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I know the question of viewing BBC iPlayer on the TP2 has been raised before, but it seems like none of the suggested solutions really works very well, or at least not for me.
I've tried the trick of adding the Samsung Omnia user agent code in Opera 9.5. This works up to the point where the Streaming Media app opens, but then the video never loads - it just stays at 0% buffering for ever.
One can, of course, use Skyfire to access the iPlayer website, but Skyfire looks like pixellated crap and I hate it. Video playback is jerky too.
I did come across a stand-alone iPlayer app a while back, but it proved too unstable to use; constantly crashing.
The best results I've had so far are with using myplayer. Unfortunately I'm too cheap to shell out for Coreplayer so instead I use the Streaming Media player for actual streaming, and for downloaded material (which it says is "higher quality" - is that true?) I use TCPMP, which is not altogether satisfactory as you only get about 80% of frames rendered. I imagine Coreplayer would do a better job of playing the downloaded .MOV files, but even so, the resolution you're getting on those is really pretty poor compared to what you get out of iPlayer on a desktop PC. Downloads from myplayer have a resolution of 480x270, I think - certain 480 horizontal. Downloads to iPlayer desktop are, what, 640x360? And streamed content from iPlayer on my desktop PC (in "large" mode) has a resolution of something like 850x480.
Now, if I were starting with (say) a 720p .mkv file, I could feed it through the Encoder app, and cook it into a .mp4 file with 800x480 resolution and 750kb/s bitrate and it would play back beautifully using HTCAlbum as a player - HTCAlbum (and, indeed, Windows Media Player) do a far better job of video playback than CorePlayer on the TP2, thanks to their making far better use of the GPU. Is there any way of capturing high-resolution output from iPlayer on a desktop PC, and then using Encoder on it in the same way? Can this be done either with the flash videos that one streams to a desktop browser, or with the (encrypted?) .mp4 files that are downloaded to iPlayer desktop?
Are there any possibilities I'm missing?
(bump)
No one has anything to say...?
Works for me
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.
apv245l said:
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.
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Well, as I've already said, that doesn't work for me. Possibly because O2 blocks access to iPlayer streams, I don't know. What sort of playback resolution do you get? Full desktop res? Does the streaming media player cope without dropping frames?
apv245l said:
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.
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Out of curiosity I went back and had another go at this. Connecting to iPlayer over GPRS, EDGE or 3G, I now get a message on the website saying that iPlayer doesn't work over my network, and that I need to connect using WiFi. A note elsewhere on the website says that iPlayer is available over 3G for people on the 3 or Vodafone networks, but not on others. (I'm on O2). Connecting (briefly!!!) over my office's wifi network does work - the video can be played and opens in the Streaming Media Player. (I did try this once over a public wifi connection in my local Pret-a-manger, and it didn't work correctly).
However, even over wifi, the quality when streaming like this is even worse than I get from a myplayer .mov download - the resolution is a risible 320x176! So none of this really address my original question, which is how one can get better resolution out of iPlayer.
EDIT: Just to clarify, if I use myplayer to get streamed output from iPlayer, using Streaming Media Player to play it, this also gives me 320x176 video (but at least it manages to bypass the restriction on the O2 network, so it works over 3G). It also (sometimes) gives the option to download the programme in question, in the form of a 480x270 .mov file. Playing this nicely probably requires CorePlayer - TCPMP drops about 20% of frames.
Of course one could move the .mov file off the phone, re-encode to .mp4, and move it back on, and play it with HTCAlbum, but if you're going to go to that much effort it would be nice to be able to start with a higher-resolution video... which is where we came in.
Did a little more experimenting yesterday. Didn't really get anywhere, but in case anyone else has a bit more imagination than I have....
Some programmes on iPlayer now have two additional links. There's the standard "download" link (which downloads the programme for iPlayer Desktop on the PC). There are also (sometimes) two others which let you download the programme in WMV format - one suitable for desktop PCs, the other for "mobile devices".
Downloading to iPlayer Desktop produces a file with a .mp4 suffix, but no other application besides iPlayer Desktop (either on my PC or on my phone) seems to be able to make head or tail of it.
The "mobile device" .wmv file can be played correctly on the TP2 using Pocket Windows Media Player, but the resolution is the standard mobile 360x180 again, which makes it unwatchable. The intended-for-desktop .wmv file is much higher res - something like 680x544 (I forget the exact numbers, but it's roughly that). When played back on a desktop PC, Windows Media Player realises that it's in anamorphic format and scales it to 967x544 or thereabouts. It looks quite good.
