Database Develop

[Q] Considering buying this, a few ?'s

So I can't help but be intrigued by a 9" Android tablet for $170 which would allow me to root it to "stock" android to take advantage of all the apps, functionality, etc. Got a couple questions before I make a decision. My main uses for this would be reading, watching videos, music, web browsing, stuff like that. Don't really care about games, have other things for that.
- How is the battery life?
- What's the best rom available, and how well does it work? So if there's an Android 4.2 rom available for this, is the speed good and is there any functionality lost?
- The screen seems to be almost an in the middle between an iPad 4:3, and a Nexus 16:9. How good does it look for web browsing, reading books, comic book readers, etc?
- Do things like Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, and WatchESPN run out it smoothly without any issues?

I didn't use stock rom for very long, but in cm10.2 I get like 8 hours screen on if I keep screen brightness in 30%. It'd probably get 10+ hours if brightness is set to minimum, but it is kind of unreadable, unless you're in a dark place.
The best rom available depends on what you want. I like cm10.2. Carbon ROM is good too with pie controls and halo.
Its screen is great. It has almost the same ppi as ipad retina screen. So, it's very good for reading, Web browsing..
I don't use it very much for video, but played YouTube often and can't comply. I believe Netflix, hulu, etc. Will run smoothly. Just don't expect that much for gaming.
It worth every penny.

mva5580 said:
So I can't help but be intrigued by a 9" Android tablet for $170 which would allow me to root it to "stock" android to take advantage of all the apps, functionality, etc. Got a couple questions before I make a decision. My main uses for this would be reading, watching videos, music, web browsing, stuff like that. Don't really care about games, have other things for that.
- How is the battery life?
- What's the best rom available, and how well does it work? So if there's an Android 4.2 rom available for this, is the speed good and is there any functionality lost?
- The screen seems to be almost an in the middle between an iPad 4:3, and a Nexus 16:9. How good does it look for web browsing, reading books, comic book readers, etc?
- Do things like Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, and WatchESPN run out it smoothly without any issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery life will depend on what you are doing and what ROM you are on. The latest CM 10.2 (android 4.3) is pretty good, and I am getting 8-10 hours+ on the tablet with mixed wed surfing and video. (call it 2.5 hours video and the rest web surfing) The best part is the small % lost while in deep sleep. I can go overnight with only 1-2% power loss.
I am running CM10.2 nightly on my NookHD+ I tried stock, and its limits and UI just become frustrating after a few days. For me the killer was a habit the tablet got into of really BOGGING down and running slow after a couple of weeks of use. Replacement with CM (10.1 at the time ) resolved that. The only thing not as good with CM is the NOOK app itself, and that is only limited in magazines as far as I have seen.
Video runs wonderfully on this device. I download a LOT of TV and movies to watch at lunch. Generally I pull the 480i feeds (they look just fine on the tablet) but I have had occasion to watch 720p and 1080i encoded video from time to time and they played fine. I use DICE as my player. I heard great things about MX player and BS player, but after trying them I came back to DICE for its interface and picture quality.
If you read around, you will see lots of issues with ANIME for some reason, but that looks like it is the encoding that is preferred among that sub-culture. (never understood why a cartoon required such high bitrate encoding...there is only so much detail present in the individual frames, unlike an actual live video)
I use ESPN all the time, and as long as you have a good data speed it works exactly as expected. Same with NetFlix. I dont watch much Youtube, but it works, and have never done HULU, but expect that it will be just fine.
I dont think you can go wrong with this device, especially at the price point.

so 10.2 is solid now?
Seems like a lot of folks were having one issue after another with it. (as with any new release)
I'm still running verygreen CM 10.1 6/30 emmc and love it. No problems....never had any lag issues either.
Battery sips 1% over 2 to 3 days if I just leave it alone without using.
The battery sleep management is stellar on this tablet.
to the original poster, really, you can't go wrong on buying this tablet....once you install CM
over the stock rom it's a great device for the price. Nothing comes close.
It's great for all the things you want it for (same that I use it for)

I think cm10.2 is solid. I had a reboot in a middle August build. But it seems stable now.
The only issue I found and it's already known in cm is that magnetic cases doesn't work flawlessly. Almost every time you need to open the case twice in order to screen shows up. In Stock rom it works great. Besides that, everything is fine.

