JXD 951 Quick User Review / Manual / Notes

Preamble: I had to look very hard on the net for info about JXD 951 prior to my purchase. While I did get some information (notably from mp4nation.net and mp4global.com), I felt I needed to know more. Now that I have used the JXD 951, I thought I could provide others the information that I could not get easily from the net. BTW the company website is www.jxd.cc/en (English version), but it does not provide much information.

Quick Review

Overall, I find it to be a great value-for-money product. A 4" diagonal TFT screen at Rs. 4650/- (around USD 105/-) is a great bargain. Creative Zen Vision W, a 4.3" TFT screen, 30 GB mp4 product sells at around Rs. 14300/- in a (lowest price) Indian Internet shop (3 times the price of JXD 951). Of course, the Zen Vision W is a different class of product with a lot of additional features and 1 year manufacturer's warranty, but the point is that its cheapest model costs 3 times the price of JXD 951.

Video quality of the JXD 951 is vivid and crisp. So is the picture quality. The 4" TFT LTPS screen is just beautiful. I am overjoyed with it.

Audio, on good headphones (not the headphone that comes with the player), is decent but not comparable to Creative audio quality (or iPod quality, but I don't own an IPod so I don't really know iPod quality). Built-in speaker is quite tinny but then that was to be expected. Its okay for listening to voice recordings. [BTW the supplied headphone is of middling quality.]

Camera (spec. says 2 MP) seems to be quite decent. Both still pictures and video are ok. But I am quite ignorant about cameras, so I am not really sure whether what is decent quality to me is decent for others as well :-).

Have not tried the Game, TV-Out and Line-in audio/video recording, so no comments about that.

The battery in the model that I got, seems to be loose. When I move the player, at times, or whenever I shake the player horizontally, I hear a thudding sound in the player. I plan to return the model to the vendor and get another piece. In all probability the battery is loose. So far, though, it has not interfered in the functioning of the player.

The charger seems to be a little flimsy. If the charger tip breaks off, or something similar happens to the charger, I wonder whether I will be able to easily locate another compatible charger.

How to Start Using it

I got an English User's Manual with the product. It is ok but at times the language is quite confusing. Further it does not seem to match the player completely. So I am writing a quick user manual/guide below.

Charge the unit for 3 to 4 hours. When you start charging, a red led at the lower side of the front panel glows brightly. Once it is fully charged it glows very dimly (can be seen only when facing the LED directly).

Starting Unit: Press Power on button (Left of Vol- button on the top side of player) till green LED light comes on. Large Icons (Video, Music, Photo, ...) come up on screen in around 5 seconds (from the time Power On got pressed). To move from icon to icon, use Vol+ and Vol- buttons. To choose an icon press Play button.

If you choose Video icon, then the list of video files is displayed, with one filename highlighted (selected). [If you have around 25 files in the video/jpg directory, the list comes up in 3 seconds]. Use Forward and Back buttons to change selection to another file. Press play button to choose a file. Video starts playing in just a second or so. Esc to stop playing video, Esc again to close bookmark window and you are back to video list window. To go back to main icon window press Esc again.

If you do not have too many files the player is very responsive (fast) and that is quite pleasing.

The player gives feedback sounds when changing selections and when choosing an icon/filename. This is known as KeyTone. To switch it off, follow the instructions given below. The same instructions also apply to turning the built-in speaker On or Off.
In Main Icon Window: Setup -> Sound -> Speaker/KeyTone: On/Off. [Vol+/Vol- button in Main Icon window to navigate to Setup icon, Play button to choose Setup. In Setup window, Vol+ to navigate to Sound icon, Play button to choose Sound. In Sound window, Vol+ to switch between Speaker and KeyTone sections, Forward and Back to navigate from On to Off and back to On. Play button to change setting (On/Off for Speaker/KeyTone). You will then be given a message, Success. Esc to go back.]

User Interface tips

In icon windows/screens, Vol+ and Vol- buttons are used to move from icon to icon
Play button is used to choose/run the current icon
Esc cancels and goes back
In a file list, the forward and back buttons are used to move from filename to filename.
On some screens the M button (Menu) is active. Pressing M brings up a menu list, as an overlay on existing screen. Forward and back buttons go up and down on the menu. Play button chooses a menu item, which either may open up a sub-menu or may initiate an action. Esc closes the menu.

Some screens list ESC, ENT, MENU at the bottom. The mappings are as follows: ESC -> ESC, ENT -> Play button, MENU -> M button.

