Develop Bugs

720p Playback lagged

Hey guys,
I'm using the MHL Adapter from BizLink and tried viewing a 720p movie with DTS Sound.
The playback lagged . I don't know why..
I used the Dice Player, because it's supporting DTS, also i'm using a 5m HDMI cable.
But why is the movie lagging? There are kinda microlags..
Resolution: 720p
Video Bitrate: 5586 kbps
Audio Stream: DTS 5.1
x264
Maybe the Player causes the problem, because another 720p movie was played well (Samsung stock player). btw: the phone was very hot after watching the above mentioned (DTS) movie.
Does anyone has some ideas?

Ya some 720p movies also lags for me in Dice player.Its better to convert DTS audio only to ac3 format,doesnt take too much time either to convert.

techpal said:
Ya some 720p movies also lags for me in Dice player.Its better to convert DTS audio only to ac3 format,doesnt take too much time either to convert.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess it's the best way to do.
Just watched a 1080p movie, and the phone was only a bit warm (with samsung stock player), was AC3. Does anyone know a "good" converter from DTS to AC3?
i had to split the movie into 3 files, to be able to play the movie (4GB limitation).
Maybe Samsung will fix these two issues: DTS capability and EXT4....

Diceplayer prior to 1.2.0 have some video lag issue.
did you test the movie using diceplayer 1.3.0 ?

I was using the 1.3.0 version.
Watched 1080p without any lags, yesterday. Was using stock Player
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

jojo2peter said:
I used the Dice Player, because it's supporting DTS, also i'm using a 5m HDMI cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know hardware-acceleration an Android will only be used when using the integrated media-framework.
While Samsung extended the stock media-framework to support more container and codecs (like AC3 for example) it doesn´t support DTS.
This means, anything you can not play with the Samsung mediaplayer will use pure software-decoding, which is slow and burns a lot of energy.
Maybe the Player causes the problem, because another 720p movie was played well (Samsung stock player). btw: the phone was very hot after watching the above mentioned (DTS) movie.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is no surprise. With software-decoding, which obviously isn´t fast enough, at least one, but probably both of the Cortex-A9-cores will run at full speed the whole time.
The reason for dedicated decoding-hardware in the SoCs instead just using more powerful general purpose CPUs is the much better energy-efficiency.

LightspeedGalaxy said:
As far as I know hardware-acceleration an Android will only be used when using the integrated media-framework.
While Samsung extended the stock media-framework to support more container and codecs (like AC3 for example) it doesn´t support DTS.
This means, anything you can not play with the Samsung mediaplayer will use pure software-decoding, which is slow and burns a lot of energy.
This is no surprise. With software-decoding, which obviously isn´t fast enough, at least one, but probably both of the Cortex-A9-cores will run at full speed the whole time.
The reason for dedicated decoding-hardware in the SoCs instead just using more powerful general purpose CPUs is the much better energy-efficiency.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, i thought the same, because it was so warm.
I used the Rockplayer, with it you can activate Hardware acceleration, but i don't know if it works.
Thought other players could use the hardware acceleration.
From now on, i will convert the DTS to AC3, but first of, i will look for stock AC3

jojo2peter said:
I used the Rockplayer, with it you can activate Hardware acceleration, but i don't know if it works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rockplayer can use hardware-acceleration, but only using the Android-Framework, which means hardware-acceleration will only work for the same containers/codecs as with the stock mediaplayer.
Thought other players could use the hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said Players can use hardware-acceleration, but they have to do it using the media-framefork, which means no hardware-acceleration for containers/codecs which aren´t supported in the media-framework.
In theory you could develop a mediaplayer with your own media-framework, directly programming the SoC.
But the question is how much of use it would anyway, could the hardware assist decoding for codecs which aren´t already present in the media-framework? It certainly could be useful for unsupported containers, that contain codecs which are already supported.
But the biggest problem would be that your new media-framework will only work with the phone you developed it, nobody will make android-software for just one phone out there.
That´s somewhat of the curse of the Android-plattform. It has been developed for maximum compatibility between the different devices out there. This means lots of choices in devices to buy for us, and for software-developers many devices that can run their software. But it also means we are not getting device-specific-software from 3rd-party developers.
Hopefully the Android-Framework at some time will split up the media-framework into "modules" similar to a DirectShow Filtergraph, so mediaplayers could exchange this individual modules and still use hardware-acceleration in others (which come from the device-manufacturer)
This would allow for example the support of different containers without losing hardware-acceleration in the decoding-part (if the codec is already supported), as well as doing audio-decoding in software (which could be quite reasonably done with 2 Cortex-A9-CPUs) and still using the hardware for the video-part.

