ASUS Eee Pad Transformer coming Tuesday 4/26

Called the fry's closest to me (50 F'n MINUTES AWAY!) and they have a few 16gb and a 32gb in stock!!!!!!!!!!! BRB

Too bad they don't do holds...
 
You do the purchase for Fry's online and then do the "will call" where they pull one from stock and hold it with your name on it. You don't actually have to do the purchase online, actually - just present the credit card, ID, at the time you get to the store and claim the merchandise.

I do that a lot here in Vegas since I live several miles from the Fry's and if it's something that's going to sell fast or potentially sell out (happens a lot when the Friday morning paper comes out with the huge Fry's ad for the coming week long sale). I see something, hit the website, put in the order, then go pick it up later that day when it's more convenient depending on my schedule.

They get the order printed out a few minutes after you complete it online, someone grabs the product from stock, puts it in the will call area and it sits there waiting for you to claim it.

Much more efficient than making a mad dash to get there at 7:30AM before the doors open at 8 then beating off the other shoppers... :D
 
Joe Average said:
They get the order printed out a few minutes after you complete it online, someone grabs the product from stock, puts it in the will call area and it sits there waiting for you to claim it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty much the way it works. I actually got a little lucky when I bought my EP121 as the purchaser is supposed to be in the store in person to actually run the credit card transaction and pick it up. I actually got a courier to pick up mine and they ran my card with a faxed copy of the card and my driver's license. Took a little convincing the store manager to do that.
 
Dang. Maybe i need to go look around in my city. We dont have a Fry's here, though.
 
AQ_OC said:
Dang. Maybe i need to go look around in my city. We dont have a Fry's here, though.
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yeah we don't have fry's here in florida :(

I thought best buy would get it in stores before other places.
 
Sigh...

Just got back from returning my 32gb model. Did the black screen test, 5 bright stuck pixels, and over 30 dark stuck pixels. Couple spots of bad backlight bleed.

All they had left was 16gb model, so got a refund and bought it. This one has about 11 stuck dark pixel defects, and backlight bleed all round the edges except the left short side.

Also youtube in HD fullscreen lags horribly. Didnt notice any on the xoom or acer at best buy.
 
heatlesssun said:
Was the lag at 720P or 1080P?
Click to expand...

Just "HD" in the app, only tried 720p on internet site. XDA users are saying anything over 480p lags.

I only tested out youtube with the app on the iconia and xoom, but they worked fine in hd, which xda is also saying.

So hopefully with an update it should be resolved since it doesnt appear to be hardware.

MLB.tv in HD runs fine on the asus, which is using flash too. So dont know what the deal with youtube is.
 
BeavermanA said:
Sigh...

Just got back from returning my 32gb model. Did the black screen test, 5 bright stuck pixels, and over 30 dark stuck pixels. Couple spots of bad backlight bleed.

All they had left was 16gb model, so got a refund and bought it. This one has about 11 stuck dark pixel defects, and backlight bleed all round the edges except the left short side.

Also youtube in HD fullscreen lags horribly. Didnt notice any on the xoom or acer at best buy.
Click to expand...

Stuck pixels? Maybe I should be happy mine got cancelled.
 
Joe Average said:
You do the purchase for Fry's online and then do the "will call" where they pull one from stock and hold it with your name on it. You don't actually have to do the purchase online, actually - just present the credit card, ID, at the time you get to the store and claim the merchandise.

I do that a lot here in Vegas since I live several miles from the Fry's and if it's something that's going to sell fast or potentially sell out (happens a lot when the Friday morning paper comes out with the huge Fry's ad for the coming week long sale). I see something, hit the website, put in the order, then go pick it up later that day when it's more convenient depending on my schedule.

They get the order printed out a few minutes after you complete it online, someone grabs the product from stock, puts it in the will call area and it sits there waiting for you to claim it.

Much more efficient than making a mad dash to get there at 7:30AM before the doors open at 8 then beating off the other shoppers... :D
Click to expand...

Well, actually what the store manager told me on the phone was to do exactly this, the only problem is their website claimed to of shipped one to the store but they don't have any record of it. I still ran down there just to see in person if there were any instock or not (I really like going into Fry's, it takes me back to when they used to be galaxy?).

