Develop Bugs

[Q] A100 as nettop

Hi guys.
I am considering buying an A100 tab (at about 239€ now).
Can it be used also as a nettop? I plan to connect it to TV via HDMI and connect a bluetooth logitech mediaboard (keyboard + touchpad).
So my questions about A100 are:
1) can the screen be turned off when using HDMI connection? (I do not want to have screen light on)
2) what is the HDMI resolution?
3) Does it work with no problem with bluetooth keyboard and mouse? (I suppose it's only question of OS)
4) is the standard performance OK? (popular games as GTAIII etc.), video playback, browsing)
5) does anyone have experiences with the dock? What are the dock advantages over using a plain HDMI cable?
Thanks a lot in advance.

When connected to a TV via HDMI, if the screen is off on the tablet then the screen will also be off on the tv. Youtube videos will not play if the screen is off. Music (Pandora, iHeartRadio, etc) will play with the screen off. Connected to my TV, there is no letterboxing, it may be different on your TV. The very top and bottom of the tablet screen are cut off when displaying on my TV, due to the slightly different aspect ratios.
I've attached a picture of my tablet screen showing on my tv. My current wallpaper has a pixelated look to it, hence it will also look pixelated on the tv screen. I tested the output from the tablet to the tv screen using a Netflix video before and the picture quality was high, however I cannot recall my Netflix password at this time to take a picture and show you at this time.
Read the posts in the accessories section for info about bluetooth keyboards and mouses. Posts in the themes and apps section can give you more info about games. I play GTA III occasionally and have noticed no issue. I have no issues with the browser or watching videos, I use ICS Browser +.
Have you considered getting a netbook for what you are trying to accomplish? You can connect to the tv via hdmi, close the lid and still have a display on your tv screen.

Received my MHL converter today - first impressions pretty bad

As the title states I got the MHL today. Output to a 73" 1080p DLP, 55" Samsung LED 7000 series smart TV, 50" 1080p Panasonic Plasma, and 39" 1080p westinghouse LED all produce similar results... and if I do say so myself, it's really bad.
Lets see where to begin:
The Good:
-Watching 1080p content from local or network storage produces a pretty good picture
-Text is sharp, webpages look great
-Phone charges while mirroring
The Bad:
-Audio output is descent at best through HDMI, when connected with a very nice surround sound decoder it only decodes as "multi-channel", so DTS and other streams are not preserved on output
-Lag. And let me say this again... LAG. Don't even bother playing a game, it's unbearable. The phone experiences no lag while mirroring, but the output is about 1/3 the framerate.
-Lag on movies. On every TV the lag was exactly the same, whether I hardware decode or software decode the lag is present. Youtube videos look laggy even.
-Netflix does not properly mirror. I presume this is related to HDCP or copy prevention, but streaming HD content to the phone produces a nice widescreen image on the phone, but the output to the connected monitor is pure crap. Take a nice 720p HD movie, compress it using the bitrate of a low quality MP3, transmit it via AM radio to your least favorite country somehow, and then watch it on a ****ty color TV from the 1980's. This is my experience with Netflix output. Also, you can tell it is not "mirroring" because when you tap the screen, the position slider appears on the phone but not the TV.
-Cannot turn screen off while mirroring
All in all, I'm somewhat pissed off. In its present state I would have preferred the phone not support HDMI. I would accept this as a "Oh hey the phone doesn't technically support MHL HDMI mirroring but we hacked it and look what we can do" but this is definitely not a finished product to advertise. Anyone else experience similar problems? Anybody have HD output with no lag? Maybe I have a defective MHL adapter/phone?

I think you may have a defective adapter/cable. I got the adapter tip today and most of your cons were nonexistent for me -
Audio Output - I don't know much about audio but I have a 5.1 surround sound setup and it worked perfectly.
Lag - I had 0 lag. I played a racing game and watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad (MKV so the phone was working hard at decoding it too) and I had no lag.
Turning screen off - I see this as a pro since you cant accidentally turn it off while mirroring
But this brings me to my point about netflix...
Netflix has been horrible with MHL on my last 3 phones, including this one. If I try to watch a 16:9 HD show on netflix through MHL, it plays fine on the phone but becomes 4:3 on my 16:9 HDTV somehow. I don't know why this happens, but if there was a way to make it mirror exactly what was on the screen, that wouldn't happen.
I'm actually quite pleased since the signal is very solid with this phone. With previous phones, the signal constantly dropped and reconnected. I tried every cable but it was a no go.