I never hadany lag on the stock. Even the 1080 ones
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

LightspeedGalaxy said:
As I said Players can use hardware-acceleration, but they have to do it using the media-framefork, which means no hardware-acceleration for containers/codecs which aren´t supported in the media-framework.
In theory you could develop a mediaplayer with your own media-framework, directly programming the SoC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Diceplayer use SoC's HW Decoder. + SW decoder for Audio.
check this video
After Diceplayer came out, all of android device that supported by diceplayer
can play MKV(H.264/MPEG-4+DTS/AC3).
Even Nexus-S can play MKV+DTS+H.264 High profile with Diceplayer.

jojo2peter said:
Hey guys,
I'm using the MHL Adapter from BizLink and tried viewing a 720p movie with DTS Sound.
The playback lagged . I don't know why..
I used the Dice Player, because it's supporting DTS, also i'm using a 5m HDMI cable.
But why is the movie lagging? There are kinda microlags..
Resolution: 720p
Video Bitrate: 5586 kbps
Audio Stream: DTS 5.1
x264
Maybe the Player causes the problem, because another 720p movie was played well (Samsung stock player). btw: the phone was very hot after watching the above mentioned (DTS) movie.
Does anyone has some ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Send your file to me.
I'll check it.

jojo2peter said:
Guess it's the best way to do.
Just watched a 1080p movie, and the phone was only a bit warm (with samsung stock player), was AC3. Does anyone know a "good" converter from DTS to AC3?
i had to split the movie into 3 files, to be able to play the movie (4GB limitation).
Maybe Samsung will fix these two issues: DTS capability and EXT4....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey guy, take a look here to make your NTFS Sd card work http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1120407&page=3
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

jojo2peter said:
But why is the movie lagging? There are kinda microlags..
Resolution: 720p
Video Bitrate: 5586 kbps
Audio Stream: DTS 5.1
x264
Does anyone has some ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bet it lags because of the High Video Bitrate! get some 720p movie with Bitrate between 2K - 3.5 K and try

NoOneCanHelpMe said:
I bet it lags because of the High Video Bitrate! get some 720p movie with Bitrate between 2K - 3.5 K and try
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And why did the 1080p movie work well?
It has a Video Bitrate @10250 kbps and [email protected]
hakkinenvthh said:
Hey guy, take a look here to make your NTFS Sd card work http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1120407&page=3
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will do that, if the next firmware won't fix that

jojo2peter said:
And why did the 1080p movie work well?
It has a Video Bitrate @10250 kbps and [email protected]
will do that, if the next firmware won't fix that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mal-formatted mkv file can cause some lag.
H.264 need 2-type of frame time - PTS/DTS.
but some of MKVs have wrong time stamp.
SGS2's HW Video decoder can not handle these files.

juami said:
mal-formatted mkv file can cause some lag.
H.264 need 2-type of frame time - PTS/DTS.
but some of MKVs have wrong time stamp.
SGS2's HW Video decoder can not handle these files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so is my sample still lagging on your phone too?

did you modifie the SD cache ?
> 512 kb create some lag on my sg2 with the video player.

[Q] Video playback fluidity / support on GN and over MHL?

