How many of you watch anime on the go?
I’ve been doing that lately and it’s rather productive. I suppose I’m in a small minority in the US who commute by train, but I imagine some of you Europeans and Asians might find it just as appealing.
The rise of cheaper PMP makes this really a breeze too; my current piece-of-crap is a no-name Chinese thing that I got for free because of connections. It holds 2 gigs and has a SD slot (but I can’t get to it from the default UI…), plays the usual mix of encodes and media including whatever that may run on an iPod. The battery life is acceptable but the quality of everything is about as bad as it gets. The screen works fine, I guess; but in its cruddiness lies a comfortable simplicity and wide compatibility.
Watching fansubs on it is a bit of a challenge simply because some fansubs have a text size of TOO SMALL. Some are pretty ok however and suddenly it is as if my eyes are opened to all the neat little optimizations some fansubbers put out on their videos to make those who do watch anime on their PMP easier, like encoding it a certain way or the use of certain sort of typesetting. I never noticed these things before.
I haven’t really experimented with what pay-to-download solutions there are for this file format.
If you got any pointers or tips as to optimize your experience in doing so please share. I don’t know anyone who are into PMPs that care enough about anime to use it to sway what they may purchase hardware-wise, but I suppose I can hit up the usual venues about what’s a good transcoder and the like. I think I’m just using some generic anything->ipod converter. Alternatively I can just use something like TVersity, which is what I’m using to stream to my PS3…
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
the only traveling I do is to and from school, though I suppose I could get a full ep in the combined time of both rides using my bro’s PSP.
Somehow I doubt it’s worth the effort though >_
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I watch anime on my iPod touch quite often. However, the iPod’s limited video support (.mov and .mp4 only, and even that is limited) forces you to convert your video into the proper format. Videora’s iPod converter makes this easy, but some videos just won’t convert. It’s pretty awesome though; the best portable screen available IMO with the exception of notebooks.
How big is the screen of your PMP? It may not be worth the effort, as digitalboy said.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I got a new iPod on Christmas and have been using it a lot to watch anime. Although I’ve only watched a bit really ‘on the go’. Most of the time I just load it up before going to bed and watch them while in my bed, instead of sitting on my not-as-comfortable computer chair. :P I half-agree with watching fansubs though. I’ve had a few incidents where my eyes started hurting around 2 minutes into an episode.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:53 am
I have watched several entire series on my PSP. I drive to work, so it’s no good there, but once at work I find that the typical 24-minute show fits perfectly into two 15-minute “coffee break” segments at work. You have to pick the right kind of show, though – something disposable like Air Gear or Shuffle. I would prefer a PMP that supports native xvid, mkv, mp4, etc., but I haven’t found one yet. I use a tool called RipBot264 to encode for the PSP, queue up about 10 episodes on a 1 gb memory stick, and the battery life lasts at least a week on the PSP if I use it just for video.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 am
The screen is pretty small and not so good quality. The screen is as big as the 3rd gen nano’s.
I think it’s worth the effort because I’ve been doing it already. Finished 25 episodes in about a week, on top of what I normally watch. I’m basically squeezing in an extra 5 hours worth of anime a week :o
March 6th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I use the train often, but never long enough to watch an entire anime episode. Besides, I’m usually standing. If I was on a nice high-class trip between states, I’d just whip out the laptop and watch whatever, though. Don’t have a proper PMP.