find some software that will cut the file in two, or redownload in smaller size (and hope the player will be able to play this file).

3) Reflective screen. Forget about watching any video file where there is a lot of dark tones (star trek, bsg etc) as the reflectiveness of the screen during daytime hours is pretty bad. I saw my own reflection more than that of the file i was trying to view. I played around with the LCD brightness but to no avail. So be warned, if you commute back from work on a train that is travelling above ground level and the sun is low in the horizon you may find viewing futile.

4) Poor Speaker. The speaker is pants. It really is. I have all the firmware updated where ppl said they heard sound improvements in the speaker, i noticed no difference. Volume at max level and SOME files are barely audible. Put the headphones in and the volume is too loud. what gives, why such a large difference? To me it's a wasted effort having a speaker located on the REAR of the player only to have perhaps a hand or thumb accidently smother the rear speaker. It should be on the front of the player IF it was worth having at all.

5) There is a major difference in Audio options between music and video functions. Music options are decent and produce good sound. Video options is poor with little options. Why? Why is this? Why can we not have the same options under Video as we are given in the Music. The D2 does? It seems as though ALL the good things the D2 did/does has been ignored. It doesn't make sense.

6) No playlist support, no DPL. I was really shocked by this. I must confess I looked breifly at the o2 specs and features and ASSUMED these things would be there (after all the D2 had them) and being a Cowan consumer (i owned the x5, d2 and now o2) thought it would be something of a standard inclusion and not worth specific advertising (after all if they advertised ALL the functions of the D2 in their glossy advert pics they would need a poster size pic!). Again i hope this will be included in future firmware.

7) The picture viewer only zooms by 200%. This is limiting, I have 2.5mb png comic files and if i could zoom by an extra 100% i could probably read the txt well enough to use the player as a scrolling comic reader. Bah humbug! PUNY PLAYER

8) wallpaper. Yes u can select yer own wallpaper but u CANNOT change the colour of the menu's fonts rendering a MASSIVE amount of backgrounds useless. Again the D2 could do this but the o2 cannot. Where oh where was the cowon d2 fella with his checklist of d2 functionality and ticking off as he went along. There is SO much missing (like this) on the o2 that the d2 has and i just find this bizarre. To me it's like the o2 came from a different company entirely. Furthermore to get the wallpaper to fill the background proerly some resizing is required (groan).

9) no id3 tagging suport. Again i was astonished. I thought it would be standard (not worth mentioning, after all what mp3 player does NOT have this function on a player of this price, probably alot lol). No more browsing by artist, album etc, only folder.

10) on a personal note my o2 and my pc hate each other. If i reboot whilst my o2 is connected to my pc, my pc does not boot up. Windows explorer also likes to crash a fair bit whist the o2 is connected.

11) small icons (that require touch) which makes for fiddly touching. Improve the GUI so that the icons that need pressed are of a size that dont require careful nail touching, on a screen this size that's very easily done.

GOOD

ok so there's a few things there that piss me off a little, things that REALLY should be there from the get go firmware version ONE! However a good few of my complaints are resolvable by firmware so lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that the cowan chap (yes chap as in singular as in you're FOOLING yerself if u think Cowon has a TEAM of cowon ppl working on the o2's firmware issues) sorts it out.

1) Recent Files. This is a REALLY nice feature. Imagine yer watching 3-4 different films or tv series and u stop each and every file at a different place. This is recorded and as such you can revisit each file to the same spot that u left off. Kinda like an automatic bookmark for multiple files. Nice, very nice.

2) Favourites is ok but it should really be a god damn playlist (calm down bruce, calm down).

3) the build quality is excellent. sturdy and looks like it won't fall apart anytime soon.

4) touch screen is really very good, responsive, i was impressed

5) potential. the SDK and cowon firmware updates means this player has a tun of potential. One day i hope for the popular codecs supported meaning no conversions are necessary, playlist and id3 tagging, dpl, comic reader and the odd game of tetris or pool when bored =)

6) SD expansion slot. Nuff said

7) above fair dinkum video battery life

CONCLUSION

To me, my complaints are all firmware related and that gives me hope. Where firmware can't help perhaps SDK can. I'm seriously thinking about learning the SDK programming skills to be able to add features i want (if no one else creates) but it seems as though the same complaints are being raised so hopefully cowon or a tech savy user will assist us. The goods are all hardware based (like the build quality, sd slot, battery life) and that is more important than having all the 'stuff' but consequently the player falling apart after 2 months and battery life lasting 30mins after 6 months worth of use etc. The o2 has potential, if only they released all the functionality that the d2 had and a little more, instead they released WAY less and the addition of the Recent Files support does not make up for it.

Bruce

[revmike]

Hi PUNY HUMANS,

Your attempt at levity is seriously lacking.

[BruceBanner]

Levity, HULK NOT KNOW THIS WORD.

Did i also mention the favourites is limited by a max file size of 300 which is naff if one wants to TRY and use it as sumkind of playlist.