All the reviews I have seen so far completely ignore media playback on the GN, or give it only a passing mention.
I'm really interested to know how well it handles media playback - AVI, MKV etc both on it's own screen, and over MHL to an HDMI connected screen - along with which specific MHL adaptor was used.
The SGS2 and HTC Sensation for example seem similar in spec, but when detailed reviews started coming in, it was clear the SGS2 was far superior in terms of media playback - both formats supported and fluidity of playback.
I'd love to get a GN, but I really need to know if the media playback is 'great' - and by great I mean 100% fluid on any reasonable file (up to 720p movies for example) - no skips, no out of sync etc... I'd also really like to know how well the MHL works in playing movies back on an HDMI connected screen - is it the same in terms of fluidity? What audio is sent over the cable?
Unfortunately here in New Zealand the device isn't released so I can't go try one myself, or else I would have already!
I'm not afraid of buying a good app if that's what it takes to have perfectly fluid playback - love to hear experiences with both the native and 3rd party payers on the GN.
Cheers - Neil G

I would also like to know about this.
Thanks

Theres a Diceplayer thread that says MKV work well, ive tried the trial version of it with 1 720p tv episode and it looked great.
not got any hdmi cables so cant test that but looked great on the phone.
AVI wasnt as good tho with what looked like a low fps problem.
do a forum search for Diceplayer for a bit more info.

r3k0 said:
Theres a Diceplayer thread that says MKV work well, ive tried the trial version of it with 1 720p tv episode and it looked great.
not got any hdmi cables so cant test that but looked great on the phone.
AVI wasnt as good tho with what looked like a low fps problem.
do a forum search for Diceplayer for a bit more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea and the developer posted something about fixes for AVI, so that bug should be gone soon. Diceplayer might be the best choice for GN as of now.
EDIT: Actually MX Player seems to be updated and people are reporting better playback than Diceplayer: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1362375

It works fine over MHL and on Diceplayer, i've recorded a video of it.
Uploading atm, I have poor upload speed so it'll be a while till I can link you.

Help please
I really want to buy this phone but i'm waiting to see how the volume issue resolves. But one of my major considerations is video playback. I have a huge collection of blu ray rips(1080p and 720p) and most of them are .mkv; does the galaxy nexus natively support .mkv files? Is there any file size limit on videos i put in the device?(the rips range from 3gb to 10gb). I know that the galaxy nexus doesn't support USB mass storage... does that stop me from transferring natively unsupported file types to the phone? Any help would be greatly appreciated

I believe Nexus does have USB storage.
For the MKV, it does play them natively, can you post a short sample? We could then give it a try. Two players are supposed to be able to play with hardware acceleration: Diceplayer and MX Player.
From what I know, 720p is not a problem at all. 1080p, might depend on bitrate and other things.

Finally got the video uploaded.
Includes play of 720p + 1080p files.
Good value imo, works well and doesn't look or feel too cheap.

Thanks for the video samples!
Thankyou sir, that's _exactly_ what I was looking for. I think I see some jumpiness in the playback, but I suspect that's actually youtube's fault. Certainly seems to handle 720 and 1080 fine.
Could you link to the exact MHL adaptor your purchased please?
Cheers - Neil G

talkiet said:
Thankyou sir, that's _exactly_ what I was looking for. I think I see some jumpiness in the playback, but I suspect that's actually youtube's fault. Certainly seems to handle 720 and 1080 fine.
Could you link to the exact MHL adaptor your purchased please?
Cheers - Neil G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was checking out my friend's Galaxy Nexus and we noticed he had to install the codec pack on Android Market for MX Player before it allowed HW-accelerated playback of the specific clip he used, even though it played back fine in the stock player (though no sound). With the codec pack he could set it to HW for the video and SW for the sound. In the end it worked out great and I was surprised, considering the table of supported formats on developer.android.com didn't list MKV + h.264 as a supported format.

I've been using Dice Player and MX Video Player for 720P .mkv files on both my Thunderbolt and Rezound. The Thunderbolt had sync issues(even overclocked). With the Rezound, most of the time playback is fine, but occasionally will have a slight sync issue here & there.
Considering the specs of both the Nexus and the Rezound though, even with a possible 'stock' issue, it'd just be a matter of eventually loading a custom ROM & some minor modifications/tweaks here & there.

