NEC900C screen blacks out during video playback

Hi all... been a long time since I posted. I was intrigued by the new DVD Catalyst and I gave it a try. Very impressive - in fact, I was finally able to get video running decently on my 900C (and even on my Intermec 6651 - how about that...)

But now I've got a weird problem. When I'm watching video using TCPMP on the 900C, the screen will go black about every 45 sec to 1 minute of keyboard inactivity. The sound is still playing - the display just shuts off. I've tried turning off all sorts of power saving options and settings in the 900C, but don't seem to have any luck. After it blacks out, if I hit the keyboard, the video resumes (sound keeps going).

Any idea what's going on?

Thanks.

disable the backlight keepalive in the advanced settings in TCPMP. ce.net bug on the bsquare phh too... no problem on sig3 though.

edit: ah you have a 900c! and an intermec too! how do you like them? do you think it was a good idea to return to hpc's (i think so )?

Hi cmonex... yes, I did disable the 'backlight keepalive' in the TCPMP previously. I assume all I had to do was uncheck it. It didn't seem to have any effect. Is that all I have to do, or is there something else?

As for your other question, well, you obviously have MUCH more experience with HPC form factor devices. I've had a love-hate-mostly love affair with them since 2001. I started with a Palm, got the Intermec, found it limiting, got a fancy PPC Toshiba e805, decided I like Palm better and picked up a T3, and then had to satisfy my curiousity and went and grabbed a used NEC 900C. Almost got a Psion NetBook Pro. Rich Hawley over at HPCNEC just keeps laughing at me! :-) Oh yeah... and I got a used PowerBook too since everybody else I know has a Mac. My wife thinks I'm nuts.

Well, as for returning to HPCs... what I do as a professor pretty much means my tablet (HP TC4200) is my technology of choice. I actually get a lot of use and am quite productive with it. I'm keeping my eye on the UPMCs - after a while, I found I was just making too many compromises to get the HPCs to work. Still, there are days and times when a simple device that weighs only a couple of pounds is all I want.

What I always wanted was a Palm OS calmshell form factor with an integrated keyboard - that would have been cool. Ah well... c'est la vie...

yes, unchecking is all you should do, strange that it didn't help, hmm which version of tcpmp are you using?
also disable the automatic backlight off in control panel. i've seen this strange bug sometimes on 900c's and only disabling the automatic off helped.

palmos clamshell, well there's one, the ux50, but it is so small.

Hi... I'm using TCPMP Version 0.71. Yes, I also disabled the automatic backlights as well. Not sure what's going on...

Forgot about the Sony UX50! Yes... too small for sure. Ah well, in my dreams...

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Tried fooling around with the settings again. Still no luck - in fact, the black screen comes on more quickly now! No idea what's going on...

Is there any other good player other than TCPMP?

Edited by ozone 2006-07-05 4:49 PM

very strange. try tcpmp 0.66 maybe?

Sounds good. Err... you wouldn't have a link to tcpmp 0.66 by any chance would you? Thanks.

not on tcpmp's download site?
give me some email address maybe

The older versions should still be on the site - at least they were the last time I looked.

Uhh... thanks all. I seem to have a much WORSE problem now. My screen is entirely black - all the time. I'm starting to think it's a hardware problem... and that my NEC might be going south. Rather sudden. I can't see to turn it on - either that, or it is on and the screen is shot. Just a simple connection problem? Argghhh...

Okay... THAT was weird. Not only was my screen blacking out during TCPMP, it started blacking out whenever I touched the screen. Then I had no screen whatsoever. I figured I had nothing to lose, and I did a hard reset. And now it seems to work again. Could some setting have so badly disrupted the screen function? Doesn't make sense...

Alright... I installed TCPMP 0.66 and it wouldn't play any of the files I had created using DVD Catalyst. Said something about missing the correct GAPI driver. So, I reinstalled TCPMP 0.71 - same black screen reappearing problem. Given that I had just performed a hard reset, I'm pretty sure the problem is with TCPMP 0.71. Ah well... time to get an UMPC...

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Hmmm... not having much luck here. I installed TCPMP 0.66 again and it won't play anything I've converted over using DVD Catalyst. Keeps saying: "GAPI: GAPI not supported on this device. Try a different driver!"

Edited by ozone 2006-07-06 2:06 AM

Okay, now it's starting to make some sense. Have you installed GAPI for HPCs (http://www.wincesoft.com)?

Ho! Maybe not... I probably forgot given that I had to do couple of hard resets!

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Okay... just downloaded it. I'll have to get to this tomorrow.... it's 2 am for me. Thanks CE Geek!

By the way, the lcd blacking out when you touch the screen isn't a sign of failure. One of the older versions of Rescoes Picture Viewer used to cause that problem. At the time the only way to get around it was to go to the control panel and choose the display icon, then set the backlight on/off feature and it would correct itself until the next time you used the program. The newer versions resolved that problem. But it was annoying. The program would work the first time and then not afterwards. Everytime I touched the screen, it would go black as long as I held the stylus to the digitizer.

Rich