If you keep a sharp eye on eBay you might find a refurb'ed 32GB HD+ for ~$135. That's where I just snagged mine!

YouTube app not auto-selecting/defaulting to HD quality

This was never a problem before, but I'm noticing the last couple of weeks, whenever I view a YouTube video on my Z3C, it keeps selecting one of the lower qualities and I have to manually switch to 720p almost half the time. Back then, the highest quality was always chosen by default and my internet connection is fast (enough) so I have no idea why it does this. Is anyone else experiencing this?
I tried downgrading/upgrading the YouTube app and comparing to other phones, but it seems only I'm having this issue. Now it's starting to affect other videos I stream over the internet from different sites/links as well so I'm kind of stumped at the moment.

not sure about the other streaming videos, but do you have limit mobile data setting checked for youtube?

sillieidiot said:
not sure about the other streaming videos, but do you have limit mobile data setting checked for youtube?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did check, thanks for the suggestion. I always make sure to take off any limitations as I have unlimited mobile data. And actually, I'm having this problem on Wi-Fi. It's a tiny problem, really, but still annoying nonetheless.

I'm retracting my complaint about other streaming services defaulting to lower quality, turns out it was only happening on one site and that tricked me into thinking it was happening on others as well, but in fact, it was the site's fault, not my phone.
That said, I'm still having the issue with the YouTube app where it automatically selects the lower quality when I play a video, usually auto-selecting 360p or lower, even though 720p is an option and loads fine when I pick it manually. I have another phone I test this on and it plays HD properly every time so something definitely isn't sticking the way it should.

I'd like to confirm that the youtube app selects 360p no matter what the option for hd videos is but i saw that when first loading the video in vertical display it remains 360p while if you turn your phone horizontal and going fullscreen it switches to 720p instantly or in a few seconds. Maybe it's a feature to conserve data anyway ?

SkyKilla said:
I'd like to confirm that the youtube app selects 360p no matter what the option for hd videos is but i saw that when first loading the video in vertical display it remains 360p while if you turn your phone horizontal and going fullscreen it switches to 720p instantly or in a few seconds. Maybe it's a feature to conserve data anyway ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't doubt it as we know many have fallen victim to overage fees due to inadvertent and reckless streaming over the years, but if that's the case, this must be a relatively new feature introduced within the last few versions because I never had this issue before. Even before I had unlimited data, I monitored my data usage carefully so I'm not concerned with conserving, and as mentioned, this is happening on Wi-Fi as well. I've changed the settings to always allow HD streaming, but that's not doing anything.
Thanks for confirming though, at least I have a place to start now.

It is indeed happening both on wifi/mobile data with the limit hd videos to wifi option enabled or disabled. I have also tried disabling mobile data while having wifi on and it failed to do HD on start. The difference noted in the post above is that 720p kicks in at about 20secs in the video(check kwabs - walk for testing).
No problem, i just thought of posting to assure you that your device is ok and that it might be a bug/"feature" on google/youtube`s side or some incompatibility with sony(?!). The only thing i can think of is that 720p and higher is pretty pointless in the vertical view with the small video player on top since it's too small to notice which seems pretty logic.
Update: i have deleted cache and data for the app, uninstalled updates, thus reverting to version5.738, restarted the app, signed in and then updated via play store. Now it automatically selects 720p for the video on wifi. It still doesn't matter for mobile data if you disable the limited hd, it shows the 720p but it doesn't autoswitch to it(maybe because i'm on h+ and not on 4g/lte, i can't verify this). Hope it helps ! Cheers !

I hadn't tried clearing cache/data yet, will give it a shot (fingers crossed!)

Update: Ah, you were right about viewing videos in portrait being the culprit. I generally don't watch YouTube in any orientation other than landscape so I never noticed. Basically, the solution is to use YouTube in landscape, or at least, launch the video in landscape. Thanks for pointing that out!

boojay said:
Update: Ah, you were right about viewing videos in portrait being the culprit. I generally don't watch YouTube in any orientation other than landscape so I never noticed. Basically, the solution is to use YouTube in landscape, or at least, launch the video in landscape. Thanks for pointing that out!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome ! In my case after the data/cache clearing, uninstalling and updating from store afterwards, portrait videos also start in 720p, the only issue that remains would be the videos not defaulting to 720p on mobile data with the hd limit option disabled.