Anyways, the guy said give it a few days and I'll be notified via email. I should have one before next weekend.
 
Ill be going to fry's in the morning, multiple places in the bay area showing stock. Wish me luck!:rolleyes:
 
Why are there suddenly so many reports about dead pixels and things like that? I find that rather concerning. The times when I tolerated noticable dead pixels on my screens are long gone, that can't be right :(
 
No stuck pixels. Screen is large enough to use as a KB :D
Currently used to type this post. Only a few issues, and all have to do with the touchscreen (I type too fast for it to be properly be used as a kb - definately a 3.0hc issue [that also affects other touchscreen to os intersactions] being noticed on the xda forums). Final annoyance has everything to do with3.0 having a (subjectively) worse software kb and spellcheck vs the ipad and ios, IMO.

Its a lither larger than I like, so I'll besticking to the NC for now. I'll keep the transformer in hope of a newer softwsare update beyond 8.3.xxx or whateveris out now thsat resolves this 3.0hc issue.
 
So I tried using handbrake to make some videos for use on the transformer.

Settings: Standard "iPod touch" settings, but horizontal resolution set to 720 pixels (standard width of DVD) and I use the aspect ratio lock. Sound was set to 2-channel stereo @ 160 kbps.

Movies are 800-900 MB in size, quality is OK but could be better. I don't know what I should change, but I could deal with slightly larger files if it would mean better picture quality. I might play around with handbrake and see what I can get. It only takes about 12 minutes to encode a full-length movie so that's not too bad.
 
AQ_OC said:
You get a page you can't read at all on 16:9 when held vertically [on a tablet]. Never of any use. Yes, you get more readable text in horizontal position on 16:9 but it is still readable enough on a 4:3. Hence, overall, 4:3 wins from a usability POV. As for videos, output to a real screen and it's a moot point. And even if you don't, the image is big enough to see. Overall 4:3 wins. It's why Apple uses it.
Click to expand...

Spoken like a true fanboy/ apple ipad 2 owner. "It's the best because that's what Apple gave me"

Ipad 2: 1024 lines horizontal resolution
Xoom and Transformer: 1280 lines horizontal resolution

Of course both can barely do 720p, which isn't that great on a big screen TV especially once it is compressed.

I just did some internet forum browsing on my transformer. Great for reading posts, not as great for posting. Hard to log in with the popup they used.

One thing I like about my transformer- I can switch between my e-mail account and my wife's account in literally 1/2 second. Couldn't be faster/simpler.
 
I meant to respond to your PM, djkest, but I've been somewhat busy with other matters the past few days. I know the basic settings that I mentioned (using HandBrake, using the iPhone/iPod touch preset for baseline content, then altering the resolution up as required from the default 480 pixel wide, etc) don't necessarily provide the most awe-striking visual quality overall, but they do provide for the ability to actually get watchable content onto the Transformer.

Since you're dealing with MPEG2 content that was already fairly bad to begin with and relatively low resolution when compared to true HD content at either 720p or 1080p size (even when it plays back at the proper aspect ratio), it's only going to get so good since the source material is so relatively crappy in the first place.

That's just the facts... ;)

As for the aspect ratio lock, I was going to suggest you not use that because then it actually DOES encode to 720 pixels wide, it's a hard encoding setting. Because the MPEG2 spec only allows for content that is 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall, that would obviously negate a decent "widescreen" effect - it's still possible but the issue is that you end up with the dreaded "black bars" which never really go away. But as 720x480 is not a proper 4:3 aspect ratio, and it sure ain't 16:9 either, it's an oddball of sorts. This gets more complicated than necessary, so I won't get that detailed with it - and with respect to NTSC standards, PAL allows for more vertical resolution, 576. You can read an excellent explanation of PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) and DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) here:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/aspectratios.html

Basically the gist is this: the video content is at 720x480 on the DVD, but when actually played back by a media player it's going to read the embedded metadata in the video file and play it back at the proper display aspect ratio. There's not really much you can do about it, and I've tried to find a way to force the encoding to end up being the actual resolution.

