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Hey guys,
I was thinking about buying a Nook color but I had one question.
Will the Nook Color be able to play 720p mkv files? With subtitles? I noticed that the archos 70 can play 720p mkv files and It seems to me the cpu is similar in both units.
I am pretty uninformed about this topic so I was hoping if anyone could enlighten me? I did not want false expectations that one day someone will be able to get it to work on the Nook Color.
Btw I know that Nook Color can not play it natively, but since the archos 70 I was wondering if the Nook Color could 2 in the future?
Thanks for your help!
is there an app?
At the moment, I don't believe the nook will play .mkv files without rooting it. I haven't rooted mine yet (waiting to see if 2.2 really does come out next month and what changes it brings, first) so can't say if there is an app that will play them.
I would think that it could, as long as the necessary app is installed and the codecs are available. The hardware seems like it would be perfectly capable of playing a 720p file, no matter the format, it would just be squished down to the correct resolution of 600 (or smaller depending on ratio).
Don't know about 720p, but as long as the video and audio streams are something the NC recognizes it should play an MKV (h.264, mp4 for video, aac or mp3 for audio). Although I had much better luck with just straight up mp4 files.
The built in player only even showed subtitles if they were hardcoded to the video.
i can play 720p mp4 files just fine with no lag what so ever.. Quality is awesome.. Rock Player doesn't like MKVs or AVIs, it will play them just really really slow..
ws6kid said:
i can play 720p mp4 files just fine with no lag what so ever.. Quality is awesome.. Rock Player doesn't like MKVs or AVIs, it will play them just really really slow..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using the stock player or Rock Player?
rock player plays mkv's fine on my evo but i cant get it to activate on my nook
mvideo player plays mkv 720p anime with subtitles that i have on my samsung captivate. (although it seems you have to start the video from beginning to end (ie: can't skip around) or the audio will get out of sync)
wondering if you download android market and get mvideo player if mkv 720p subtitles will work on nook color as well.
if so i would be interested in the ereader/tablet
Why? The root takes approximitly 15 to 20 minutes. Is practically completly automated, and improves the device 500%.
ws6kid said:
i can play 720p mp4 files just fine with no lag what so ever.. Quality is awesome.. Rock Player doesn't like MKVs or AVIs, it will play them just really really slow..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I loaded up a 800mb standard def AVI and it played fine in rockplayer. Bit of stutter at the start but it smooths right out after about 10 seconds. Just FYI
smithgood9 said:
Nook Color can only play these video formats: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, M4V, and OGG. And supports MPEG-4 Simple Profile up to 854×480, H.263 up to 352×288, and H.264 Baseline profile up to 854×480. So if u want to enjoy video on Nook Color, u should convert video to Nook Color compatible formats. I suggest u a powerful video converter called Foxreal Video Converter, which enables convert all video formats to Nook Color with the optimized video format (MP4, 854×480, H.264 codec, 1500kbps avg bitrate, AAC 48KHz 160Kbps) to give user the best visual enjoyment.
U can try it, hopefully it can help u.
Tim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can download an app from market and then you can watch rmvb on Nook Color. So, your post is not 100% accurate.
There are a couple apps vplayer and rockplayer that can play just about every format on armv7l (our cpu)
More importantly I heard the ffree and awesome VLC player is coming to android VERY soon, that will be the best for the NC for sure
I have tried half a dozen video apps and have been unable to play 720p mkv.
720p youtube vids don't work
I tried downloading 720p and 1080p videos from youtube with tubemate and they wouldn't play. They'd skip and stutter - totally unwatchable.
Also just tried playing a 180meg 720p AVI of the office in VPlayer. The video plays fluidly but the audio is completely out of sync.
wy1d said:
I have tried half a dozen video apps and have been unable to play 720p mkv.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nook color's GPU limitation. Max it can play back is 854×480.
See 3 posts up.
From Nook color spec on nookdevs.com site.
GPU Processor: PowerVR SGX530 - Hardware Scaling: 854x480 scaled to 1024x600
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid 720p and 1080p are out of the question.
What's the point of 720p on a 480p device? Do you just not want to convert your video files?
Sent from my Nook Color.
Vplayer works better than rockplayer. Plays mkv. Ratings are bad because developer said application would always be free than started to charge for it. Paid version is highly rated
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Clienterror said:
What's the point of 720p on a 480p device? Do you just not want to convert your video files?
Sent from my Nook Color.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because the nook's screen is 600 pixels so 720 would be the smallest "standard" size that doesn't have to be up-converted.
I play mkv files on my HTC Desire - Rockplayer and others all stuttered and displayed a blocky effect.
Then I installed Vital Player (neon) and they all player wonderfully - even 70p ones! For some reason it struggles with 720p mp4 files but who uses those?
The chip that handles video on the NC wants to play video smaller than 854x480.
Any video larger than that will not go through the hardware accelerator.
I have a thread where I attached a handbrake preset for the NC.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=992214
If you use that preset, you have to set the video size yourself (defaults to original size)
Use the original size if it is smaller than 854x480. If it is larger (like 720p would be) then set it to 854 width with "Keep Aspect Ratio" and the video file that handbrake puts out will be nook hardware accelerated.
Also, MoboPlayer is much better than the alternatives as far as the player itself goes.
Juboha said:
Nook color's GPU limitation. Max it can play back is 854×480.
See 3 posts up.
From Nook color spec on nookdevs.com site.
I'm afraid 720p and 1080p are out of the question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read entire thread but I really want to know why archos 70 or 101 (with same GPU!) manages to play 720p hardware accelerated.
As you may know, the Nook color has PowerVR SGX530 Graphics chip, which is also available on Droid 2 and Droid X.
This chip is pretty good when it comes to medium 3D performance and video playback. It can play videos quite nicely, but only the formats that it knows. Other formats will need to be played using software, which will give you medicore level playback.
If you have an MP4 files (which are encoded with H.264 Base level encoding), those files will play with hardware decoding great. However, if you have other video content (episodes, both in AVI/XVid or MKV/H.264 format), Nook will play them badly with 3rd party software (rock player, vplayer, etc).
