Can anyone with a *rooted* NC tell us a bit about video quality on the device. Basically, I am curious about the capabilities to play "scene" quality xvid/classic divx materials. Ie conforming to specs.
I kind of guess that the processor would hold up, but I am not sure.
I am only interested in locally stored content, ie on sd card (for simplicity's sake, let's assume that we have a plain vanilla SDHC card).
Cheers,
My experience with Rock and other players except the standard one (and that was for MP4 only) has been less than stellar.
Like other users on here, I am getting audio-visual lag, leading to me having to pre-convert everything for the device in order to get a working copy. The lag is slight on AVI files and MKV files grind down to a slideshow while the audio stays straight on, leading me to believe that whatever back-end conversion is being done on-the-fly is killing the processor.
My guess is that once we have Froyo (or god willing, Gingerbread), we'll have much better MKV and AVI playback. Until then, I suggest conversion if you've got the time or Rockplayer if you don't mind a bit of lag on AVI files. Hope that helps!
An unrooted NC plays my AutoGk 480p rips in the built in player if you remux it into an .mp4 file with AAC audio.
I get lag also. Weird thing is if you stream a video from the twit app it looks really good and no lag at all.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Ok guys, great, I appreciate the info - thanks!!!
ThePettyTyrant said:
An unrooted NC plays my AutoGk 480p rips in the built in player if you remux it into an .mp4 file with AAC audio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something most people don't realize you can do. The video stream in an xvid/divx avi CAN be read by most mp4-friendly devices. But it's in a container they don't know how to read, and may have an auto track they can't read.
You can remux is with any one of a number of tools to drop it into an mp4 file without reencoding the video (and, depending on the source material, possibly reencoding the audio, which is super-fast on any modern machine).
Since the stock NC has no frame buffers enabled video performance will suffer ... when it is eventually enabled (it will be) performance should be good.
I was going to start a thread similar to this but more asking what format is best on the NC.
I've tried some standard xvids in rockplayer, and there is a slight lag on the audio. But enough that makes it annoying to watch.
When rockplayer first opens a video, I get a prompt on hardware or software decoding, I tried hardware and obviously that fails.
So does the NC support hardware assisted format? if so, what format exactly? What codec, bit rate limits, accepted resolutions etc. And not only for smoother playback, but I assume hardware assist would save (a lot?) on battery performance.
I used it encode a lot back in the day, using tmpgenc, virtualdub and avisynth, but I haven't touched any of that in ages. Has someone wrote a guide regarding this specific to the NC?
If you look at the Nook Color spec sheet, one of the supported video formats is H.264. I've gotten hardware-assisted playback of H.264 on my Nook - plays and looks great.
However!
The Nook only supports H.264 baseline profile. If you use Handbrake to encode, use the iPhone/iPod preset as a starting point. Then you can up the bitrate, resolution etc from there.
Another note: I've found the built-in player does not know about anamorphic ratios, so the videos are scaled incorrectly.
sark666 said:
So does the NC support hardware assisted format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Sort of.
The OMAP3621 does have dedicated video decoding hardware. Unfortunately, it's pretty well locked down by the manufacturer. You don't get access to the hardware without a license, which means most (all?) 3rd party players aren't going to be able to utilize it. It sucks, but it seems to be par for the course for smartphone/tablet chips these days.
Another note: I've found the built-in player does not know about anamorphic ratios, so the videos are scaled incorrectly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OMAP3621 does have dedicated video decoding hardware. Unfortunately, it's pretty well locked down by the manufacturer. You don't get access to the hardware without a license, which means most (all?) 3rd party players aren't going to be able to utilize it. It sucks, but it seems to be par for the course for smartphone/tablet chips these days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I was going to say I'll use rockplayer so I don't have to add borders or something to force aspect, but then I read no one else can access the hardware encoder and this is typical?!
Sigh.. It never ends the way they try and lock these devices down. This sure ain't the pc world (which it should be, but they are trying to get it 'right' this time.)
So you refer to the TI, is this also true of the Nook Color?
At any rate, I'll remuxing as suggested earlier in this thread to mp4 container. What the best (hopefully free/open source) remuxer these days?
I used YAMB but I don't know if something better exists. If you use YAMB, you'll have to convert any AC3 audio to AAC ahead of time. I didn't test if MP3 audio is supported.
Hopefully VLC will be ported to Android too, would seem to be a more "natural" fit than the iPad it currently runs on!
sark666 said:
but then I read no one else can access the hardware encoder and this is typical?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, very.
If it's any consolation, it's not the device manufacturers or android team that is to blame, it's the chip manufacturers. The SoC in the NC is made by TI, who licenses all the different cores they stick in their chips. In this case, the video decoding hardware is part of the SGX530 GPU core licensed from PowerVR. While TI pays for the right to use the core in their chips, any software dev who wants to actually take advantage of the decoding hardware has to pay PowerVR for the drivers that allow them to do so. It's pretty crappy from our perspective, but it is their IP so it's their prerogative. I'm sure the chip, device and software makers would all prefer to use open hardware, but there are not currently any open GPU cores out there. At least, none that come within a mile of the "locked down" ones.
The M4V fileformat plays awesome on the NC and the quality is exceptional even with smaller filesizes (370ish megs for a full length movie) No lag at all.
