Develop Bugs

Watching Videos on Hermes

Howdy all. I have been doing some research and found out about an ATI issue that causes/ed problems. I am running VP3G 2.0.1H and have downloaded the TCPMP 0.72 RC1. Do i still need this ATI fix? I believe the ROM I am running does include this fix though.
I ask this because i already have *.avi of shows and movies and they all have a few minimal frame rate, somewhere around .5 i think, the audio plays fine but no video.
To add further confusion i followed MrVanx guide about encoding for the Hermes and made one of files that has a res of 608 and a size of 350MB into a res of 320 and a size of 214. After converting that and playing it on my phone it works pretty well, occasionally there are artifacts; how do i fix this?. Is that part of the old issues? Is the buffer under options>settings>buffering going to help with the occasional dropped frame? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

If you are using your device for watching movies on a regular basis, consider buying CorePlayer!
The new version is quite amazing and handle the Imageon chip on every ROM I tried (with and without the sleuth's ati patch). There is also a huge speed improvement between Coreplayer and tcpmp. It allows me to watch with very few slowdowns films ripped in high quality (624x352, 23fps, ...). As I am to lazy to have those ripped in a mobile format, this situation suits me well.

fun_key said:
If you are using your device for watching movies on a regular basis, consider buying CorePlayer!
The new version is quite amazing and handle the Imageon chip on every ROM I tried (with and without the sleuth's ati patch). There is also a huge speed improvement between Coreplayer and tcpmp. It allows me to watch with very few slowdowns films ripped in high quality (624x352, 23fps, ...). As I am to lazy to have those ripped in a mobile format, this situation suits me well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CorePlayer constantly freezes up on me. I recommend the FREE DivX Player from DivX themselves.
http://mobile.divx.com/size
or
http://mobile.divx.com/divx/winmoppc/DivXPlayer.CAB

hopefully I have just posted the cab for tcpmp v.81 (from 4winmobile ) which I have been using for a while.

It's a shame TCPMP seemed to wither away, in development I mean. It's a darn good video player and the one that I still use today - I use an 0.81RC1 beta version (at least it says it is, don't know if it's better than 0.72).
I even try to watch my divx films on my pc straight over wifi, which still doesn't seem to work ideally. I wonder what the limitation is, is it just the bits/s or maybe the video chip simply can't process that much information/second.
I'm also too lazy to rip the films yet again into a mobile format, it should be able to handle it, and 802.11g should handle the bitrate over the air...
Well, I suppose I'll consider CorePlayer, but I loved TCPMP being free. Oh well.

frenchglen said:
It's a shame TCPMP seemed to wither away, in development I mean. It's a darn good video player and the one that I still use today - I use an 0.81RC1 beta version (at least it says it is, don't know if it's better than 0.72).
I even try to watch my divx films on my pc straight over wifi, which still doesn't seem to work ideally. I wonder what the limitation is, is it just the bits/s or maybe the video chip simply can't process that much information/second.
I'm also too lazy to rip the films yet again into a mobile format, it should be able to handle it, and 802.11g should handle the bitrate over the air...
Well, I suppose I'll consider CorePlayer, but I loved TCPMP being free. Oh well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Orb + DivX player = Streamable over wifi/internet without any converting.

I tried the TCPMP .81RC1 and the slowdown isn't as bad, doing a benchmark it is 773k/s instead of 100k/s but the video need 1.3MB/s so i think i am going to need to convert what i want to the smaller size. I might try out coreplayer if i get a chance.

UllSang said:
I tried the TCPMP .81RC1 and the slowdown isn't as bad, doing a benchmark it is 773k/s instead of 100k/s but the video need 1.3MB/s so i think i am going to need to convert what i want to the smaller size. I might try out coreplayer if i get a chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you do that as fun_key pointed out, CorePlayer now completely supports ATI ImageON, which means absolutely no artifacts playing MPEG4/H263 videos. plus ATI ImageON can handle MUCH higher bitrates, which helps if you're a bad boy and download all of your stuff from the net.. you won't need any converting at all (unless you want to stream audio over A2DP)

So what i am hearing is that i need to buy Coreplayer. Guess that is what i will do then. Thanks a bunch

On the new Dopod rom released on Jul-12th,
(1) ATIFix.cab from Sleuth is still required. (Both TCPMP and CorePlayer).
if not, you will see the screen zigzag after stoping video.
TCPMP set video for IMAGEON not IMAGEON decoder to remove
random blocks on the video..
CorePlayer 1.1.1 tested with imageon acceleration set.
(2) If u use the camera, then go and watch video using TCPMP or Coreplayer
there is a Green zigzag. (BUG same like the other WM6 cooked rom).
Not sure if this can be resolved. If disabled IMAGEON completely, no issue with the using CAMERA then watching video using CorePlayer or TCPMP.
By default, Windows Media Player didnot enable IMAGEON accelerator.