Another video demo (though not specifically of the Nexus). MHL is just mirroring so there's no difference in playback. If it works on the phone, it's exactly the same mirrored.
I can also confirm that it natively plays back AVIs (Xvid), sample: http://www.multiupload.com/GML7HC3HHM

schriss said:
I believe Nexus does have USB storage.
For the MKV, it does play them natively, can you post a short sample? We could then give it a try. Two players are supposed to be able to play with hardware acceleration: Diceplayer and MX Player.
From what I know, 720p is not a problem at all. 1080p, might depend on bitrate and other things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure i'll upload a sample or two in a bit. I know for sure it supports googles own mkv container(vp8 or something) but does it support mkv + h.264?

talkiet said:
Thankyou sir, that's _exactly_ what I was looking for. I think I see some jumpiness in the playback, but I suspect that's actually youtube's fault. Certainly seems to handle 720 and 1080 fine.
Could you link to the exact MHL adaptor your purchased please?
Cheers - Neil G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's off ebay, item no 220897013161.
Can get the same thing a bit cheaper from HK if you're prepared to wait a few weeks.
The jumpiness might have been because I had a lot of apps open at the same time, I just tried playing back the same files and they were perfectly smooth with only the browser open.

Again, thanks OP - really great info and I've just ordered and paid for a Galaxy Nexus from Clove
Cheers - Neil G

Just an update to the 'clipping' on the home screen, you need to switch OFF 'overscan' in the TV menu settings, it should look like this:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5277/img0427wt.jpg

whyamihere said:
Finally got the video uploaded.
Includes play of 720p + 1080p files.
Good value imo, works well and doesn't look or feel too cheap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nice video mate

blunden said:
It was checking out my friend's Galaxy Nexus and we noticed he had to install the codec pack on Android Market for MX Player before it allowed HW-accelerated playback of the specific clip he used, even though it played back fine in the stock player (though no sound). With the codec pack he could set it to HW for the video and SW for the sound. In the end it worked out great and I was surprised, considering the table of supported formats on developer.android.com didn't list MKV + h.264 as a supported format.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
witch codec plz ?

le_pere_noel said:
witch codec plz ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ARMv7 ones. It never complained about needing them but it worked after installing them.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.ffmpeg.v7_vfpv3d16

A.Ik said:
Sure i'll upload a sample or two in a bit. I know for sure it supports googles own mkv container(vp8 or something) but does it support mkv + h.264?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of my files are MKV x264. 720p plays in hardware perfectly. I don't have many 1080p to try. also, 1080 move plays almost perfectly.
The only 1080p mkv x264 I have doesn't play in hardware for some reason.
Edit: MX Player seems best for me.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

[Q] How to play 720p mkv smoothly?

Hello, my friends. I'm currently using ICS Arconium ROM (.64 baseband) in My Arc S and I'd like to know if is there possible to run mkv hd (720p) videos (movies, series etc) smoothly. When I try to do so, most of the times it goes laggy. Is there any app or tweak to fix this? Thanks.

Try MX Video Player, i can play my video smoothly with it

I tried this player, but it doesn't work very well here. It keeps laggy. I heard that DICEPLAYER is the best mkv player for android, and I just bought it (about 6 dollars), but when I start it, it crashes... =\ Thank you anyway

I have tried 1080p streams on the phone, and it was smooth, but I had the stock ROM when I tested that.

I believe our phone doesn't support .mkv out-of-the-box(correct me, if wrong), but you can get it work with RockPlayer(also plays .avis!)

I am using vplayer which can play most of the file formats.

I tested all of these, guys... Not successfully =\ Some of them screw up the subtitles (my native language is portuguese, they doesn't accept characters as ^ ´ ´ ~ etc) and in ALL of them mkv doesn't work well. I think that Arc S has a strong enough processor to run this format without any lag, but it's not working...

You can try MoboPlayer. But make sure, that you Enable "Soft decoding" in menu. If still doesn't work, you should try to download "MoboPlayer codecs" but you must download right version for arc S prosessor. I think it is ARMV7VFP3 but I am not sure of that.

Just tried Moboplayer... But no changes.
I'm sure that my Arc S is powerful enough to run this kind of video, but it's not working fine. The video/audio are pretty out of sync... The audio runs normal, but the video gets slow and/or laggy. I tried overclocking my processor to almost 2Ghz, but for nothing.
I contacted the developer of DicePlayer and he responded... He provided me with a working version of the app (no crash when starting), but the lag/sync problem continued.
See what he said: "I may need to check with the device, but currently I don't have the device. In my opinion, ICS needs more heap memory than Gingerbread, so the main problem is from lack of memory. Anyway I'll check it and try to resolve the playback issue."
Obviously the Arc S processor is nor guilty for the lag, but possibly the low level. Maybe a memory optimizer will answer my problem?