Thats where FFMPEG could help a lot, if you're using Linux, all you need to do is install ffmpeg and run the following command:
Code:
ffmpeg -y -threads 8 -i myvideo.avi -b 800k -bt 1000k -vcodec libx264 -vpre default -vpre baseline -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -ar 44100 -ab 128k mynewvideo.mp4
the "myvideo.avi" is your original AVI file, and "mynewvideo.mp4" is the new MP4 file which could be played nicely on the Nook Color. Please note: if your video is bigger then 854x480, then you need to add the -s XxY where XxY is the width:height of the video (example: 640x352). If your video needs a new aspect ratio, you can use the -aspect parameter (example: -aspect 16:9)
If you're using a mac, then handbrake is your friend, as other tools which are based on ffmpeg.
On Windows you can either install FFMPEG for Windows, or you can use An application called "Any Video converter", and simply select your original file name, Select X264 as video codec, and convert. The output file should be played well.
No matter what conversion software you use, make sure that the H.264 profile that you use is set to base-level (or "base"). Anything higher cannot be played by the nook without frame skipping.
If you want to test if your video can be played with hardware acceleration, upload your video to your Nook (or to the Micro SD card), open any file manager and click on the mp4 file. Try to play the video with the "Movies" built in app. If the app will recognize your video, it will play it without any issues or frame skipping.
Good luck
Hetz
HandBrake can be used on Windows also
I read there are aspect ratio issues with the built in player. But I also read that even in mp4 base other video players can't take advantage of the hardware playback accel (proprietary drivers). Is that correct?
Handbrake doesn't work for windows?
triggrhaapi said:
Handbrake doesn't work for windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Handbrake works great on Windows. Encoded a few this week for the Nook and ran like buttah.
Out of curiosity, why not just use RockPlayer. I'm yet to get an NC so I may be missing something.
It runs kind of choppy on video files encoded with anything other H.264/MPEG4 and the audio seems to get out of sync quickly
Mikey1022 said:
HandBrake can be used on Windows also
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And linux.
the latest version of rock player seems to have a lot better handle on audio sync...
we can never watch the avi videos without converting ?
Maybe
yemin88 said:
we can never watch the avi videos without converting ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really depends how the official Froyo update (coming in January) will improve performance.
rock player works fine... the problem is that you cant have above a 480p video. the reason is its not the audio thats lagging its the video studdering and thats whats causing the lagg
The topic title should read "how to watch videos on your nook if you run Linux"
You added all the settings you need for it, but not for the other operating systems lol You can run the file through any of these programs, (speaking Mac/Win) but just because you encode it with H.264 doesn't mean its going to play smoothly. If your source file is 1080p, this obviously isn't going to work.
My source file is:
H.264
Deinterlaced
720p
30fps
VBR 1 pass
AAC. 192kbps 48kHz, Stereo
So far Im at a video file @ 1024x576 at 15fps (tried to pull the Consistent Quality slider to 100%, but didn't see much differance) thats had the smoothest playback.
Now Im pretty much brand new to video editing and making, are there any settings I could be useing to make this file more smooth using Handbreak....or even more so In Adobe Premiere?
Im basically trying to see what the highest quality the Nook can take. Not to mention a continuous video of my coral reef while Im at work sitting next to me on my NC would b kinda epic
I use DropFolders. It uses HandBrake & you set it up with a watch folder & a destination folder. All you do is drop a video in the watch folder & it converts the file & puts it in your destination folder. You set up the HandBrake arguements in Drop Folders. Works like a charm.
Cheers,
kev
MrOtsKrad said:
The topic title should read "how to watch videos on your nook if you run Linux"
You added all the settings you need for it, but not for the other operating systems lol You can run the file through any of these programs, (speaking Mac/Win) but just because you encode it with H.264 doesn't mean its going to play smoothly. If your source file is 1080p, this obviously isn't going to work.
My source file is:
H.264
Deinterlaced
720p
30fps
VBR 1 pass
AAC. 192kbps 48kHz, Stereo
So far Im at a video file @ 1024x576 at 15fps (tried to pull the Consistent Quality slider to 100%, but didn't see much differance) thats had the smoothest playback.
Now Im pretty much brand new to video editing and making, are there any settings I could be useing to make this file more smooth using Handbreak....or even more so In Adobe Premiere?
Im basically trying to see what the highest quality the Nook can take. Not to mention a continuous video of my coral reef while Im at work sitting next to me on my NC would b kinda epic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the published specs for the NC, the default app will not play video above 854x480. If you want to use hardware decoding through the default app, you'll need to scale that down from 1024.
I have several videos encoded using one of the latest nightly builds of handbrake for NC, and with the constant quality set at 20, playback is flawless. You can use the "Apple Universal" setting to get the required baseline profile for MP4 and then adjust the video size as you like.
You can also use the "High Profile" and change some settings and per HERE. I was, however, able to set the max width above 720, unlike the third poster.
Innnnnnteresting! Thank you! I will give this a shot and see what I come up with
I posted a handbrake preset here. It works well for me.
Hi why can you try rockplayer for play video like divx
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App
triggrhaapi said:
Handbrake doesn't work for windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't worry, I found an easy way to convert videos for nook color, read the article "Nook Color Video Converter Review – easy play any video on Nook Color"
from
Code:
icamcorder.net
Got a Nook Color over the weekend, and video looks great using the Handbrake preset posted here... I'm using Autonooter, and the built in Gallery app to play it. However, I'm curious, if I decided to try out Honeycomb, will other video player apps use hardware decoding with files encoded with the Handbrake preset, or is it limited to the stock Nook app? Thanks!
Got this working perfectly as you can see... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00UxoPJ5XsA
This app will let you stream media from your pc to your nook using Wifi.
Download from market vlc stream and convert. (mobile)
Download vlc media player (PC)
Make sure you have ports 5554 and 8080 open on your router. More then likely you already do!
