Evaluation: Watching Feature Films with a Netbook

Introduction
Many people welcome passing time by watching movies. Doing so can take hours off long car or plane trips. As we all know, Netbooks can be taken anywhere, and computers can play movies. So, it is only natural to wonder how well suited a Netbook is for playing movies.

Rendering video can be a very CPU intensive activity and the Atom N270 CPU found in most Netbooks is not very powerful. The same can be said for the graphics processing capabilities of many low end Netbooks like the Dell Mini 10v. That being said, how effective is a low-priced Netbook for rendering movies with decent quality?

The first challenge you will need to overcomes is that Netbooks tend not to come with internal DVD players. Though one could buy an external USB DVD, it would take away from the portability and also the battery life. As such, I am basing this evaluation on movies that are stored either on the hard disk or a USB flash drive.

So, for this post I will show you how I "rip" DVD's (legally) to video files that can be watched on my Netbook, and offer some commentary on the resulting quality. I will also refer to a site containing many good (and often fun) public domain movies that can be encoded for the Netbook.

NOTE: I do not advocate pirating copyright materials. I purchase legal copies of DVD's and rip them to my Netbook for personal use only. Please check the legality of doing so in your respective jurisdiction.

What you Need
The following is required to rip DVD's for your Netbook:

• Movie Player - On my Netbook I use Windows Media Player for the video files I create from DVD's. It offers a full screen mode, and comes with XP (though I upgraded mine to the latest version).
• Computer for ripping DVD's - You are going to need another relatively powerful computer to rip DVD's that includes (of course) a DVD player.
• Software to bypass DVD copy protection - I use AnyDVD for this purpose, though there are other products available for free.
• Software to rip the DVD's to a suitable format playable by the Netbook - Next DVD Ripper is free, simple to use and does a fantastic job.
• USB Drive - I bought an 8GB USB drive to transfer movies from the ripping computer to my Netbook. More often than not, I actually run the movie right from the USB drive instead of copying to the hard drive.

On my ripping computer, I installed AnyDVD and Next DVD Ripper.

Ripping DVD's

After installing AnyDVD and Next DVD Ripper on the ripping computer, it is quite simple to transcode a movie for your Netbook (again, please respect copyright laws).

First, insert a DVD. Then, launch Next DVD Ripper. Without going into too much details on how to use this software, select "Rip DVD". Then, choose the AVI output format. You will be asked to select subtitles and audio track language. Then, you will see a list of files that you may select for ripping. Usually, the main movie is the file with the longest duration. Select this file, and press the "Settings" button towards the bottom right of the window. You will see a screen similar to the figure below. After a bit of experimenting, I have found that the following setting provide compact movies that are rendered with sufficiently high quality on my Netbook:


A few notes on some of the settings:

• Video Codec (xvid): A popular codec that can be played on your Windows Media Player (you will likely have to follow instructions to install a codec plugin the first time you play an xvid movie).
• Video Size (Original): I find selecting Original is the best, and the correct screen aspect is always used while maintaining the resolution of the original DVD.
• Video Bitrate (1024): By default, 768 is always selected. I increase this to 1024 for better quality (at the expense of output files that are 20% larger). I find no significant improvement going beyond 1024 for watching movies on my Netbook.
• Video Framerate (choose that of the original DVD): For NTSC, this is usually 29.9700 hertz.
• Audio Codec (mp3): The default AAC audio codec does not work with Windows Media Player (though you might be able to download a codec plugin). Instead, I use MP3 as it is very popular and compact.

Other than that, everything is default. Press "OK" and hit the "Start" button near the top center of the window. On my relatively powerful "ripping" computer, the encoding rate is about 15 frames per second. As such, I know that the ripping time is approximately twice the length of the movie. The resultant video files are approximately 500 MB per hour. Thus, a 90 minute feature film would be approximately 750 MB.

Once the ripping is complete, I usually copy the file onto a USB drive that I then plug into the Netbook for viewing.

