Nokia N810 Demonstration Video Needed

[totallymaxed]

Well I have learnt that mine shouldn't be as slow as it is. Must be my aging WiFi router....

Feedback? You mean other than _not_ playing Country music right?

Might be good to see transfer of the running media to another MD if you have one?

Also - side note. Is that a customer skin or part of 810 Alpha? Looks very nice.

Thats the current Dianemo / Cascade Smart home skin.

Andrew

[jimbodude]

Looks good.  The only thing I see wrong is the skin, since it will be different from what LinuxMCE users see.  It is very nice though, and probably not a reason to re-do the whole thing.

Well I have learnt that mine shouldn't be as slow as it is. Must be my aging WiFi router....

On that note - My N810 (and also DT360) load up and execute commands much slower than what I see in that video.  Not to hijack your thread - but, were there any modifications made to achieve that performance?  What does the wireless network setup look like?  I just have your average off-the-shelf WiFi router running as an AP with WPA-PSK - maybe I have high packet-loss, I haven't checked...

[wierdbeard65]

Very nicely done!

I would agree with most of the comments here. I'm not sure about Thom's point about the design of the skin - after all it isn't intended to be used at a distance, right? Having said that, a) It isn't the standard and b) He has far more experience than I do.

I'm curious to know if the issue with getting the film, I Robot, to play is normal? (Pressing the button three times before it did anything.) If it was a one-off, perhaps it needs re-doing (bad PR). If it's normal for your system but not others, then network issues? If it's normal for all N810s, then it needs looking at (IMHO).

Overall, though, makes me seriously think about shelling out the cash for one of these babies, so is doing it's job - well done!

[totallymaxed]

you guys _really_ need to back off the faux reflectivity. it cuts down on the effective viewing distance, subtlety is the key to a good look.

-Thom

Obviously any skin comes down to personal preferences & aesthetics...on persons delight is anothers 'nightmare';

However we've actually had very good user/customer feedback on our current Skin. The Skin was designed to be used on hand held devices and wall & table top touch screens - so the issue of effective viewing distance is not relevant.

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Very nicely done!

I would agree with most of the comments here. I'm not sure about Thom's point about the design of the skin - after all it isn't intended to be used at a distance, right? Having said that, a) It isn't the standard and b) He has far more experience than I do.

I'm curious to know if the issue with getting the film, I Robot, to play is normal? (Pressing the button three times before it did anything.) If it was a one-off, perhaps it needs re-doing (bad PR). If it's normal for your system but not others, then network issues? If it's normal for all N810s, then it needs looking at (IMHO).

Overall, though, makes me seriously think about shelling out the cash for one of these babies, so is doing it's job - well done!

See my comment back to Thom on the design criteria and distance...I agree with you about distance...this Skin was designed to be used 'close up n personal' :-)

The point in the video where mardibloke has to touch the screen a few times to get I, Robot to play is caused by the location of the 'Play' button in that screen...its proximity to the edge of the screen makes it difficult to 'touch' accurately with a finger.

I dont think in fact having some imperfection in the video is a bad thing at all...it makes it more apparent that this is a real life demo and is not 'canned'

All the best

Andrew

[mardibloke]

The point in the video where mardibloke has to touch the screen a few times to get I, Robot to play is caused by the location of the 'Play' button in that screen...its proximity to the edge of the screen makes it difficult to 'touch' accurately with a finger.

Yep, and fat fingers, and holding the video cam, and trying to do it in one take.

Enough excuses?

[mardibloke]

On that note - My N810 (and also DT360) load up and execute commands much slower than what I see in that video.  Not to hijack your thread - but, were there any modifications made to achieve that performance?  What does the wireless network setup look like?  I just have your average off-the-shelf WiFi router running as an AP with WPA-PSK - maybe I have high packet-loss, I haven't checked...

The orbiter on the N810 is the only application that I notice slows down as you load more and more applications,  my second N810 is getting too slow to use as an Orbiter now.

Try closing down a few applications on the N810,  and disable all the desktop applets.

Also look in N810 Control Panel / Memory / Virtual Tab - tick the box to extend virtual memory, and max it out at 128MB - IIRC this needs you to have a storage card inserted and available.

Wireless is wireless G to a Cisco Access Point - I do notice better throughput with the Cisco box rather than consumer kit,  but thats more for large file transfers than the orbiters.  Use the Cisco more for it being reliable and never needing to be rebooted.

My WebDT366's respond about as quick as the N810 in the video,  so maybe its your server rather than network.  Mine is pretty much unstressed as its a dedicated large server in the garage.

Maybe someone more technical can chip in with the architecture, but do you have a load of orbiters that all need to update?  I have the two N810's and two DT366's.

[mardibloke]

you guys _really_ need to back off the faux reflectivity. it cuts down on the effective viewing distance, subtlety is the key to a good look.

-Thom

any suggestions how to cut down on the reflections I get from the screen?

I forced the N810 up to max brightness and max backlight, which helped a bit.  Would backlighting the whole thing help do you think?

[totallymaxed]

you guys _really_ need to back off the faux reflectivity. it cuts down on the effective viewing distance, subtlety is the key to a good look.

-Thom

any suggestions how to cut down on the reflections I get from the screen?

I forced the N810 up to max brightness and max backlight, which helped a bit.  Would backlighting the whole thing help do you think?

I honestly think you have done a fantastic job with the current iteration of the video...we've tried something similar in the past and did not get the same results as you in terms of the balance between the ambient lighting and reflections and the focus/depth of field needed to keep both the N810 & the TV in reasonable focus. Reflections are possibly best handled by making sure the camera angle relative to the N810 screen is optimised to remove them.

All the best

Andrew

[dlewis]

nice job on the video. I will use it.

Thom, we could also use a video from you... With your movie voice... ... lol

[jimbodude]

The point in the video where mardibloke has to touch the screen a few times to get I, Robot to play is caused by the location of the 'Play' button in that screen...its proximity to the edge of the screen makes it difficult to 'touch' accurately with a finger.

I have this problem all the time... I recognized it immediately.

...
Try closing down a few applications on the N810,  and disable all the desktop applets.

Also look in N810 Control Panel / Memory / Virtual Tab - tick the box to extend virtual memory, and max it out at 128MB - IIRC this needs you to have a storage card inserted and available.

Wireless is wireless G to a Cisco Access Point - I do notice better throughput with the Cisco box rather than consumer kit,  but thats more for large file transfers than the orbiters.  Use the Cisco more for it being reliable and never needing to be rebooted.

My WebDT366's respond about as quick as the N810 in the video,  so maybe its your server rather than network.  Mine is pretty much unstressed as its a dedicated large server in the garage.
...

I have similar response time on my DT360.  I've had my suspicions about my WiFi AP for a while now... maybe it's time to upgrade...  Besides, it's time that I bought a new toy...

[Techstyle]

Nice Video!

I was suprised by the country music in the UK though