The Netflix I don't believe is the phones fault directly, I think it has to do with Netflix restricting output. As for the lag, I will return the unit as defective if I can and get another one. Hopefully that's the problem, the lag is incredibly noticeable for me. Audio wise, it's not bad, but I don't see why it can't just output (or at least give as an option) uncompressed audio from the source. My main irk is the framerate I've seen, hopefully it's limited to this unit. Anybody else experience lag or more importantly not experience any?

I ran Netflix ok.. but same ratio issues as above... didn't look great but was ok. Any regular video files looked great.. but I had to order 2 adapters before I got the right one.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

I also received my MHL adapter in the mail today. I like the picture quality and sound quality on my 42" 720p plasma, but I am wondering if it supports headphone port output somehow.

I got a connector also, but does seem to work with my monocable NHL,
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

I have a Samsung mhl and it works great
Sent using my Galaxy S III

I just used the official Samsung one today to deliver a training for a few new hires, and it worked perfectly. I had a full 10 slide powerpoint, afterwards I opened up the camera app and used the connected LCD screen as the viewfinder.

Issues with the MHL adapter lag, and possible fix
I have noticed similar problems as the OP. About an 1/8 of a second lag when trying to play SNES. For those of you who wanted to retro game with a bluetooth controller (like a PS3 sixaxis) I was able to get it to work. It could be my TV, but I got the lag down well below a second, enough so that you can play a game like donkey kong country and dodge opponents. The game plays at 30Hz which isn't the best frame rate, but fine for SNES.
The TV is a Samsung 1080p and there are two options that I enabled that seemed to help; video game mode, and BD mode. I don't think the TV should matter but I thought I should mention this. After much tinkering I realized that the phone is sending two different streams instead of exactly mirroring the phone's own stream. I think this is the case because when I was playing with settings I noticed in some cases it would send a landscape view to the TV when the phone's own display was in portrait mode. There were a couple other things that indicated that this is the case.
The Fix:
Anyways using a third party app like Titanium back up you need to freeze almost everything, anything that is not essential to running the game of your choice; this includes things like Verizon bloatware, Samsung bloat ware, s voice, maps, Facebook etc. You also have to turn off things like wifi, GPS, sync, etc. I also enabled force GPU rendering in the developer settings. Make sure you don't have a live background running. I also overclocked my phone to the max with setCPU. Also if you use an app like nova launcher you can make a back up of your settings and app placements which you can restore to keep your icon placements. I realize this is not a very viable fix, but this seemed to work for me.
End Fix
It's a pain, but worth it if you want a portable retro game machine. Samsung or someone at XDA needs to look into fixing this because I am pretty sure it is a software related issue. I hope anyone who bought a MHL adapter and wanted to retro game finds this useful.

So with the guys who have good results where you ordering it from.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

Hey just an update for anyone having issues such as screen flashes and lag I did a little more research and found in Samsung documentation that when connected to hdmi the s3 disables the output when a text or phone call is received but this was not implemented. I found that the device still checks for phone use and texts when connected to mhl. I actually had random screen flashes at set intervals on my TV! I disabled the phone and sms and this seemed to stop the flashing and help with some lag. I also noticed if you restart the device with the MHL to hdmi cable inserted the connection is a tad better and it also fixes screen flashes. I wish the damn thing worked and I have already replaced the MHL to hdmi cable twice now, and the slight lag (noticable when gaming) seems to affect a lot of people. It could be a problem with the actual device and not the software which would suck
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

A bunch of MHL related questions

Hi!
I was thinking of using my Note as media player (streaming 1080p through Wifi and watch on LCD TV). The questions:
1) I'm reading that the HDMI output is the same resolution as the device screen (1280x800). Is this true? Can apps switch to 1080p output? I mean, it's ok if the Android system shows at 1280x800, but I want the player apps to display full 1080p (I'll be using BSPlayer or MX Player to watch 1080p MKVs).
2) 1280x800 is 16:10. That doesn't match 16:9 TVs. How does the HDMI output work then? Squeezes the image from the top/bottom to fit in 16:9? Can't it be 1280x720?
3) What about the black crush? Watching videos on the Note screen is a pain. Does the HDMI output do well with blacks and grays banding? (last thing I want is watching black crushes at 42")
4) Can I turn off the device screen while using the MHL? I'd use the Note's screen to open the player and play the MKV, then I want it to stay off while I watch through the HDMI output. Is it possible? (for example by locking with the side button)
That's all I think. Any warning or anything I should now about the MHL? The thing is pretty expensive in my crappy country (even the generic ones) so I don't want to take a risk.
Thanks :3