For Pc install vlc media player then open and go to view > add interface> and click on Web interface. IF your running windows it will ***** about it but just click allow.
Make sure your firewall won't block the ports. So if it doesn't work just disable your firewall just to test to see if that is the problem.
Ok your done with the pc.
Now install the app and open it up on the nook
Go to menu then connect > scan > after scan it should find your pc. click OK. You should be connected.
If you have problems go to their home site and make sure you follow the steps www.traveldevel.com/vlc-stream-convert
Ok now for the magic...
Once connected you should be able to browse your computer for files.
Now your going to want to optimize it for the nook.
Go to menu settings >steam to phone (rtsp) >caching (in ms) set to 1000 , i use 500 but default is 2000ms and it will lag like hell.
Next go to H.264 AVC settings I have mine set at custom bitrate at 1024 frame rate is at 30 with is 640 and Canvas aspect ratio is 16:9 , I selected cavas crop and that's it!
Go back to settings and go to general > playback and I have Landscape and Portrait to "fit to screen".
Obviously if you don't have the paid version you will have to set bitrate at 768 and width at 480.
Hope you guys enjoy this cause this Rocks!
***edit had a little rips and tears in video so i adjusted the cache to 50ms and it seems to be completely gone.
I got this to work, but the video quality has to be set to 'dismal' to make it happen. I finally got streaming video read from my desktop to display on the Nook, but the video bitrate must be set as low as possible (128), and the video width nearly as low as possible (240). The resulting video quality is terrible, and still occasionally jumps and is out of sync with audio. I am trying to stream a straight DVD rip, so perhaps this is a problem on my desktops end not being able to decode, re-encode and stream all at the same time from a high quality source. Perhaps if the source video is downscaled a bit or changed to the same video and audio codecs to prevent the need to re-encode things might work better, but I gave up for the time being because the results I got were so dissapointing. I can stream my webcam input to the Nook with acceptable results, which is acutally why I bought VLC S&C to begin with, so not a total loss.
This has potential, but I think you need a rather buff desktop setup to get it to work well.
After spending a whole day learning about creating a VPN and accessing it both locally and remotely, I finally got it working!
I have decent quality running at 920 pixel width, but I haven't played around with bitrate too much just yet. I'm thinking I should be able to get it to be a bit better without creating massive buffer times.
I'm still running on the free version since I wanted to be sure I can get everything working right. I definitely want to toss a few bucks to the developer, but want everything set up so I'm not just annoyed when I do!
After spending a whole day learning about creating a VPN and accessing it both locally and remotely, I finally got it working!
I have decent quality running at 920 pixel width, but I haven't played around with bitrate too much just yet. I'm thinking I should be able to get it to be a bit better without creating massive buffer times.
I'm still running on the free version since I wanted to be sure I can get everything working right. I definitely want to toss a few bucks to the developer, but want everything set up so I'm not just annoyed when I do!
Edit:
So I've played around with this a bit more and have gotten decent quality streaming video playing over a VPN! Assuming you have successfully connected to your computer and can play video, try these settings:
Stream to Phone (rtsp) >
Video Codec: H.264 AVC
H.264 AVC Settings >
Video Bitrate: 768
Frame rate: 29.97
Width: 480
Canvas Aspect Ratio: 16:9 (854:480)
Movies of various qualities seem to have bit of grain but they're definitely acceptable to me.
OMG Thanks man! I got it to work! I did a few tweaks and I got to say it's working absolutely beautifully. I was trying to run everything as mp4 don't know why i didn't think to do x264 avc settings
I did what you did and used these settings
Frame Rate 29.97
Width 480
Canvas aspect ratio 16:9
Ok this is the trick to get it to work
Set "Caching (in ms)" from the default 2000ms to 1000ms and fixes the frame rate issue 100%. For all i know it could play at 60fps and I wouldn't notice any improvements. Smooth as butter. Resolution is comparable to a netflix stream so resolution is pretty good B+. In playback I adjusted the screen to see if i could stretch it out a bit but didn't really get it to 100 full screen, maybe about 70%. Going to do some more tweaking. Maybe even get the pro version now i know this rocks! BRB...
I just running this from wifi didn't have to do a vpn to get it work. I did make sure i opened the ports for 8080 and 5554 on my router just to be safe.
*************edit please buy the pro version it is much nicer!!! So these settings can be increased for better resolution and bit rates!!!!
Just posted a video up! Enjoy!
I just use SubSonic. Install the program on your PC and the app on your Nook. No ports need to be open if your watching on your local network and only 1 port needs to be open if you want to watch remotely. Streams every music format under the sun and most video formats. For video it converts it all to Flash and lets you choose your Bitrate. I like it because I can lower the bitrate if on a slow link or even use it on my laptop.
edit - can't post url's until I pass some post limit. w-w-w.subsonic.o-r-g
I say that would be good for audio streaming. I didn't see anything on their site to actually stream video. However, i'm not saying they don't but VLC has a awesome rep for converting video and such for many years. I've had them i swear for at least 10.
EDIT - Found the issue was that I had to set the Player mode to stream to phone (rtsp).
Thanks for the info. Trying to get this to work now. I now able to browse the files on my computer, but whenever I try to play a file it says "Cannot create play command!".
Same message if I try to file a video or mp3 file. I've made sure my ports are open. Any ideas?
can i download anytime file type like avi or does it have to be H.264 AVC.
so in other words can i download a movie and not convert it and it will still play?
EverythingNook said:
can i download anytime file type like avi or does it have to be H.264 AVC.
so in other words can i download a movie and not convert it and it will still play?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will play avi files. I believe it will convert any of the many type of video formats that VLC plays.
Still working on tweaking my connection. The quality of the video is great but the lag is pretty bad. I tried mimicking your settings, Todfather (on non-paid). Great app but I need to figure out how to get a better fps.
I'm using CM7 and router is on wireless G connection.