SkyKilla said:
You're welcome ! In my case after the data/cache clearing, uninstalling and updating from store afterwards, portrait videos also start in 720p, the only issue that remains would be the videos not defaulting to 720p on mobile data with the hd limit option disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to know. I'm just making sure my phone is in landscape now before I click on the video, problem solved. Such a weird little quirk, LOL!

[Q] Nook HD+ HDTV Adapter and versions of CM

Recently I bought the HDTV adapter for my Nook HD+ and I'm trying to find the version of CM that will work best with it. I could not find this information through searching the forum.
My Nook had CM 10.1.3 the first time I tried it and it did not work particularly well. It was in the wrong resolution and did not display full screen. I did some searches on the forum and found that updating may fix the problem so I updated to CM 10.2.
CM 10.2 seemed to work better. Video looked much sharper, but 1080p video was choppy (probably because the Nook is playing the video on both screens) and still would not fill the screen.
Is there a version that has perfect or near perfect functionality? I really just need:
-not choppy 1080p video, games and emulators to play in full screen
-when playing a movie the Nook will normally display, "Playing on TV" so that the nook only has to render video on one screen
Are both of these possible?

B23X said:
Recently I bought the HDTV adapter for my Nook HD+ and I'm trying to find the version of CM that will work best with it. I could not find this information through searching the forum.
My Nook had CM 10.1.3 the first time I tried it and it did not work particularly well. It was in the wrong resolution and did not display full screen. I did some searches on the forum and found that updating may fix the problem so I updated to CM 10.2.
CM 10.2 seemed to work better. 1080p video looked much sharper, but still would not fill the screen.
Is there a version that has perfect or near perfect functionality? I really just need:
-1080p video, games and emulators to play in full screen
-when playing a movie the Nook will normally display, "Playing on TV"
Are both of these possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that depends on your tv. I have two tvs at home and one shows as full screen with default setting, and the other one doesn't.
Try to change the scale setting of your tv.

lentm said:
I think that depends on your tv. I have two tvs at home and one shows as full screen with default setting, and the other one doesn't.
Try to change the scale setting of your tv.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the response. Unfortunately I have tried to change the aspect ratio settings and none of them fix the full screen problem. I've tried every screen setting on multiple TV's and there's no way to get full screen. I also tried the Resolution Changer app and that did not work either.

B23X said:
I appreciate the response. Unfortunately I have tried to change the aspect ratio settings and none of them fix the full screen problem. I've tried every screen setting on multiple TV's and there's no way to get full screen. I also tried the Resolution Changer app and that did not work either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@B23X
I have used the HDMI adapter a lot with different Nook HD+ roms with no problems. I have found that the video player i use on the Nook makes all the difference with the play back quality. I use MXplayer but you may want to try a few to find the right fit for your Nook

kokercey said:
@B23X
I have used the HDMI adapter a lot with different Nook HD+ roms with no problems. I have found that the video player i use on the Nook makes all the difference with the play back quality. I use MXplayer but you may want to try a few to find the right fit for your Nook
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have MX player also that's a good player. I updated to CM 11, Wiped data & factory reset, cleared the cache and video seems to be in full screen now. It still plays on both screens though, but I guess that doesn't matter. I wonder if anyone knows how to make the video only play on the TV?

The HDMI adapter was originally $39. If I paid that much for this piece of $hit, I would have shot someone. It is garbage and not worth the hours of your life you will spend on it. Even with it works, it stops working if you fart (literally) or bump it. And when it does 'work' the resolution is for crap. If I could roll back time and have given a homeless person $13 and never have seen this disaster, I would have done so in a minute. It is the single most shockingly low quality piece of trash I have encountered in the modern era of electronics. Spend another $15 and get a raspberry pi or something.

I'm disappointed in the HDMI adapter as well.
The fine print in the specs rate it at 24fps @1080P, which is unacceptable.
That's part of the motivation to get Wi-Fi display/miracast working, plus the latter doesn't need a cable.
With Wi-Fi display working and wiimote support, one would have a nice functional media center using xbmc/kodi.

