Got your tablet, now what?

[taichimaster]

So you got your A500 and you are so excited about it, but you want the best experience you can get from it. So what do you do to maximize your tablet's power?

Here's what I did (not everyone will agree, but I hope to get some good replies on things that I might have forgotten )

1. Order a micro sd card right away. I looked at 32 gb cards and they seem a little steep right now so I ordered a 16gb card from Amazon for $19. If all works out right with the card, I'll get some more and have one for movies, one for music, etc.

16GB Microsd Memory Card
Sold by: Kefers LLC
Condition: new
Quantity: 1
$18.92 each

2. I wanted to change the screen background to be pictures that I have taken or wallpapers from the net that are "cool"

I hooked up the A500 to my computer via the USB and copied my pictures/wallpapers into the pictures/wallpaper files on the A500.

I got MultiPicture Live Wallpaper from the android market (FREE) and used it to change my A500 to any picture(s) I wanted. PS: If you want only one picture to span all the 5 screens, just pick the "one picture" option from the file selection screen.

3. I needed a good PDF reader (better than the ones on the A500) I got ezPDF reader from the app store. I tried it on the A500 Users Manual and it looked pretty good.

4. Now what about getting all those wonderful DVD's I have onto this machine.

I use DVDfab 8 to rip my dvds (the dvd ripper is free, find it on the internet). The result is a bunch of VOB files.

Then I use ConvertTOBtoAvi to make Mpeg4 files. The convert program is also free and can be found at the above name plus a .COM. It's a simple one screen system. You give it a VOB it gives you an Mpeg4.

Copy the mpeg4 to your A500 and take a look at them. I use Moboplayer (get it from the android apps store) because you can change the aspect ratios of the movies to get the best picture possible.

5. For regular book reading I reinstalled Kindle for Android from Amazon. I already have some Kindle books and the version of Kindle for Android from Amazon seems to be a more updated version than the one on the A500.

When my micro sd card arrives, I hope to have some more hints for you.

If any of you find some "gems" out there please put them here as replies.

Hope this helps get you started with your A500.

Ken

 

[taichimaster]

I forgot one thing. It was already posted here by someone else but I'll put it here so you don't have to look at multiple threads.

To get the browser to not think you are a phone you need to do the following

1. Open the Android Honeycomb browser on your tablet.
2. In the address bar, type: about:debug and press enter.
3. Now open the browser's settings by tapping the icon in the very top-right corner of your screen (it looks like four horizontal lines) and selecting "Settings" from the drop-down menu that appears.
4. On the left side of the screen, tap the section labeled "Debug."
5. On the right side of the screen, tap the item labeled "UAString," then select "Desktop."
6. Press the back button (in the very bottom-left corner of your screen) to exit the browser's settings.
7. In the browser's address bar, type: about:debug once more; this will disable debugging mode and return the browser to its normal state.

Only lasts until you turn off the A500.

 

[dan776]

Out of curiosity, I have 2 questions... 1 is are you rooted, and if so are you overclocking? Second, how well do your movies play when you rip them like that? Third (I lied) how long does each movie take to rip?

 

[taichimaster]

1. Not rooted. Just out of the box.

2. Rip takes about 30 minutes on my laptop. I guess rip time depends on processor speed. Mine 1.2 GH with 2GB of ram.

3. VOB to AVI about 15 minutes per section (1. GB each) Average movie has 4 to 5 sections of VOBs

Hope that helps

 

[dan776]

It definitely helps. I am going to try that method tonight. Ive had some trouble ripping and keeping the sound in sync, or on some movies they play choppy on the Acer. If this method works like I think it will, then its a goldmine... was beginning to think it might not be possible for high quality movies.

Thanks!!

 

[dan776]

Having trouble downloading dvdfab... it has it's own download manager which seems sketchy to me, but after scanning it and finding no virus, it gets caught in an infinite loop during this secondary download. Gets to 33% then starts over... strange behavior. Also a lot of pauses and CPU hungry download, seems a little sketchy to me

 

[taichimaster]

Dan,

There were a couple of strange things that happened with the first couple of tries, but it seemed to work itself out.

Try the DVD rip then VOB convert only one file and see if it plays through the player. If it plays but in fast forward mode, go to A500 setup and change the SOUND to just plain stereo. For some reason Dolby sound causes the sync to screw up.

I don't know why but after watching the video one time, I put the sound back to mobile dolby and it worked. Maybe it needed one time through to sync everything up.

Ken

 

[dan776]

Ok... I'm trying again. My windows 7 was mid-update so it made everything act really strange... just rebooted. Ill report back when all's done and tested, thanks for the advice on these programs.

 

[dan776]

Sorry to keep posting...

This dvdfab is an awesome program! So I tried an episode of something, and tried to rip directly to MP4... what resulted was a movie that looked legit, but played about 100 times too fast.

Am now trying to rip to vob. Then convert.

Have you ever seen a ripped movie going at hyperspeed with no sound? User error I'm sure

 

[dan776]

Last post for now...

I did the VOB conversion.... same deal. Plays at lightspeed both with moboplayer and stock.. any ideas? I'm so close I can taste it!

 

[taichimaster]

Dan,

Try putting the sound to plain left-right stereo on the A500. Then see if the FF stops. I don't know what happened but when I did this and then watched the movie one time it worked, then I put the sound back to Dolby and it still worked. Don't have any idea why.

Ken

 

[noweakness]

Whats the average size you get the average movie down to? I use handbrake usually, to convert my VOB's and it works pretty good, but smaller the better.

 

[dan776]

My 20 minute show was about 150 MB... not too bad.

I will play around a bit more today.

 

[taichimaster]

Each vob section is 0.99gb and these usually translate into about 250 or so mb when put into mpeg4 format. It's big but I wonder if I made it smaller if when the resolution goes up to 1024 in honeycomb I'll have to reconvert these again. Plus, I haven't tried the HDMI out yet and I want high enough resolution to watch on the big screen. I just wish I could figure out how the Youtube HD is formatted. I posted an example of a surfer video from Youtube somewhere else in here that just is beautiful on the A500.

Ken

 

[dan776]

Just an fyi.... I had a 699 MB movie lying around, no idea who ripped it and what format. 90 minute movie. Plays beautifully on moboplayer. So it is possible.