Ahhh FPS fix was in the cache settings (2000 was default) when i had it at default it was a bit laggy, after i adjusted it to 1000 it was perfect then i just said screw it and brought it all the way down to 50ms still is fine! That may be overkill but what the hell. OH yeah i am also running CM7 with dalingrins OC kernel and have it set to 1.1ghz on interactive. I am not to learned in all the different formats but i played a mp4 mv4 h264 and a avi I think. But honestly I only download 264 cause i usually stream stuff to my xbox.
What are your settings now? I'm willing to help ya!
Ok here are my current settings
video codec h.264 avc
caching 50ms
bitrate is 1024 (paid) yours will be 720 witch is nice as hell but just not as nice as 1024
frame rate 29.97
width 640 (paid) yours will be 480
canvas ratio 16:9
anyone have any clue what reference frames do?
Here are my settings:
cache settings 1000 (lowering it didn't seem to help)
video codec h.264 avc
caching 50ms
bitrate is 768
frame rate 29.97
width 480
canvas ratio 16:9
I have tried many variations but cannot seem to get a better framerate. I should probably mention that I am using verygreen's SD installer for CM7 and Dalingrin's kernel with cpu OC'ed @ 1.1. Quadrant scores of 2k+.
anyone getting this working on honeycomb? i just get out of synch choppy video
Sent from my NookColor
It works!!! This is enough reason to setup a vpn IMO. Christ... NetLimiter says 108KB with the free settings. I only have like 40k uplink to the outside world!!! WEAK.
The video gets out of sync easily though. Any ideas?
tablo said:
Here are my settings:
cache settings 1000 (lowering it didn't seem to help)
video codec h.264 avc
caching 50ms
bitrate is 768
frame rate 29.97
width 480
canvas ratio 16:9
I have tried many variations but cannot seem to get a better framerate. I should probably mention that I am using verygreen's SD installer for CM7 and Dalingrin's kernel with cpu OC'ed @ 1.1. Quadrant scores of 2k+.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps a limitation with having OS on a sd card?
Sync issues seems to be bad if i pause and restart. I'm playing with some settings now to figure it out
Awesome Awesome!! Got it to work. Thanks a million. Haven't played with all the setting but settings from the OP works for me. I'm on the free VLC now. Will test it some more and will upgrade my VLC.
I am getting could not connect ip:5554 error.
Running rooted stock OS. Opened the TCP ports 5554 and 8080 in Router.
Any idea?
Anyone using this with verygreen's SD installer for CM get an acceptable frame rate?
Edit - Tried it from my auto-nootered 1.1 and was able to get a good frame rate. The problem seems to be that I am on a SD bootable CM7 ROM.
I thought so ^^ Sd cards are just not as efficient has internal ssds. I tried running on a sd as well and just couldn't deal with the read write speads even though i was on a class 6 sandisk. Glad to hear you solved your problem
can you guys tell me some good settings to work on the nook? and what do you guys use to convert videos?
P.S. I have already seen the "Nook Color preset for Handbrake" and it said it would take over 4 hours to convert it!
EverythingNook said:
can you guys tell me some good settings to work on the nook? and what do you guys use to convert videos?
P.S. I have already seen the "Nook Color preset for Handbrake" and it said it would take over 4 hours to convert it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on resolution.
For low def videos on my OC kernel at 1.1Ghz, I can use moboplayer with software decoding without any issues with my AVI files.
(no need for conversion).
Not with 720p videos... They will need to be converted and using handbrake, I can achieve around real time or about 1.5x real time. (2 hr video will encode in about 1 1/2 hours) Just que them up and go to sleep.
hpark21 said:
Depending on resolution.
For low def videos on my OC kernel at 1.1Ghz, I can use moboplayer with software decoding without any issues with my AVI files.
(no need for conversion).
Not with 720p videos... They will need to be converted and using handbrake, I can achieve around real time or about 1.5x real time. (2 hr video will encode in about 1 1/2 hours) Just que them up and go to sleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the info! so avi files dont need to be converted?
Encoding time depends on the source vs output somewhat, but normally it takes anywhere from 1/2 to 1:1 the time length of the video to encode, regardless of the encoding software (I've used Handbrake, DVD Catalyst 4, Videodub(mod), and a handful of others over the years).
My solution for this is just to batch queue a bunch of files to be re-encoded and do the encoding overnight when I'm sleeping
My settings (for any encoder, but I'll put them in order for Handbrake here):
Container: MP4 file, Ipod 5G support
Picture:
1. If source > 854x480 then set Width: 854, Anamorphic: Loose, Modulus: 16.
2. If source < 854x480 and the bitrate of the original file is high, can upvert to higher res, otherwise same settings.
3. If source< 854x480 and the bitrate of the original file is low, encode at the original resolution with the same settings as 1.
Video Filters: None
Video Codec: H.264
Framerate: Generally same as source, if you have issues force to 24 (or 23.976)
Regarding 1-pass vs 2-pass encoding, see below
Quality/Bitrates:
(Here's the tricky part for quality issues)
For high-action lots of changes animation / non-animated video I prefer:
1. - average bitrate of 1500 kbps
a) 2-pass encoding if I'm concerned about overall quality (I usually batch jobs overnight when I'm sleeping). *Caveat: This will increase encoding time to ~2x versus ~1:1*
b) 1-pass encoding if I'm in a hurry, it's good enough for many videos
For things that don't require a lot of movement and have large areas of flat color, like say, South Park*:
2. - (constant) RF:20 resulting in 1/2 the file size of the bitrate used in 1.
**** Out of all the parts of encoding a video, this is your most subjective part. If you want to find a sweet spot for yourself I would suggest setting the encoder to encode a small section of a sample video and play around with these settings to find what you like best. This is what works best for me ****
Caveat: RF:0 (lossless H.264) videos will not work on your Nook Color without resorting to software decoding, which currently does not work anywhere near as well or smoothly as hardware decoding. You will most likely get video stutter, audio desync, and other issues (plus the default movies android player won't play them at all.)
Audio:
- Source: Choose your desired (language) track.
- Audio codec: AAC encoding
- Mixdown: Stereo or your choice. Dolby Pro Logic II works fine on the Nook as well.