Tab S2 display "issue"

I'm having an odd issue... Anyone with the 9.7 while holding the tab in portrait view on a screen with lots of text or horizontal lines and plenty of scrolling: while scrolling, does anyone else's display seem to scroll sloppy? The right side of mine scrolls faster than the left. Marginally slower, but noticeable. Makes scrolling seem wavy or wobbly or bendy from right to left. If it's just me, I'm going to exchange this one.
I understand about refresh rates n such. I'm going to Bestbuy today to test the floor model.

OK to update: I tested the floor model at a different Bestbuy than the one I purchased mine at and experienced the same "wavy bendy effect" while vertical scrolling in portrait. So, I'm going to assume it's normal and the refresh rate just can't keep up with high resolution and dpi. In case any other S2 owners see this effect.

Have you show this problem to any of you friends or family, can they see your problem, as some people can be more sensitive to screen refresh problems than others, also oled display can have refresh rate problems.
John.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
Have you show this problem to any of you friends or family, can they see your problem, as some people can be more sensitive to screen refresh problems than others, also oled display can have refresh rate problems.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have. Unfortunately I'm the only one who can see it. Then again I can spot a dead pixel from 10 feet away. :silly:

I had the original Samsung Note 1 phablet and it had an problem with ghosting while scrolling though menu`s ect, the oled pixels take an lot longer to wake up than lcd pixels, so Samsung sent out an firmware update that kept the pixels on at a very low level all the time to increase the refresh rate and fix the problem with the ghosting.
It been an few years since the Note 1, and oled display have advanced since then, but trying to make the oled displays more efficient i hope they have not turned off the pixels completely or low as they can get away with most people cannot see the refresh problem but you can.
I don't know if this is the reason you are having the problem, it could be something else completely.
Have a look in the developer menu in settings, try the use gpu when drawing or whatever it`s called and see if it makes any difference.
John.
BigBot96 said:
I have. Unfortunately I'm the only one who can see it. Then again I can spot a dead pixel from 10 feet away. :silly:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Tinderbox (UK) said:
I had the original Samsung Note 1 phablet and it had an problem with ghosting while scrolling though menu`s ect, the oled pixels take an lot longer to wake up than lcd pixels, so Samsung sent out an firmware update that kept the pixels on at a very low level all the time to increase the refresh rate and fix the problem with the ghosting.
It been an few years since the Note 1, and oled display have advanced since then, but trying to make the oled displays more efficient i hope they have not turned off the pixels completely or low as they can get away with most people cannot see the refresh problem but you can.
I don't know if this is the reason you are having the problem, it could be something else completely.
Have a look in the developer menu in settings, try the use gpu when drawing or whatever it`s called and see if it makes any difference.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm thinking they may have turned them back off. The blacks are very black compared to my other devices. Hmm. I have updated to 5.1 to see if that'd resolve it but it didn't. It's not a huge issue, just weird to see but once I get used to it I'll be alright. Hopefully. lol

Motion Blur is what we called it, not ghosting have a look at the link below, it shows motion blur on the S4 see video, I could not see the problem myself (don't have fighter pilot eyes ) , see if it is the same problem you are having or is it something else.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Is-y...inversion-treatment-You-are-not-alone_id42563
John.

I'm having issue with screen turning pink when using Chrome as browser. It happens only for 10 to 15 seconds. I wonder if that's hardware or adaptive display problem.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
Motion Blur is what we called it, not ghosting have a look at the link below, it shows motion blur on the S4 see video, I could not see the problem myself (don't have fighter pilot eyes ) , see if it is the same problem you are having or is it something else.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Is-y...inversion-treatment-You-are-not-alone_id42563
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Similar. But instead of it being uniform horizontally across the display, it gets "worse" from right to left more than likely because of the resolution and DPI compared to the S4. But same effect.
wyemarn said:
I'm having issue with screen turning pink when using Chrome as browser. It happens only for 10 to 15 seconds. I wonder if that's hardware or adaptive display problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That I would say is not normal. Is it only Chrome or are there any other apps that exhibit this color change?