If it's showing that the display aspect ratio resolution is 853x360, I would love to be able to end up with an encoding that is actually 853 pixels wide and not a 720 pixel wide clip that gets "expanded" by the media player. Never been able to get that to work, so if anyone knows a method (and I've attempted to adjust HandBrake from here to hell and back and it just doesn't do it, at least not that I know of), I would love to know how.

Anyway, the fact that when dealing with MPEG2 content which is a) very old, b) low resolution, c) rather low quality in comparison to today's HD standards, and d) rather easy to transcode to other compression formats KNOWING that the act of transcoding is going to cause some more loss to the already lossy compression as it is becomes part of the reason for the lack of "definition" and sharpness.

I don't have a Transformer, sadly, so I can't say for sure what the encodes look like on that particular screen when they're viewed on it, and yes I'm sure there's something that can be done that will/would increase the given quality of these types of encodes, but as others have noted, since the Transformer's Tegra 2 seems to have some issue when playing "High Profile" or anything other than straight Baseline h.264 content, there's not too much that can be done. I'm still surprised the device has these issues (apparently the Xoom does as well to some degree so it's a Tegra 2 issue, it's gotta be) but that's how it goes I guess.

Was gonna post some HandBrake screenshots of settings, and some image snaps from encodes but, really... with MPEG2 and transcoding for the Transformer, Baseline h.264 is about as good as it's going to get. If the "quality" of the resulting encodes isn't good enough, it's not because the encodes are bad - it's more likely that the IPS screen on the Transformer is just too good at showing all the potential flaws of MPEG2/h.264 transcoding more than anything else. ;)

Did you try those encodes I made in this thread? Have you tried that one John Mayer one that I did at the full 1280 pixel wide? I was trying to think of something that could really be used as a sort of litmus test for encoding quality to show off the end result and I had just watched "Watchmen" earlier today and I love that one for the clarity it has, so I made another encode just now, using the basic HandBrake settings discussed in this thread, but altering the resolution to match the 1280 pixel width of the Transformer, so try this and let me know how it looks. Obviously it won't be as good as watching the native original Blu-ray content directly on the Transformer but it just can't play such content - this is just what you're gonna have to deal with:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ia7d72yh733nobn (MP4, 36.76MB)

What I would look for is the "quality" of the encoding with respect to the facial features (imperfections in the skin, blotches, cracks, creases, hairs, most especially on Nixon, and the texture on the clothing - especially of Adrian's purple suit when it comes into the frame and the hair on the back of his head, the texture on the suit of the aide when Laurie basically kicks his ass, her hair, stuff like that). It's a somewhat bland and muted film in most respects, but some stuff really stands out, like Dr. Manhattan's blue aura, but not in this clip.

Like I said, I'm not using an IPS LCD at the moment, just the panel in my Dell D830 laptop but, it looks fantastic to me and when I compare the original content (transcoded to 1280 pixels wide) the encode that I just did (which was taken from that 1280 transcode) looks almost exactly the same to me. I wouldn't have any issues watching such encodes on the Transformer or most anything else.

If I had done this encode using the actual DVD of Watchmen, the quality of the resulting encode wouldn't come anywhere near the sharpness or clarity since the low resolution of that format simply keeps it 'stuck in the past' more or less. The quality of the source material is the single biggest factor on the quality you'll get from an encoding, using any method you want. If the source is lackluster to start with, you'll get a few steps under that with the resulting encodes. Some people will notice the difference more readily than others, especially on a high quality screen capable of discerning those differences.

But let me know how this Watchmen clip looks... that goes for anyone that has a Transformer. Thanks...
 
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I have to say videos I encode in h.264 look a lot better (both sharper and better tonal range) on my monitor (dell 23 inch) (I use mplayer) than the same avi file on the transformer using mobo. Also with mobo the image looked stretched (not sure if the asus have square pixels). The encoding was done with mencoder at around 1mb but 1:1 from the dvd (the avi files are around 800MB for 2 hour video). The playback is very smooth; sound is not quite as loud as I would like using ear plugs. Not sure how to increase video quality on the transformer; maybe vlc would do a better job (I find mplayer does a better job than vlc on the desktop).
 
djkest said:
Spoken like a true fanboy/ apple ipad 2 owner. "It's the best because that's what Apple gave me"

Ipad 2: 1024 lines horizontal resolution
Xoom and Transformer: 1280 lines horizontal resolution

Of course both can barely do 720p, which isn't that great on a big screen TV especially once it is compressed.

