Bringing Your Immersion Environment With You on the Nintendo DS (part 1)

In the last part, I showed you how to get going with NDSRS. I also showed you how to take your anime and dorama with you using Moonshell and dpgenc.

While I was revising that post, @nii87 on Twitter pointed out another program for creating DPG video files called BatchDPG. Instead of waiting an hour or more, it only takes about 10-15 minutes to convert an hour of video. Not too shabby. So here’s the writeup.

Installing and using BatchDPG

  1. Download and install BatchDPG, Avisynth, and ffdshow. You could go scouring the Internet for these, like I had to do, or you could just download them from my drop. Install Avisynth first, then ffdshow. I just left everything at default settings for these. BatchDPG requires no installation.

  2. Run BatchDPG and click Settings.

    batchdpg 1

  3. Browse and set your temp directory and output directory. There’s no save button here; just ‘x’ out of the window and it will save your changes. Trust me, I checked.

    batchdpg 2

  4. Back at the main window, click Browse and find the file you want to convert. If you have a raw video file and you want to add subtitles (why?), click that button and find the .srt file. I think the Audio option lets you add an alternate soundtrack if you like. That could be fun.

    batchdpg 3

  5. Click Add to add that file to your batch. I’m not sure how many files you can add here; probably as much as your disk space can handle. Tip: You can also drag and drop files from Windows Explorer into this file window and it will add them for you.

    batchdpg 4

  6. Click Run.

    batchdpg 5

  7. Marvel and wonder at the speed. I don’t have a picture for ‘marvel and wonder’ to add here.

I mentioned in the last part that I would get a newer version of moonshell working soon. I just have to do some more playing around with that and I’ll have a walkthrough for that too.

Edit: Right after I posted this, BatchDPG refused to run again. I’m researching other solutions and will update this post when I have a better one.

Implementing My Nintendo DS Portable SRS Solution (Part 2+)

OK, so in part 1 I set up my NDSRS files. Part 2 is where the action begins.

Here’s the Acekard, which includes an microSDHC to USB converter, and the memory card.

acekard stuff

So I plugged the microSDHC card to the Acekard, put it in the DS, and fired it up just to see if it worked. And…nothing. Seven blue letters: ‘Loading’…and nothing else. Uh-oh.

After browsing the Engrishalicious Acekard site, I determined that you have to download the firmware to the Acekard before you play it. Thanks for telling me in the manual, guys. Oh wait, it didn’t come with one. So I downloaded version 4.17, which was the latest as of this post, at the top of this page, unzipped it, and stuck that file on the card. Yay! It worked!

Once I was done with that, I downloaded the NDSRS files (along with the .srs file I made before) to the Acekard, fired it up, and was greeted by the beautiful the NDSRS start screen.

ndsrs-fileselect

Well, it’s not beautiful, but it’s functional, and after all the work earlier, functionality is where I’m aiming.

Using NDSRS
Once you get into NDSRS, there’s not really much here you need to change. You can turn Shuffle off by pressing L, but I’m not sure why you would want to. Y will move all of the cards up by one day, but I’m not sure why you would want to do that either. You can change the backlight using Select at any time within the program. Whatever you do here, press A, B, or Start to continue.

ndsrs-review

Yay. Here’s an example of the main review screen. With no formatting options possible, I HOPE that you formatted your CARDS like THIS or #this# unlike *myself*. Oops.

I pulled these buttons from the manual and added a few notes:

Buttons:
A: show answer
X: Doodle mode off/on (Very cool! I don’t have to write in the air or grab a sheet of paper!)
Y: card stats
Up/Down: change score (this is in tiny letters in the lower right-hand corner and useful if you want to go without the stylus).
Left/Right: change bottom page (if multiple answers exist). I don’t have any cards with multiple answers, so I couldn’t play with this.
Start: next card
Left+Right +Y: back to Start screen
B: repeat sound (if one exists), otherwise show answer
L+Up/Down: Scroll question up/down
R+Up/Down: Scroll answer up/down
L+Left: Score answer with 0 and go to next card
L+Right: Score answer with 4 and go to next card

You can also use the touch screen menu:

ndsrs-keypad

This menu is a little tricky because it’s not sticky, so it will disappear when you lift. You have to press and hold to bring up the menu, then lift off the option you want. If you’re viewing the question, you can press down on the screen and slide to the lightbulb to reveal the answer or to the feather to go to doodle mode.