BigBot96 said:
I'm having an odd issue... Anyone with the 9.7 while holding the tab in portrait view on a screen with lots of text or horizontal lines and plenty of scrolling: while scrolling, does anyone else's display seem to scroll sloppy? The right side of mine scrolls faster than the left. Marginally slower, but noticeable. Makes scrolling seem wavy or wobbly or bendy from right to left. If it's just me, I'm going to exchange this one.
I understand about refresh rates n such. I'm going to Bestbuy today to test the floor model.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Tab S has the same issue, but it only happens in portrait mode, seems to be ok in landscape. If i flip the tablet 180 in portrait mode it will do it the opposite way, so its not an optical illusion!
It seems like the control chip for the display is suffering some sort of micro lag.

Have you tried the "forced GPU rendering" in the Developer option, I mentioned in post 6.
John.

Nothing solves it, its just the way it is. I gave up bothering about it and forgot about it until this thread . Another reason to stick with 16:10 instead 4:3.

Indeed. Forced GPU rendering changes nothing. That's one of the first things I tried.

Have you tried playing an HEVC H.265 1080p video yet, to see if it stutters like it does on the S1, the S2 is supposed to have hardware decoding, the S1 uses software decoding that kills the battery and stutters.
HEVC H.265 are half the size of normal H.264 video`s for the same quality.
John.

I have a black and white Tab S2 9.7 and both have the same issue. It doesn't look like motion blur, it looks almost like an intentional wavy/wobble animation when scrolling in any app. Which is why I was looking for an option that toggles it. It's very noticeable by anyone who has used it. I pre-ordered it so I didn't get to test it at Bestbuy before hand. I've never seen this scrolling issue on the old Tab S, Nexus 9 or even an IPad Air 2, I've had all three of them. Just when I think I've found a decent android tablet another issue pops up. If there is no fix and this is considered "normal" then I'll be returning them.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
Have you tried playing an HEVC H.265 1080p video yet, to see if it stutters like it does on the S1, the S2 is supposed to have hardware decoding, the S1 uses software decoding that kills the battery and stutters.
HEVC H.265 are half the size of normal H.264 video`s for the same quality.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I played a heavy HEVC 4096x1720 and it plays the video perfectly on the standard videoplayer, but it stutters when using VLC so I guess the standard videoplayer has a way to hardware-decode this while VLC-player has to use software decoding?

Very nice, hevc hardware decoding is the only thing i am envious of the S2, And 4096x1720 is amazing, unless it`s only really processing the max resolution of the display, and with the stock Samsung player too, does it support AC3 audio though in the stock player.
John.
Gray44 said:
I played a heavy HEVC 4096x1720 and it plays the video perfectly on the standard videoplayer, but it stutters when using VLC so I guess the standard videoplayer has a way to hardware-decode this while VLC-player has to use software decoding?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Tinderbox (UK) said:
Very nice, hevc hardware decoding is the only thing i am envious of the S2, And 4096x1720 is amazing, unless it`s only really processing the max resolution of the display, and with the stock Samsung player too, does it support AC3 audio though in the stock player.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The name of the file is tos-4096x1720-tiles.mkv, unfortunately the standard player does not support the used audio codec in that container. When I check the file it says 5.1 sound.
VLC does play the audio but as already said the video stutters heavily.
Sent from my SM-T810 using XDA Free mobile app

The audio on that hevc video was AC-3 so it look like only the Tab Pro gets AC-3 decoding
And off to the S2 section woosh.
John.
Gray44 said:
The name of the file is tos-4096x1720-tiles.mkv, unfortunately the standard player does not support the used audio codec in that container. When I check the file it says 5.1 sound.
VLC does play the audio but as already said the video stutters heavily.
Sent from my SM-T810 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The screen on my S2 8.0 is gorgeous!
I downloaded ​http://www.libde265.org/hevc-bitstreams/tos-4096x1720-tiles.mkv and MX Player plays both video and audio without any stuttering
Brgds...

Is my N910T damaged? It won't play any sort of videos at all.

So I've had this phone for over a year now, used and all, and it's perfect for me w/ its replaceable battery and MicroSD support. However, this problem occurred very recently and I'm very puzzled as to what it could be. I'm on a custom ROM and this happens on all ROMs that I've flashed, including using ODIN to the latest version.
When I was watching a YT video, all that showed up was a green screen (though the screen works fine) and I've tried changing the resolution to no effect. It now happens on all moving images (such as gifs) and the only way I could get video to play was to use MX Player and use SW Decoding to play back any videos.
Is there any way to fix this?