New response:
Hi,
The single core Qualcomm chipset has some weak point to decode the H.264 MP/HP video frames, so it may depend on the video files. I don't know that is the reason or not. I'll check the issue when I get the device, but I don't know when it is.

We can watch mkv videos @720p with hardware acceleration but most of the films and shows are encoded with profile level 4.1 and our phone can play only videos with profile 3.1/4.0. This levels can be changed within 1 second using H264LevelEditor. I always change it to 3.1 and almost every movie is running perfectly. With 4.0 I can't get it to play. But even with this change I couldn't play one video. Don't know why but the only one difference I noticed was "Format settings, ReFrames". Sometimes it is 5 frames and someetime 8 or 9. But dunno if it's the problem
I use diceplayer on arconium 7.2 with latest doomkernel.
btw. It was discussed before. Use search next time.

4.1, 4.0 or 3.1 or even 3.0 mkv 720p videos are running exacly the same way... It plays, the audio is OK but the video is laggy and slow, what makes them become out of sync with the audio...

Because you are playing videos with app that plays it in software mode, not in hardware mode. It's normal that phone can't decode 720p video with software mode. You need to get videos to play in hardware mode. BSplayer has it's own hardware support but it's still not what it's suppouse to be. The only app that play in hardware mode mkv videos with profile level 3.1 for me is DicePlayer. And it's doing it without any glitches or lags. It's perfectly A/V synced

I bought DicePlayer yesterday, I'm running my videos on it. All levels are now in 3.1, and I realized that some of them run in SW mode, and some in HW mode. When it runs in hardware mode, everything goes pretty fine... When in software mode, I get the problems. How can I "force" HW mode? Is there a way? Thanks.

You can't force hardware mode. I don't know why some videos can't be played. It must be something with encoding videos, some settings. You can compare parameters of videos that are working with those played in software mode. There must be some difference and maybe there is a way to change it fast.

I also use MX Video Player with the additional codec on my LT15i but experience no lagg at all.
I watch mostly The Walking Dead in 720p MKV
I am at 1.5 GHZ on doomkernel so maybe you could consider overclocking.
Greetz

MX player. No lag at all. I am watching Bleach episode right now

Alright, some updates.
All my mkv files are level 3.1 level now... But still some of them can't run in HW mode. The video starts to play (diceplayer, of course) in HW mode but 1 second later it gets an error and returns to SW (laggy) mode. Half of my 720p mkv videos can run like a dream in hardware decoding (3.1 level), but some of them just can't, even in 3.1 level.
For example, The.Big.Bang.Theory.S05E05.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION can run very smoothly. Hardware deconding. Butt The.Big.Bang.Theory.S05E17.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION can't do the same, it goes only in SW.
What's the difference?!?! What else can I change?
Thanks.

Maybe is because your video was compiled in 10bits, nothing to do until somebody releases a player that supports 10bits well
But you can try MOBO, it lags at the start but after 2mins start running normal

I think you have to play it with MoboPlayer dude

.mkv audio problems

my .mkv videos dont play sound . unless i use softwere decoding on mobo but the the video is a lag fest. anyone know of a good way to convert them for one x friendly viewing

DicePlayer is working flawlessly for me with my 720p .mkv files. Buttery smooth video and audio is perfectly in sync.

Try Avidemux its free.
Just copy the video and re-encode the audio.
Works spot on for me.

mishmac said:
Try Avidemux its free.
Just copy the video and re-encode the audio.
Works spot on for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks works great changing it to aac
and its fast

Theres also bs player lite if you don't like the menu bar in diceplayer.

On MX Player you can set it to use the hardware decoder to decode video (H.264), software decoder to decode audio (Dolby 5.1/DTS) and enable fast mode.
720p and 1080p .mkv's tested here working perfectly.

Yeah currently using MX Player. But you gotta set the decoders away from HW every time you start playing an .mkv file.
What does Avidemux do exactly? Is mkv not really supported by ICS?
Thanks

Your audio is probably DTS or AC3 encoded, Dice Player can handle those and use hardware decoding. Best video player for any Android it supports IMO. No dirty transcoding or anything, just drag n drop and everything works.

