Develop Bugs

Got my Desire! How on earth do I play video?

I had ordered my Desire from Mobiles.co.uk, but as I was driving past CPW in Chiswick on Saturady, I popped in and 15mins later I walked out with one!
I have had an HTC Diamond 2 (WM6.5) and an iPhone in the past, and I am totally delighted with it! Being new to Android, Im just feeling my way round things, but even now, I have to say it is the best phone Ive ever had!
I cannot work out how to play movies on the Desire! I moved a movie file over to the SD card (via USB) and I just cant find any app to play the movie - heck, I cant even find any built in utility to browse the SD card with! Does the Desire have an inbuilt video player, or do I need to install one from the market? Are any highly recommended?
This stupid newbie would really like some help!

If the video is formattet correctly it should be playable from the "Albums" app.
and no native file browser is installed, but I can recommend Estrong file explorer (will also let you browse windows shares on wifi and FTP)

Aaah.... Ill try that! I was looking for some dedicated movie app, but couldnt find one installed. Am I correct in thinking that MP4 format movies (as with the iPhone) are what the Desire plays? And any ideas what the `best` settings I use in my encoder (tmpgenc)?

biglunn said:
Aaah.... Ill try that! I was looking for some dedicated movie app, but couldnt find one installed. Am I correct in thinking that MP4 format movies (as with the iPhone) are wnat the Desire plays?
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AFAIK, but mine won't ship till tomorrow, so I'm still playing the waiting game...

biglunn said:
I just cant find any app to play the movie - heck, I cant even find any built in utility to browse the SD card with! Does the Desire have an inbuilt video player, or do I need to install one from the market? Are any highly recommended?
This stupid newbie would really like some help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there. I really reccommend using doubleTwist on your PC - it's free and works really well with the Desire. It syncs your music and video files - and makes all your video files playable on the desire too as it does a conversion during the copy.
I've tested it by syncing a divx file on my pc with the desire - it plays great using the desire video player.

jonnyguitar said:
Hey there. I really reccommend using doubleTwist on your PC - it's free and works really well with the Desire. It syncs your music and video files - and makes all your video files playable on the desire too as it does a conversion during the copy.
I've tested it by syncing a divx file on my pc with the desire - it plays great using the desire video player.
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Click to collapse
How long does it take to transcode, and what's the end quality & filesize like?

FloatingFatMan said:
How long does it take to transcode, and what's the end quality & filesize like?
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Well I tried a 42minute divx file. It took about 5-10mins to copy (transcoding as it copied I guess) and the quality was perfect. No lip sync issues or anything that you might find in a dodgy conversion.
I took a look at the new file on the SD Card - it was the same size but now intead of the divx file (avi container) it was a .mp4

jonnyguitar said:
Well I tried a 42minute divx file. It took about 5-10mins to copy (transcoding as it copied I guess) and the quality was perfect. No lip sync issues or anything that you might find in a dodgy conversion.
I took a look at the new file on the SD Card - it was the same size but now intead of the divx file (avi container) it was a .mp4
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Cheers!
Ill give it a go when I get in from work

I used super last night to convert an xvid avi, output quality was awful.
Installed double twist which has a striking resemblance of iTunes..lol I thought these android phones were meant to be iphone competition? however they are becoming similar in many ways.. Pinch to zoom, app store, navigation menu sliding.. Itunes/double twist.
Anyway Doubletwist done a great job of converting an xvid avi, although first attempt the converted video was nowhere to be found on my phone after the sync..
So I did it again and watched some 24 on the train this morning.. Quality was great..
Although I did have my touch HD as backup encase the conversion wasn't good.
For any one struggling to find the videos on your phone, open the Photo's app.
Not sure why its called Photos as it opens pictures and videos..
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I played with the Video playback functionality on Desire yesterday.
It accepts MP4 container with H.264 video encoding (up to L5.1, but only BASELINE profiles) + AAC for audio.
MP4 - 1000 kbits H.264 + 128 kbits (stereo), 800x480, 25fps MP4 is very fluent.
AVI - isn't supported
XVID may be supported too, but probably only in a MP4 container.

The best Video Converter

I need a video converter for my HTC TP2

Then you need to search
http://forum.xda-developers.com/announcement.php?f=488

Check out this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=787812

I use MP4forHD (look it up on Google) as the HTC TP2 video player uses hardware support for silky playback of MP4 video files.
Once you start it, select the 'HD' profile, press 'Add' to select your video. Once it is in the queue, double-click the entry to set the various encoding and clipping options.
Don't be tempted to select '800x480' as max resolution. The TP2 isn't fast enough for most video material at this resolution although short clips do work. I find '560x336' is an acceptable compromise between video and audio quality. Set the input aspect ratio according to your original video material and the output aspect ratio as 1.667 (device). MP4forHD then does the full-screen cropping automatically for you and presents a preview prior to encoding.