Coreplayer problem

Since I switched from 6.1 (official rom) to 6.5 (official rom upgrade) the coreplayer started to have a choppy playback. It does not make a difference if I install it on the sd card (class 6) or on the phone itself, same for the videos
I had no problems with videoplayback on the 6.1!
Switching to a custom ROM (6.5.5) but that didn't make the video playback any faster. What can I do?

PumpAction said:
Since I switched from 6.1 (official rom) to 6.5 (official rom upgrade) the coreplayer started to have a choppy playback. It does not make a difference if I install it on the sd card (class 6) or on the phone itself, same for the videos
I had no problems with videoplayback on the 6.1!
Switching to a custom ROM (6.5.5) but that didn't make the video playback any faster. What can I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make sure you compare performance using a video you have tried before, and you considered it to run faster in WM 6.1.
Then, first thing to try is Video Settings, look for these settings:
Video Output = QTv Display (Other settings produced poor quality for me)
Video Quality = Medium or High
Then go to QTv Display, and make sure this is checked:
"TyTN II" driver mode.
I hope I was able to help you...
As side comments:
- Sometimes videos that have been compressed a lot would loose frames during playback. Sometimes we are too demanding and want to play videos at 800x480, but the TP2 can't really do it well at that resolution. Try a smaller resolution instead when converting your videos.
- In some cases, if the GUI is not using the 3D Accelerator (as with SBP Mobile Shell), CorePlayer performs terrible or even doesn't show the video.

AmazingIceman said:
Make sure you compare performance using a video you have tried before, and you considered it to run faster in WM 6.1.
Then, first thing to try is Video Settings, look for these settings:
Video Output = QTv Display (Other settings produced poor quality for me)
Video Quality = Medium or High
Then go to QTv Display, and make sure this is checked:
"TyTN II" driver mode.
I hope I was able to help you...
As side comments:
- Sometimes videos that have been compressed a lot would loose frames during playback. Sometimes we are too demanding and want to play videos at 800x480, but the TP2 can't really do it well at that resolution. Try a smaller resolution instead when converting your videos.
- In some cases, if the GUI is not using the 3D Accelerator (as with SBP Mobile Shell), CorePlayer performs terrible or even doesn't show the video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or you can turn off Manila 3D when playing your videos. This is a known bug with Coreplayer, WM6.5, and Manila on the TP2. Just the TP2. My Topaz doesn't have this problem with the same setup and same Energy rom. Turning off Manila is the easiest workaround. Search the Rhodium forums for a mortscript routine that will shut off Manila, execute Coreplayer, and resume Manila once you exit Coreplayer. A nicer workaround in the long run. But still a workaround.

people have complaining about playback and ive never had a problem. i both upgraded my rom to 2.07 and my coreplayer to the latest version and now im one with choppy playback. not sure what exactly is different i wish i didnt delete my old core player cab so i could test that.

AmazingIceman said:
Make sure you compare performance using a video you have tried before, and you considered it to run faster in WM 6.1.
Then, first thing to try is Video Settings, look for these settings:
Video Output = QTv Display (Other settings produced poor quality for me)
Video Quality = Medium or High
Then go to QTv Display, and make sure this is checked:
"TyTN II" driver mode.
I hope I was able to help you...
As side comments:
- Sometimes videos that have been compressed a lot would loose frames during playback. Sometimes we are too demanding and want to play videos at 800x480, but the TP2 can't really do it well at that resolution. Try a smaller resolution instead when converting your videos.
- In some cases, if the GUI is not using the 3D Accelerator (as with SBP Mobile Shell), CorePlayer performs terrible or even doesn't show the video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK disabling Manila is a good idea, but what is the easiest way to shut it down? Everything else is set up correctly. And believe me, I tried each and every setting What I find surprising is that the official 6.5 gave me the same bug. Isn't it using any acceleration ?
EDIT: Windows Media Player does also have very very choppy playback. It does not matter if the files are placed on the SD Card or on the phone itself. Different file types, different file sizes. AVI, WMV, MP4 ... The moment the files have more than ~400kbit the video stutters. If I go into full screen it stutters even more

