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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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..
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

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.

Those with Pocket Divx Encoder

Hi, for those that use the Divx Pocket Encoder, what settings do you use for best picture quality. Do you choose the VGA device on the list or the PDA device for example? I also use Coreplayer to play the movies. I tried the VGA device settings and cranked the video quality all the way up and sound all the way up for a movie file that was almost 1.5gigs. Nothing but tearing and stuttering. Im thinking about staying in the 600 biterate zone for the video quality. But still using the VGA "device settings" instead of PDA which is 320 X 240 if I recall.
Thanks!

I use pocket divx encoder and core player.
I find the best settings are,
Click on advanced. Select device and set it to archos 604 series. That gives output dimensions of 480x272.
Select the video you want to convert.
Under output options where it says video quality. Move it to about 10. If you want better quality videos move it anywhere up to 20.but then the video is larger. Play around till what you think is best.
Audio quality is good at 5.
Then convert.
To view the converted video best on your tp2 with core player.
Open core player.
Select menu.
Select options.
Select zoom.
Select fit best.
Done.

Thanks, will try those settings out

I get a purple line on the top of my screen sometimes when I continue a movie using coreplayer. I have Zoom set to fill screen and aspect ration set to auto

i got the purple line but got rid of it with one of the core player settings. can't remember which.
if i find it ill let you know.

Nameless21 said:
i got the purple line but got rid of it with one of the core player settings. can't remember which.
if i find it ill let you know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, let me know

can't recreate the purple line so don't know.
have you got the latest version of coreplayer? V1.3.6 build 7427

its one of the settings when converting the video. i got it when i was using OJOsoft Total Video Converter. see if any of your media properties are the same as mine. i don't get the purple line with this.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

Nameless21 said:
its one of the settings when converting the video. i got it when i was using OJOsoft Total Video Converter. see if any of your media properties are the same as mine. i don't get the purple line with this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I get the 480 X 262 video size, mine are at 362 X 272

Nameless21 said:
can't recreate the purple line so don't know.
have you got the latest version of coreplayer? V1.3.6 build 7427
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I have the same version you have.

Deltatristar500 said:
How do I get the 480 X 262 video size, mine are at 362 X 272
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It’s the setting on Pocket DivX Encoder. If you set it to archos 604 series, there are more than 1 archos. If you look at Pocket DivX. Below video quality below audio quality below brightness and sound it says the output dimensions. Change the archos device to the one that gives480x272 and it may get rid of the purple line.

Hey guys,
I just started using Touch Pro 2 (my first ever PDA) and installed the Divx Player for PDA's.
When I run a divx file, it's kinda stuttering, not very fluent and smooth. Also some minor lag between video and audio.
Is it usual, considering the relatively slow CPU, or I should be using some other decoders/players for a better performance?
Thanks in advance!

AVI/Divx are ancient, inefficient codec containers.
MP.4 (h264) make far more efficient use of CorePlayer's capabilities.
There should be zero tearing, stutter, etc (with Sense running) with proper settings.
Try PSP profiles for 368x208 resolution (higher wasted and bog down playback) and at as high bit rate you can manage.

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.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That makes two of us!

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

Xperia ion H.264 support

So I have been considering the Ion as an upgrade from my ATRIX 4g but I have one criteria than the next phone I get cannot fail, or else there is no point in upgrading my phone because overall, I am happy with my current phone. I was wondering if the ion has the ability to natively decode hi-profile H.264 encoded video in an .mkv file. I have literally thousands of files on my PC and I don't want to re-encode them, especially because most of them have subtitles and that makes them extra hard to re-encode.
So if someone could find and test out some h.264 hi-profile encoded mkv video in 720p or 1080p, and report back the results of how it played, I would be super grateful! (Just FYI most .mkv files are h264 and most videos encoded in h.264 are encoded in hi-profile, so the files aren't that rare in case it seemed daunting to find a file like that) Thanks so much!

acidtreat101 said:
So I have been considering the Ion as an upgrade from my ATRIX 4g but I have one criteria than the next phone I get cannot fail, or else there is no point in upgrading my phone because overall, I am happy with my current phone. I was wondering if the ion has the ability to natively decode hi-profile H.264 encoded video in an .mkv file. I have literally thousands of files on my PC and I don't want to re-encode them, especially because most of them have subtitles and that makes them extra hard to re-encode.
So if someone could find and test out some h.264 hi-profile encoded mkv video in 720p or 1080p, and report back the results of how it played, I would be super grateful! (Just FYI most .mkv files are h264 and most videos encoded in h.264 are encoded in hi-profile, so the files aren't that rare in case it seemed daunting to find a file like that) Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried a few like that and they seem to work just fine using MX player on the Ion. The files I tried were at least 720p mkv files and h.264 encoded.

popfan said:
I have tried a few like that and they seem to work just fine using MX player on the Ion. The files I tried were at least 720p mkv files and h.264 encoded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 Confirmed. MX Player is the jam! I have yet to try 1080p personally, so I can't report on that. But all of my movies that are MKV H.264 720p, play just fine.