The player I use is: mVideoPlayer (Free)
search for “mVideoPlayer” without the quotes in the android market.
PS It can play most (if not all) formats supported by Android/NC.
OMAP 3621 has a C64x+DSP
The OMAP 3621 has a C64x+DSP. That should be usable for hardware video decoding. In fact I beleive that TI has made video codecs available for their DSPs in the past, and there was even a Google Summer of Code project to create a Theora codec for the DSP.
This TI page tells you that the 3621 has a C64x+DSP: http://newscenter.ti.com/Blogs/news...ers-costs-for-ebook-manufacturers-305022.aspx
Droidish said:
The M4V fileformat plays awesome on the NC and the quality is exceptional even with smaller filesizes (370ish megs for a full length movie) No lag at all.
The player I use is: mVideoPlayer (Free)
search for “mVideoPlayer” without the quotes in the android market.
PS It can play most (if not all) formats supported by Android/NC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll second that. mVideoPlayer is the best thing going, also does subtitles if you've got them (use same filename, eg. MyVid.m4v + MyVid.srt)
If you end up converting videos I have had success with Handbrake (nightly build) using the iPhone profile, 720px width, 2 ref frames. Video bitrate at 900kbps seems to be enough (650kbps for Pixar films).
I think the B&N website explicitly states that the hardware video decoder renders everything to 854x480 and upscales all video to fit the screen. If you're converting just for the NC, it might be a waste to go above that resolution.
testulous said:
I'll second that. mVideoPlayer is the best thing going, also does subtitles if you've got them (use same filename, eg. MyVid.m4v + MyVid.srt)
If you end up converting videos I have had success with Handbrake (nightly build) using the iPhone profile, 720px width, 2 ref frames. Video bitrate at 900kbps seems to be enough (650kbps for Pixar films).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yeah about the subs... In mVideo If you long press on any movie in your list one of the options is to download subs for that movie (there are some other things hidden there as well). It doesn't always find them but the option is there.
Related
http://androinica.com/2009/11/16/sa...first-android-phone-to-support-divx-playback/
Both the Rogers LG Eve and the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Spica can play DivX.
What's holding back the G1?
an update from htc and or proper system dump
evilkorn said:
an update from htc and or proper system dump
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure what you mean. Can you, or someone else, elaborate?
DivX is a proprietary codec. It has to be licensed which costs money
B-man007 said:
DivX is a proprietary codec. It has to be licensed which costs money
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That can't be the reason.
If that was the only reason, tons of people would have figured out how to to it illegally months ago haha. There must be some other limitation, that for some reason exists on the G1 but not these other phones.
Paul22000 said:
That can't be the reason.
If that was the only reason, tons of people would have figured out how to to it illegally months ago haha. There must be some other limitation, that for some reason exists on the G1 but not these other phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol thats the reason why its not there legally. Besides, at this point, theres not enough demand/information to get it to work. once we get the dumps, we should be able to port it
We already have h264, which is more efficient than divx or xvid. Why take a step back?
Actually, it *can* play the so-called divx files.
The reason why it doesn't play YOURS may be as follows;
1) It does NOT recognize the FourCC tag used by divx.
-- may help to change this to one matching H263.
2) The bitrate may be too high for the decoder chip.
-- too much data = choke
3) It may not have a demuxer for the CONTAINER.
-- AVI, MP4, MKV, etc. The file format and the actual data stream encodings are INDEPENDENT. The file is demuxed in SOFTWARE, the video stream is decoded in HARDWARE.
Note: divx is a SUBSET of plain vanilla MPEG4-ASP.
The decoder chip can decode H263, H264.
H264 > H263
H263 = divx (approximately)
Dvix and xvid = ****
Why you want **** on your G1... just use a converter and covert the videos to mp4... is a way better format, and you can save some space.
B-man007 said:
lol thats the reason why its not there legally. Besides, at this point, theres not enough demand/information to get it to work. once we get the dumps, we should be able to port it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I'm just saying that the legal issue is definitely not the reason. If there was no barrier aside from legal issues, don't you think at least a single person on the entire planet would have at least figured out how to do it, especially given the G1 has been out over a year?
lbcoder said:
Actually, it *can* play the so-called divx files.
The reason why it doesn't play YOURS may be as follows;
1) It does NOT recognize the FourCC tag used by divx.
-- may help to change this to one matching H263.
2) The bitrate may be too high for the decoder chip.
-- too much data = choke
3) It may not have a demuxer for the CONTAINER.
-- AVI, MP4, MKV, etc. The file format and the actual data stream encodings are INDEPENDENT. The file is demuxed in SOFTWARE, the video stream is decoded in HARDWARE.
Note: divx is a SUBSET of plain vanilla MPEG4-ASP.
The decoder chip can decode H263, H264.
H264 > H263
H263 = divx (approximately)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Let me rephrase the topic then: it's not that I want to play divx/xvid.
I want to be able to play ANY video file my PC can play with a simple drag and drop (avi files, etc).
taz2781 said:
Dvix and xvid = ****
Why you want **** on your G1... just use a converter and covert the videos to mp4... is a way better format, and you can save some space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because I find converting video files to be a ridiculously annoying process, and I hate it with a passion.
I want to be able to drag and and drop any video file to my G1 and play it within seconds.