NZtechfreak said:
Your audio is probably DTS or AC3 encoded, Dice Player can handle those and use hardware decoding. Best video player for any Android it supports IMO. No dirty transcoding or anything, just drag n drop and everything works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, gonna try Dice and do some experiments, like, see if it can play my mkv files with hardware acceleration instead of software.

kythor said:
Ah, gonna try Dice and do some experiments, like, see if it can play my mkv files with hardware acceleration instead of software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try MX Player. You can try HW video and SW audio and see how that goes. Decoding isn't locked to the same type between video and audio on MX

I just tried Dice Player and it can play the mkv's audio with HW.
I don't think my ears are sensitive enough to hear the difference, but I read that HW acceleration uses lesser battery juice than SW?

kythor said:
I just tried Dice Player and it can play the mkv's audio with HW.
I don't think my ears are sensitive enough to hear the difference, but I read that HW acceleration uses lesser battery juice than SW?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does cos most SoC's come with a built in decoder. SW decode would mean you're using your CPU power to convert audio/video on the fly as you watch/listen, causing more battery drain.

Here is a comparison on what I have tried so far, for playing .mkv files:
Default HTC player: No audio at all and you cannot setup decoding to play audio whatsoever.
Mobo player: The same as HTC player.
Dice player: Audio works and videos play using hardware acceleration, but if you have stock rom, you cannot watch videos in full screen because of the menu bar, which is a huge deal breaker for me.
BS player: ICS friendly (menu button and all), plays videos with audio fine on software decoding mode or hardware decoding mode (BSPlayer engine). But on hardware decoding mode (system), the video is really bad, it has some corrupted squares all over it. I reckon that "HW decoding mode (system)" should be utilizing Tegra 3, right?
MX player: Also ICS friendly. Plays videos with audio fine on software decoding mode, but on hardware decoding mode, there is no sound. There is, however, an option to software decode audio when playing hardware decoded video, but, when I select that, the video completely stops and it's unplayable.
So, the final conclusion is this:
In MX player, currently the only way to watch videos is by software decoding. BS player can use hardware decoding using its own engine, but actually I don't know what "BSPlayer engine" utilizes for hw decoding. So the winner should be BS player, but the problem is that I really much more prefer MX over BS, due to other functions that it has and the overall appearance and experience.
My question to you guys is this: are there any negative effects if I use MX player with software decoding? Will my battery last shorter if CPU does all the decoding instead of the Tegra 3? I guess it will in theory, but has anyone tried and actually seen the difference with HW over SW decoding?
I sure hope that all of these app devs will soon follow ICS standards and new phones with graphics accelerations.
Also, if anyone can suggest a video player that hasn't been mentioned here, please do so!

xaeder said:
Here is a comparison on what I have tried so far, for playing .mkv files:
So, the final conclusion is this:
In MX player, currently the only way to watch videos is by software decoding. BS player can use hardware decoding using its own engine, but actually I don't know what "BSPlayer engine" utilizes for hw decoding. So the winner should be BS player, but the problem is that I really much more prefer MX over BS, due to other functions that it has and the overall appearance and experience.
My question to you guys is this: are there any negative effects if I use MX player with software decoding? Will my battery last shorter if CPU does all the decoding instead of the Tegra 3? I guess it will in theory, but has anyone tried and actually seen the difference with HW over SW decoding?
I sure hope that all of these app devs will soon follow ICS standards and new phones with graphics accelerations.
Also, if anyone can suggest a video player that hasn't been mentioned here, please do so!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Software decoding will always consume more power. How much more I do not know. Also, Tegra 3 IS the CPU. Hardware decode means that there is a specific chip in the SoC that is there specifically to encode/decode video/audio and hence CPU resources are minimal. When that chip does not support a certain format, it's forced to render it in software.
Also, .mkv is just a container, there are many audio and video formats that can be encoded into .mkv

Thank you for your answer! I understand now what Tegra 3 actually is.
Oh, and for the format, sorry I forgot to mention. You are right, .mkv is just a container
The format of my files tested is:
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1280x720 23.98fps [Video]
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo [Audio]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W

adamsweeting said:
As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is helpful. Thanks