[Morfesto]

10) on a personal note my o2 and my pc hate each other. If i reboot whilst my o2 is connected to my pc, my pc does not boot up. Windows explorer also likes to crash a fair bit whist the o2 is connected.

uhhhh....... you know all new modern computers can boot from usb right?
Your PC probably won't boot cause it has the usb set higher then the hardrive in boot priority which means it's trying to boot to the O2 which doesn't contain any bootable files............ newb.

[BruceBanner]

yeh i thought that at first too, checked teh bios but no, usb was not set higher than internal hd. They just don't play ball with one another as nice as they should. I'll forgive the newb comment this one time though u did make me angry a little

[KitKat973]

For the reflective screen problem, try looking around for an anti-glare screen protector.

[Affainyi]

Reflective screen? Really? I have to say I never noticed, I have an HP Pavilion Laptop and let me tell you after using those screens for a bit, there is nothing glossier than that ish! What I don't like about the O2's screen is the fact that it seems to attract dust like a magnet attracts iron filings and the recessed screen means the dust is nigh impossible to get rid of.....

Every now and then I take my O2 out of the leather protector and each time I marvel anew at the beauty-in-simplicity of the device...... So minimalist...I have to get my hands on a camera and show you guys my omnipotent rig consisting of my lappie and the O2, all in modest black (one glossy and the other matte). If I could have it my way I would lug my laptop everywhere I went but with the O2 I don't have to!

[zudaka]

Originally Posted by BruceBanner

Levity, HULK NOT KNOW THIS WORD.

lol

[dooood]

Originally Posted by BruceBanner

5) potential. the SDK and cowon firmware updates means this player has a tun of potential. One day i hope for the popular codecs supported meaning no conversions are necessary, playlist and id3 tagging, dpl, comic reader and the odd game of tetris or pool when bored =)

scusa me, but in which universe is h264 a popular codec?! seems kinda useless, except for creating gigantic video files. DIVX FOR THE WIN.

[DaremoS]

Originally Posted by dooood

scusa me, but in which universe is h264 a popular codec?! seems kinda useless, except for creating gigantic video files. DIVX FOR THE WIN.

You're a bit out of info d0000d... H.264 have become very popular as most of cheap players are supporting it, mainly Chinese players including among them Apple stuff which is also Chinese. Include too all touch cell phones.

It seems that licensing for H.264 have lowered its prices so for your knowledge now is more popular than divx, xvid or whatever.

[BruceBanner]

yeh i am thinking about finding a protective screen cover that reduces reflectiveness, the one that came with it was rubbish and i will have to find a better one.

[dooood]

Originally Posted by DaremoS

You're a bit out of info d0000d... H.264 have become very popular as most of cheap players are supporting it, mainly Chinese players including among them Apple stuff which is also Chinese. Include too all touch cell phones.

It seems that licensing for H.264 have lowered its prices so for your knowledge now is more popular than divx, xvid or whatever.

actually i figured out why i've never heard of h264: go to isohunt.com and enter "h264" as a search. you get a bunch of anime in the result.

[Traveler0612]

These references may show you why H.264 is teh win.

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-final-105-1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_codecs

Pound for pound, it is my understanding that H.264 gives better video quality with smaller file sizes than even XVid. XVid is certainly a fine codec, it has just been surpassed for now. I have gotten a few HD shows that I missed on TV in H.264. The picture is quite nice.

P.S. This link confirms what I thought about H.264 being CPU hungry. Older, slower PCs may not be up to the job.

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic339427.html

[papalegba]

Originally Posted by Traveler0612

Pound for pound, it is my understanding that H.264 gives better video quality with smaller file sizes than even XVid. XVid is certainly a fine codec, it has just been surpassed for now. I have gotten a few HD shows that I missed on TV in H.264. The picture is quite nice.

Yeah, the only problem is that xvid is de facto standard used by "the scene" today. That means that 100% of newly released movies, tv shows, documentaries, etc. are available as in xvid format. Also, the format is so ubiquitous that virtually every standalone dvd player on the market today plays it flawlessly. On the other hand, x264 codec is extremely finicky and often it will play on one device but not on another - for example, I have a Sony PSP and an iPod classic. If I encode the video for PSP it won't play on the iPod, if I encode it for iPod it won't play on the PSP. You have to use very specific settings for each device and that makes it a real pain. It does produce better looking video, but portability is SO much more important IMO. I don't want to encode the same video 10 times for 10 different devices.

[BruceBanner]

well, like i said above, i am a paying member of the rapidshare community and a member or warez, there is a huge majority of films being released in the h264 format in 300-400mb file size. The quality is nice though you must ensure you have CCCP codecs and a nice player (like GOM, Media Classic etc) to play them. I don't dl torrents anymore these days so i can't say as to whether this is a popular format for torrents. But make no mistake this is a HUGELY popular codec for those part of a serious file sharing community and the o2 fails miserably at playing them despite claiming it can, and that's the point isn't it! It doesn't even matter if it ISN'T popular, the glossy o2 advertising clearly states it can play these codecs and for me (with over 100+ new release movie titles in this format) was a major deciding point in going with this player over another pimp solution.