I just did some internet forum browsing on my transformer. Great for reading posts, not as great for posting. Hard to log in with the popup they used.

One thing I like about my transformer- I can switch between my e-mail account and my wife's account in literally 1/2 second. Couldn't be faster/simpler.
Click to expand...

The keyphrase is "like a true fanboy" as I am not. I have Android in the house here (see sig) and plan to get a transformer once I find one in stock some place. Secondly, my attitude toward 4:3 vs 16:9 really draws from monitor usage, not tablets. I agree that for TV/movies, 16:9 is superior. However, I don't think that is true for anything else and you can keep trying to convince yourself otherwise if you like. Just because the monitor industry all decided to go widescreen doesn't mean it is better. It's really pretty stupid, IMO.

720p in a tiny screen is fine, IMO. The fact is, however, when it comes to watching movies, I'd much rather do that on a real TV. So, I don't get so involved in what a tablet can do in these regards. However, if it can output 1080p to a TV, that's great. Do any output multichannel sound too? If not, that makes using a tablet vs a real home theater setup a lot less attractive. For me, these are just not super important issues for selecting a tablet. Yeah, I'll watch a movie on mine when I'm stuck some place with nothing to do, but it will be something old or that I've seen before. Or a Netflix or HBO Go. But recent movies on Blu-ray will get seen on the big screen.
 
I suppose my "spoken like a true fanboy" comment was out of line, I apologize.

Back on topic:
I do realize that DVD inherantly aren't going to be that high of quality. I do think on a 10" screen I can squeeze a little more PQ out of it. I'll try reading up on handbrake settings and maybe increasing the quality slider a few notches. It's not like there's any harm in making multiple encodes to test how it looks.

I do have some blu ray discs I'd like to try, but AFAIK I'd need slysoft Anydvd HD to rip the Blu Ray discs- and even worse, my computer doesn't have a BD drive yet- and probably won't for a little while.

As for the aspect ratio lock, I was going to suggest you not use that because then it actually DOES encode to 720 pixels wide, it's a hard encoding setting. Because the MPEG2 spec only allows for content that is 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall, that would obviously negate a decent "widescreen" effect - it's still possible but the issue is that you end up with the dreaded "black bars" which never really go away. But as 720x480 is not a proper 4:3 aspect ratio, and it sure ain't 16:9 either, it's an oddball of sorts. This gets more complicated than necessary, so I won't get that detailed with it - and with respect to NTSC standards, PAL allows for more vertical resolution, 576. You can read an excellent explanation of PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) and DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) here:
Click to expand...

The reason I used the aspect ratio lock is that I want to maintain the proportions correctly.

Even 16x9 is 1.77:1 aspect ratio, and most films are 2.35:1 now.. oddly when watching the Toy Story encode on my transformer (1.77:1) I think there are black bars- I'll have to go back and look. The black bars aren't a big deal to me- I just want to maintain the aspect integrity of the source and maximize PQ while keeping the file sizes reasonable... yeah I know, they are conflicting goals.

We used the transformer a lot yesterday- it does an amazing job with e-mail. We have it synced to both of our G-mail accounts and it can switch between accounts in 1/2 second! It also surfs the internet (over wifi) much faster than our laptop did.

I did find a big weakness of the device though- trying to log into a forum with a pop-up authentication window was a nightmare... I eventually got it. Logging into hardforums isn't so bad. Text input is still the biggest weakness of the tab, and I need to figure out how to add words (like djkest) into the dictionary.
 
Not sure but MakeMKV might support BD ripping now. Been a long time user of AnyDVD and it's awesome and has worked perfectly for me so I've not tried to rip with anything else.
 
djkest said:
The reason I used the aspect ratio lock is that I want to maintain the proportions correctly.