Audio and Video Quality

Using the settings above, the quality of the video on the 1024X576 pixel screen is quite sufficient. Audio through the built in speakers is quite tinny. However, plugging in a moderately priced set of headphones give fairly reasonable audio quality. Also, I found the sound quality quite good when plugging the Netbook into the Auxiliary jack of my car stereo (for passenger viewing, of course).

Though the video files are quite watchable on the "low resolution" 1024X576 screen, you can definitely see that the video quality is inferior to a DVD when viewed on a 1280X1024 pixel monitor.

Rendering the movies on the Mini 10V consumes about 20-25% of the available CPU power. Hence, there is still quite a bit of computing power available for other parallel tasks.

Battery Life

I just came back from a road trip with the kids who were watching movies on my Netbook to pass the time. With my 6 cell battery pack, they were able to watch a little over 3.5 hours of movies before reaching 10% battery life.

I did a few experiments to try extending the battery life. Using the "Power Meter", I saw how changing certain variables affected the estimated remaining battery life on a fully charged battery (probably not the most scientific approach but sufficient for getting a feeling). The biggest improvement can be attained by reducing the screen intensity. Also, turning off WiFi provides about 15 minutes more. You get a similar improvement by running the movie from a USB drive instead of the hard drive. I suspect, in the end, it would be possible to get about 4 hours of continuous viewing on a single charge with a 6 cell pack. I am not sure what a 3 cell pack would give. I can only imagine you might be able to finish a long movie.

Public Domain Movies - An Alternate Source

There are plenty of good movies public domain movies on http://www.archive.org/. Some of full feature length films while others are plain funny.

• Night of the Living Dead - A classic horror flick.
  
• Dressed to Kill - A Sherlock Holmes movie with my favourite Sherlock Holmes / Watson actor duo.
  
• Reefer Madness - You just have to see this one.
  
• Wonderful New World of Fords - An advertisement for 3 new 1960 Fords.

As you can see, the movies are available in many formats ranging from small to large. Many of the more compact formats produce video of low quality. I prefer working with the MPEG2 versions that are huge, but of good quality. I then use Next DVD Ripper to transcode the MPEG2 file to AVI using an approach similar to what I described above (except that I use the "Add Movie" button instead of the "Rip DVD" button).

Conclusions

The Dell Mini 10V Netbook is a capable movie player. However, it is not a simple and spontaneous as watching a DVD on a dedicated DVD player. You must take into account additional software and effort to transcode DVD's to a suitable format that can be played off of a USB or hard drive. Though the video quality is quite good (when encoded as suggested in this post), it is not as good as a dedicated portable DVD player. However, the Netbook can do much more than playing movies, for it can be used for reading books, browsing the net, doing email and writing blogs such as this. In general, though it will never outdo a purpose-built box, but is quite capable of doing many different things quite well. As such, in the interest of travelling light, the Netbook excels as a "jack of all trades, but a master at none"! It is not the best at anything, but it can do everything in one convenient, small package.

Specs of My Dell Mini 10v

For reference, I have added the specs of my Netbook. I imagine similarly equiped Netbooks from other vendors (Acer, Asus, NEC etc.) should provide similar performance.

• Model: Dell Inspiron 1011
• RAM: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM,1 DIMM
• Battery: 56WHr, 6-CELL Li-ion BATT
• CPU: N270 ATOM 1.6GHZ
• Display: 10.1 IN. WSVGA (WLED)1024 X 576
  
• Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accellerator
• Webcam: Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam ,Insp
• Hard Drive:120GB SATA HDD, 2.5INCH,5400RPM,CNB
• OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP3
• WiFi: Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless-N

The computer also features a built-in mic and speakers.

Mini 10/10v 6 Cell Battery a Spoiler or a Spoiler?

Dell provides dimensions and weight of the Mini 10 and 10V Netbooks with a 3 cell battery only. Browsing the net, there are few references (let alone decent pictures) that show the impact of adding 3 additional batteries. I have read some opinions suggesting the 6 cell battery is a "spoiler" in that it makes the product too ugly and inconvenient to buy.