My Windows Mobile 2003 Samsung SCH-i730 could do that. It's almost pathetic no Android phones (aside from the two in the OP) can.
I also have an 8 GB card that's mostly empty. I don't need to save space.
taz2781 said:
Dvix and xvid = ****
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That depends largely on who encoded it and how.
Why you want **** on your G1... just use a converter and covert the videos to mp4... is a way better format, and you can save some space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You aren't seriously suggesting that someone should subject a video to an *additional* lossy cycle of decompression and recompression in order to make it *better*, are you? Though doing this *can* (but doesn't have to) reduce the overall size, it will *definitely* reduce the visual quality of the video... like a photocopy of a photocopy.
lbcoder said:
That depends largely on who encoded it and how.
You aren't seriously suggesting that someone should subject a video to an *additional* lossy cycle of decompression and recompression in order to make it *better*, are you? Though doing this *can* (but doesn't have to) reduce the overall size, it will *definitely* reduce the visual quality of the video... like a photocopy of a photocopy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was also going to point out the absolute ridiculousness of converting a video file to mp4 and having the quality improve, but forgot to mention it. Thanks
Paul22000 said:
Let me rephrase the topic then: it's not that I want to play divx/xvid.
I want to be able to play ANY avi file my PC can play with a simple drag and drop.
Because I find converting video files to be a ridiculously annoying process, and I hate it with a passion.
I want to be able to drag and and drop an avi file to my G1 and play it within seconds.
I also have an 8 GB card that's mostly empty. I don't need to save space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I'm afraid that that simply isn't going to happen. Though it is certainly possible to add in the software support for demuxing from the various other possible containers, the decoder chip itself most definitely has limitations.
Think about it like this;
The decoder chip in your GRAPHICS card, depending on the age of the card, will either be an MPEG2 decoder chip (i.e., around 1995 when the average CPU simply couldn't do that), or an MPEG4 AVC chip (i.e., Radeon HD, Nvidia 8000+), and even THESE decoder chips are limited in what they can decode. For example, throw a THEORA video at a Radeon HD and it will definitely NOT be able to play it. Throw an MPEG2 at a Radeon HD and it will not be able to play it. Not to mention the fact that a desktop video decoder chip will be able to handle a much larger resolutions at a much higher bitrate than a TELEPHONE (due to power constraints on the phone).
So basically, you can give up on the idea of being able to throw just anything at it.
What you can do, however, is use a SCRIPT to BULK-encode your videos. Look at mencoder (part of mplayer) and ffmpeg for this. Their use is a little complex, but you only need to do it once when you set up the script, then it is just an easy convert for everything.
lbcoder said:
Well I'm afraid that that simply isn't going to happen. Though it is certainly possible to add in the software support for demuxing from the various other possible containers, the decoder chip itself most definitely has limitations.
Think about it like this;
The decoder chip in your GRAPHICS card, depending on the age of the card, will either be an MPEG2 decoder chip (i.e., around 1995 when the average CPU simply couldn't do that), or an MPEG4 AVC chip (i.e., Radeon HD, Nvidia 8000+), and even THESE decoder chips are limited in what they can decode. For example, throw a THEORA video at a Radeon HD and it will definitely NOT be able to play it. Throw an MPEG2 at a Radeon HD and it will not be able to play it. Not to mention the fact that a desktop video decoder chip will be able to handle a much larger resolutions at a much higher bitrate than a TELEPHONE (due to power constraints on the phone).
So basically, you can give up on the idea of being able to throw just anything at it.
What you can do, however, is use a SCRIPT to BULK-encode your videos. Look at mencoder (part of mplayer) and ffmpeg for this. Their use is a little complex, but you only need to do it once when you set up the script, then it is just an easy convert for everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you're saying the G1 doesn't have the necessary graphics decoder chip (and obviously never will), that the LG Eve / Spica do? Could have said that, rather than "legal issues" (lol )
Why hasn't anybody ported VLC over to android then? That media player supports all sorts of codecs
Paul22000 said:
So you're saying the G1 doesn't have the necessary graphics decoder chip (and obviously never will), that the LG Eve / Spica do? Could have said that, rather than "legal issues" (lol )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said "legal issues" -- that was somebody else.
And no, we do NOT know what kind of decoder chip those other two devices have.. they MAY be exactly the same since, as I said, OUR decoder chip *IS* capable of running bone-stock divx.
Just because those other two devices say they can play divx doesn't mean that they can play the ones you find on the net and download. You still have to worry about the overall resolution, bitrate, and container.
atolar said:
Why hasn't anybody ported VLC over to android then? That media player supports all sorts of codecs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Few things to think about;
1) The majority of the codecs supported by VLC are supported in SOFTWARE DECODERS. We simply don't have enough CPU power to decode video in real-time. We *MUST* use the decoder chip.
2) The rest of the codecs supported by VLC are supported via various HARDWARE DECODERS (i.e. Nvidia vdpau extensions for MPEG4), and just using VLC doesn't open up any more encodings since we are still limited by the hardware decoder that we already have.
3) VLC uses HARDWARE simple post processing via XVideo (i.e. scaling).