The Jack of Clubs said:
people have complaining about playback and ive never had a problem. i both upgraded my rom to 2.07 and my coreplayer to the latest version and now im one with choppy playback. not sure what exactly is different i wish i didnt delete my old core player cab so i could test that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It started with wm6.5 and Manila 2.x. I noticed even with Manila 2.1 this problem occurred. Only on the Tilt2 - maybe HD2 - I just know this because I own a Fuze and Diamond2 and never saw this problem. It doesn't matter what version of Coreplayer you use - even the one going back to the initial Qtv support. This has more to do with Manila hijacking the video drivers.
I say this because I noticed on a clean reboot the first execution of Coreplayer results in clean video results. But after you close it or load another video the poor performance kicks in. HTC Sense or Manila, running on wm6.5 or higher mind you, does not want other programs taking over the video driver. Not a very scientific explanation I know but this is my observation.

dario69 said:
It started with wm6.5 and Manila 2.x. I noticed even with Manila 2.1 this problem occurred. Only on the Tilt2 - maybe HD2 - I just know this because I own a Fuze and Diamond2 and never saw this problem. It doesn't matter what version of Coreplayer you use - even the one going back to the initial Qtv support. This has more to do with Manila hijacking the video drivers.
I say this because I noticed on a clean reboot the first execution of Coreplayer results in clean video results. But after you close it or load another video the poor performance kicks in. HTC Sense or Manila, running on wm6.5 or higher mind you, does not want other programs taking over the video driver. Not a very scientific explanation I know but this is my observation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK I formatted the SD Card. And I even used Task 29 to format the main os! I reinstalled another ROM (6.5 but with Sense 2.1) and the problem remains.
Windows Media Player AND Coreplayer, both have a VERY VERY choppy playback.

PumpAction said:
OK I formatted the SD Card. And I even used Task 29 to format the main os! I reinstalled another ROM (6.5 but with Sense 2.1) and the problem remains.
Windows Media Player AND Coreplayer, both have a VERY VERY choppy playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HI,
for Me the only ROM wich plays MP4 videos at 30fps with HTCPLAYER.exe at VGA resolution is the Valkirie ROM, and I have tried every main ROM for Rhodium many times each, maybe like 60 flashes or more.
This is the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=569507
Wont be dissapointed, and dont need coreplayer for MP4, only for other formats like mpeg.
I hope this helps.

Do I need to flasha stock ROM for Smooth Video playback and TV out?

I got my TP2 a few days ago and already had a custom ROM (EnergyROM Sense 2.5 Cookie + dinik glass May 31) waiting to be flashed before I even got the phone.
Yesterday I flashed the phone after reading the great noobs guide a few dozen times.
Flash went perfectly and the new ROM kicks the crap out of the stock 6.5 (obviously).
Then late last night, I decided to test Video playback by copying 2 random vids to the SD card on my phone.
(Both vids are Divx (.avi), one is 624x352 res and the other was similar resolution).
The SD is a Transcend 8GB Class 6.
Both videos were a complete slideshow in core player (built into ROM). Probably 5fps in the 'small screen' and maybe 1 frame every 3 seconds in full screen!
This was the first time I have felt dissapointed with my new phone. My previous phone (Samsung Jet) played these same vids super smooth. (I know its 800mhz vs 538 etc).
After doing a fair bit of searching/reading this morning I have learned that temporarily disabling sense SHOULD help ( I will try ASAP tonight) and I can use a script for auto disable/enabling of sense. But people who used this fix didnt report framerates half as bad as mine so I'm not too hopeful on that.
Even worse is that I read that TV-out is screwed on ALL custom ROMs except maybe Valkyrie. Is that still the case??? I cant test this as my TV-out cable still hasnt arrived.
Smooth video and TV-out are two of the MAIN reasons I bought a TP2 AND the Jet before it.
AM I GOING TO HAVE TO FLASH A STOCK HTC 6.5 ROM TO GET SMOOTH VIDEO PLAYBACK AND TVOUT?
I hope thats not the case because in every other respect this energyROM has been a pleasure to use. Eyecandy and customisation are EXACTLY what i was hoping for as is the improved performance/speed. Please dont tell me I cant use this ROM.
ANY help on this would be GREATLY appreciated.
I HAVE searched, I HAVE read the FAQ
Also one quick question
Neither vid would even start in WMP. Is that just a case of missing codecs? Whats the best codec pack for these ROMS?
Thanks in advance.

