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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?
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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.
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Click to collapse
Great news i look foward to trying it out.
What are you guys using setting wise in handbrake for endoding your movies. I'm trying to do regular profile normal it looks like. I select the mp4 container, and basically start the process.
Once I try to play it on my tablet, it doesnt work. I tried rockplayer and mplayer...nothing
Just your basic 1080p mkv movies that are 7-10gigs I'm trying to basically convert to 720 or whatever so the tablet can do it.
I would really like to know what the best setting to make the smallest files is. I want to fit all my kids cartoons on the G.Tab with out taking up too much space. And with out losing too much quality.
480p would probably be sufficient. The tablet does support 1080p, but probably not without hardware acceleration (which isn't supported by android 2.3).
480p watching cartoons your kids probably won't notice. and you'd gain a lot of room.
Is there any way to improve the video playback quality?
I'm a heavy user of Voddler (a swedish Netflix) and Plex (video streaming from computer). When I watch the movies I have a little problem with the quality. Small blocks appear on the screen during playback. Is there anyway to make them disapear?
Or maybe it's just my Wifi connection too slow?
But this also appear when I play videos from the SDcard. These clips are in 720p, but the phone should manage to play them better, right?
Hope you can help me!
Best Regards
Jimmy
Try MX Player to play videos. and of course WiFi bandwidth matters for Quality video playback.
Those spot depends upon the bandwidth you are using and stored videos depends upon the bitrate which used to decode the video. Try to use more than 3mbps bitrate videos and higher bandwidth for streaming.. You won't see blocks in these setup.
Have noticed with my Chromecast that when I go from Netflix or Youtube the streaming is fine from my computer. If I try to go from one of the non-optimized services (such as Hulu) the stream gets very choppy. I am assuming this just has to do with those having been optimized for this but I was wondering if there was anything I could try settings wise to make other sites stream better? I have already reduced the Chromecast setting down to Standard.
yes there's nothing we can do at the moment. it needs more detailed settings. some of them were found inside the extension but they are not connected to anything in the current beta.
Sent from my One S using xda app-developers app
wigginst said:
Have noticed with my Chromecast that when I go from Netflix or Youtube the streaming is fine from my computer. If I try to go from one of the non-optimized services (such as Hulu) the stream gets very choppy. I am assuming this just has to do with those having been optimized for this but I was wondering if there was anything I could try settings wise to make other sites stream better? I have already reduced the Chromecast setting down to Standard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Streaming from non optimized apps needs a lot of cpu power. If you're using laptop, change power plan to high performance. My c2d laptop running win 8 has no choppy at all after this setting. Desktop with core i5 and above should have no problem.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
ddang25377 said:
Streaming from non optimized apps needs a lot of cpu power. If you're using laptop, change power plan to high performance. My c2d laptop running win 8 has no choppy at all after this setting. Desktop with core i5 and above should have no problem.
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true about CPU but I haven't experienced a totally smooth 720 playback yet (especially with HD stuff) no matter how powerful the setup is.
Sent from my One S using xda app-developers app
mannequin said:
true about CPU but I haven't experienced a totally smooth 720 playback yet (especially with HD stuff) no matter how powerful the setup is.
Sent from my One S using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, 720p streaming is pita, lol.
Google says the requirements for 720p is 3rd/4th gen core i5 with windows 7 or 8 (which is too much to me).
I tried 720p streaming with my desktop and the quality is great.
I might be lucky with my setup:
Core i5 desktop run OSX lion, wire internet, ssd hard drive.
Hope to see more optimized apps and chrome extension
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
I dropped quality down to 480p and at least it wasn't as choppy. I'm wondering though... when you cast from Chrome is it P2P, or does it stream up through the "Chromecast Cloud" and then back down to the CC? Obviously the optimized apps (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) all stream direct to the CC, but I'm wondering if that's why there is such a latency and poor quality when casting something like a video from Chrome. Even at poor speeds, you should be able to achieve a few hundred Kbps, if not a few Mbps, when streaming on your local LAN. If you're going through the internet though, speeds wouldn't be as fast, as well as Google could rate limit the stream to try forcing the use of only optimized apps. Thoughts?