As an example:
To playback a common net-rip BD movie, say 10-ish GB 1920x1080 will take EVERYTHING available from BOTH CORES of an AMD X2-3800 (I use that example since that's what I use on my TV) to perform in software. The video resolution is off by a factor of 13.5x, but that CPU is way more than 13.5x what's in these phones, especially when it comes to multimedia content, floating point arithmetic, etc. There is literally no way to do video decoding in software unless you switch to a less-advanced format -- maybe it'll be able to handle mpeg2 for example.
booo urns, I just want to play my tv show downloads without having to convert.
I have installed the ROM Mod(s), Flash & Market but still have not found the ultimate Media Player app that has been optimized to run on the Nvidia Tegra Dual Core processor.
Still working with RockPlayer and have yet to optimize their settings but there should be other candidates that are a must try too. I am looking for an Android Client that will play all the major Codecs (including Blue-Ray) and will automatically keep them updated so it is seamless to the end user.
Please post your Pros & Cons of media player Apps that you have tried. Also, looking at Google TV, Hulu and other streaming IPTV apps that are a must have. Any availble that take advantage of the Nvidia Tegra hardware?
Once the docking station is available (which includes HDMI connection), you will be able output to your 1080P large screen. This is going to kill cable TV and make the GTablet even more useful around the house.
EKS
let me know if you find anything I would be interested as well.. xy player I tested on my phone.. the qual wasnt great
So here is what I found out so far. The Nvidia Tegra 2 processor has video encoders built into its chip. These are the specs from their Web site.
Specifications
Processor and Memory Subsystem
Dual-core ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore™ processor, up to 1.0 GHz
32-bit LP-DDR2, DDR2
Ultra Low Power NVIDIA Graphics
OpenGL ES 2.0
Programmable pixel shader
Programmable vertex and lighting
2x 3D graphics performance of previous generation Tegra
Full High Definition Multimedia
1080p H.264/VC-1/MPEG-4 Video Decode
1080p H.264 Video Encode
Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA, and MP3
Upgraded JPEG encode and decode acceleration
Rockplayer media player "hardware mode' does not activate on the Tegra 2 when I try several different video formats. It is rumored that Rock Player is working on a beta release that will be optimized for the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.
From their Web site:
"...RockPlayer support two playback mode: Normal Mode and System Mode. The Normal Mode means RockPlayer will use the playback engine coming with the player, which supports almost all video formats with good enough performance. System Mode means RockPlayer will invoke the playback engine built-in Android system, which support very limit formats but may take advantage of hardware acceleration, which means saving battery. By default, RockPlayer use Normal Mode for playback. You may long press on the file in file list view, touch "Choose playback mode" in popup menu to switch the mode. You may also change the default mode in settings...."
From Rock Player Web Site:
Support Types
Version ARM V7 ： Google Nexus One, HTC Desire Incredible EVO , Moto Milestone XT800, Droid Series,Acer Liquid, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Ericsson X10 ,Dell Thunder Streak, LG LU2300 .ect
Version ARM V6 VFP： Samsung SHW-M100S GT-i5700 ,HTC Legend ,etc.
Version ARM V6 ： All models left running Android support ARMv6 instruction set.
Nothing yet for the Tegra 2 - Dual-core ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore™
==============================================================
EDIT: Rock Player runs on the Toshiba Fiolo 100 (a Tegra 2 platform) but it is NOT "hardware" optimized. Early reports are that it works but still a little slow. The stock media player on the Toshiba is also not hardware optimized, runs only a few of the available video codecs and seems to function well.
Edit: From Android Market the most curent version of RockPlayer is 11.47 optimized for ARMv7VFPV3D16 processor. Nothing yet for Tegra 2 as of 12/01/2010.
Rumor is that Nvidia is developing an integrated media player optimized for the Tegra2. Not too sure how far along they are on the project or if it is just talk.
From their Developer's Web Site:
XBMC
XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, Windows, and the original Xbox. Created in 2003 by a group of like minded programmers, XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers located around the world. More than 50 software developers have contributed to XBMC, and 100-plus translators have worked to expand its reach, making it available in more than 30 languages.
Sooner or later there s/b an optimized Tegra 2 media player that seamlessly utilizes all the encoder/decoder functions this processors offers.
It appears that the most recent version of FLASH (version Adobe Flash Player 10.1.120.1.apk ) may be optimized for this processor. I do know it works quite well.
EKS
Give mvideoplayer a try from the market it works ok on my other tablet. Haven't tried it on the grab yet.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
amathophobia said:
Give mvideoplayer a try from the market it works ok on my other tablet. Haven't tried it on the grab yet.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works fine here too... but it's Not tegra optimized... though doesn't seem to need to be...
jtbnet said:
It works fine here too... but it's Not tegra optimized... though doesn't seem to need to be...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What video formats did you try? It does not run the following formats for me:
IMAX 1080p BluRay DTS x264
720p BluRay a264 DTS WiKi * (played first time but when stopped and restarted software would not play)
H264
avi
* Not sure why I have the error. Maybe I need to reinstall and try it again.
I do like the mVideoPlayer database and the way it catalogs your videos along with a Poster image.
The RockPlayer will play all of them but all in software encoding mode. RockPlayer plays the avi file ok but the other formats are still a bit clunky.
All my movies play on the Windows PC configured with either (1) windows media player or (2) Classic Cinema Player AND the K-Lite Codec package (all freeware).
The Nvidia Tegra solution s/b a general video media player that loads the K-Lite Codec package but optimized to take advantage of the built in encoders in the processor.