short answer. NO.
Use coreplayer to play divx etc. You have to play around for the correct settings. Then you can watch your movies smooth. Search for some tutorials. The tv-out will work BUT, the quality is poor.

Thanks for the reply Lennyz1988.
I'll keep looking for tweaks and tutorials re: coreplayer....no luck so far, cant seem to find anything.
As for the TV out being poor quality....I'm devastated to hear that.
There are a couple of TP2 tvout demos on youtube and the framerate and resolution looks great (on a 42inch plasma).
Whats the deal with that, is the TVout quality better on stock rom?
Also just found a very strange quirk with my problem.
I just tried playing both vids again and both played much smoother in fullscreen than they did last night (still only ~10fps though).
So then I open up task manager and kill 3 apps that were running (file explorer, comm manager and I forgot the 3rd)....
After closing these and trying the vids again it was back to 1 frame every few seconds in full screen mode!
How can I get worse performance with less apps running in background?? that just doesnt make sense...does it?
Now I'm really stumped.
Gonna try the mortscript to disable sense as soon as I can....fingers crossed.
Thanks for your help Lenny,
cheers

I agree that if you are getting poorer playback on the Energy than the stock ROM, you just need to tweak the Core settings.
This is what I did: In TCPMP, go to Option>Video and select GDI. I forget what the default burned into the EnergyROM is, but I think it was Direct Draw, which was incredibly stuttery. Changing to GDI made the playback smooth on most videos for me. Some videos (probably higher res ones) will still stutter/freeze. But most of what I play works great, and MUCH better then it did on my phones stock ROM.

well... after playing around with some settings in TCPMP the framerate has improved from 0fps to around 10fps (guess), but obviously thats still pretty unwatchable.
In TCPMP I went to options>video, and changed the driver from Drirect Draw.
Raw Framebuffer runs at ~10fps but with bad tearing.
GDI runs at ~12fps with no tearing.
I tried all other options with no luck. I havnt tried any buffer settings yet in TCPMP or WinMo.....Got any suggestions for buffer sizes?
One setting that did give DirectDraw the same performance as GDI was to disable "Use Device stretching for blitting".
I have no idea what this does though so it doesnt help me when it comes to gaining some more fps.
Just gotta find that mortscript to try now and see if that helps too.
Any help on any of this would be greatly appreciated. I AM trying to find the answers for myself but Im having no luck.

only just saw your reply redpoint, lol. Thanks for that though.
I'm still only getting low framerates with GDI though, lower than you get by the sounds of it.... and this is only with a ~170mb Simpsons episode @624x352 resolution.
There must be another setting I need to tweak, somewhere. Hopefully the script to disable sense will give an acceptable framerate.
Thanks for your help.
PS... Is WMP not worth trying? Where can I get codecs for it? any searches for codecs keep coming up with links to coreplayer.

You should use Qtv in Coreplayer. The playback will mostly be good but not 100% of the time.

djr83 said:
You should use Qtv in Coreplayer. The playback will mostly be good but not 100% of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Qtv is not available on the version of TCPMP that is cooked into the Energy ROMs. And using Qtv when I was on the stock ROM had tearing down the middle of the screen constantly, that was not watchable for me.

doh! so thats why I cant find any mention of qtv in TCPMP.
Can someone PLEASE do me a big favour?
Point me in the direction of the mortscript which shuts down TF3d/sense while coreplayer is running and then re-enables it when CP closes?
I cant find it anywhere and Ive spent the last hour trying.
Does this scrupt exist? I read about it earlier - was it just speculation/ wishful thinking?
Anyone know where to find this script