Ninjazx71 said:
I dropped quality down to 480p and at least it wasn't as choppy. I'm wondering though... when you cast from Chrome is it P2P, or does it stream up through the "Chromecast Cloud" and then back down to the CC? Obviously the optimized apps (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) all stream direct to the CC, but I'm wondering if that's why there is such a latency and poor quality when casting something like a video from Chrome. Even at poor speeds, you should be able to achieve a few hundred Kbps, if not a few Mbps, when streaming on your local LAN. If you're going through the internet though, speeds wouldn't be as fast, as well as Google could rate limit the stream to try forcing the use of only optimized apps. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same exact questions. I dropped down to 480p as well and it was running smoothly for chrome tab cast. You would think that if it is P2P, it should be pretty smooth as my router could do way over 200Mbps P2P. Now if I have to go thru the internet (cloud), it is only about 40Mbps down and 4Mbps. I think the down part is not a problem as Netflix and Youtube came thru from the internet to the chromecast dongle just fine even in high resolution. I think the 4Mbps up would be a problem if it has to upload the data to the cloud first before going back to the chromecast dongle...
well cloud solution makes 0 sense in this case unless yeah, they did it on purpose to force the use of the official apps.
Sent from my One S using xda app-developers app
So, this is why/how it works.
If you go into one of the supported services (Netflix/YouTube/Google Play) your device just tells the Chromecast what to get, and then the Chromecast uses its own wireless connection to get the content.
When you are casting a tab or screen you are streaming your entire tab/screen straight to your Chromecast which means your computer needs to be grab the content (over your wireless connection) and then send the content over to your Chromecast (over your wireless connection again) through the router. Because of this, you have extra strain on both your home network and your computer (casting a screen/tab is resource expensive). This entire process is requires if you try to use any other service.
From what I can tell (over an 802.11g connection, full bars on both ends) 720p screen/tab casting is too unstable/resource heavy to stream smoothly. 420p works wonderfully for me.
Unfortunately the ability to cast a screen/tab does not come down to just A/V bandwidth requirements. There are control messages that need to be sent, and the code to get it to work efficiently is complex.
okay, so when I try to cast a tab and play a local video file.. the video freezes on the TV, but continues to play on my computer.. the sound also still comes through the TV while its frozen. Why is this? And is there anyway to cast a local file from your phone?
bewpy said:
okay, so when I try to cast a tab and play a local video file.. the video freezes on the TV, but continues to play on my computer.. the sound also still comes through the TV while its frozen. Why is this? And is there anyway to cast a local file from your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of local file (container format, compression type and bitrate) is it? It sounds like maybe the local file has a "glitch" in it or the file is using variable bitrate compression and the video bitrate exceeds what Chromecast can handle at the point it freezes.
Local file casting currently requires a rooted Chromecast, KyoCast installed on the Chromecast, and an un-timebombed AllCast/AirCast installed on your phone... The phone-local file needs to be a format Chromecast can play, and must be played in an app that allows Share to the AllCast/AirCast app.
Me too the issue happened on my chromecast even on youtube ... other pc work with me but one pc is showing this behaviour
bhiga said:
What kind of local file (container format, compression type and bitrate) is it? It sounds like maybe the local file has a "glitch" in it or the file is using variable bitrate compression and the video bitrate exceeds what Chromecast can handle at the point it freezes.
Local file casting currently requires a rooted Chromecast, KyoCast installed on the Chromecast, and an un-timebombed AllCast/AirCast installed on your phone... The phone-local file needs to be a format Chromecast can play, and must be played in an app that allows Share to the AllCast/AirCast app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So do you think this would work or help cast the Showbox app?
Sent from my HTCONE using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
bewpy said:
okay, so when I try to cast a tab and play a local video file.. the video freezes on the TV, but continues to play on my computer.. the sound also still comes through the TV while its frozen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That can happen if the transcoding performance of your computer is not sufficient for tab casting. I get that symptom if I attempt tab casting from my 2 GHz dual-core laptop, but not from my 4 GHz quad-core desktop. Google's beta tab-casting code just isn't very efficient.
DJames1 said:
That can happen if the transcoding performance of your computer is not sufficient for tab casting. I get that symptom if I attempt tab casting from my 2 GHz dual-core laptop, but not from my 4 GHz quad-core desktop. Google's beta tab-casting code just isn't very efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an i5.. with 8 gigs of ram..