Flash 10.1 seems to have optimized their apk to certain processors (I think the latest update recognizes the tegra).
It's probably still a bit early in the development cycle and we will see these types of players soon.
Over all, I am very satisfied with the Gtablet but a bit frustrated that I can not take advantage of the excellent processor.
EKS
mvideolayer - alternate file location
I am running tnt lite 2.02. I can't get mvideoplayer to look for the files on scard2. Any tips for changing this?
Never mind; I had a typo. Mvideoplayer found the sdcard2 once I added it andspelled it correctly. My bad.
so far, my fav is rockplayer....use it on my DINC too
has anyone had any luck with this, Im really hoping to rip my blu rays to an external drive and play them off of this thing
Nsato said:
has anyone had any luck with this, Im really hoping to rip my blu rays to an external drive and play them off of this thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a thought... if you're ripping your Bluray collection, why not encode them to fit the device? Make perfect 1024px wide MP4 files... No scaling, no extra CPU cycles wasted.
I originally posted this in Roebeet's thread:
I'm on 2.0.4, and the tab has been rock solid stable for me (I think maybe only 1 force close total over 2 full days). I've rebooted it many times, installed apps/games from market/etc. I don't use BT though.
Regarding videos (I'm using rockplayer), they're a little choppy for me on the more processor intensive codecs. I copied an mpeg2 VOB file to test, and it plays a buttery smooth 30fps. Also, I reencoded toy story 3 (movie only, to about 1.5GB) w/ the xvid codec (don't have the damn specs unfortunately, but it was about 1.4GB's), and it plays at a smooth 30fps as well. Comparing the stream to the mpeg2 original dvd, there's a very clear loss of quality here, so I'm thinking the xvid codec isn't very efficient.
Moving onto more processor intensive codecs (read: efficient), the fps drops. I reencoded toy story 3 again using handbrake and h264 w/ a set file size of 1.5GB, and fps can drop down to as low as 15fps during scenes where there's motion (probably due to a higher bitrate). This encode looks VERY clean/pretty much indistinguishable on the pad to the mpeg2 stream to my eyes, whereas the xvid had a lot of artifacts in the stream. Youtube framerate clearly drops at times like the h264 encoded stream I made, but both are certainly bearable.
Seeing as how the Nvidia drivers are seemingly new, and it isn't even using hardware encoding for these videos (the tegra2 is stated to have hardware decoding of various mpeg4 formats), it seems pretty good to me. That's what has me wondering exactly what the changelog is for these Nvidia "experimental" drivers. I'd love to see higher framerates on the more processor intensive codecs, and I'm sure we will in time. We just need better drivers from Nvidia and more app devs to enable hardware decoding on the tegra2 chipset. We all just need to be patient here.
To add to this, I was tinkering w/ the tab some more tonight, and am still on 2.0.4.
After trying to play the videos, I tried playing the toy story encodes in the default "video player" and "Movies" and they both appear to have a better frame rate than Rockplayer. Anyone have any idea why that would be? I'm going to assume they decode the codecs differently, but is it possible the "Movies" video player uses hardware encoding? I can't get the framerate to pop up like in rockplayer, but it appears to be smooth and doesn't drop any frames.
Oh ya to add, the movies I reencoded are dvd quality and I help the same resolution.
Is anyone having problems with tnt (v2.2) and no sound in the built in players?
joedhimself said:
Is anyone having problems with tnt (v2.2) and no sound in the built in players?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. No problems here.
Has anyone tried vplayer? I am using the stock ROm with the mods to get AngryBirds working and adding in market and I get an FC when I try.
Just an update.
On TNT Lite 2.2, Rockplayer seems to work now with Hardware decoding, and mpeg4 seems to play smoothly now, no longer dropping frames.
has anyone tried vplayer?
i tried a 720p mkv file but it wouldn't play. it just kicks me back out to the app. it doesn't work for an mp4 file that i converted either. the mp4 file works on other players though. the mkv also works on other players but its laggy and theres no audio.
was really hoping i could play 720p mkv files without having to convert them. wanted to be able to just drag and drop files onto the gtab and play it.
picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.
nickalfano43 said:
picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.
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Click to collapse
I used mp4/m4v and it played with the stock Android movie player. Great quality...
nickalfano43 said:
picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had same issue with stock firmware, neither rockplayer or mplayer work.
Installed TnT-Lite or Zpad firmware, ... both players + stock movie player work fine & smooth.
Hope this help.
Thanks to the people over at Modaco I found out that a new Rock player is out
The latest 1.5.x release adds network streaming (via browser integration) and optimisations for Tegra 2 hardware.
If you have another ver. installed please uninstall it. Go to the market install 1.5.0 when you start it, it will have an update to 1.5.1 and once installed just activate it. (if you have a paid copy) if not it will have ads paid is only $9.99
The new update works great, this thing fly's and has loaded everything I throw at it.
Web streaming is easy I have Tversity setup on my home pc and a link to the IP in my browse I just select what I want to see and the stream starts right away in rockplayer.
I am still testing it, but so far this thing is WIN!
Really? Sweeeet. Ima try out som HD Videos now see how they run!
Just saw it on my Captivate. Trying it now on the Gtab
Let's see it play 720p MKV files natively. I'll be really excited if it can. Will try later.