Here are my buffering settings that I am currently using. No real reasoning here, just trial and error. And its something I always seem to be messing with, just to see if I can get it a bit better.
Normal buffer size: 4992
Preload at underrun: 5%
Preload for audio: 128kb
Microdrive unchecked.
Make sure you different videos from different sources. Some (a minority) videos will stutter and freeze no matter what. But most of the TV shows and movies I've obtained from "sources" on the internet play fine on Core.
Don't feel alone that you are confused by the Core settings. I was searching around, and found a post on the Core official forums, and it basically said that their documentation is terrible, even for the pay version, and it something they are working on. So there is no official documentation explaining the setting options, and not much better info on the internet from users, aside from trial and error experiences. Pretty much most users have no idea what many of the options even mean.
And no, WMP is not worth trying. Codecs are pretty non-existant. And even for formats which are compatible, the playback is usually not watchable. Most everyone on these forums and elsewhere will tell you Core is the best player on WM.

thesweeney said:
doh! so thats why I cant find any mention of qtv in TCPMP.
Can someone PLEASE do me a big favour?
Point me in the direction of the mortscript which shuts down TF3d/sense while coreplayer is running and then re-enables it when CP closes?
I cant find it anywhere and Ive spent the last hour trying.
Does this scrupt exist? I read about it earlier - was it just speculation/ wishful thinking?
Anyone know where to find this script
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't help you as far as the script. But what I can say is that some users will swear that unloading TF3D/Sense got them better Core performance. But I tried this on the stock ROM (unloading TF3D), and it made zero difference to Coreplayer performance.

Thanks for the help peeps.
Just tried those buffer settings and it did seem to help slightly....will play around with those some more.
And yeah, I'm gonna try a whole load of vids tonight see if there is a encode configuration which plays smoothly.
I'd even be willing to convert my movies (from similar sources to what you probably use, redpoint) if I can find the right encoding settings for good framerate and reasonable resolution.
If you have any suggestions for a good converter and some good encode settings, I'd love to hear them
I still REALLY want to try coreplayer with sense disabled.
Anyone know where to find that script please?
I notice that CHTEditor restarts Sense when it applies changes, Is there any way to use the editor to shut down Sense and then let me start it after playing a movie?
Failing that...
IS THERE A SIMPLE WAY TO TEMPORARILY DISABLE SENSE?
What about video drivers? Is it worth updating them or does the latest energyROM come with the latest and greatest drivers included?
Sorry for all the questions people. I just really want to get this playing smoothly and its driving me nuts
Thanks again for all your help.

Well... I couldnt find the script I was talking about but I did find one for the HD2 which disables sense while Youtube is running (Created by 'HJ200' here on XDA).
Code:
regWriteDword HKLM, Software\Microsoft\Today\Items\HTC Sense, Enabled, 0
RedrawToday
Rotate(270)
RunWait "\Windows\YouTube.exe"
Rotate(0)
regWriteDword HKLM, Software\Microsoft\Today\Items\HTC Sense, Enabled, 1
RedrawToday
Exit
So i simply changed the RunWait so that it waits for TCPMP.
Ran the script and I get the warning about disabling SENSE, I click OK and nothing happens
It doesnt shut sense down like TCHEditor does.
Can any of you coders/devs tell me why it doesnt shut sense down?
Or can someone please tell me a simple way to temp disable sense?
Come on guys, Im trying Ive spent all day on this and I'm getting nowhere fast lol.
If I can try playing vids with sense disabled then I can rule that out (or not) and move on to something else

I too was frustrated with poor playback with divx. Even after re-encoding for TCPMP. So I just bit the bullet, and encode with the "Ipod touch" settings and have excellent quality with the built in (but limited featured) players.