It'll still depend mainly on how CPU-intensive the decoding of the video you're watching is. Whatever its left over needs to be enough to compress to whatever Chromecast needs.
It's more than that though. My system runs at only 12-18% CPU utilization while tab casting (depending on resolution), but the video is still a bit jerky, noticeably dropping frames about once a second. Dropping the resolution to 480p doesn't affect that at all. When I play the exact same internet stream via Plex running on the same computer and casting it to a Plex client, the video is perfectly smooth. The only explanation I can see for the poor performance along with low average CPU utilization is that Google isn't using enough buffering, and every time it gets overwhelmed by a momentary peak in transcoding, it stumbles and drops some frames. You can easily see and hear that the lag between the stream on the computer and the stream coming out of the Chromecast is only a fraction of a second, so that would support the insufficient-buffering theory.
DJames1 said:
It's more than that though. My system runs at only 12-18% CPU utilization while tab casting (depending on resolution), but the video is still a bit jerky, noticeably dropping frames about once a second. Dropping the resolution to 480p doesn't affect that at all. When I play the exact same internet stream via Plex running on the same computer and casting it to a Plex client, the video is perfectly smooth. The only explanation I can see for the poor performance along with low average CPU utilization is that Google isn't using enough buffering, and every time it gets overwhelmed by a momentary peak in transcoding, it stumbles and drops some frames. You can easily see and hear that the lag between the stream on the computer and the stream coming out of the Chromecast is only a fraction of a second, so that would support the insufficient-buffering theory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The flip side to the coin would be that the Cast extension isn't using enough compression. More buffering would create additional lag between what's on the computer and out from the Chroemcast. There's already a fair lag.
More compression would mean higher CPU requirements but lower network bandwidth
More buffering would mean more lag
Being that the Cast extension is still in beta, I'm hoping Google either lets us adjust these settings (the previously-discovered hidden settings would be reasonable) or they are trying to determine the best compromise given the target market. The parameters are narrow enough that a Q&A optimizer would probably work.
My video is lagging: decrease buffering & use looser compression
My video is pausing, skipping or jumping: increase buffering
My video is still pausing, skipping or jumping: decrease compression
bhiga said:
What kind of local file (container format, compression type and bitrate) is it? It sounds like maybe the local file has a "glitch" in it or the file is using variable bitrate compression and the video bitrate exceeds what Chromecast can handle at the point it freezes.
Local file casting currently requires a rooted Chromecast, KyoCast installed on the Chromecast, and an un-timebombed AllCast/AirCast installed on your phone... The phone-local file needs to be a format Chromecast can play, and must be played in an app that allows Share to the AllCast/AirCast app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I have been able to stream local content from my Plex Server using the Chrome Browser Tab Cast feature...
Open Plex Media Manager in the browser, Cast the tab to the Chromecast, Play the video, make it full screen and all is good.
Perhaps because the Plex Server does transcoding and his local file does not.
Most of my files are H264 MP4 files and AVI and other containers won't work like you said.
Asphyx said:
Actually I have been able to stream local content from my Plex Server using the Chrome Browser Tab Cast feature...
Open Plex Media Manager in the browser, Cast the tab to the Chromecast, Play the video, make it full screen and all is good.
Perhaps because the Plex Server does transcoding and his local file does not.
Most of my files are H264 MP4 files and AVI and other containers won't work like you said.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it's two-fold in your case.
Plex Server is making sure Chrome can play it (ensures it's browser-friendly)
and
because you're tab-casting, the source doesn't really matter because the Cast extension is recompressing what appears on the screen to a Chromecast-compatible format. The Cast extension doesn't care whether it's video or PowerPoint or an animated GIF - at the point the Cast extension sees it, it's just a series of images for it to compress and send to Chromecast
bhiga said:
Actually it's two-fold in your case.
Plex Server is making sure Chrome can play it (ensures it's browser-friendly)
and
because you're tab-casting, the source doesn't really matter because the Cast extension is recompressing what appears on the screen to a Chromecast-compatible format. The Cast extension doesn't care whether it's video or PowerPoint or an animated GIF - at the point the Cast extension sees it, it's just a series of images for it to compress and send to Chromecast
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh IC...SO the fact that it is playing well has more to do with the file being compatible with the browser...Got it!