- Samplerate: Downsample the usual 48k to 44.1. 48k with high bitrates can cause issues on NC.
- Bitrate: 128 if you want to save space, 160 otherwise.
- DRC: 0
Subtitles:
- If you don't watch foreign language (that you don't speak) videos, you don't need to be concerned with this section.
In-depth explanation of subtitling in Handbrake: https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Subtitles
1. Select the correct subtitle track, if it's included in the original file.
1a. If not, find and select the subtitle file (usually a .srt) to include as a track. Make sure this SRT is actually meant for the (original) video that you are encoding, or you will have desync issues with audio / video
2. The default video player in CM7 doesn't seem to support soft subs, and many players do not (Mobo is one that does but only for selective formats). If you find one that does and care about soft (can be turned on and off) subbing, then ignore 2a.
2a. Burned In is checked on. This hard-writes the subtitles track onto the actual images so they become part of the video. This means you cannot turn them off. This might be an issue if you decide to watch the video on a larger screen, e.g., 1080p tv (jagged edges from being upverted) , but why you would want to watch a low res non-HD video encoded for the Nook on there is beyond me
Forced Only and Default are not checked.
2b. If soft subbing, don't enable Burned In. Regarding Forced Only see the Handbrake guide linked above.
3. Handbrake specific: Click on Add to make sure it's actually added as a track to your encoding.
Chapters:
If you want to be able to move around your video the way you can on a regular DVD (divided into sections that you can >> to rather than manually dragging the bar), you can enable chapter markers. This may or may not be supported on your choice of video app for Android. What this also does is force the extension (.xyz) to change from .mp4 to m4v, which (in short) is the correct nomenclature anyway but we're used to the .mp4 extension thanks to Apple.
If your player is having issues with the m4v extension, keep Chapter Markers unchecked (also make sure that Handbrake is set to name the file as .mp4).
Advanced: (Handbrake) Leave as is.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions
* - I am not in any way endorsing the copying or re-encoding of copyrighted materials, even for personal use.
EverythingNook said:
thanks for the info! so avi files dont need to be converted?
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Click to collapse
It depends on the AVI file. If the bitrate is too high or the resolution is above the maximum that the Nook supports (854x480), or both, your video app may attempt to play it in software decoding mode, which at the moment isn't very good.
angomy said:
Encoding time depends on the source vs output somewhat, but normally it takes anywhere from 1/2 to 1:1 the time length of the video to encode, regardless of the encoding software (I've used Handbrake, DVD Catalyst 4, Videodub(mod), and a handful of others over the years).
My solution for this is just to batch queue a bunch of files to be re-encoded and do the encoding overnight when I'm sleeping
My settings (for any encoder, but I'll put them in order for Handbrake here):
Container: MP4 file, Ipod 5G support
Picture:
1. If source > 854x480 then set Width: 854, Anamorphic: Loose, Modulus: 16.
2. If source < 854x480 and the bitrate of the original file is high, can upvert to higher res, otherwise same settings.
3. If source< 854x480 and the bitrate of the original file is low, encode at the original resolution with the same settings as 1.
Video Filters: None
Video Codec: H.264
Framerate: Generally same as source, if you have issues force to 24 (or 23.976)
Regarding 1-pass vs 2-pass encoding, see below
Quality/Bitrates:
(Here's the tricky part for quality issues)
For high-action lots of changes animation / non-animated video I prefer:
1. - average bitrate of 1500 kbps
a) 2-pass encoding if I'm concerned about overall quality (I usually batch jobs overnight when I'm sleeping)
b) 1-pass encoding if I'm in a hurry, it's good enough for many videos
For things that don't require a lot of movement and have large areas of flat color, like say, South Park*:
2. - (constant) RF:20 resulting in 1/2 the file size of the bitrate used in 1.
**** Out of all the parts of encoding a video, this is your most subjective part. If you want to find a sweet spot for yourself I would suggest setting the encoder to encode a small section of a sample video and play around with these settings to find what you like best. This is what works best for me ****
Caveat: RF:0 (lossless H.264) videos will not work on your Nook Color without resorting to software decoding, which currently does not work anywhere near as well or smoothly as hardware decoding. You will most likely get video stutter, audio desync, and other issues (plus the default movies android player won't play them at all.)
Audio:
- Source: Choose your desired (language) track.
- Audio codec: AAC encoding
- Mixdown: Stereo or your choice. Dolby Pro Logic II works fine on the Nook as well.
- Samplerate: Downsample the usual 48k to 44.1. 48k with high bitrates can cause issues on NC.
- Bitrate: 128 if you want to save space, 160 otherwise.
- DRC: 0
Subtitles:
- If you don't watch foreign language (that you don't speak) videos, you don't need to be concerned with this section.
In-depth explanation of subtitling in Handbrake: https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Subtitles
1. Select the correct subtitle track, if it's included in the original file.
1a. If not, find and select the subtitle file (usually a .srt) to include as a track. Make sure this SRT is actually meant for the (original) video that you are encoding, or you will have desync issues with audio / video
2. The default video player in CM7 doesn't seem to support soft subs, neither does either of my preferred video player apps (mobo and vitalplayer neon). If you find one that does and care about soft (can be turned on and off) subbing, then ignore 2a.
2a. Burned In is checked on. This hard-writes the subtitles track onto the actual images so they become part of the video. This means you cannot turn them off. This might be an issue if you decide to watch the video on a larger screen, e.g., 1080p tv (jagged edges from being upverted) , but why you would want to watch a low res non-HD video encoded for the Nook on there is beyond me
Forced Only and Default are not checked.
2b. If soft subbing, don't enable Burned In. Regarding Forced Only see the Handbrake guide linked above.
3. Handbrake specific: Click on Add to make sure it's actually added as a track to your encoding.
Chapters:
If you want to be able to move around your video the way you can on a regular DVD (divided into sections that you can >> to rather than manually dragging the bar), you can enable chapter markers. This may or may not be supported on your choice of video app for Android. What this also does is force the extension (.xyz) to change from .mp4 to m4v, which (in short) is the correct nomenclature anyway but we're used to the .mp4 extension thanks to Apple.