0-4: scoring (but you can only do this after you reveal the answer!)
left arrow: next answer card left (this doesn’t appear to work on mine)
feather: doodle mode
lamp: display answer
chart: show card stats
right arrow: answer card right (this also doesn’t appear to work on mine)

The user interface takes a little bit of getting used to. I might email the author with a few suggestions, but I wish I could offer some coding help. If any of you are experienced in C++ and Nintendo DS programming, you might pop on over to the author’s page and offer to help.

Bonus cool stuff: Moonshell

Now that you’re rocking with the kanji, how’d you like to be able to take your ドラマ, movies, and music on the go with you? You can, with Moonshell. Now, I wasn’t able to get the version on that page to work, because, per the FAQ, Moonshell v. 2.0 and above doesn’t work on the Acekard 2.

After some research plus trial and error, I had to use the 2.0b5 version here and use the conversion tool from the latest version. Fortunately for you, I’ve zipped both up and placed them on my drop.io page here. Those not using the Acekard 2 might be able to get away with newer versions.

Unzip the archive and copy the moonshl2.nds and moonshl2 directories to your memory card, then pop it into your Acekard 2 or other l33t DS hacking device and run moonshl2.nds. Ignore any startup errors; they don’t appear to affect the program.

Using dpgenc

Want to watch Eden of the East on your Nintendo DS?

100_5727

Of course you do! To get the video into the DS, you have to convert it to a tiny format that moonshell understands. That’s where dpgenc comes in.

dpgenc

It’s not the sexiest program in the world. But it does what it’s supposed to do: convert video files. Set the output directory, then drag any .avi or .mkv file (other formats may work) to the window and it will convert them for you while you wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It does take a while, usually about half the time of the video file. Drop a 2.5 hour movie on it and it will probably take an hour or more. Is it worth the wait? It is to me!

Once you have the resulting .dpg file, copy it to your memory card, move the card back to your Acekard, open Moonshell, and browse to your movies directory for some awesomeness. mp3s and most anything else that’s not copy-protected will work too.

I hope this little walkthrough helps! Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment or sending me an email.

Edit: @nii87 pointed out a program called BatchDPG that encodes faster and in higher quality. I also might be able to figure out how to put the newer version of Moonshell on my NDS. I’ll add this information in a Part 3 later.

Edit #2: Part 3 added.

Implementing My Nintendo DS Portable SRS Solution (Part 1)

I think my card and cart for my Nintendo DS SRS solution should be here on Monday or Tuesday, so tonight I decided to get ready. Because SugaHOLIC was interested (or at least seemed so), I decided to make a visual walkthrough of what I’ve done so far.

Anki users: Keep in mind that I am using a Basic template for my Anki deck, not a Heisig or Japanese template, so you might have a little more or less work to do here. YMMV.

  1. Export the cards from Anki. I didn’t know you could do that, so I was looking for an external plug-in or lots and lots of busywork. Thank God, it turns out you can export the cards to a tab-delimited file under File->Export after you open your deck. (I chose the option for ‘cards’, not ‘facts’, because I don’t know what the latter is. :) )

    export 2

  2. …and, as you can see, my deck looks like crap when I open it up in Notepad++ (my favorite text editor). All the cards are out of order and there’s HTML junk everywhere. Time for some cleanup.

    export 10

  3. First matter: replace the tabs with ^ characters. The NDSRS import utility supports other characters, but since I don’t use ^ in any of my cards, it’s safe for me. Highlight a tab, hit Ctrl-H*, and replace the tab with ^.

    * Ctrl-R is the default for Notepad++, but I remapped it to Ctrl-H because every other text editor on the planet except for the weird Linux ones uses that keystroke.

    export 11

  4. Then I have to clean up the HTML. Maybe you don’t, but as I mentioned in anotherprevious post, I use <font color=”white”> tags to hide my sentences in my SRS. I want the keyword/concept to be intimately linked to the kanji and NOT the story, so I only reveal the story (by highlighting the text) if I need it. If I can’t produce the kanji from the keyword without the story, I improve the story (if I can) and fail the card. Perhaps I’m too hard on myself, but like I said, I want the concept inseparably linked to the kanji.