fishel said:
I too was frustrated with poor playback with divx. Even after re-encoding for TCPMP. So I just bit the bullet, and encode with the "Ipod touch" settings and have excellent quality with the built in (but limited featured) players.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, I'm pretty much ready to give up on it too
Looks like I might have to buy a cheap Portable media player that takes a micro/sd card, even if only for decent TV-out.
I'll definitely try encoding to "ipod touch" standards though.
What do you use to encode? Are the settings basically .mp4 @ 480x320?
Ive tried half a dozen different divx files now and all are slow/stuttery. Some are better than others tho as redpoint pointed out.
I also found a few semi-interesting things out.
On the files that play 'resonably' well, lowering the volume to 0 seems to help quite a bit (good for buster keaton movies? lol)...indicating a sound driver or codec issue?
Also, in the buffer settings of TCPMP....
Setting the "preload at underrun" to 1% seems to help quite a bit with some files, especially the ones which were helped by the volume=0 thing.
Setting the "Normal Buffer Size" to 5120 and the "preload for audio" to 192 SEEMED to help all videos VERY SLIGHTLY.
I'll try encoding with ipod touch settings and see what its like, but I'm guessing that resolution will look horrible stretched to 42" making the TVout almost useless? Gutted.
Can anyone tell me how to disable sense please? Once I try that and the re-encodes, I give up
Cheers fishel

fishel said:
I too was frustrated with poor playback with divx. Even after re-encoding for TCPMP. So I just bit the bullet, and encode with the "Ipod touch" settings and have excellent quality with the built in (but limited featured) players.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With CORE player select GDI it was VERY choppy. I selected QTv and it plays ultra smooth. This is a youtube Avatar HD trailer btw. My normal video files on the card play smooth too as long as I get the right enconding..which I am still trying to figure out.

Lennyz1988 said:
The tv-out will work BUT, the quality is poor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thesweeney said:
As for the TV out being poor quality....I'm devastated to hear that.
There are a couple of TP2 tvout demos on youtube and the framerate and resolution looks great (on a 42inch plasma).
Whats the deal with that, is the TVout quality better on stock rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very surprised to hear that...
I use the TV-out functionality on my Touch Pro 2 quite a bit. The quality is excellent for things like presentations and pretty good for videos when using the built in album to play them. The setup I'm using is the 2.07.401.1 stock ROM with PAL output via the official HTC store TV-out cable.

by built in players I mean the windows media player or the HTC player (by Photos and Videos) and it plays great, I never tried video out.
You disable sense by un-checking sense in the item tab in the today icon in settings and choosing "windows Default", (or anything) instead.

Well first of all I'm an idiot When I was mentioning coreplayer earlier, I was actually talking about TCPMP... I didnt even realise there was a difference lol.
So now I have aquired coreplayer with mixed results
QTV seems to help on some videos and doesnt seem any quicker than GDI on others.
The only thing is... I tried one vid which has AC3 audio and of course coreplayer gives me a codec error. But it lets me play the file with video only and it runs SMOOTH AS SILK.
Benchmarking gives around 150% on this file compared to ~60% on most of the others ive tried.
So I'm guessing this is mainly (soley?) down to the greatly reduced total bitrate (looking at the benchmark results).
SO...COULD THIS POINT TO A PROBLEM WITH MY SD CARD?? OR EVEN A PROBLEM WITH THE SD DRIVERS ON THE TP2???
My SD card is a transcend class 6 so I doubt that is the problem.
The only thing I'd like to test now is An AC3 codec for coreplayer and/or a QTV plugin for TCPMP.
Anyone know if either of those exist?
Searches turn up nothing.
Thanks for that fishel! Tried tcpmp without TF3d and there was very little or no difference.
Was worth trying anyway.
Chazco, I'm glad to hear that about the TV-OUT. But It will be useless for me unless I can get a smoother framerate on some vids.
Looks like I'll just have to start converting my movies....
either that or try a stock rom
Bad times.
Thanks for all the help anyway peeps.
I'm off to try and get TomTom working instead....maybe that will cheer me up

Video playback and some testing

So after reading up and finding that video playback isnt brilliant on the tp2 i thougt i would do some tests.
my goal was to find an easy way to watch films. I dont really want to have to convert all my films to mp4 and use the htc album, but i dont really want to have to switch of sense and soft reset every time i have a spare 1/2 hour.
So using the same footage I ran multiple formats on the following players:
coreplayer, TCMP, Media Player and HTC album.
Not really sure how conclusive it is ( and there is certainly more testing that can be done)
i am going to try using MP4forHD to convert the file a last time and try that on all players
have a look at the results and let me know what you think

So basically what you're saying is that the only videos that work are the original AVI and some MP4s with coreplayer without Sense turned on. That sucks.