If your player is having issues with the m4v extension, keep Chapter Markers unchecked (also make sure that Handbrake is set to name the file as .mp4).
Advanced: (Handbrake) Leave as is.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions
* - I am not in any way endorsing the copying or re-encoding of copyrighted materials, even for personal use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow man thanks for the amazing info, i will try these out!
To add to this, I'm watching a 1-pass, 1500 kbps average bitrate (44.1/AAC/160kbps audio) hard subbed movie at the moment and tbqh I'm not sure if it's even worth it to 2-pass encode --- if you're really anal about any artifacting you may want to 2-pass, but for me it's not worth the extra time to encode unless I'm batching up for the night. To give you an idea of the size/time ratio, one minute of encoded video with these settings is ~12MB/min.
25 min episode: 300MB
2 hour movie: 1.44GB
If this is unacceptably large, I would suggest trying RF:20 fixed bitrate (which is roughly 1/2 the size) to see if you don't mind the occasionally visible artifacting.
Also, Mobo player doesn't seem to want to expand the videos edge-to-edge, but VitalPlayer and the default movie player both do. Unless I'm doing something wrong with Mobo, which is a possibility since I use VitalPlayer Neon the most. <-- never mind, I had clicked something in Mobo that prevented it from doing so initially, but they actually do display edge-to-edge by default.
angomy said:
It depends on the AVI file. If the bitrate is too high or the resolution is above the maximum that the Nook supports (854x480), or both, your video app may attempt to play it in software decoding mode, which at the moment isn't very good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Moboplayer (free) software decoding, I have no issue watching 704x400 AVI(xvid with mp3 audio). No skipped frames. Total bitrate of 1.3mbits (including audio I believe).
Like I mentioned, I am using OC kernel at 1.1GHz though.
i used tool to converter my videos to mp4, h.264, 854*480 for playing on nook color, all are ok. i can play in full screen with high quality.
i also tried handbrake, and i think it is difficult to use, which takes me a lot of time to import my video.
What are the best settings to use in Handbrake for the Nexus 7?
I want to encode movies while keeping good quality but as the device has limited space I dont want to store any information that the device cant show.
Thanks,
Mento
I'm still a rookie on the forum so I can't post links, but do a Google search for "android video compatibility" and you will see the stock android video capabilities in the first link, address starts with "developer.android."
You'll see that it basically can handle good hi def in the form of mp4 and mkv. That being said, you can use less space by using avi files that are marginally smaller, but you will need a media player app like MX player, there are plenty of free ones that can get the hardware involved in the processing so you get great video.
Hope this helps.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
I've been looking for the same information since the Nexus 7 was released. I haven't been able to find a good resource that says what options in the H.264 spec are supported. However, I was able to play back some movies which I encoded for an iPod Touch using Handbrake. These videos were encoded basically using the iPhone profile with some minor changes. So, H.264, high-profile, using b-frames (I think 3).
I've been using DicePlayer, mostly because I couldn't get stable playback using MxPlayer or the stock player on my Touchpad. It seems like the Nexus 7 stock player is capable of playing those files back, but I still use Dice.
There are two presets in Handbrake under Devices, Android Mid and Android High.
ffmpeg settings
It's a shame there's no standard. Each Android device supports different features. Using ffmpeg If you want maximum compatibility you have to encode with baseline slow. However, the Nexus 7 seems to have excellent H.264 support.
Here's what I've successfully used to downconvert 1920x1080i video - it does crop the edges a bit but I think it's probably within the overscan area anyway. (Yeah, I know, LCDs don't actually have overscan.)
High quality, remove a logo, 24fps 'film' source :
ffmpeg -y -i <INPUTVIDEONAME> -r 24000/1001 -crf 20 -filter:v yadif,removelogo=<LOGOFILENAME>,scale=-1:800,crop=1280:800 -sws_flags spline -preset placebo -profile:v high -aq 90 -ac 2 <OUTPUTVIDEONAME>.mp4
Lower quality (crf=20 vs 30), no logo removal:
ffmpeg -y -i <INPUTVIDEONAME> -r 24000/1001 -crf 30 -filter:v yadif,scale=-1:800,crop=1280:800 -sws_flags spline -preset placebo -profile:v high -aq 90 -ac 2 <OUTPUTVIDEONAME>.mp4
Lower quality, 29.97fps video source:
ffmpeg -y -i <INPUTVIDEONAME> -r 30000/1001 -crf 30 -filter:v yadif,scale=-1:800,crop=1280:800 -sws_flags spline -preset placebo -profile:v high -aq 90 -ac 2 <OUTPUTVIDEONAME>.mp4
This works with CURRENT builds of ffmpeg as of this post. Earlier releases may not work.
Best bet is just choose the iPhone 4 preset and up the width to 1280 (depending on what you're encoding). If the source material is < 1280 pixels wide (SD content, etc) then just accept the default resolution the preset chooses (DVD content will play back at the correct aspect ratio). If the source material is = or > 1280 pixels wide, the preset will default to 960 pixels - change that to 1280 (for > 1280 wide) and it'll look fantastic.
Most likely you'll need to drop the audio down to simple 2-channel stereo, the recommendation is to use the AAC ffmpeg encoder at 160 Kbps or 128 Kbps if you want to save a few bytes (the size difference between a 128 Kbps and 160 Kbps audio stream will be fairly minimal; the 160 Kbps will offer better response so might as well just use that).
Or, if the material you want to encode already has AAC audio streams, just pass the audio through - that saves HandBrake the time and trouble of re-encoding already lossy audio and you end up with the exact audio stream taken from the source material but this only works if the source material HAS an AAC audio stream to begin with. There's an option to pass-thru MP3 audio streams as well.
Since the Nexus 7 isn't really designed to provide AC3/DTS capability for audio (5.1 or 7.1 soundtracks), there's no reason to encode or pass-thru such huge streams: encode it down to 128 or 160 Kbps AAC 2-channel stereo audio streams with the ffmpeg encoder.