Tried MP4forHD just for comparison sake. Sorry, but my recommendation of Pavtube Ultimate still stands. Using your settings here's a frame grab from a scene in Lord Of the Rings.
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Quality is OK, but when you look at it next to the same frame taken from the conversion I did with the Pavtube software, you can see how much of the frame is lost even though I used a smaller resolution for conversion (352X288). And it is noticeably sharper.
Much better quality and no frame loss. It also plays flawlessly on my unoverclocked Tilt 2. Slightly smaller file size and it took only 50 minutes to convert compared to more than 3 hours with MP4forHD. If free is what you want, then by all means go with MP4forHD, but if a quality movie experience is more important, use the link in my thread above and get the Pavtube for $37 and enjoy your movies on your Tp2/Tilt2. Pavtube is much easier and more flexible to use, I might add.

ImToo Video Converter is a good one. They have a Trial available but it's limited to 25% of the Video or 3 Minutes of Video.

I like AVS Video Converter for the Tilt2. Not sure it has an out of the box preset, but if you know what you're doing with video, it will do a nice job. I probably wouldn't recommend it for someone who wants a "one click" solution.

I agree, I use AVS as well. It may need a small setting adjustment to suit your preferences/preferred settings, but it does a good job, as well as batch converstions.
It's still pretty quick to use. I have the 1 year subscription, which is probably almost used up, lol.

Does AVS do Blu-Ray? I've been using PavTube to convert BD disks from Netflix and it even transfers the 5.1 audio tracks intact. Great for putting the movies on my hard drive so I can watch them later without having to hold onto the rental disk for days. And I can convert them to Tilt2 format from the video file if I want to take it on the go. No expiration date, either.

The latest version seems to support blu-ray, thats funny cause' I hadn't noticed, lol.
I don't have a blu-ray drive or even use the discs yet! I feel like a caveman, lol!
Anyway, It seems to be able to let me convert files from and to blu-ray, but I cannot verify if it will allow converting from blu-ray as I do not have the hardware. I'm sure AVS should transfer your audio well if the source has multiple-channel audio, but again I haven't tested that as I usually convert stereo DVDs to HDD (my star trek collection, lol).
Hope this helps,

Well, i always use wannasoft Video Converter to help me handle conversion. It can convert between almost any video files with good quality and reasonable speed. some simple editing functions like trim, crop, watermark,etc are available.
It would be your good choice.

I recommend you Pavtube Video Converter. I am very satisfied with this software. It does everything you want it to do.

kate59588 said:
I recommend you Pavtube Video Converter. I am very satisfied with this software. It does everything you want it to do.
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That makes two of us!

Once is informative. Twice, in less than 24 hours, is borderline SPAM.

[Q] h264/mkv limitations?

Hi guys,
I'm suffering trying to get some videos to play on my epic. They are MKV: h264 (848x480) and ogg. At first I thought the phone saying it wouldn't support the video was the audio codec, which I tried remuxed as mp3 and wav, neither helped. At this point I am wondering it the h264 resolution isn't supported?
However, another weird issue is my epic also won't play some videos I already reformatted for my ipad.These are MP4: h264 768x576 and AAC. I can't imagine the epic being more limited than the crippled ipad...
Am I missing something here? Everywhere I look, all of these formats are supposed to be supported (well, maybe not ogg). Also, every once in awhile one of these combinations will play, but with missing audio, no subs, can't seek, freezing video, etc. Always some error, and usually just outright says the system doesn't support the format.
Thanks for the help guys, this is stressing me out lol, so sick of trying conversions.

What software are you using? Handbrake with Normal profile works just fine on the Epic (but High Profile does not work).

Last time I tried to find a decent video transcoder for Windows it was a nightmare, maybe this will help you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_video_conversion_software).
If that doesn't workout you could try this: Find a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, burn it to cd, when its loaded click "Try Ubuntu", and once connected to the internet press Alt+F2 and copy in "(sudo apt-get install arista); arista-gtk". I tried another program called Transmaggedon, but although it gave more control over transcoding, it didn't appear to work.

Ya handbreak did work. Unfortunately I still have to demux both the original and post-hb file to transfer the subs over as handbreak isn't doing it.
Thx for the help. I would still like to know the resolution limitation tho so if anyone knows...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

So I have been fooling around with it some more and found that when I recode using handbreak I don't need to change the vid resolution, just have to force it to 24fps and everything, vid/audio/subs, sync fine (source is 30fps).
I don't think the epic supports ogg/vorbis audio, which explains why the source material didn't work, but then after remuxing with compatible audio why wouldn't it work? All I can think of is handbreak is compressing the bitrate even though I'm not changing any settings there...
I'll update with any new findings.