Regular Video formats supported

Note that all videos have to be placed in DCIM\100MEDIA folder.
1) Plays avi(DivX) files - extension .avi
2) Plays avi(XviD) files - extension .avi
3) Plays asf(mpeg4) files - extension .asf

Max resolution for video is 720x480. 30 (or 29.97) fps (frames per second) videos play properly.

DivX/XviD are popular video formats. However asf does not seem to be a heavily used format. Sunplus chipset uses asf (JXD 951 uses Sunplus (Taiwanese company) chipset).

To play video just choose filename (using Forward and Back buttons) and then press Play. To exit video press Esc. You will be prompted for a bookmark. To save a bookmark use Vol+ / Vol- to change selection to OK button instead of the default Cancel button, and then press Play. To resume the video, from the list of video files screen, press M (Menu) and then choose Resume. It seems that only a single bookmark is saved across all video files.

While playing a video, Vol+ and Vol- buttons operate on the volume. [A Play bar appears on the bottom of the screen with a volume indicator.] Pressing forward or back buttons switches to next or previous video. To fast forward or rewind, first press Photo/Camera button on top of player (right of Vol+ button). This results in the Play bar appearing on the bottom of the screen with the current volume icon in the Volume indicator display being shown in blue. Now pressing forward and back (while the video is playing) changes the speed of playback. It cycles between >>2, >>4, >>6 and >>8 for forward and has similar steps for backward. The speed of playback is shown on the top left of the screen. Pressing play button again resumes playback at normal speed. Pressing the Photo button again brings up the panel window and changes the blue volume indicator to its normal colour, indicating that now the Forward and Back buttons will go to next file or previous file.

Super from http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html seems to be a good freeware for video conversion. It can convert from most video formats to avi(DivX/XviD). flv to avi conversion is also supported.
I felt there was a slight audio-getting-out-of-sync problem with Super converted videos but I am not sure.
[I could not get the software supplied with JXD 951 - SPCA5000 Transcoding tool - to work properly. More on that later.]

Flash videos

All flash videos have to be placed in FLASH directory
Plays .swf (shockwave flash) files. Does not play .flv (Youtube video format) files.
Could not easily locate freeware to convert flv to swf.

Pictures

Note that all pictures have to be placed in DCIM\100MEDIA folder.
JXD 951 pictures: 480x272, 16:9 aspect ratio.
jpg pictures are supported. Don't know about other formats.

To make a particular picture be the Power On / Power Off picture [Picture shown briefly when player is powered On or Off], select the picture filename (not choose) and then press M. In the Menu choose On Menu / Off Menu. Note that once the picture is specified as On Menu or Off Menu, it seems to get copied to some system location. Therefore, even if you later delete the picture from the photos folder it does not affect the Power On / Power Off picture display.

You can see a slideshow of all the pictures by M -> Disp Mode -> Slide. Esc breaks out of slideshow.

E-book

Note that all text files (.txt extension) have to be placed in EBOOK directory.
Accessible from Learning -> E_Book
Choosing a filename from the list (Using Play button), opens up the txt file.
Shows 11 rows of about 56 characters. I think it uses a fixed font.
The font size is on the smaller side. Older people and people with vision issues (like me) will feel some eye strain reading it. But it may be perfectly readable for a lot of other people. Forward and Back scroll one row at a time, Vol+ and Vol- scroll one screen at a time.
The font is black on a white background screen.
I could not figure out a way to change the font OR to change the background white to an easy-on-eye grey. For me, these were major issues because of which I may not use the Ebook feature much. But I thought of another way to read ebooks - using jpg pictures. That is covered in a separate blog entry here.
On exiting, a bookmark is automatically saved. To access the bookmark, open the text file again and then press Play button again. It will jump to the bookmark. I think the bookmarks are saved for each individual text file separately but I did not check that feature.

Transferring files from PC (Windows XP) via USB

I usually switch the player off, connect it to USB port using supplied USB cord (USB port on player is a mini (or micro) USB port and so one needs to use supplied USB cord or a USB mini to standard converter.) Power on player. Ideally player should show a USB picture, but sometimes it does not show that picture. However, if your cord is plugged in properly, the PC will see the player as a USB mass storage device. It shows up as two drives: one for the built-in flash memory and the other for the SD card.