I have decided to add to the "6 cell battery as a spoiler" theme. Take a look at the picture on the left - using my Dell Mini 10v with 6 cell battery I have mounted an after market spoiler to increase the high speed road holding capabilities to my 2000 Ford Focus! Thus far, I haven't thought of a good fastening mechanism. It would be nice to be able to attach and detach the 10v rapidly as required for high speed travels and computer use.

In this context I can truthfully say the 6 Cell pack is a true spoiler. What about the 6 cell pack in the context of what a Netbook is supposed to do? This is one area where it is up to you to be the judge. With this in mind, refer to the picture below:


The total height of the computer is about 5 cm verses 2.83 cm for the 3 cell counterpart. The weights compare at 1334 versus 1200 grams respectively (I thought the 3 cell version would weigh less - but, according to the Dell site it is 1200 grams).

Personally, I find the keyboard tilt a positive thing for typing. I also have no issues carrying the computer on my lap, as I am doing now whilst writing this post. Hence, for me it can only say that it is ugly as sin but good to have. So, I do not see the 6 cell pack as a spoiler. On the contrary - the battery life of the 3 cell pack would truly be a spoiler. Not only that - you would no longer be able to use your Mini 10 or 10v as a spoiler add-on for your car!

Evaluation: The Netbook as a Book

Overview

What exactly can you do with a Netbook? Today's post will evaluate the Netbook in the role of a book reader. Since you can take the Netbook anywhere, and because people like to read it would seem to be a useful thing to evaluate.

Getting Started

We all have experience reading books. I don't think I can elaborate any further. Of course, on a Netbook, you need a few things:

• The "book" in electronic format


• Software to read the book

Of course there are many options here. I will focus on books stored in EPUB format that are readable by the freely downloadable Adobe Digital Editions. EPUB books appear to be nothing fancy. They are basically a bunch of zipped up HTML files with some other text files that I haven't researched in any detail. Wikipedia has a reasonable overview should you be interested.

First, download and install Adobe Digital Editions. As I will discuss later, this is a pretty good tool for my 10" Dell Mini. Next, go get some free eBooks from Project Gutenberg. There are 30,000 eBooks available. All of the books I browsed were downloadable in EPUB format.

Case Study: Extraordinary Popular Delusions (and the Madness of Crowds)
On my "Recommended Reading" list is Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds written by Charles Mackay in the 1800's. Initially, I bought this book to study some of the great financial bubbles in history - The Mississipi Scheme (France), The South Sea Bubble (England) and, of course, Tulipmania (Holland). I credit this book for saving me from the High Tech bubble. At the same time, I curse it because it convinced me that this bubble was about to explode years before it actually did. In other words, though I hadn't lost my shirt, I "got out" too early. Oh well, as this book and more recent history shows there will always be another bubble - and I shall be prepared!

Once you have installed Adobe Digital Editions I highly recommend dowloading this book from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518.

Here is where our comparison begins. I am now in possession of both a physical and electronic copy of the book, as shown in the picture below.

The picture shows the comparative size of the book compared with the Netbook. Of course, the book is smaller, but there is only one. The Netbook is interesting because it can store thousands of books (a 120 GB hard drive equates to hours of reading) PLUS you can phone your friends with Skype, amongst other things. The book is lighter - 495 grams versus 1334 grams for my 6 cell Netbook. But 1000 like books would weigh 495 Kg versus 1334 grams for my Netbook.

Enough of being silly - we all know how easy it is to read a book. Lets look at book reading ease through a 1024X576 pixel screen. I started up Adobe Digital Editions in full screen mode and loaded the book. I sized the text as small as I could while maintaining readability. A screen capture may be found below:

The characters are sharp enough for my eyes. The number of characters fitting in an "e-page" are far less than that of a book. Is this a big issue? It all comes down to personal preference. For myself, it is still quite readable but others might find frequent page turning somewhat of a nuisance. You be the judge. You also have the option of getting a higher resolution screen with some Netbooks (the Dell Mini 10, for example). However, expect to pay a lot more. Bottom line - I believe the printed page still wins for readability, but I am not horribly bothered by the presentation on the Netbook.