Interesting results. I have never bothered trying with sense or spb mobile shell off, but for most videos I watch (640x320 or something close, i.e., vga resolution), they seem to work ok on the tilt2. I get some annoying pixelation with TCMP, but the default windows media player seems to play them pretty crisply and smoothly. the only tradeoff there is WMP is pretty low on the totem pole feature wise.
it also seems odd to me that your results get worse when sense is turned off. It's more intuitive that it would work better if you have more ram available. Could this be an issue with a custom rom you flashed? I am using the stock ATT with spb mobile shell. Did you try a different media file?

I am using the stock rom
from what i understand the HTC and windows media use some sort of graphics acceleration
so you dont need to turn off sense.

stringman said:
I am using the stock rom
from what i understand the HTC and windows media use some sort of graphics acceleration
so you dont need to turn off sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, that makes sense. Still not sure why things get worse with Sense off, but maybe that is just the human side of the measurement, as they do all look pretty close between the two sets? And actually, it gets better for Core, worse for TCMP, and then about the same for the other two.
Do you think it would be worth trying with a different SD card, or better: trying a small video loaded from the device? If you play from the device, you at lease take the age/quality of the SD card out of the experiment as a variable. Even though you wouldn't watch a video from the device in real life, it may be a better way to benchmark, unless you are benchmarking for a specific card.
I think adding a streaming file to the test would be interesting too. Anyway, thanks for the research on this. It is a very interesting topic, imo.

The muisc player wasn't working for me either, and movies really sucked! nothing would play.
I switched roms and now everything works, music plays and comes up in the player, and movies look and play good.
I converted with AVS here are my settings:
Video codec: MPEG4(divX/Xvid compatible)
Audio codec: MPEG2/4 Audio
Frame Size:
Width: 368
Height: 208
Frame Rate:
Bitrate: 520
File Type: mp4 PSP
Channels: Stereo Sample Size: 16bit
Sample Rate: 48000Hz Bitrate: 128kbps
I watched on the built in player and didn't have to turn anything off, my fully charged battery lasted for almost 4 hours of nearly constant use ( i turned it off after i got under ~7% left).

PocketDiVXEncoder
hard to go wrong with PocketDiVXEncoder
http://www.pocketdivxencoder.net/EN_index.htm
its free, and makes amazingly good playable .avi's out of almost anything
the 1.7mb :30 second clip attached below was encoded at 300k video/96k audio, and the whole movie is about 390megs @ this level of quality.
Anything made in PDE thats <= 1200k/128k/640x480 seems to play flawlessly in COREplayer

my issue is that if i have to convert any file to anyformat its a real pain.
on the td2 i could tranfer a avi fil from my laptop to the sd card and watch the film no problem.
now i have to convert it to a mp4 or something and to a particular resolution
ok so its about 40mins but its a pain
so bearing in mind that this does need to be done
whats the best format ( i am leaning to mp4)
whats the best resolution settings
whats the best prog ( i am using mp4for hd at the moment)
cheers

[Q] Video playback - surely there must be a way?

Having owned an HD2 for 9 months and struggling to type on it, I decided to try the Touch Pro2 and bought a nice example on eBay. In terms of usability as a phone I find it way better that the HD2, the acoustics and volume are great, it’s comfortable to hold, and finally I can type properly. I also bought this phone for the TV-out that the HD2 lacks. However, the video playback is terrible!
I have been through the forums here, tried all the tweaks and fixes, tried every setting in TCPMP/Core, tried disabling Sense (which makes no “sense”) but still videos which play fine on the HD2 are barely playing at all on the TP2 - jerky, low frame rate. I don’t want to have to re-encode everything; I download DIVX TV episodes, around 350MB each, and just play them directly on the HD2. I realise the HD2 has a much faster processor, but I’m sure my old Diamond played these videos just fine too.
I have tried the latest stock HTC (unbranded) ROM that the phone came with, with Core Player, and also tried the latest Energy ROM with the built in TCPMP – no difference. All I see on the forums is that it’s a known problem with the TP2 and WM6.5. But I can’t believe that all the loyal TP2 users on this forum are just happy to accept the virtual lack of video playback capability on a phone like this.
Is there a fix, or am I going to have to put this great phone back on eBay and continue my quest for the perfect phone?