Regular copy paste from PC to player drives works well. While disconnecting, many times the 'Safely remove USB drive' option fails to remove the player as a USB drive. If so, just switch off the player, while it is still connected to PC. If switching off using Power On/Off button does not work, press Reset button (right side of bottom frame of player) - you may need a pencil/pen (or a fingernail :-)) to access the button. Reset has always worked for me :-). The player gets switched off and XP stops seeing the USB mass storage drives. Now you can disconnect the USB cord and then power on the player again.

I must say that I have an unknown brand SD card (Hi-Tech) inserted in the player. Maybe this card is tripping it up on attempting disconnect from PC.
Sometimes deletion of a file on the player, when viewing it as a USB drive from the PC, does not work. In such cases you can delete the file using the player itself. After selecting filename, press M and access sub-menu for 'Del File'.

Using SD card

Inserting SD Card: You need to press the SD card in for it to sort-of lock in. To remove SD card, first PRESS IT IN, this releases some kind-of lock and the card juts out slightly. Now you can easily pull the card out. If you have not released it, by pressing it IN first, you may find it difficult to pull out the card.

Switching between Flash and SDCard memory: Tool->Memory brings up flash/SD tabbed window with currently used memory being the active tab. To switch to the other tab Use Vol+ or Vol-. Workspace and Format the two options shown. Current option is in red (Default is Work space). To change option use Forward and Back buttons. To choose option use Play. E.g. to change to SDCard first switch to SD tab, then ensure that Work space option is selected (Red color) and then press Play. You will be shown a prompt 'SD is actived' (sic). Acknowledge the prompt by pressing play button again. Now Esc out twice to go to main icon window. Choosing Video/Music etc. will now go to appropriate folder in SD card.

Camera and DV Camera

Have not used them much, but operation seems to be quite straightforward with the Photo button (button on right of Vol+) playing a key role. Camera photos are stored with filename SUNP000x.jpg (in DCIM\100MEDIA) with x being a running digit.

DV videos are stored with filename SUNP000x.ASF (in DCIM\100MEDIA) with x being a running digit.

Auto Power Off and ScreenSaver

The unit powers off automatically if it is not used for some time. This caused me some problems while copying large number of files from PC to the player. If I recall correctly, even though all the files had not got copied, the unit switched off and copy reported an error. But I am not sure whether it switched off between copy commands or during a single copy command. To change this Auto Power Off setting, Main Icon Menu -> Setup -> AutoOff: AutoOff [Never, 3 Min, 15 Min]. To be on safe side, I changed the AutoOff to Never.

The display switches off (but the green LED light remains On indicating that the unit is still powered on) automatically on the unit not being used for some time. This setting can be changed by Main Icon Menu -> Setup -> AutoOff: SrcOff [Never, 0.5 Min, 3 Min]. I have set it as 3 Min and, so far, the display switching off has not interfered in the transfer of data to/from player and PC. Pressing play button brings it out of display-switched-off mode immediately.

Firmware Issues

JXD 951 firmware seems to be quite primitive. The serious limitations are:

a) All pictures and videos (except swf flash videos) have to kept in DCIM\100MEDIA folder. For quick opening of video or pictures, this folder should not have more than 100 files (video+pictures). Going up to 100 pictures + 100 video files slows opening of the folder but it is still acceptable (maybe be 15 to 30 seconds).

b) Keeping more than 100 pictures or 100 videos, makes scrolling to a particular file quite a tedious task. Unfortunately scrolling through files is only one filename at a time (i.e. I could not come across any button to scroll entire screen of filenames). Even with 100 files, scrolling from starting filename to middle filename is slow but perhaps it is not unacceptably slow (scrolling is circular i.e. scrolling back from starting filename takes you to ending filename). The slideshow feature flips through jpg pictures but you cannot increase the speed of its flipping.

c) Perhaps due to my unknown brand SD card (Hi-Tech) the player hangs sometimes while disconnecting (USB) from PC. The player also hangs at times when you attempt to play an unsupported file (e.g. avi with unusual fps). The Reset button at the bottom (not on the front side but on the bottom side, not labelled, silver colored and recessed into the bottom frame) has to be pressed to reset the machine, which, so far, has worked every time for me. I must also say that when using normal operations on valid files the player firmware has not got hung. In fact, once I got the hang of the player :-), barring the USB disconnect problem, it worked just fine.

Battery Charge Indicator

The battery charge indicator shows up on the top right. The battery icon is divided into three parts. When charge is adequate or full, all the three parts are in bright blue. As the charge starts dying, first the rightmost part becomes a dull blue (or gray, I don't recall) colour. Then the middle part shows up in the same way.