    Anyway.

    I highlight the code and replace that with nothing, which deletes all of the instances of that tag. Then I search for ‘<span’ and ‘<font’ throughout the document until I’ve cleaned the file. Now it’s only stories and kanji separated by a ^, dazzit.

    export 12

  5. Of course the file is out of order for some reason, so it’s time to sort it in Excel. Under Excel 2007, it’s under Data, then ‘Sort’ in the ‘Sort & Filter’ section.

    export 3

  6. …and then I open it back up in Notepad++. Voila! A beautifully sorted file. At this point we congratulate ourselves and eat some candy or something. Then it’s back to work.

    export 4

  7. Now it’s time to open up the NDSRS Import tool. The reason we’ve been so meticulous so far is that this is an unforgiving program. It’s not going to do it all for you, so you need to have your ducks (or other assorted wildfowl of your choice) in a row before you try to import. Open this image in another tab or window and I’ll explain the numbers:

    export 7

    1. Click the … and find your nicely formatted text document. You’ll have to pick ‘text’ in the dropdown so it’ll let you find the text file as opposed to Pauker or CSV files. The Find dialog looks like this:

      export 5

    2. Path to Flashcard: Whatever drive your flash card is. I don’t have my card yet, so I’m just exporting it to the C: drive. The end product will be in the c:\ndsrs directory, and I can just copy that to my flash card when I get it.
    3. Find the default.ttf font you downloaded from NDSRS’s web site (right?), which for some reason is called ‘さざなみゴシック’ instead of default’.
    4. There is no #4.
    5. You might want to make the kanji character a little bigger, especially for those 16 and 17-stroke monsters. I made it 43 because it seemed like a good size. Richard Petty would approve, if he studied Japanese. Maybe he does, who knows?
    6. Run that bad boy.

  8. Yay! This dialog box means we’re almost done. Click ‘Yes’ unless you don’t want to.

    export 8

  9. Then you can go find your beautiful .XML-formatted masterpiece. It will be saved to driveletter:\ndsrs and will have an extension of .srs. Marvel and wonder, then go eat more candy, because candy is awesome and you deserve it.

    export 9

That’s all I can do for now. According to the manual (PDF warning), I’m going to stick them on the memory card next, but I don’t have the card yet, so I’ll add part 2 later.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions or if you just want to tell me how cool I am for putting all this together. ^-^

AJATT Questions, AJATT Answers

Found out that My Yaruki has been following my blog, and I didn’t even know it. Oops. Anyway, he has a quiz that I thought I’d answer, just for the heck of it. (free post, yay!)

AJATT is All Japanese All The Time, the method I am using to learn Japanese.

  1. How many facts do you have in your SRS?

    6362 total facts, 3020 unseen. All kanji. I have a separate deck for sentence mining, but there’s not much in it yet.

  2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

    Not much. I tried adding a sentence list from a travel site so I could cram for my Japan trip (which fell through this month), but those were terribly boring, so I stopped and I haven’t decided what to do next.

  3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to meaning) or something else? Is there an order (e.g. production and then recognition)?

    Recognition only. Production will come later when I get into sentences full-force.

  4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

    With the kanji, I keep the story covered up with <font color=”white”> tags so I can’t see it unless I need a hint, and then I just I highlight it. I want the keyword and concept to be intimately attached to the kanji, so I don’t depend on little English stories to produce the kanji together.

  5. How many cards on average do you add to you deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

    I stopped ‘learning’ new cards a few months ago. I simply added them all the way up to 3,007 (the end of RTK3). I had about 3,300 cards in my deck before hearing about the Kanji Kantei level 1, which tests you on over 6,000 kanji. I figured that if I need to learn the kanji, I’m going to go for the gusto and eventually learn every one I might possibly need for the rest of my life. Most of these I haven’t reviewed, of course!