79 views and no opinions?

i hear about this problem a lot. try converting the file format of the video to .avi or mp4.
personally i have no problem with video playback. havnt tried mkv yet but im not too hopefull on that one.

If you cant play it decend, then it's a rom problem. I use valkyre roms and I never had problems what so ever when I wanted to play a video.
So try that rom and see how it goes.

If i want to view a video on my TP2 i convert it with this tool:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467112
Works like a charm
Grtz, FeareX

I spent much of yesterday trying out different DVD/video conversion software and finally settled on one that does a great job of converting files into a format that plays well on the Tilt 2/TouchPro 2. I don't know why, but it appears this phone's version of WMP doesn't like MPGs or WMVs as much as it likes 3GP files. These files (in both *.3gp and *.3g2 format) play almost flawlessly and without artifacting, something neither MPGs or WMVs do on the Tilt 2. In the process of auditioning all these various programs, the best I found was Pavtube's Blu-ray Video Converter Ultimate. Don't let the name fool you, it does much more than just Blu-ray. In fact, it can handle almost anything you throw at it and the flexibility of output choices is amazing. Not only are there templates for just about any video/audio format you'd want, but they are editable, so you can change them to your needs and then save them as custom templates. I was hesitant about the $69 list price (the trial puts a watermark in the middle of the screen), but I did some searching and found a discount coupon online and got it for only $37. I have converted all 3 Matrix movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and a BD of the 2nd Narnia movie. I had the choice to preserve the theatre aspect ratio or go full screen and both look stunning on the Tilt 2 and play with barely a hiccup. I have some traveling coming up and wanted to take some movies on the road. This program was well worth the money and I spent hours trying others with varying degrees of success. The one free option (Freemake) is OK, but has nowhere near the customizability and its 3GP conversions do not play properly on the Tilt 2. The WMV conversions I did had artifacting issues with fast motion and the MPGs looked horrible and laggy. I wholeheartedly recommend this program from Pavtube. Here's a link to the discount I used.
http://software-coupon-everyday.com...o-converter-ultimate-42-discount-coupon-code/
BD conversion is a real-time process (yes, you need to have a BD reader), but DVD conversions take about 25 minutes for a 2 hour movie. The one BD movie I did yielded a 900mb file and the standard DVDs yielded about 500mb files. You can get them smaller, but quality will suffer a bit. I have a 16gb card, so no worries for me.
BTW, the serial number worked on both my desktop and laptop PC installations, so I can take it with me on the go.

I don't understand why you would do all this workarounds when all you need to do is flash a decend rom?

What workarounds? If you want to transfer DVD movies to the device you have to convert them somehow, and the software I recommended makes it possible. Not everyone wants to go through the hassle of flashing ROMs. Yeah, I know it can be easy, but the trial and error of finding a ROM that suits your needs, is stable and the chore of reinstalling all your tweaks and programs is a real pain. No thanks.

Hate to say it cuz I love my TiltII but IMHO it is that hardware acceleration of the video was not implemented in the driver by HTC just like the original Tilt which was a dog for playing video files as well. I have found that the HTC video player will play H264 mp4 files that are great looking and not jumpy but it cannot be that high of throughput.

Have you looked here for a discussion about the problems:
http://ip208-100-42-21.static.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619945
And try this cab/driver found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=546522
I assume you've tried all the various settings within Coreplayer?

agrickard said:
Have you looked here for a discussion about the problems:
http://ip208-100-42-21.static.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619945
And try this cab/driver found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=546522
I assume you've tried all the various settings within Coreplayer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you running Atom's or Neo's cab? After reading through all the related threads, seems like Neo's latest V3 cab has better performance and higher compatibility with the Tilt 2/TP2, but it's over 1mb compared to 80k. I assume this needs to be installed to system memory, not the SD card.

I installed Atom's cab and while it did speed up the box animation, I see no difference in any of my 3D games or in TF3D performance. I read where many are installing both Atom's and Neo's cabs and seeing improvement. I may try this, but I'd like to hear from others that have done so.

Have you tried overclocking your phone?

buru898 said:
Have you tried overclocking your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup. Running OCX at 710. Movies played fine even without that. 3D games are a little laggy, though. Just wondering if I need both 3D drivers to see the full benefit.