Even 16x9 is 1.77:1 aspect ratio, and most films are 2.35:1 now.. oddly when watching the Toy Story encode on my transformer (1.77:1) I think there are black bars- I'll have to go back and look. The black bars aren't a big deal to me- I just want to maintain the aspect integrity of the source and maximize PQ while keeping the file sizes reasonable... yeah I know, they are conflicting goals.
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Nah, makes perfect sense on the quality vs file size issue, it's the biggest one of all with most video encoding but, it's not like people are trying to carry around 500 movies on a tablet. If you want that much variety, that's what streaming is for: leave the movies at home and stream the content to wherever... easily doable these days on most any device whatosever.

As for the aspect ratio thing, that makes sense as well - the default with the iPhone/iPod touch preset will encode and the result is 720 pixels wide - when you adjust the resolution up, that is - which is effectively "chopping" off some of the content. In my most commonly used example movie, "Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince," the actual display resolution is 853x360 and I can get the media player to honor that DAR when I play it and the result is a video that is 853x360 pixels and not the 720 wide stuff I'm not interested in (because it's shrinking the image, literally).

All it takes with HandBrake is just changing the Anamorphic setting from None (the default for the iPhone/iPod touch preset) to Strict and that's it - it handles the rest, drops the DAR into the file's metadata and the media player should handle it from there.

A 720 pixel wide encode "blown up" to fill a 1280 wide display will show more visible loss of quality than an 853 pixel wide encode (per the DAR) on the same screen. The 853 pixel wide encode should be somewhat clearer/sharper and more detailed.

But you didn't tell me if you tried that Watchmen encode, so when you get a chance, check that out and gimme a 'quality report' will ya... :)

The basic gist is that a movie like Toy Story 3 with a DAR of 2.35:1 can't possibly "fill the screen" on the Transformer because it's a 16:9 panel - there's no way to make the movie fill all of it without chopping off a big chunk of movie data, and if you're going that route you might as well stick with an old 4:3 rip. :) The black bars would be there regardless for such encodes - I don't know why people despise 'em so much, I don't even notice 'em, I don't focus on them either.
 
I should be able to check the stuff tonight when I get home. I also plan on re-encoding some of those movies with anamorphic set to strict to see if it looks any different.

I want to find the best settings before I encode too many movies, only to do them again later.
 
I hadn't bothered to look over at the HandBrake forums about this potential Tegra 2 thing and I just did take a look and, of course people had asked questions about the Xoom which has the same CPU/GPU obviously.

Apparently the limitations of the Tegra 2 are:

- it can play SD content encoded with the High Profile setting of HandBrake without issues, so that right there should make for somewhat better quality SD encodes, aka your standard DVD stuff (and no, SD doesn't mean "standard DVD" although it does work nicely in that respect; it means Standard Definition but I'm sure you already know/knew that).

- it can play 720p content that is encoded with Main profile settings with some limitations (Main = the Normal preset with HandBrake)

- it can play 1080p content only if it's encoded with Baseline profile aka the iPhone/iPod touch preset (and then you scale up the resolution as required)

So, that should make some difference I suppose. The thread in question is located here:

https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20534

JohnAStebbins there is quite knowledgeable with respect to HandBrake's innards and while I can't test his info or specific suggestions (no Transformer, no Xoom) I'll bet he's spot on in that respect. He does offer a different command line that could improve quality for 720p potentially.

I tried encodes using the "new SD ability" and High Profile, but since I'm on a somewhat old LCD panel in this laptop, it still looks pretty much exactly the same to me - it's just MPEG2 and the limitations that format has. The one difference is that the High Profile encode I did was somewhat smaller in size but it takes about twice as long to create it, so with that in mind, for straight DVD aka SD content, that seems to be the best way to get the quality you're probably hoping for.

The Baseline encode was done at an average fps of 12.5, the High Profile was 26.8 so, quite a difference (and again, this is just an older Core 2 Duo powered laptop @ 2.4 GHz). If you've got a machine that can crunch out whole movies in 12 minutes with the Baseline stuff, figure a half hour for a High Profile crunch which still just makes me envious of that kind of CPU power. ;)
 
Hmm how is it my sub $100 tiny WD Tv Live can play 1080p mkv's, and tons of other codecs flawlessly, yet this tablet can't even handle a 720p without rencoding it and lowering the quality?
 