I took another look around and it looks like SUPER would work quite well. It can use FFmpeg which has support for pretty much every known format and gives you a lot of control over the output. I really didn't expect to find anything this good on Windows, but FFmpeg was originally used under GNU/Linux, so it isn't as surprising.
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
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Strange, I run mkv with no problem at all. I use Double Twist as my player. Not sure whether this has built in codecs for mkv. I never checked because I can play everything on my phone. Except damn Netflix of course.

Thx for the recommendation chinoto.
The mkv capablity should be built into the phone independent of the software playing it (at least that's my understanding). All of my reencoded mkv's are working fine which I'm attrbuting to the lower bit rate.
The original bitrate was 1,534Kbps (video), handbreak compresses it to 681Kbps at the same resolution (24fps from 30fps original for sync though).
What's the highest bitrate you guys have had work correctly (no syncing issues even after seeking)?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I really like vplayer. I've gone thru every player for the most part and find vplayer very consistant in playing every type of video I can think of. Imo its the poweramp of videos
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

Yeah thy switched something from 2.1 to 2.2
I just tried to play my frst 720p .mkv in a while on my phone and it wouldn't play in the stock player (it would before...with subtitles.) So I dl'ed rockplayer lite and it says hardware acceleration not available but it plays...with distorted sound and the image is all jumpy.
QQ player flat out says "audio codec not supported"
All of this worked perfectly wth stock player on di18/dk28
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Hrm interesting. Havnt tried moving back down to 2.1...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

A Comprehensive review of the Media Link

Intro
To start off I thought I'd do this review to set a few people's mind to rest by covering all aspects of the Media Link. The Media link was included with my contract by Phones4u.
My setup is HTC One X, Samsung LCD TV, 300Mbps Wireless network (Multiple access points) and the media link of course.
Hardware
The unit has a sleek exterior and mounting bracket allowing you to stick it to the back of your TV, the device simply slips in and out of it. There is an LED on the face of the device as well as the HTC logo and on top of the device is a single button. On the bottom are the HDMI port and micro usb power port.
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Software
You may already be familiar with the screen shown below, it seems the media link is always in this state when powered, the manual does not give instruction on powering down the device and the button serves as a PBC button and reset. standby and HDMI-CEC functions would have been a great addition but you can't have everything.
The device then has four main functions, Image, video, music streaming and mirroring the phone. The respective app triggers the streaming mode and stays in this mode, allowing you to continue using your phone as usual (All be it in landscape) until you press close.
Music
Video
HD Films streamed from the device look fantastic, buttery smooth, in sync. Very impressed, it looks like it's coming straight from the PC.​
Photo
​Mirroring
Video takes around 5 seconds to buffer
Music takes around 2
and Photos around 1
The device also supports DLNA and is visible on the network as a streaming device
Also interestingly when the handset spots the media link on the network not only does it trigger notifications (I found them very annoying and turned them off in the app's settings) but even with the notifications turned off if you choose a photo from the gallery it offers to show it on the TV for you.
The youtube app also does this however minimizing the youtube app will put the media link back into mirror mode.​
Final Thoughts
This device is fantastic, nice small form factor, very portable, easy to set up and for showing your captured content, streaming music and films it's phenomenal. Now I received this for free with my contract, honestly if I didn't I wouldn't pay £80 for it. As good as it is I already have a media streamer and a fully fledged server that hosts my media, for me to put films on my internal memory to send to my tv is a bit silly, however it's still great for showing friends and family photos and videos I've shot and for that reason (As well as bragging rights, it's pretty damn cool) I'll be keeping it.
05/05/2012 02:35 GMT
Whilst downloading shadowgun and using the media link Battery monitor widget measured around 1200ma drain and the battery reached 51 degrees celcius. Don't know how accurate that is but the phone is scorching hot, overheat LED was flashing too
If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
Please thank if I've helped you.

Did you try it with any games? presumably it would use mirror mode.

shangostar said:
Did you try it with any games? presumably it would use mirror mode.
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Click to collapse
Yes, it does use mirror mode and it does work. I tried out GTA III with it and the delay between is manageable but of course it's very hard to control with the phones screen so a controller is absolutely necessary. I found it stuttered once or twice but overall not a bad performance. I'll try to get some footage tomorrow when one of my housemates is around to use their phone to capture it.

PC Streaming
Did you manage to stream video from PC to TV with and/or without the phone?
Is it working with other DLNA certified devices, e.g. tablets, phones ...?

