What is a GP2X?

“Released on November 10, 2005 in South Korea, the GP2X is designed to play video and music, view photos, and play games. It has an open architecture, allowing anybody to develop and run software.”
(source gp2x wikipedia article)

The GP2X is not sold anymore but you may easyly find a second hand one on auctions websites.

Pikix is a video mix software running on this device.
It features all the classic VJ softwares options.

GP2X key features:

• Fits into your pocket!
• Uses AA batteries or AC adaptator
• S-video output (PAL and NTSC)
• Screen resolution 320x240
• Uses SD card for storage

Pikix key features:

• You can import your own video footage
• Supports two video layers
• Plays footage using a dedicaced video codec: kouky2x
• Supports playlists
• Special effects and filters
• Video resolution: 320x240 pixels

Using windows XP

Uncompress the "pikix_v8_universal_princess.zip" archive on your hard drive and execute "Pikix.exe".

Using the GP2X

Uncompress the "pikix_v8_universal_princess.zip" archive on your hard drive and copy its content into your GP2X SD card. Via the "game" menu of your console, execute "Pikix".

Quick use

As the archive includes a few demo footages, it is ready for a quick mix.

On the title screen, press start (or keyboard space bar) to reach the the playlist selection screen.

Press B to load the first playlist, and mix!

Using windows XP

Now you've tried the demo footages of Pikix, you'd problably like to mix with your own footages. To use them, they need to be converted to a .k16 file using the Kouky v16 tool included in the archive.

Prepare your footage

Choose a video loop no longer than 250 frames. Convert it to a .bmp, static .gif, or .png files sequence, or to a quicktime movie. Dimensions must be 320x240 pixels. Virtualdub, a free software, can do this conversion.

Compress your footage to the k2x format

Launch Kouky v16

If you're welcomed by an error message, download and install the windows component ".NET framework 2.0" from microsoft.com, it should solve the issue.

Load your quicktime movie or your bitmap sequence.

Choose a compression quality rate (1 or 2 should be fine in most cases).

Press the "start compression" button.

If the amount of "tiles" reach 65 000, kouky will crash. In this case, increase the compression rate and try again. Once the compression is finished, a .k16 file will be created in the same folder as your footage sources.

Edit your playlists (using the built in tool)

From Pikix Start screen, choose "edit playlist" and press B.

If you're unsing windows XP, press TAB to open the menu. If you're using your GP2X, press the Y button.

Edit your playlists (manually)

If you are confortable with XML files, you can also manually edit the playlists.

Into the archive's "k2x" folder, you will find a "playlists.txt" text file, it is actually a XML file.

You can include up to 25 files paths, but if the playlist percent is more than 100%, not all files will be loaded.

You can have up to 50 playlists in your playlists file.

Tips

Use the help bar (select button or enter), it's very usefull as it shows you the available shortcuts.

Before going to your gig, always test Pikix on your gp2X, some videos may work fine under windows, but may crash on the GP2X.

Don't use Batteries during a gig, use an AC adaptator. I mixed one time using brand new batteries, and they died after just 40 minutes of mix!

Pikix is drunkproof, I can tell ;)

On the white GP2X (F200), the joystick click is replaced by touching the upper left corner of the screen

On the white GP2X (F200), scratch the video by touching the lower half of the screen!