When only the first part is in bright blue, you are on tricky ground. When the charge fully dies out, you don't even get a warning - just a sort-of final death-rattle message, a large X on a battery icon, and then the player switches off. It does not bookmark the video you were viewing; it just shows the X and then switches off. Unless you recharge, it does not come on again. I have not measured how long it lasts on continuous play, but I read somewhere that it lasts about 3 hours on a full charge.

Software Installation

I could not get the SPCA5000 Transcoding tool (from the CD that came with JXD 951) to work. It installs OK and also installs StormCodec and QuickTime Alternative. StormCode and QuickTime Alternative may have installed some useful codecs, but SPCA5000 which seems to be the main transcoding tool simply freezes after being given an input video to transcode. Tried mpg, wmv files as input with XviD as output, but no luck. The SPCA5000 help file is in Chinese, so no luck there as well :-). Maybe using Google translator will throw some light but then again, maybe it needs Chinese Windows XP to work. Perhaps its not worth the trouble to figure out the fix.

Picture Resize/Conversion/Rename

IrfanView, the free picture viewer, has a batch conversion facility. Advanced Options allow one to specify different resolution. In regular options, JPEG Quality should be specified as high (even 100%). It seems to do a good job in compressing larger images to 480x272, except with high res images (1024xsomething). IrfanView also has a batch rename facility.

How to Convert txt files to jpgs with large font and grey background for Easy-on-eye reading

This is covered in another blog entry here. It is quite involved and so you may want to avoid reading it unless you are keenly interested in viewing txt files as jpgs with large fonts and custom background.

Concluding Remarks

The JXD 951 is a very handy gadget. Even for persons who do not travel much, the ability to watch movies and pictures, hear music and read ebooks on a 4" TFT in their most comfortable couch makes it a really convenient and useful device. It turns on and off very quickly. For simple viewing of ebooks it may be superior to using a PC. Carrying it around is as simple as slipping it into a shirt pocket (though it should ideally be protected in a sturdy carry-case). And you can capture quite decent still photos and videos with it. All this at a price point of Rs. 4650. But it comes with only a dealer's warranty of 1 month.

Is it not better to buy a product with good, robust firmware and a proper manufacturer's 1 year warranty?? Yes, of course. But I think the lowest price for such a product (4" TFT, mp4 player) would be around Rs. 14,000 [3.5" TFT iPod Touch is Rs. 13,000 odd in eshops]. Somehow I feel that price is too high for a 4" TFT product. With the Intel Atom processor having burst in on the scene, in a year or so, when the Netbook and Mobile Internet Device (MID) technology and market-place settles down, we should be able to buy a low-end Intel Atom netbook with at least a 7" TFT monitor, 8 GB Flash drive with provision for extra storage space via smart card and/or USB drives for Rs. 14,000 odd. And the netbook would run Windows XP or Linux!!! That would be a good value for money product.

In fact I think (but I am not really an expert is this area) that in a year or so, we could have JXD like devices (PMP + camera) running on an Intel Atom multi-core processor (32 nanometer process) and an Intel chipset (like Poulsbo). That would be mind-blowing!! JXD like devices have this serious weakness of primitive feature-set firmware but with Intel Atom/Poulsbo they would be on good old x86 architecture and the vast treasure house of tried-and-tested x86 software from commercial Windows XP to freeware Linux would be available to run on it (maybe in a stripped-down version). So file system issues like all photos/videos to be stored in one single folder may just vanish away. Further we could download x86 programs (like a pdf viewer) and run it on them. We may even write our own programs to run on JXD like devices!!! And with JXD like devices the price point would be around 100 to 200 USD internationally and that may translate to Rs. 5000 to Rs. 10000 in India.

So, I feel it is not a good value for money proposition to pay Rs. 14,000 for a well-known-brand 4" TFT. Better to go in for a 4" TFT product from JXD now for under Rs. 5000 and then in a year or so, shop around for an Intel Atom x86 gizmo of similar size running stripped-down XP or Linux, at a price point below Rs. 10,000 OR an entry-level netbook below Rs. 15,000.

Web Links

JXD mp4Nation forum: http://www.mp4nation.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=17&sid=99950763b2be8530b0fdb639525f719a
JXD section of mp4global.com: http://www.mp4global.com/jxd-mp4---pmp-player.html
English version of JXD web site: http://www.jxd.cc/en/Index.html
Super video converter (freeware): http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
IrfanView picture viewer (freeware): http://www.irfanview.com/

Suggestions/Comments

Any suggestions/additions/corrections are welcome. Please post to the blog.