  6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

    Music: during my commute (30 minutes round trip) and all day in the background.
    Doramas and anime: I try to watch at least one episode or part of an episode each night, if possible, all raw. I avoid subtitles most of the time, but sometimes I’m just lazy.
    Movies: I just found a boatload of great movies here, so I’m downloading a good dozen or so now. It usually takes me two or three days to watch a movie (in place of the nightly dorama or anime). I try to watch at least one movie each weekend.

  7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

    I have a good grasp of probably 2,000 kanji now. My deck has several times that, but I have not been able to review as much as I want because I haven’t had a good on-the-go solution until now.

  8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

    Not happy with my progress. I figured I would be much closer to fluency by now, but family, work, social networking, and laziness have interfered with that significantly.

    Techniques? AJATT and Anki are the best!

  9. Are you satisfied with your level?

    Nope.

  10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

    Complete fluency to the point where I can live and work in Japan if necessary and, eventually, the ability to pass the Kanji Kantei level 1, which few Japanese and even fewer foreigners have passed. I’m not going to bother with the JLPT, rather, I want to test with what the Japanese test with.

  11. How confident are you of getting there?

    I will. I definitely will.

  12. From when you started adding items to your SRS, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?

    I would have started with Anki from the beginning instead of Khatzumemo (now Surusu). Anki wasn’t as good back then and Khatzumemo was simpler, so I went with the simpler choice at first, but eventually was drawn to the awesomeness of Anki like a moth to the flame. (Sorry Khatz.)

    It took me a good week to move all my facts over to Anki. It looks like now I will have to do that again (edit: no I won’t, yay!), and since my deck has ballooned in size, it will take me much longer. But I welcome the challenge.

  13. How long have you been studying?

    Since May 10, 2008–over a year. Quite a bit of catching up to do if I want to catch up with Khatz’s 18 months. Probably not gonna happen, but you never know.

Finally, a portable SRS solution?

Since carrying a laptop around isn’t a practical solution for those moments where you just have to wait for ten or fifteen minutes here and there, I’ve been looking for a good portable solution for SRSing on the go. To carry Anki in my pocket and be able to instantly pick it up wherever I go…what a dream, right? Trouble is, for the longest time, Anki only had a version available for jailbroken iPhones. Buying an iPhone and paying for the expensive data service is bad enough, but to risk voiding the warranty on the thing? No thanks.

What else to do? I noticed in the Anki FAQ that they endorse ndsrs, a portable SRS program for the Nintendo DS that is loosely based off of Anki’s code. I’d be happier if it was a full-blown version of Anki that included sync, but at the time, iAnki was not available, and that has its own issues. Besides, iPod Touches can’t play Mario Kart DS, which is the other reason I bought my DS. ;)

ndsrs winTonight I bought an acekard 2i and an 8GB memory card to get some DS homebrew action going. Since these also support text file reading, I might also be able to import Japanese text files. We’ll see. I’ll be sure to update once I figure it out! ^-^

edit: One downfall to this approach is, as I mentioned before, the lack of sync, so of course I’ll have two different sets of stats. This isn’t a huge thing, because I haven’t had much time to work with Anki on my computer. I’m hoping I can make up the time on my DS.

The other (larger) downfall is the fact that ndsrs can’t directly import Anki decks. That’s the biggie. I can’t find any way to export Anki decks to spreadsheet–if you know of one, please let me know! (edit: Found one.) It looks like I will have to create a comma-separated-value spreadsheet and copy. over. my. stories. one. by. one. relax.

Really, though, it’s not that bad. I’ve done it before when I moved from Khatzumemo (now called Surusu, WTH?) to Anki. It took about three days. I consider it extra review! Along the way, I can tweak my stories for cards that I haven’t seen in a while, pruning out the ineffective ones. I’m finding cards here and there where I was truly using brute-force memorization because the story wouldn’t stick. Thankfully, when I check RevTK, there are usually a few new stories up there that I can use. I don’t know how I could have gotten through RTK1 and 2 without that site.

Back to geekery, it’s true that I could use Anki online, but WiFi still isn’t as ubiquitous as I’d like, and I’d still have to buy the browser (which apparently has been discontinued???) and is reportedly very slow. I need a truly offline solution, and I hope that this is it. I’ll keep you posted!