I just tried a .mov (don't know how it was encoded) it played but like 1 fps and sound dropped out after. 1 minute. I then tried an H.264 .mp4. Same deal. Both were 1080p.
What is the gtab supposed to play 1080p in? Any one know?
The only video I had on my Gtab was a 720p 3211kbps XviD with AC3 audio. I tried playing it using hardware decode and it played beautifully but with no audio
Haven't had time to try anything else yet. Will post results when I get a chance.
So I am pretty disappointed with this update. I still can't play H.264 or mkv MPEG4 files in 1080p. The Tegra 2 is supposed to have an on-chip processor for H.264, but this does not seem to take advantage of it.
Thanks for the headsup on this one.
I downloaded and installed.
When I play my 720p mp4 movies, not sure how they are encoded, it asks me if I want hardware decoding mode or software. Which one should I pick?
Coty
I always try hardware first if it fails then I go software.
OK, so after a bunch of trial and error I got 1080p playing in Rockplayer 1.51 with hardware decoding. The file NEEDS to be an MP4 container encoded with MPEG. I used Handbrake to get it done. Everything else I tried doesn't work one way or another, either FC, no sound or no video. I hope this helps someone.
Using 1.51 with TnT 3.0, hardware acceleration mode resets my Gtablet. Screen blacks out and then reboots, starting at the fireworks streamer spash screen.
Tried multiple times with different files with same result.
yea the tab is unable to play videos encoded in High Profile due to hardware limitations with the Tegra chip. it only works with Baseline and Main profile. from my experience, Main gives a cleaner picture than Baseline does. if its encoded in High, the video will just stutter.
was excited to see that the new Rockplayer was Tegra optimized but it will never play 720p or 1080p vids without being converted to those profiles first. was really hoping i can just drag and drop my downloaded 720p tv shows into the tab and watch it but eh well. i need to figure out how to reencode my files while keeping it as close to 720p quality as possible.
gotwillk said:
yea the tab is unable to play videos encoded in High Profile due to hardware limitations with the Tegra chip. it only works with Baseline and Main profile. from my experience, Main gives a cleaner picture than Baseline does. if its encoded in High, the video will just stutter.
was excited to see that the new Rockplayer was Tegra optimized but it will never play 720p or 1080p vids without being converted to those profiles first. was really hoping i can just drag and drop my downloaded 720p tv shows into the tab and watch it but eh well. i need to figure out how to reencode my files while keeping it as close to 720p quality as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must be unlucky, since 1.51 hardware mode crashes and resets my Gtablet with TnT 3.0 after playing a few seconds.
Why do you want to encode at 720p when the Gtab is not 720p? Seems overkill- if the files are for the Gtablet. I can see if just copying over to play, but if redoing for G, why not custom res to native of device?
rushless said:
I must be unlucky, since 1.51 hardware mode crashes and resets my Gtablet with TnT 3.0 after playing a few seconds.
Why do you want to encode at 720p when the Gtab is not 720p? Seems overkill- if the files are for the Gtablet. I can see if just copying over to play, but if redoing for G, why not custom res to native of device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well not 720p but at least close to it. the reason is that it will cause blockiness otherwise, especially for the scenes that have a lot of movement. i want to keep everything the way it is but using the Main profile instead of High profile, which the original vid is encoded in. i think i've gotten it pretty close as the original file but still noticeable blockiness in high movement scenes. i'm a guy thats a stickler for quality video and audio. don't mind me lol.
gotwillk said:
i need to figure out how to reencode my files while keeping it as close to 720p quality as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I convert my TV recordings using a free program called SUPER:
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html#Dnload
Lots of features, including a drag and drop queue to batch convert multiple files.
It's a little confusing at first, but has a good instruction page, and tool tips.
Right mouse click brings up different menus, depending on what your click.
Double clicking a file in the queue shows information about the source file.
Check the High Quality, and Top Quality boxes, 3600 or higher bitrate.
MP4 container, MPEG-4 codec, and AAA LC audio works on Gtab.
As for screen resolution from 720p source file, there doesn't seem to be much difference above 800 wide on the Gtab, so I set scale size to 800x448 for 16:9 video that fills the screen (slight black bands top & bottom, but scaled correct).
Good compromise between file size, and quality.
If you choose the original scaling, it converts the fastest, but huge file size.
Some programs like "No Ordinary Family" have audio in channel 2, so if there is no audio, change default to channel 2 in the settings before you convert.
Hope this helps.
I might be the odd one out with this program. I have had horrible experiences with compatibility, function, and even replicating the same failures.
I have a series of files all encoded by the same person form a "podcast" type video series. Some of the files will "load" in hardware mode(i say load because often sound doesn't work) and some will not. The catch is all of them load and fail sometimes.
I noticed virtually no change in the tegra "optimization" I am really disappointed frankly. I have no reason to buy the software if it doesn't support what I need and I was really hoping this iteration would provide me with some kind of noticeable improvement. I even had to use titanium to wipe data for rockplayer for it to launch any video at all. It also force closes opening videos that used to play perfectly in the old version.
I guess multimedia and android still don't mix =/
High Profile
I having success with HP video using Mediacoder. Both hardware and software rendering are successful with deinterlacing, 6 B-frames and 1920 by 1080 resolution.. My source is AVCHD content, so I am having some interesting issues with audio though....