Hi,
The HDMI output has a 1280x800 resolution (or 800x1280) which is translated into 1080i resolution, cropping out the top and bottom to make it 16/9. However, some apps (youtube, stock movie player, Moboplayer...) detect the MHL connection and send a 16/9, 1080i video signal, while the phone displays the controls.
The black crush is only a bug/feature of the hardware, it doesn't happen on your TV. I use my phone quite often to watch movies on TV when I'm not home and the image is very nice.
Finally, about turning the screen off, I cannot be sure since I did not test it (and I'm missing a HDMI cable right now) but I usually put the phone face-down when watching movies so I'm not annoyed by the screen light.
Keep in mind that you also need to plug the phone to a charger or the HDMI output will not work. So you need a plug next to your TV. Also, some home theaters are not compatible with MHL, you're better off plug it in straight into the TV inputs.
Last but not least, it's worth having, if you want to watch movies on the go, show some pictures on TV or play a powerpoint presentation at work without a laptop, for example.

HDMI adapter to TV?

Hey guys
For you that are using this on your tv, which adapters are you using?
How well does it play 1080p HD mkv files over hdmi to your tv? I'm not sure how the resolution would work for this to a 1080p TV.

You can get a Samsung wired hdmi converter on ebay for about $10. Or the allshare wireless dongle for about $40 or $50. Keep in mind if you root the Allcast dongle will no longer work.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using xda premium

Two times no...
I use a rooted P605 and my Allcast Share Dongle works despite the system status Custom which did not work on my N8000.
I did yet find no wired adapter which works with the P605, either partial, intermittend or no display. And the Samsung store showd no official adapter.
Erstellt mit meinem Note 10.1 2014 LTE

This is the one I had bought previously for my Note 2, which also works on the G Note 14 as well....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009XGK688/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Maybe the LTE version works...mine didn't I had to return and exchange it. Even flashing back to stock would not work after I tripped the flash counter
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using xda premium

Has anyone tried playing 1080p movies via HDMI to the TV? How does it run? I'm wondering if the movies actually get played at 1080p?

C2Q said:
Has anyone tried playing 1080p movies via HDMI to the TV? How does it run? I'm wondering if the movies actually get played at 1080p?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I played 1080p game trailers and movie trailers using an HDMI connection. It plays whatever the source is. One thing to note though. Playing videos with any app other than the default video app does not fill the screen all the way. There will be borders on the sides and top/bottom. It's not horrendous but is noticeable. However if you play using the default video player this gets corrected somehow when being output to the tv.

ikecomp said:
I played 1080p game trailers and movie trailers using an HDMI connection. It plays whatever the source is. One thing to note though. Playing videos with any app other than the default video app does not fill the screen all the way. There will be borders on the sides and top/bottom. It's not horrendous but is noticeable. However if you play using the default video player this gets corrected somehow when being output to the tv.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great! Just wondering, is there any lag at all when playing 1080p movies. I was watching some videos of the Nexus 10 doing it since its probably the most similar device to ours right now and the reviewer mentioned there is a bit of lag since it has to power the video on both screens. Unless there's a way to turn off the tablet and just let it use the TV as the screen.
Also does the default player support mkv? I don't have my note to test it out right now.

Just make sure to buy the 5 -> 11 pin MHL adapter if using a normal MHL adapter. Just like the Note 2, the standard 5 pin MHL adapter won't work.
Also, don't forget it has to be a powered MHL device.
I have to do the same thing for my GN2 on my Pioneer App Radio. Only I use an adapter.

C2Q said:
Great! Just wondering, is there any lag at all when playing 1080p movies. I was watching some videos of the Nexus 10 doing it since its probably the most similar device to ours right now and the reviewer mentioned there is a bit of lag since it has to power the video on both screens. Unless there's a way to turn off the tablet and just let it use the TV as the screen.
Also does the default player support mkv? I don't have my note to test it out right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For videos, you won't notice any lag since you're just watching the video. Not to mention, when using the stock video player app it detects that you're playing the video on a larger screen and shuts down the output on your tablet screen so it's only visible on your tv. For games though, you may perceive a little lag since you're actually controlling what happens on the screen.
I haven't tested playing mkv's on the stock video app on the tablet but I can confirm they play on my galaxy note II so they should work. The only thing is that the stock video app doesn't support all audio codecs so if your mkv file contains dts audio you'll probably run into issues as the stock app won't be able to decode.
Apps like Archos video player (along with the free codec pack) should work fine for playing everything.