Reading a book digitally, you have some benefits over books:

• Ability to search for text


• "Electronic" bookmark (verses paper bookmarks that fall out)


• Ability to store 1000's of books in the same small package


• Amazing volume of free public domain books - just check out Amazon.ca to see how much money you can save by downloading this book for free.
  

Screen Brightness and Battery Life
I tested readability and battery life of my Mini 10V while running Adobe Digital Editions.

First, I testest the screen while looking at the monitor in broad daylight on a sunny day. There is no problem reading the text of the eBook when the monitor is at full intensity. However, I did find the glare to be quite annoying. In shade, or where it is darker, there are absolutely no readability issues in my opinion.

The Digital Editions reader is not too CPU intensive. With my 6-cell battery pack, with 90% charge remaining and WiFi disabled, the power meter indicated remaining battery life as follows:

• 5:10 with the screen at full intensity
• 6:20 with the screen at minimal intensity

So, you have between 5-6 hours of reading if you are untethered. I cannot comment on the 3 cell pack. I can only imagine it offers 2-3 hours. I would find that restrictive.

Of course, when it comes to sunny days, the printed page wins hands down. And you don't have to worry about batteries! But, when it is dark the Netbook (literally) shines.

Conclusion

My inexpensive Dell Mini 10V with a 1024X576 screen is a viable book reader. I still find it easier to read a printed book. But with the Netbook I have access to 1000's of free and interesting books all at my finger tips wherever I go (for a maximum of 6 hours between charges). If considering a Netbook for this purpose, mind the battery life. Also, verify that you are not bothered by the limited number of characters available for each 'page'.

My Dell Mini 10V Netbook Arrived Today

The concept of a very small computer was very attractive to me. The ability carry the device around without feeling a burden so that I can do useful things (that one would typically do on a computer) wherever I go was the dream that (for some unknown reason) hatched in my head.

Does a computer exist that would fulfil this dream? To find out, I derived a set of requirements and found the Netbook with the best match. For the most part, this is what I was looking for:

• 6 hour battery life - the idea is to do useful things remotely without a plug. If I am sitting on some mountain doing all the useful computer stuff, anything less just won't cut it.


• Cheap - I was looking at less than $400 (CDN)


• Nice - Good keyboard, pleasant enough screen, solidly built


• Built in camera >1 MP + mic - For Skype....


• XP - Sorry Unix fans - I don't want to fiddle with Unix.


• Wifi /n - Better range than b/g
• Small and Light, of course
  

I chose a Dell Mini 10V with XP and a 6 Cell pack for $379 (CDN) + taxes. Currently, there is a $60 rebate in Canada for the 6 cell XP configuration ($349). I added a /n Wifi card for another $30.

I just got it today. What is my overall first impression? I love it! Perhaps the only "ugly" is the 6 cell pack that lifts the back of the computer off the ground. Well, some say the resultant tilt makes for a more ergonomic keyboard. Anyways, after an hour of piddling I got used to it.

I put Skype on, and am happy to say both the audio and video are good. Even with the tiny speakers and the built in mic, I was able to have clear conversations.

The CPU is not very powerful as anyone could tell you. For this machine, the most intensive thing I would do is play movies. I encoded a film with Nero for an Apple IPOD, and played it on Apples QuickTime player. The movie played fine, though the CPU was running around 70%. Bottom line - playing a movie represents the extent of it's practical processing limit!

The computer feels solid and the keyboard has a very nice tactile feel. Unlike other manufacturers offering I have tried, the computer does not flex appreciably.

As for the screen, it is 1024X576 pixels. To be honest, it is quite sufficient for this computer. Colours, contrast and brightness are all good enough for my bad eyes.

So, that's it! I think this is a very neat machine. Now, going back to the dream of doing useful stuff with a small computer wherever - that is the topic that has me very interested. Is it really practical to do serious things with such a small computer? Being small, is there any uglies about using many of the common applications? What would new software look like that allows you to do cool things well - even with the small form factor and slow CPU of the typical Netbook?

Stay tuned!