[email protected] said:
I having success with HP video using Mediacoder. Both hardware and software rendering are successful with deinterlacing, 6 B-frames and 1920 by 1080 resolution.. My source is AVCHD content, so I am having some interesting issues with audio though....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what does deinterlacing and 6 b-frames do exactly?
also can you post the rest of your settings? i've been following someone else's settings on a Droid forum and they don't work that well with the tab.
For what it's worth, VLC for Android is reportedly in the works for early 2011.
Jokulgoblin said:
For what it's worth, VLC for Android is reportedly in the works for early 2011.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great news i look foward to trying it out.
With all the new roms forcolor nook out what is the status of its ability of playing videos, especially 720 mp4 and mkvs downloaded from the internet without having to reencode the files?
Which rom/player combination is best for this?
I'd like to know also. Currently using Rockplayer on HC from the EMMC, and videos from my camera shot at 640x 480 and esp 848x480 are quite slow and jerky. Definitely not something to show someone else.
Anyone have recommendations?
DSP/HW accel is not working in all non-stock roms and is being worked on, but even in the stock rooted, I doubt it plays 720p well enough, unless it's been encoded into an mp4 or something that's natively supported.
timekeeper said:
DSP/HW accel is not working in all non-stock roms and is being worked on, but even in the stock rooted, I dou
bt it plays 720p well enough, unless it's been encoded into an mp4 or something that's natively supported.
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That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.
poofyhairguy said:
That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My bad - I only tried nookie froyo on the SD and used it for less than 10 minutes.
I can't get hardware to work in Froyo on either Vital player or Rock Player. Anyone getting hardware decoding to work on Froyo?
How are you doing it?
no hardware accceleration on nookie froyo either for me. Able to play 720p AVI smoothly by using vital player neon on software decoding.
If working hardware decoding means that mp4 can be played with standart Movies application, than yes, it works for me in Nookie Froyo on eMMC.
Sounds like Nookie Froyo is the one to get (for now) if you want h/w acceleration for video.
I've been trying to get high quality video to run on my 2.1 NC for a few days and can't seem to get the audio to match up with the video. mp4 video, 800x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 gps looks great but the sound is off. Pissed.
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App
Paul Paulson said:
I've been trying to get high quality video to run on my 2.1 NC for a few days and can't seem to get the audio to match up with the video. mp4 video, 800x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 gps looks great but the sound is off. Pissed.
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That bitrate is slightly too high.
I tried all the video players I could grab from the market with my rooted NC.
Rockplayer actually doesn't seem to be very good. It lagged at times. I'm not sure it's using full hardware acceleration, or maybe it's not able to fully use or is not recognizing the NC's hardware acceleration.
The best player for getting finicky files to work was vPlayer. It has a "high quality" mode which I'm guessing supplements the hardware acceleration with software decoding to make up for features which the hardware doesn't support. It was able to play video files that the stock video player and others refused to play. I think it was playing them slower than full speed though - was hard to tell with the video samples I used.
It is a pay app with a free trial. When not in "high quality" mode, it would still play the finicky video files, but with visible errors in the decoding. A couple of the other players also did this. I guess instead of refusing to play, they just throw the file at the hardware and display whatever comes out. But vPlayer was the only one with an option to "fix" the errors. If you're not encoding your own videos, definitely give this one a shot.
I'm using mVideoPlayer for now. It's limited to the same file formats the stock player can play, but I really like the interface (swipe to seek forward/back, long-press in corners to adjust volume/brightness). And it automatically generates lists of videos from a customizable directory list. No more having to search through a file browser - my videos on both the emmc and microsd now show up in one big list.
The main problem is you need a back button to use it. If you don't hit back to stop playing a file, the next time you try to play any video file, it resumes playing the old file where you left off. But if you use softkeys to give you a back button, it puts an ugly circle on top of your video...
poofyhairguy said:
That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really true. My Samsung galaxy plays 720p mkv's without issues. That's a single core phone.
I think in reaility we just have to wait for hardware decoding to be ported over.
really hope dev can get h/w acceleration going for custom rom, especially cm7. On related issue, my NC with cm7 can play flash video and frame rate is low though (looks like slide show with 360P video).
Not NC related (haven't rooted yet), but having just played with (thanks to this thread) vPlayer, I can say it is definitely the superior program. My EVO handled a 720p .mkv file that rockplayer gave 6-10fps on, it was watchable and had no sync issues besides the occasional slow-down.
+1 for the tip.
I believe hardware decode works on Android 2.1 Auto Nooter 3.0. I have that installed and it works in rock player and vital player.
One thing to note is the hardware decoder can only decode a max width of 854. So your 720p files will not work with hardware encoding. You will have to re-encode the files.
I used this guide http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...using-handbrake-convert-video-nook-color.html and it seemed to work fine.
Found this at the transformer forum..
*Phi* said:
Just thought i'll share,
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad&feature=more_from_developer
its a multi-format player called MX videoplayer(in case the market link doesnt work).
so far seems good, comparable to mobo player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't agree more.
regards
Thanks! Best player so far!
Wish there was a no-ads option, but it's good.
ZanshinG1 said:
Wish there was a no-ads option, but it's good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to send a note to the Dev telling him he should make a Paid, No-Ads option. A while back someone posted a ~95MB .mkv of Planet Earth in 1080P, and while MX player doesn't play it in any usable FPS, no other Xoom player I've seen will even attempt to touch it.