ikecomp said:
For videos, you won't notice any lag since you're just watching the video. Not to mention, when using the stock video player app it detects that you're playing the video on a larger screen and shuts down the output on your tablet screen so it's only visible on your tv. For games though, you may perceive a little lag since you're actually controlling what happens on the screen.
I haven't tested playing mkv's on the stock video app on the tablet but I can confirm they play on my galaxy note II so they should work. The only thing is that the stock video app doesn't support all audio codecs so if your mkv file contains dts audio you'll probably run into issues as the stock app won't be able to decode.
Apps like Archos video player (along with the free codec pack) should work fine for playing everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The tablet screen stays on during hdmi out and if you turn off the screen it stops hdmi output. The reasoning is that when you turn the screen off you are turning off the digitizer, too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to control the device during playback.

TEK112 said:
The tablet screen stays on during hdmi out and if you turn off the screen it stops hdmi output. The reasoning is that when you turn the screen off you are turning off the digitizer, too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to control the device during playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair enough. But if I want to have 2 hours of constant playback for a movie without having to pause or anything, is there any app that does turn off the screen while its playing other than the stock app? I don't want the same thing to be playing on 2 screens at once. The stock app was mentioned saying that it automatically does turn off the screen while playing back via HDMI, which is cool. Sadly it doesn't play the audio on some of my MKV files cause of the codec, but MX player does. I'm looking to replace my laptop with this if possible to connect to my TV to play movies, but it should hopefully work just as well as the laptop otherwise it isn't worth it. I wouldn't be connecting this to the TV for anything other than movies anyway.

C2Q said:
Fair enough. But if I want to have 2 hours of constant playback for a movie without having to pause or anything, is there any app that does turn off the screen while its playing other than the stock app? I don't want the same thing to be playing on 2 screens at once. The stock app was mentioned saying that it automatically does turn off the screen while playing back via HDMI, which is cool. Sadly it doesn't play the audio on some of my MKV files cause of the codec, but MX player does. I'm looking to replace my laptop with this if possible to connect to my TV to play movies, but it should hopefully work just as well as the laptop otherwise it isn't worth it. I wouldn't be connecting this to the TV for anything other than movies anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a couple schools of thought. Unfortunately I do not know of any way to turn off the screen during playback. However, there are a couple of apps out there which turn off the backlight during HDMI playback. One of which I believe is called screen off which you can find on the Play Store. The other is called tasker which allows you to create a system trigger event task that will do X when Y happens. Some people have said they're able to have the backlight turn all the way down when HDMI out is detected.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

TEK112 said:
The tablet screen stays on during hdmi out and if you turn off the screen it stops hdmi output. The reasoning is that when you turn the screen off you are turning off the digitizer, too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to control the device during playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, it doesn't turn the scrim off but it dims the screen quite a bit to where it's hard to tell it's on and does not actually show the video that's being played. I should've been more clear.

ikecomp said:
Sorry, it doesn't turn the scrim off but it dims the screen quite a bit to where it's hard to tell it's on and does not actually show the video that's being played. I should've been more clear.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No apology needed. There are a lot of new members on the forums and they can be easily confused. I just thought it appropriate to clarify.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

m9 nougat DLNA & sleep

Hi there,
Is there any way to prevent htc m9 from going to sleep when the screen is off?
I use the phone's stock Music App to play music from a DLNA Server.
It plays for about 2 minutes then stops.
So I guess it's gone to sleep or something.
The screen is off as it's night time.
It's running android 7.0.
Are there better DLNA Players maybe that will stay playing while the screen is off maybe ?
Is there a custom rom that doesn't do this maybe ?
I got the phone specifically for its audio capabilities so this is a showstopper for me.
Tried setting HTC Service - DLNA, Music, Music Widget, HTC Sense Input to 'Not optimized' in 'Battery optimization'. Didn't make **** difference.
thanks for any ideas,

FYI for anyone interested, turns out phone wasn't the problem.
Tried a different dlna source (miniDLNA) and the app MediaHouse . Works as expected - no more pauses, timeouts, sleeps, cut off or doze when the screen turns off or not charging battery.
Also, before that amongst other things I tried rooting it and playing around with the governor and minimum speed. No effect at all.