The Vivaldi tablet...and other tablets.

[viking60]

Back in May the KDE Vivaldi tablet was launched and apparently sold out imideatly. As most of you know I do regard most tablets as a laptop without a keyboard so I am mostly puzzled by its success. Then again it is only one tablet that really has had any success making everyone else running after it and trying to copy it - the iPad. Apple with Steve Jobs was a perfect marketing machine, with one of the biggest fan-clubs in the world. They could sell Bikinis in Antarctica and make people swear that it was exactly what they needed. They always saw to that they were sold out and made people que in front of their stores for days. This has the same effect as when you stop in your town center and start looking at the sky. Soon everyone else will be doing it too (try it - if they do not look up I will eat my socks ). Now observed from the outside they all look pretty stupid, but from the "inside" the human flock instinct is triggered so we want to check out what could be up there (curiosity killed the cat).

Steve Jobs knew this and his perfect marketing machine did everything to make you keep looking because something miraculous would happen if you do. He also knew that no human wants to regard himself as an idiot - so after he had paid a considerable amount of money he would defend his actions to the benefit of Apple (or admit he was an idiot, which is not that human).
Apple did it first and they are the masters of the game. Looking at KDE's Vivaldi and the "sold out" tablet looks rather pathetic in comparison and to think that Gnome wants to be an OS for tablets in the future is even more pathetic.
It is not innovative, it is not new, and by the time they are finished Apple will have come up with something new they can run after.
I still am convinced that the tablet is a fashion thing - I have tried it and it does not fit in my pocket. It is to big for a phone and it is to small for a computer.
Even if you can buy external keyboards and come close to a laptop for twice the price.

So what happened to Vivaldi - I am curious and I would buy one just to support the "case" but it is all quiet.

I bet it is not fashionable anymore......

[rolf]

We've got a tablet GF's 2 y.o. nephew likes to watch cartoons and he's been using his mom's iPhone or Auntie's Evo 4g to watch while riding in the car. Auntie Lan says the phones are too small and he's getting eye strain. So we shopped for 7" economical tablets and wound up getting this one at Walmart I've learned a lot about obtaining and transcoding video files to view on various devices from phones to Blu-Ray players, for example: k9copy is good for getting an iso from a dvd. There's a wizard option for people like me. There can be many titles on a dvd, including extra features, the intro/menu, advertizing, which confuse elementary copy methods. For devices other than a dvd player, I need to get one mp4 file from the main title. Playing the dvd/iso in vlc or kaffeine, the menu shows which title is playing when the main feature is being viewed. HandbrakeCLI can also do this, scanning all the titles and (usually) identifying which is Main:

DOPO 7” Internet Tablet T708(Android 4.0 OS)

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HandBrakeCLI -t 0 -i cats_and_dogs.iso

Then, the proper title can be fed to HandBrakeCLI to transcode to an mp4 with one of various presets:

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HandBrakeCLI -Z "Android High" -i cats_and_dogs.iso -t 1 -o /movie/lan/android/CatsAndDogs-and.mp4

Another source for cartoons is bittorrent, where I found numerous dvd rips of various cartoons. The results can be many files, usually avi, and some other challenges to solve.

1. The file names can have spaces and characters that make them "poisonous" to bash commands, which I need to automate the processing of many files in one command. After many attempts to search and find some bash solution, one poster hinted at "detox".
   

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   [rolf@localhost Tom And Jerry (45 Film) DVDrip]$ ls
Tom And Jerry - 001 - Puss Gets The Boot (1940).avi          Tom And Jerry - 024 - The Milky Waif (1946).avi
Tom And Jerry - 002 - The Midnight Snack (1941).avi          Tom And Jerry - 025 - Trap Happy (1946).avi
Tom And Jerry - 003 - The Night Before Christmas (1941).avi
...many more
[rolf@localhost Tom And Jerry (45 Film) DVDrip]$ detox *avi
[rolf@localhost Tom And Jerry (45 Film) DVDrip]$ ls
Tom_And_Jerry-001-Puss_Gets_The_Boot-1940-.avi          Tom_And_Jerry-024-The_Milky_Waif-1946-.avi
Tom_And_Jerry-002-The_Midnight_Snack-1941-.avi          Tom_And_Jerry-025-Trap_Happy-1946-.avi
Tom_And_Jerry-003-The_Night_Before_Christmas-1941-.avi
2. The modern Samsung Blu-Ray DVD player hooked to GF's tv can play avi files but not DIVX avi, just XVID style. It turns out that simply editing the header of the avi file to claim it is XVID is sufficient for this silly machine to go ahead and play the cartoon:
   