I use dice player and 1080p .mkv's are smooth as butter and even send to my bravia TV flawlessly
Sent from my LT28h using xda app-developers app

Cool thanks for letting me know. The Ion is a definite possibility. It's either the Ion or the Samsung Galaxy S3.

the ion is free right now

killerskincanoe said:
the ion is free right now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
$0.00 or $199.99 ..... hmmm

Well, if you don't mind answering, for you, what are the things you find to be a negative aspect of the Ion? What about the phone arent you happy with?

i uploaded this to my phone,......and it runs pretty smooth on Hardware mode and Software mode,..... via MX Player
if you want me to test one of your own video / movie...... send me the file or link
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

acidtreat101 said:
Well, if you don't mind answering, for you, what are the things you find to be a negative aspect of the Ion? What about the phone arent you happy with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only thing that I don't like, is while on a head set call, the phone screen turns off at call end, even if you're using it during the call. Other than that, I love this phone.
Sent from Rooted LT28at with ICS.

cHoLoCoY said:
i uploaded this to my phone,......and it runs pretty smooth on Hardware mode and Software mode,..... via MX Player
if you want me to test one of your own video / movie...... send me the file or link
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you go to http://www.h264info.com/clips.html and download the clip titled Serenity – 720p “On HD DVD” Trailer and tell me how it runs on the phone. On my Atrix, it lags a lot and the audio gets totally out of sync. Other videos, even in 1080p, I can play fine- so long as they aren't encoded in high-profile. Thanks.

acidtreat101 said:
Could you go to http://www.h264info.com/clips.html and download the clip titled Serenity – 720p “On HD DVD” Trailer and tell me how it runs on the phone. On my Atrix, it lags a lot and the audio gets totally out of sync. Other videos, even in 1080p, I can play fine- so long as they aren't encoded in high-profile. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried this file, first video I play on my phone, and it played very smoothly, no lags or out of sync. Later I'll try it at home to the TV with the HDMI cable.
=============
It played perfectly to the TV through HDMI. Surprisingly, I was able to control the phone using my Samsung TV remote control.

josemald said:
I just tried this file, first video I play on my phone, and it played very smoothly, no lags or out of sync. Later I'll try it at home to the TV with the HDMI cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool thanks!

[Q] Prevent Note 2's "Video Player" app from always showing subtitle text?

Hello,
I've searched the xda forums and all over the web for a solution to this problem, and found nothing. Hoping someone here can at least explain what's going on, even if there's no solution to my problem.
I switched to the Note 2 after owning two iPhones (original and, for the last two years, an iPhone 4). I have a moderate-sized movie collection of DVD rips stored on a home file server. I used the "Handbrake" program to encode the videos for use with my iPhones and an Apple TV I have. The "Handbrake" program has a preset for different versions of i-devices, and I used the preset for a second-generation AppleTV.
All my files have a filetype of "m4v", use h.264 video encoding and have both AAC and DD5.1 audio streams, as well as a U.S English subtitle track.
When I play these files from my server (or locally, it doesn't matter where the video file itself is hosted), using the built-in Video Player app, there is no apparent way to turn off the English subtitles, and, in some cases, the chapter text (indicating which chapter of a multi-chapter file is currently playing).
I have a friend with a Gingerbread-based Samsung Music Player device, and the Video Player in his device has a menu option to turn subtitles on or off. No such option is available in the Video Player app provided with the Note 2.
I can, of course, use another player app (the MX Player seems to be excellent), but I really like to use the pop-up video option of the built-in player, and I also sometimes use the Video Player app in multi-window mode, to keep a video playing on the top 1/3 of the screen while I browse in a second window on the lower part of the screen. These options are not currently available for any other video apps unless you are rooted and have installed a mod to use other apps with multi-window. For various reasons, I do not want to root my device, so that option is out for me.
Does anyone know of a way to prevent the built-in Video Player from defaulting to the display of subtitles? I really don't want to have to re-encode over 100 DVD's, just to solve this problem.
Thanks for any help. I can't understand why a useful option like turning on/off subtitles that was apparently part of Android's built-in player app would have been removed for any reason.

I'd really like to know how to remove the subtitles too. Until then, I've been using Dice, but it would be good to use the stock video player with the multi-screen function also.

BS Player has built in floating window. It's an excellent player. It also has built in support for mounting network drives and it can offset the audio steam too. Oh, and it plays pretty much everything
sent from somewhere

Thanks for your recommendation. I think I had already discovered this app - I know I was using a nice player app that had the pop-up feature, in any case.
Unfortunately for me, the real two draws for sticking with the Samsung Video Player app are compatibility with the Note 2's multi-window feature and the ability to use the player to send a vid to my Samsung TV using Allshare Play.
For some reason, a lot of other software that claims to work with DNLA and/or Allshare causes my TV to respond that the file I'm trying to play is not in a supported format (when I transfer playback from my phone to the TV), but the Video Player app always seems to have no problem convincing the TV to play the file.
I just can't believe there's not a hack of some sort to disable the automatic use of subtitles with this otherwise extremely useful app.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

I've just rechecked my Note 2's Video Player and there is an option to turn off the subtitles.
When the video is playing, hit the menu button, then settings and there is an option for Subtitles On/Off.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

liquidguru said:
I've just rechecked my Note 2's Video Player and there is an option to turn off the subtitles.
When the video is playing, hit the menu button, then settings and there is an option for Subtitles On/Off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odd that my default video player does not have the subtitle selection (as shown above) as well??

Re: [Q] Prevent Note 2's "Video Player" app from always showing subtitle text?
Neither did mine. I suspect the presence or absence of the option is related to the file type/encodings of the video file being played.
Whatever the case, I have never seen this option available on my Note 2's video player menu.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

Re: [Q] Prevent Note 2's "Video Player" app from always showing subtitle text?
I can confirm that I have the option on my video player to disable subtitles.
Sent from the rabbit hole.

When you press menu, the resulting window is scrollable. That's probably why you can't see settings. It might be named as closed caption, so click on that and uncheck activate.

Thanks for the tip was looking for that option as well!