What video formats are you able to play?

zan4o said:
Did you manage to stream video from PC to TV with and/or without the phone?
Is it working with other DLNA certified devices, e.g. tablets, phones ...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using the "Play to" function of windows media player I can stream most audio and picture files. With video streaming I can stream .AVI and .MP4 however MKV files don't seem to work. I do Have K-Lite Codec Pack and the files do play in media player on the PC. Media player won't stream Matroska to my WDTV which definitely supports MKV so perhaps media player is the weak link.

sebbo90 said:
What video formats are you able to play?
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Click to collapse
Anything the default gallery app recognises, MP4 and AVI has worked for me. I tried to play an MKV using MX player but even in mirror mode the TV mirrors the phone trying to stream so the TV and phone icon appears on both, no video.

S20 Ultra 8K Video Problem

Anybody else have a problem playing back 8K video on PC? I get vertical lines when I playback on my RTX2080Ti Windows 10 via Media Player Classic and VLC. Seems fine playing back on phone and other devices though. I had no problems playing back a sample 8K video from a S20+. I wonder what could be the problem.

TenchiMasaki said:
Anybody else have a problem playing back 8K video on PC? I get vertical lines when I playback on my RTX2080Ti Windows 10 via Media Player Classic and VLC. Seems fine playing back on phone and other devices though. I had no problems playing back a sample 8K video from a S20+. I wonder what could be the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only tried playback on Mac with VLC, works fine for me. Sorry am not able to help.

Same issue here
TenchiMasaki said:
Anybody else have a problem playing back 8K video on PC? I get vertical lines when I playback on my RTX2080Ti Windows 10 via Media Player Classic and VLC. Seems fine playing back on phone and other devices though. I had no problems playing back a sample 8K video from a S20+. I wonder what could be the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there, same exact problem here. I am connected to a B9 OLED TV and I also have a C7 (both doing the same), so it's not the TVs.
I have made lots of tests, and it seems like a frame-skipping issue (both in 8K and 4K that could be causing the issue playback) as other 8K videos from other sources are working (tried from RED camera). Here are my results if this can help you and Samsung (all test recorded to the internal memory of the S20 Ultra ) :
- Different decoder (Windows Store, VLC and MPC-HC) = Vertical Lines
- 8K with display at 120hz from my 2080ti+B9 = Vertical Lines
- 8K with display at 60hz from my 2080ti+B9 = Vertical Lines
- 8K with playback on my iMac 5k = No Vertical Lines (but frame-skipping - the GPU/CPU is strong enough to decode H265 8K, not the problem)
- 8K with HDR disabled in Windows 10 (RGB/4:4:4 8bit) = Vertical Lines
-4k at 30FPS with video stabilization with "Auto-HDR" = Choppy (even from the phone)
-4k at 30FPS without stabilization with "Auto-HDR" = choppy, but still here and there
-4k at 30FPS without stabilization without "Auto-HDR" = less choppy, but still here and there
-4k at 30FPS with video stabilization with "High Efficiency video" on", so BT.709 (8bit) = Near perfect
- I have tried other softwares on the phone to capture videos, the one that comes with the OSMO Mobile 3 = same problem
- With Filmic Pro, you can control the shutter speed, but no HDR and lots of noise in the videos (not efficient encoding).
Conclusion so far :
I can see, both in 4K and 8K, when HDR10+ (BT.2020) is on the videos are missing frames (so either choppy or giving us vertical lines and artifacts). Samsung has to release a fix.
Auto Focus is always doing something (focusing-refocusing).
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I am not impress with the camera system on that phone so far. It might not be about the hardware, but the software that is not optimized, but who knows! The bottom line is that I bought this smartphone to get rid of my big mirror less when on a field trip to shoot videos in HDR10 so I can benefit (on my OLED's) and it's not even an option now. The only lens working "as it should" for me so far is the front one. All others on the back are problematic with wrong colours.
If Samsung can release an update soon, that will be great.

A bit more on Frame-Skipping
After more research, it seems that the problem is that the phone can't handle or is not set to "constant" 29.97 FPS in 4K or 23.98 FPS in 8K. If you open the details in the video file, it's either at 23.20FPS or something similar instead of of 23.98 like it supposed to be, so players are adding artifacts or choppiness video. The worst is when you record 4K with all the package (HDR10+ with image Stabilization and auto-"broken"-focusing) where instead of 30FPS as expected, it's between 27fps and 28 fps which is abnormal frame per seconds.
The temporary workaround is to disabled one of the two (HDR10+ or IMage Stabilization) and then 4K video will be at 29.97. As for 8K, the only workaround is to "reencode" to file making sure it's set to "constant" 23.98 fps.
Hope this help and will update later if I can find a way to get 8K recorded at proper speed. I am on the Snapdragon 865 by the way.
The best player I have found to reproduce the proper image (HDR10) and the profile of 709 in 8K is the MPV (you got to be full screen and ensure to make a config file and have in it a line hwdec=nvdec-copy . Not too sure why the copy makes thing works, but it does . VLC is giving me the wrong gamma and contrast, but this one is perfect so far.