Re: Picture converting with Linux

> well, I'm on the same search as you for the images.  I
> dont know of a tool that can convert jpegs to the .pdb
> format the clie uses.

The .prc format in question is PictureGear Pocket format (PGPF), which is
a relatively simple 16-bit (or 8-bit indexed) format.  It does very little
compression, which is why the images you create are so big.

I just finished writing tools to convert between PPM and PGPF.  There are
already tools out there to convert between JPEG and PPM.  So for example:
  djpeg foo.jpg | ppm2pgpf 'Image title' > foo.prc
You can also convert back, say if someone beams you a PGPF image:
  pgpf2ppm foo.prc | cjpeg > foo.jpg

The tools are GPL'd (of course!) and can be downloaded from
  http://www.cs.duke.edu/~reynolds/projects/#pgpf-tools

This is the first release, so there are quite likely to be problems.
Report them to me if you want them fixed.

One interesting note: ppm2pgpf is quite happy to encode images at sizes
other than 320 pixels wide.  This can create some very large images (2
megapixels ends up being nearly 4MB!), which PictureGear Pocket will
happily display if they actually fit in available memory.  If you want
your PGPF images a reasonable size, scale them before converting them.
My 'PPM tools' package can do that.  Get it at
  http://www.cs.duke.edu/~reynolds/projects/#ppm-tools

> movies, i dunno. the only way that I know is using the
> win software that comes with the clie.

The movie format is "Cinepak mobile."  I can't find any encoder for it
other than Kinoma Producer.  Even if it were documented (unlikely --
Cinepak has never been particularly open with its formats), it's quite
probably patented, so writing a free converter wouldn't be legal in the
US.

--Patrick

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