I'd pay $5 for this one. I'm just surprised how limited the Tegra2 HW codecs are; so many of the videos I have play in SW mode (but then again, maybe NVidia hasn't released all the specs necessary to take advantage of them?)
I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).
kcrudup said:
I'm going to send a note to the Dev telling him he should make a Paid, No-Ads option. A while back someone posted a ~95MB .mkv of Planet Earth in 1080P, and while MX player doesn't play it in any usable FPS, no other Xoom player I've seen will even attempt to touch it.
I'd pay $5 for this one. I'm just surprised how limited the Tegra2 HW codecs are; so many of the videos I have play in SW mode (but then again, maybe NVidia hasn't released all the specs necessary to take advantage of them?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really nice player indeed.
...but would even kill for a player with playback rate control and pitch correction through... (any dev listening? =] )
brandogg said:
I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
because no one wants to reencode before watching.
I tested with 720p mkv movies and not work. Screen remains black, but is not running. Any tip? Mobo Player run 720p, but slow or dropping frames.
I have only tested MxVideoPlayer on divx/avi files and it is very similar to Moboplayer. I'd pay for a paid app also without adds if they would add/fix a few things below..
- Auto Rotate option.
- video playback should have option of resume or start over. I found a few bugs playing/resuming on videos that were incomplete. MxVideoPlayer would then show Video Playing Error when clicking on play because video was stuck on that *end spot*. The fix was to reset counters in preference to fix.
- add next/previous video button to toolbar and auto play next video in preferences.
Fix the above and remove adds and then I'll pay for that app.
brandogg said:
I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who wants 1080(p)?
1080p will be on the Xoom 2..the screen on that thing goes way beyond 1080p.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
Well I guess I get it if you have a 1080p movie that you want to watch on your PC, PS3, etc, and don't want to download (or *ahem* re-encode) a 720p version. That makes sense then.
I'm intrigued by, and appreciative of, the suggestion. I did download and try it, but I don't see anything to tear me away from Act 1 (which I've been quite happy with). Probably, I don't understand which format to use - but, I tried re-encoding a movie at 1080 and MX Video wouldn't play it any better than Act 1. Which is to say, I got a "format not supported" message and no joy...
Any ideas why this app (MX videoplayer) needs our GPS location?
this app is cool.
Thanks for sharing.
REgards
you guys see a diff between s/w code and h/w codec. Seems the same
It is not working for me, are there requirements for specific mkv codecs?? my mkv files never worked proporly 3.0, 3.1 or 3.2 with mobo, rockplayer or this one (just tried with 3.2)
Nothing will play in HW, it all plays SW. Even when I uninstall and reinstall both the app and codec.
Thanks happened to me with Mobo Player as well.
Stock, non-rooted, US WiFi only on 3.2.
Any ideas?
Timbledore said:
Nothing will play in HW, it all plays SW. Even when I uninstall and reinstall both the app and codec.
Thanks happened to me with Mobo Player as well.
Stock, non-rooted, US WiFi only on 3.2.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of files are you trying to play? HW mode means that the app will make use of the Tegra2 hardware acceleration.
That means it will be subjected to the limitations of the Tegra 2 chip. The Tegra 2 chip can only decode certain 720p h264 formats with certain profiles and up to a certain bitrate. Let's not even go into 1080p.
Not only that, the Tegra 2 can only decode certain audio streams as well, so if your videos are in AC3 audio, you have to reencode the audio to something like AAC.
You can use a program like Mediainfo to check what formats your video files are in.
Edit: I think some folks are still not familiar with video formats and what the extensions mean. Mkv is just a container format for video files, similar to Avi. What's important is what codecs are used to encode the video and audio streams.
For example Avi files usually have divx/xvid encoded video streams and mp3 audio streams, mkv files have h264/mpeg4 AVC video streams and AC3/AAC audio streams.
So 3rd party apps are just able to open up these video containers and attempt to decode the video and audio streams for your viewing.
But they will use the CPU to process them using the app's built in codecs where possible if the chipset doesn't support it.
You can refer to the official specs of the Tegra 2 to determine what kind of video/audio compression formats it can decode.
So technically, the Xoom can playback avi files encoded with divx but because using software to decode requires some licencing fee in certain scenarios so that's why Honeycomb has no basic support because being "open source", Google did not pay for the licenses to playback some of the supported video formats. I may be wrong about this but it makes sense.
If you see other tablets like the Transformer or the Acer Iconia, you will realize they can playback more formats because the manufacturers probably paid for extra licenses and added playback capability into the OS. At least that's what I figured out.
musashiken said:
What kind of files are you trying to play? HW mode means that the app will make use of the Tegra2 hardware acceleration.
That means it will be subjected to the limitations of the Tegra 2 chip. The Tegra 2 chip can only decode certain 720p h264 formats with certain profiles and up to a certain bitrate. Let's not even go into 1080p.
Not only that, the Tegra 2 can only decode certain audio streams as well, so if your videos are in AC3 audio, you have to reencode the audio to something like AAC.
You can use a program like Mediainfo to check what formats your video files are in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, these are mostly xVid with AC3.
Mainly TV shows that I have missed. I rarely have time at home to catch up and more time on the move.