BeavermanA said:
Hmm how is it my sub $100 tiny WD Tv Live can play 1080p mkv's, and tons of other codecs flawlessly, yet this tablet can't even handle a 720p without rencoding it and lowering the quality?
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Because your sub $100 tiny WD Tv Live is a device specifically designed to function as a media playback device and not much else. Blame Nvidia and their design limitations of the Tegra 2, not the Transformer itself (or the Xoom or anything else that uses the Tegra 2). It's just how things go.

Stuff gets better as time goes by, and soon enough we'll have tablets that can play anything you can throw at 'em. Still a ways off but, we're getting there.
 
Yea it's just more an observation that despite all the capabilities of these new tablets, HQ video media playback is lacking imo, and playing even a 720p mkv seems like a trivial task these days.

Heck my oldest tv which is from 2009 can play mkvs, just audio codec support is limited. But whatever hardware is processing apps on the tvs i have is slow as hell.
 
it's not really as much as thw HW, as the software on the TVs that are making them slow :) (assuming Intel SoC)

I'm still loving my transformer :)


Slight issue: stuttering in fullscreen Youtube. Oh, well. Maybe the next firmware update will fix that. Mostly following from xda devs, sorry, not really active on the mobile forum here :(
 
BeavermanA said:
Yea it's just more an observation that despite all the capabilities of these new tablets, HQ video media playback is lacking imo, and playing even a 720p mkv seems like a trivial task these days.
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This doesn't apply to all new tablets particularly Windows devices as the media playback options on the better ones are fantastic and recoding for local playback typically isn't necessary.
 
BeavermanA said:
Heck my oldest tv which is from 2009 can play mkvs, just audio codec support is limited. But whatever hardware is processing apps on the tvs i have is slow as hell.
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That's an observation about containers and the ability of a device to read them: MKV is just a container so, you can demux the contents and drop the audio/video/chapter/subs inside an MP4 container and voila, most devices these days would play it (given that the audio and video streams are in a format that's supported, of course).

Demuxing and remuxing takes minutes; transcoding is what really chews up the time. ;)
 
BeavermanA said:
Hmm how is it my sub $100 tiny WD Tv Live can play 1080p mkv's, and tons of other codecs flawlessly, yet this tablet can't even handle a 720p without rencoding it and lowering the quality?
Click to expand...

It has a better decoder chip. The thing about it is that you can put that very same chip on tablets and you'll get the same performance.

Of course, the question is how much it would add to the cost to put one of those things in.
 
Sly said:
It has a better decoder chip. The thing about it is that you can put that very same chip on tablets and you'll get the same performance.

Of course, the question is how much it would add to the cost to put one of those things in.
Click to expand...

and how much power it will take :p
 
Well I'll just have to play with it. I've converted smaller vids from different formats to be compatible on my droid incredible and they looked good, but that's a miniscule display.

Not even of much importance for my use, just would like to know its limits.
 
BeavermanA said:
Well I'll just have to play with it. I've converted smaller vids from different formats to be compatible on my droid incredible and they looked good, but that's a miniscule display.

Not even of much importance for my use, just would like to know its limits.
Click to expand...

So do some encodes with HandBrake of SD (DVD) content and also some 720p and 1080p content using the info I posted earlier a few posts back: do a High Profile preset encode of some DVD content (like one chapter as a test, pick something with bright colors and somewhat clear scenery or whatever), then grab something that you can use for proper 720p Normal preset (with those command line alterations that guy from the HandBrake forums suggested), and then finally an actual 1080p encode of something at Baseline (iPhone/iPod touch preset, then adjust the width to 1920 wide) and see what you get.

Only takes a few minutes to do most encodes with HandBrake on today's machines, especially a single chapter that's only a few minutes long itself most of the time.
 
I downloaded those video clips, from the social network, watchmen, and Tron. They all looked pretty good and of course played smooth. I also made a new encoding of tangled with less compression and the anamorphic lock. The file was 150MB bigger and no discernable improvement. This screen is good enough show you the flaws inherent with DVD. Your clips at 720p were crisp but it did seem like the colors have lost a touch of vibrancy.

I will have to figure out what a standard encoding is vs baseline and give that a try, I am writing up a guide for some friends on how to make movies for portable devices.

I typed this whole post out on my transformer.
 
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