MP4 or M4V is fine for the extension, either one will allow embedded captions/subtitles, or use MKV, doesn't really matter.
And the recommended media player for the Nexus 7 (at least my recommendation) is MX Player, there's nothing that can touch it.
These tips should get you some great looking videos. You can even make some minor adjustments like increasing the Reference frames to 5 and get slightly smaller video files in the long run as well.
But the basic iPhone 4 preset and adjusting the resolution to 1280 wide will give great results - you can of course just leave the resolution at the default of 960 pixels wide and it'll upscale beautifully on the Nexus 7 and you'll save a big chunk of space on the resulting encodes, like 25-35% in the end file size.
Hope this helps...
NOTE: HandBrake just updated again the other day, they're at 0.9.8 now so, if you're using an older build, it's a good idea to update to the most current one (the 0.9.7 release had some bugs they quashed pretty fast).
br0adband said:
Best bet is just choose the iPhone 4 preset and up the width to 1280 (depending on what you're encoding). If the source material is < 1280 pixels wide (SD content, etc) then just accept the default resolution the preset chooses (DVD content will play back at the correct aspect ratio). If the source material is = or > 1280 pixels wide, the preset will default to 960 pixels - change that to 1280 (for > 1280 wide) and it'll look fantastic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me just add one general warning. The iPhone 4 preset, along with the Android-high profile, use b-frames and other optional features in the H.264 that aren't necessarily supported on all Android devices. The Nexus 7 appears to deal with them fine, but as a general rule the iPhone 4 preset is not going to work on all Android devices.
Correct, and I was about to launch a very long post earlier but decided it's not worth the time or trouble.
Android devices with high resolution screens and made in the last ~18 months or so can handle the iPhone 4 preset without issues. My alteration to the preset is to increase the overall compression (using 5 Reference frames instead of the default 3 for the iPhone 4 preset) and also to adjust the Adaptive B-Frames to Optimal, that's about it on the Advanced tab.
I don't use the Android High preset because it requires me to alter more of the possible options than the iPhone 4 preset does (easier to adjust 2-3 options than 12).
Rest assured, the quad core Nexus 7 with the latest hardware decoder can handle any x264/h.264 options at this point in time.
This thread and this subforum ain't about all Android devices, it's about the Nexus 7 and everything posted so far is relevant to that device.
br0adband said:
Correct, and I was about to launch a very long post earlier but decided it's not worth the time or trouble.
Android devices with high resolution screens and made in the last ~18 months or so can handle the iPhone 4 preset without issues. My alteration to the preset is to increase the overall compression (using 5 Reference frames instead of the default 3 for the iPhone 4 preset) and also to adjust the Adaptive B-Frames to Optimal, that's about it on the Advanced tab.
I don't use the Android High preset because it requires me to alter more of the possible options than the iPhone 4 preset does (easier to adjust 2-3 options than 12).
Rest assured, the quad core Nexus 7 with the latest hardware decoder can handle any x264/h.264 options at this point in time.
This thread and this subforum ain't about all Android devices, it's about the Nexus 7 and everything posted so far is relevant to that device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tegra 3 doesn't like hi10p.
Hi10p only proves beneficial for one specific thing: anime or cartoon-type video content, and in the big picture it's pretty much irrelevant. It has a small community behind it - again, specifically anime fans - and that's fine but, in reality it's not a big enough "draw" (no pun intended) to bother with.
8-bit encoding with x264 looks just fine on the Nexus 7 and has no issues at all.
As side from the benefits in anime, the file size savings is really nice.
Handbrake
Regular Normal profile
H.264 for video
1000 Video Bitrate kbps (If you're starting with HD this bitrate is sufficient. about a gig per 2 hour movie)
Audio AAC (faac)
Gain 10
DRC 2.0
You can either setup handbrake to name it an mp4 instead of m4v or manually rename it to mp4.
You will be able to play with stock player.
I have never bothered to encode video files since I always owned devices that support mSD. But ever since I recieved this Nexus 7 as a gift ( HATE the no msd slot!!!!!) I thought it'd be a good idea to start encoding video files. I used handbrake (latest version), converted a 720p 1 hour game of thrones tv show episode, and I'm not impressed! I changed the resolution to 960X720, bit rate 1000, AAC FAAC stereo 128, Refrence Frame 5, Adaptive B-frame optimal, and all I ended up with was a 10mb difference in size (442mb to 433mb)
Hemidroids said:
Handbrake
Regular Normal profile
H.264 for video
1000 Video Bitrate kbps (If you're starting with HD this bitrate is sufficient. about a gig per 2 hour movie)
Audio AAC (faac)
Gain 10
DRC 2.0
You can either setup handbrake to name it an mp4 instead of m4v or manually rename it to mp4.
You will be able to play with stock player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much this, though I recommend changing horizontal pixels to 1280 and scale vertical accordingly. You can even scale down video bit rate on this device decently (if you're tight on space) because the high dpi helps hide compression artifacts.
Sent from my paranoid Nexus 7.
zolo111 said:
I have never bothered to encode video files since I always owned devices that support mSD. But ever since I recieved this Nexus 7 as a gift ( HATE the no msd slot!!!!!) I thought it'd be a good idea to start encoding video files. I used handbrake (latest version), converted a 720p 1 hour game of thrones tv show episode, and I'm not impressed! I changed the resolution to 960X720, bit rate 1000, AAC FAAC stereo 128, Refrence Frame 5, Adaptive B-frame optimal, and all I ended up with was a 10mb difference in size (442mb to 433mb)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The original file was probably already H.264 video.
Primary reasons to encode/transcode:
1) Reduce bitrate and resolution of 1080p Blu-Ray content
2) Change format of source files encoded in a way the device doesn't like
3) Use a more efficient codec than the source format while preserving the resolution (DVD encodes - H.264 is vastly superior to MPEG-2 so achieves major size reductions. Typically a 4.7GB DVD can be reduced to around 1GB of AVC+AAC at very high quality settings.)
