This year was quite busy for me, meaning almost no time for dev (other than for work)… I wish I could pull out the new iPodME quickly, but unfortunately I got bored with the UI stuff : the universal mac/win/linux command-line iPodME is done with all the neat presets (even with a custom XML preset system), multiple soft subtitles support (done correctly this time, with proper character encoding conversions) and hard subtitle integration with no need for plugins, faster encoding thanks to mencoder optmizations, etc. I even got all the needed tools (mencoder, mp4box etc) to build properly on mac. But building a nice UI takes times (especially on MacOS), and I can’t find the motivation to do it for now since it’s been a long time I’m not using iPodME anymore for my own purpose, and I’m unsure about going the Mac AppStore way (hey, I like open source-ness and free softwares). Still don’t know which way to go and for now, it’s on hold (sorry guys).

But then a small update to say that I’m now on github: https://github.com/sinedied
You may see there my open-sourced works from now on, from my work and my free time. iPodME may goes here someday…

I compiled mp4box as an universal 32b/64b osx binary in a cinch, thanks for the devs!
The last (tricky) part is now getting mplayer/mencoder build as a static binary for osx, which is a pain in a the ass (was so easy in windows :’( seems mplayer dev team doesn’t give osx much love).

After that, I’ll be more than happier to work on the most easy/exciting part: the osx GUI!

But for now, let’s get this mplayer compile fine on osx, grmmrlrl….

Even though I haven’t released many updates this year, that doesn’t mean I did not worked on it, because big changes are coming for iPodME!

First, on the “current” version: iPodME, in its current form, will receive a final 2.5 update with some features that have been requested: 1080p resolution, and the possibility to unlock the maximum video bitrate, which means better video quality if you need it.

Then, for the big thing, on which I’ve been working for about a year now: a complete rewrite of iPodME from the scratch, but with cross-platform compatibility in mind. And as a good thing do not come alone, here is some features:

- Native UI for each platform (currently, Mac OS and Windows are planned, but Linux may come later also)
- No more based on ffmpeg, but now on mencoder which means more compatibility with existing formats (5.1 audio tracks could now be converted, recent wmv files too, etc)
- Profile-based encoding parameters, which means the video is now really optimized for your device, let it be an Apple TV, an iPhone 4 or an old iPod Video
- Simple interface, with the same ideas: 3 encoding speeds, with 2 possible optimizations: quality or file size
- Complete multicore support!
- Faster encoding, with more quality and smaller resulting files
- Support of multiple soft subtitles and burned-in subtitles
- more…

But there’s a catch (there’s always one). While some people supported my work through donations, and I’m really grateful to them, it’s not even close to allow me to buy a enough to eat everyday. And it was fine, as I was working on iPodME on my free time as a hobby project. But I’ve thinking of starting to live of my work as an independant developer, and the new iPodME would be my first “real” project, hence the complete rewrite. As for now, here’s my plan:

- The current iPodME, will be updated to 2.5 and remain free and open-source

- The new iPodME (let’s say, v3.0) will come to Mac OS on the Mac AppStore early 2011, selling for a small fee (i’ve been thinking of 2.99$)

- As for the new Windows version, I currently don’t know. There’s no easy way like the upcoming Mac AppStore on Windows to sell independant software, and I don’t want to go with some boring protection schemes like serials to allow me selling it. I may just go the donationware way as it is currently, with a small text on the first launch to explain it better. Or I can go the ads way (but I hate ads…). Still not decided…

I hope that I won’t kill the “soul” of iPodME going this way, and that you’ll still love it.

Meanwhile, I wish you the best for 2011. Happy new year!!

I just added the resolutions for the new iDevices, I hope to bring up more new features someday.

- 21/11/10 – Version 2.4:
+ added resolutions for iPad, iPod/iPhone 4 Retina and 720p (Apple TV)

Download iPodME Version 2.4 / Sources

I was quite absent from this blog the last months, not much free time to update iPodME, but the good news is that the mac version is in progress. I’m also investigating development on iPhone and Android (hey it’s my real job after all), I may have some good app ideas to develop, if only I had more time… (my wish for 2010: more hours per day)

http://www.r4revolutionds.co.uk/top-10-r4-ds-homebrew-get-voting/

You just need to post your top 3 homebrew, of course if you like my Marble & Warcraft: Tower Defense games don’t hesitate to support me by voting for them

I’ve read all the comments, bug reports and feature requests and added/corrected everything I could. If your bug is not fixed or your feature not added, it’s because I couldn’t. Concerning GPU overclocking, I dropped it because first the author of GMABooster didn’t want to share the code (he don’t want me to dig a hole into his donations). I could have written my own ASM code for it, but then I made my own tests and it appears that if the GPU can be overclocked by up to 40%, the result is a 3-4% performance increase at best. So, it doesn’t deserve all the work for it.

I also tried to end up with the dreaded acpi log issue by using a new dll that use the windows acpi driver, but my tests were quite negative with it: doesn’t always work depending of the configuration, vista/seven issues. So I sticked with the old direct IO access method, and there’s still the patch.

As for the compatibility problems for the fan control, I have only an A150 netbook so I can’t predict how it will work on other machines, especially when it seems that Acer uses different EC chips in some netbook versions. But if you’re able to read the temperature, then you should be able at least to find the fan control values manually using the new configuration options. I will eventually be useful also for further bios updates.

I Hope there won’t be bothering bugs in this version!
Thanks for using my tool.

Changelog
- 04/08/2009 – version 1.0
+ added custom resolution as .ini setting (downscaling is though
still limited to 1024×768 due to some restriction)
+ added custom EC values for fan control, with simple testing function
+ added custom device support
= updated values for newest BIOS versions
= fixed slow mode threshold
= fixed small bugs here and there

Download Version 1.0 / sources

Download iPodME Version 2.3 / Sources

However, a final (meaning last) update of a1ctl should be released soon with the correction (hopefully) of the last bugs, and a lot of user customization functions (resolution, fan control values etc). Even is newer BIOS are released, fan control values could then still be updated manually by the users.

I’m currently integrating the Sonny’s patches into my version, I hope to have the release ready by the week end (though I’m not really good at estimating release dates ).

Thanks for your support all this time, I hope you’ll like this last version!

I’ve made some testing, and it seems multiple subtitles support is quite unreliable for now. Using only one subtitle file / video works fine though. I’m working on it, and I’m also searching a way to support multiple audio tracks in an elegant way (iPodME’s goal is to remain simple and straightforward while being as exhaustive as possible, which is quite a hard task).

Changelog:
- 13/03/09 – Version 2.2:
+ subtitles files are now automatically converted to UTF8 format (no more mp4box UTF8 errors)
+ added a “Fix aspect ratio” option which try to correct distorted videos aspect (use it only when needed)
+ added the possibility to specify the aspect ratio in the custom profile
= updated help
= minor source license modification
= fixed bug when input has .mp4 extension causing input and output file names to be identical
= temporary files are now cleaned correctly before shutting down the computer

Download:
iPodME 2.2 / Sources