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   [rolf@localhost Disney - Mickey Mouse]$ file Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi
Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 320 x 240, ~30 fps, video: DivX 3 Fast-Motion, audio: uncompressed PCM (mono, 11025 Hz)
[rolf@localhost Disney - Mickey Mouse]$ avifix -F XVID -i Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi
[avifix] scanning AVI-file Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi for header information
[avilib] V: 29.971 fps, codec=DIV3, frames=12525, width=320, height=240
[avilib] A: 11025 Hz, format=0x01, bits=8, channels=1, bitrate=88 kbps,
[avilib]    12512 chunks, 4607448 bytes, CBR
[avifix] updated AVI file Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi
[avilib] V: 29.971 fps, codec=XVID, frames=12525, width=320, height=240
[avilib] A: 11025 Hz, format=0x01, bits=8, channels=1, bitrate=88 kbps,
[avilib]    12512 chunks, 4607448 bytes, CBR
[rolf@localhost Disney - Mickey Mouse]$ file Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi
Mickey_Mouse_1931_Fishin_Around.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 320 x 240, ~30 fps, video: XviD, audio: uncompressed PCM (mono, 11025 Hz)
   
   This is fine for a large capacity external hard drive connected to the player but HandbrakeCLI presets will make a smaller file more suitable for the smaller devices.
   Once the filenames have been detoxed, avi header files made correct, a whole directory of avi cartoons can be converted to handheld-appropriate mp4 cartoons with one command, utilizing another helpful command for on-the-fly renaming of filenames

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   [rolf@localhost Disney - Mickey Mouse]$ for i in `ls *avi`; do HandBrakeCLI -Z "Android High" -i "$i" -o /movie/lan/android/MickeyMouse/`basename "$i" .avi`-and.mp4; done
   
   Mickey_Mouse_1928_Plane_Crazy.avi --> Mickey_Mouse_1928_Plane_Crazy-and.mp4
   (the -and helps me remember what preset was used, so I can use a different preset to make mp4's for a different device from the same avi file)
   HandBrakeCLI -z gives a list of the built-in presets, including iPhone, iPod [Touch], iPad, Universal, various Androids.....

[viking60]

Yes I forgot about films. That seems to be a good way of using it if the battery lasts for the duration of a film.
And thanks for the tutorials - great stuff

[R_Head]

Try DVD::Rip you can convert movies to AVI format that can be viewed on a Tablet or a Phone. I do that all the time with my movies. Beat caring around a DVD case; or want to carry DVDs with 4 to 5 movies on them. I keep the files about 1GB in size to a 700MB size. They look good enough to be watch and hear. The sad part is when the movie is compressed sound degrades; is not loud enough depending of the device. Also, I plug the device to the car audio system with a jack cable; they are cheap and easy to find. That will be loud enough

[rolf]

I came across DVD::Rip but did not get the hang of it, will keep it in mind. I think her car does not have the audio plug-in feature but little headphones on the tyke should do the trick.

[R_Head]

DVD::RIP is pretty easy to use; is a very nice application.

Once you load a DVD you choose the largest file and at the end Transcode it.
You do not need to tweak it, pretty much all the defaults are pretty well set.
The only thing that I manipulate is the file size to about a CD size or 1 GB.
It has a check feature that allows you to see if you have all the plug in in place.

Keep in mind AVIs can only be about 4 GB max but if you want to go that big it defeats the purpose.