On many devices, H.264 had better hardware acceleration than MPEG-4 ASP (aka DivX/Xvid) and most Android devices have far better support for the MPEG-4 container format than AVI - so it would be beneficial to transcode torrents that were ASP+MP3 AVIs.
However, many HD torrents are now AVC+AC3 MKVs. AC3 can be a problem, so can MKV, so usually when I do these transcodes I just transcode the audio using ffmpeg. Something like:
Code:
ffmpeg -i <infile.mkv> -acodec libfaac -ab 160k -ac 2 -vcodec copy <outfile.mp4>
Replaces AC-3 surround audio with 2-channel 160 kilobit AAC audio, and remuxes into an MPEG-4 stream.
Traditionally, 1 hour torrent releases were 700MB (1 CD) ASP+MP3 in an AVI container - However the scene seems to be moving from constant-size AVI encoding to constant-quality H.264+AAC MPEG-4 releases for standard definition content. 443MB for 1 hour sounds like one of these releases, which likely don't need any transcoding at all.
>ffmpeg -i <infile.mkv> -acodec libfaac -ab 160k -ac 2 -vcodec copy <outfile.mp4>
Has ffmpeg updated its AAC codec to be anything decent? I'm still using NeroAACenc.
Another ffmpeg issue is that last I checked (a year ago), it can mangle channel mapping for 5.1 audio, assuming you want 6ch AAC rather than stereo. I use ffmpeg for (some) demux, and straight x264 for video. There are better audio enc tools.
MPEG4-ASP isn't relevant any more, except to the few still stuck on obsolete playback hardware.
>the scene seems to be moving from constant-size AVI encoding to constant-quality H.264+AAC MPEG-4 releases for standard definition content.
I don't see that. Yes, peeps are moving to smaller-sized AVC encodes, but they're all still using 2-pass/fixed bitrate rather than 1-pass/fixed CRF.
BTW, for those with Win32 box and are interested in recoding/shrinking their vids, do try my x264 script below. Its forte is commandline efficiency with menu simplicity. It uses one-pass constant quality (CRF). You can vary the CRF.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1102922
---------- Post added at 05:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:35 PM ----------
>I used handbrake (latest version), converted a 720p 1 hour game of thrones tv show episode, and I'm not impressed! I changed the resolution to 960X720, bit rate 1000, AAC FAAC stereo 128, Refrence Frame 5, Adaptive B-frame optimal, and all I ended up with was a 10mb difference in size (442mb to 433mb)
The 720p 1-hr vid is already using a low bitrate to achieve the 442MB size. By using an arbitrary bitrate--why 1000, because it's an even number?--you're both increasing the bitrate and decreasing the quality, by re-encoding it again and at lower resolution.
BTW, most HDTV vids are 16:9, which at 960 is 960x540.
Videos can have wildly varying bitrate requirements, so it's advisable to use constant quality, and let the encoder determine the bitrate. HB uses a default of CRF 20, which is overly generous. Low-bitrate encodes such as the above has a CRF-equivalent of 24-27 (higher CRF = softer detail = lower bitrate), so don't bother recoding those. For biggies, suggest the x264 default of CRF 23 to start out.
AAC codec: Might be why if you use -acodec aac you get all sorts of warnings that you should really use libfaac instead - seems fine to me. That said my ears aren't particularly picky. NeroAACenc isn't really an option for me on a Linux box, and the above works fine for my use case.
Channel mapping: It seems to be downmixing fine, and as you see in my example, I told it to downmix to two channels. I haven't tested this in thorough detail, I need to find a good example of something with only rear channel audio to make sure the rear channels are getting mixed in. I don't encode to more than stereo AAC as I have nothing at all that can do anything useful with surround AAC - And there is no point in sending surround AAC to a Nexus 7 currently.
The "scene" using CBR 2-pass - I don't think they are any more for some newer releases - I'm seeing too much file size variance. It's not like the old days where files would be exactly 350MB or 700MB within a few kilobytes - I'm seeing up to 100MB of variation or more between releases even of the same show from the same group. That kinda screams CRF to me. Note that this is primarily TV shows from eztv - the movie "scene" may still be doing it oldskool.
Edit: Also, I find it highly unlikely that the person above actually had a 720p 1-hour episode. I've never seen a 720p TV release that small. Typically if it's around 440MB for a one hour video, that's a sign that it's a standard definition release.
NeroAACEnc is available for linux: ftp://ftp6.nero.com/tools/NeroDigitalAudio.zip
Re: Channel mapping - Yes, downmix works fine. The problem occurs when encoding to 6ch AAC, since AAC and AC3 (and DTS) all use different channel mapping, and ffmpeg doesn't remap them properly. You can try encoding the 5.1 AC3 test clip attached below. Each channel is verbalized out loud so you will know if it's correctly mapped.
Yes, it doesn't normally matter for tablets. But it would if you plug said tablet into a HDTV w/ hi-fi setup. OK, not the N7.
>The "scene" using CBR 2-pass
Admittedly I don't watch many vids nowaday, so you may be right. I usually do a mediainfo scan on stuff I watch to check their encoding params, and all the vids I see use 2-pass.
>unlikely that the person above actually had a 720p 1-hour episode. I've never seen a 720p TV release that small.
I've seen the Avengers 720p at 1.2GB, which is really low BR considering it's 2:22min long with lots of action scenes. Even at CRF 23 and just stereo AAC, my own 720p rip comes out to 1.8GB. It's typical for noobs to aim for a small fixed size and yet keeping the res high.
The result looks poor at close examination, but for casual viewing, it's actually fairly passable. At really low bitrates, the details are just softer rather than being pixellated as with ASP. For fast-motion scenes, it's hard to discern the detail loss. It's a testament to x264 encode quality.
Thanks Entropy512. You're right, I thought it'd be possible to further reduce the size since I wouldn't notice the picture quality difference on the 7" screen while I reduce the size by 20-25%. The scene already release a fantastic copy, size wise.
anyone had any luck encoding a video at 1080p 60fps for the nexus 7, and in that case what codecs/settings?