I think BSplayer is best. Sure, it uses it's own HW engine(if you want), but it shouldn't be any big differences I hope. It sure as hell uses alot less battery then SW anyway. And also, BSplayer can play straight from .rar's and stream from a windows share in HW-mode (with it's own engine ofc)! Most players switch back to SW when you play through network but not bsplayer. And BSplayer also downloads subs automatically. The only downside is that it's kind of ugly. Haha
Now, it they only would port XBMC to android..
---------- Post added at 10:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------
adamsweeting said:
As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W
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The whole idea with these media players is to not have to convert every video you've want to see. BSPlayer is the best player, period. It can play everything I've tried as of yet anyhow.
There it however one thing I hate, but thats probably the phone (or drivers) and not bsplayer. If you play say 720p over network with a bluetooth headset, it will lag. It's if they haven't given enough bandwidth to the wifi/bluetooth chip. Don't think I had this problem on my old phone.

just tried Dice player there, i must say it is really good. no lag what so ever, and the sound was perfect, and the menu bar didn't bother me at all.

some of them might work in whatever app you want to use, but i can tell you that some of them will never work right. i bought a Cowon D2 (what a mistake!) and ended up selling it. some mkvs didn't show video and a lot of them didn't have audio. it depends on the codecs that were used. it's the same on PS3. there are certain videos and audios that you need better hardware to play. i've seen people say that the audio has to be "AC3" for it to work on PS3. i wouldn't waste too much time with it and you should just convert it lower or use a computer with mid to high level AMD/Nvidia and some $100+ sound card. if you're trying to watch bluray disc rips that keep some of the quality, then it most likely won't work.

FullHD videos and custom ROMs

Hi,
I was just curious as to why the Full HD 1080p videos (for e.g. H.264 trailers from Apple) refuse to play smoothly on any CM9 and CM10 custom ROMs (with Moboplayer, Acer Media), while the same videos play buttery smooth with the same players on the official stock ROM? Do I need to tweak any settings or install any add ons in the custom ROMs to enable such playback. I am assuming that it is a hardware-acceleration issue because the setting for software decoding in Moboplayer has been turned off. However, 720p videos play fine.
Thanks.

rockthegod said:
Hi,
I was just curious as to why the Full HD 1080p videos (for e.g. H.264 trailers from Apple) refuse to play smoothly on any CM9 and CM10 custom ROMs (with Moboplayer, Acer Media), while the same videos play buttery smooth with the same players on the official stock ROM? Do I need to tweak any settings or install any add ons in the custom ROMs to enable such playback. I am assuming that it is a hardware-acceleration issue because the setting for software decoding in Moboplayer has been turned off. However, 720p videos play fine.
Thanks.
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Never had this issue, 1080 plays fine for me. Is this over HDMI or doesn't matter, just always? I use dice player and occasionally mx player, both play OK for me.
Some are encoded differently then others so some may need a bump up in CPU frequency but most generally play fine at 1ghz with deadline. Of course this is my device with my movies on my build, any number of things vary between the files and roms and players used.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.

Thanks..
pio_masaki said:
Never had this issue, 1080 plays fine for me. Is this over HDMI or doesn't matter, just always? I use dice player and occasionally mx player, both play OK for me.
Some are encoded differently then others so some may need a bump up in CPU frequency but most generally play fine at 1ghz with deadline. Of course this is my device with my movies on my build, any number of things vary between the files and roms and players used.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.
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OMG Thanks.. DicePlayer works like a charm. :good: :good: :laugh: The files I use for standard video play testing are Apple Movie Trailers 1080p H.264 / AAC 6 channel MOV files.
Now I am observing a very interesting development in the latest CM10 preview. Acer Media and Acer Video Player won't even detect the MOV video files. MoboPlayer and MxPlayer detects the videos but shows laggy playback on the device screen as well as over HDMI.
Only DicePlayer plays them like a charm, without hiccups or lags and going to be the only player I will ever use from now on. I think the issue is probably some proprietary codec related because when I am on the official ICS ROM, all these players detect and play those same MOV files smoothly both on-screen as well as over HDMI ..

Glad it works for you, it seems to "force" hw decode more reliably then other players so far and seems almost infinite in what it will play. MX in fast software fills in where dice fails for me, which is rare. MX seems to handle web streams better though.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.