Putting this file onto my TP2, however, doesnt work so well. Pocket Windows Media Player does play it, but playback is quite jerky (not surprisingly, as the bit rate is very high) and, even more annoyingly, it fails to recognise that it's anamorphic and plays it at "native" aspect ratio, which is useless. There doesn't seem to be any way to get it to stretch it.
I tried feeding the desktop WMV file through the Encoder application to convert it to 800x480 .mp4, but the end result is a video where sound and picture are both gibberish - the .wmv is obviously encrypted in a way that the encoder doesn't recognise.
Anyone have any other suggestions?
I've tried several apps to stream from my DLNA-compliant NAS (Netgear ReadyNAS) and just via network file access (SMB) and all of them seem to have the same issue with video files, it takes forever to begin playback.
The behaviour seems like it could be buffering the entire file prior to playback. eg: a 720p mkv of around 1GB can take about 10mins to begin playback.
Locally stored files have no such issue. I'd store them locally but well, 16GB isn't going to fit many
Thoughts and suggestions?
Have you tried iMediaShare? I'm using the Premium version and don't have any problems streaming from my network hdd.
Man I had a bunch of trouble with lag as well but I've found that mk player in sw mode has no lag for me. I'm using a synology disk station and 264s with great success. Vplayer rock and mobo all let me down with lag or choppy buffering and stuttering frame rates on the nexus with ics. On my thunderbolt vplayer was the winner.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
WiredPirate said:
Have you tried iMediaShare? I'm using the Premium version and don't have any problems streaming from my network hdd.
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I'm not game to lay down $4.90 for a test over the iMediaShare Lite version. The lite version does not work any better over BubbleUPnP or UPnPlay.
propyls said:
Man I had a bunch of trouble with lag as well but I've found that mk player in sw mode has no lag for me.
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Okay, that seemed to at least partly fix it. MX Player forcing software decode mode works but is a little choppy. I wonder why hardware decoding is causing this issue.
You'll probably have to seek out a player that works well with mkv files on the gnex or switch to something like h.264. I've had better luck using 264s because more of my wireless devices have dlna decoder support for mp4s. That's the one draw back to dlna IMO. Not enough standardization. My direct TV dvrs stream mp2... lol who still uses mp2? Good luck I feel your pain. If you find a good player let me know.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
propyls said:
You'll probably have to seek out a player that works well with mkv files on the gnex or switch to something like h.264.
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The MKV files I'm trying to play are x264. The MKV is just the container.
I've posted on the mx Player forums to see if they've got any ideas.
Yes, but its the splitters job to get it all out of the mkv and that's most likely the trouble. For kicks try a 264 mp4 and see if your lag vanishes.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
I was wondering if anyone has trouble streaming free movies online as I do?
I have adobe flash installed as well as vlc player and it seems I can't stream free movies from sites such as
1channel
alluc
movie25
streams from source putlocker and sockshare will get a very blurry and stretched out pixelation
other streams from source gorillavid, daclips don't even load
DeveloperOptions said:
I was wondering if anyone has trouble streaming free movies online as I do?
I have adobe flash installed as well as vlc player and it seems I can't stream free movies from sites such as
1channel
alluc
movie25
streams from source putlocker and sockshare will get a very blurry and stretched out pixelation
other streams from source gorillavid, daclips don't even load
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you using to stream the movies. Try XBMC.
Apparently the $4.99 charge caused enough of an uproar with Archos customers and people wanting to use their Video Player (or even just test it out), so now Archos has gone and made an ad-supported version of their Video Player. As a disclaimer I have to say that I do find MX Player to be better overall in general, but I just installed this Archos Video Player (free version, obviously) and I've spent maybe 15 minutes with it on my Nexus 7 and I have to say one word:
Impressive.
Seriously, it is. No, it ain't MX Player but, as soon as I loaded it and then was able to see my network shares in a few seconds flat, then index those folders and grab the cover art - and even subtitles for some files - I was duly impressed as noted.
Second disclaimer: my Wife is deaf so pretty much everything I have already has subtitles but, it was pretty awesome to see this video player reach out for them just the same.
I'd never even heard of this video player before now and I try to keep up with Archos and their products, so I am definitely surprised with this little gem so far. I have some videos that have native DTS soundtracks and of course neither this app nor MX Player can decode DTS natively, they both require additional codecs, and I recently located the DTS codecs for MX Player and they work great. For this Archos Video Player, there's another app/installer called Archos Video All Codecs Plugin, which is also free and it's on Google Play just as well - that took all of 10 seconds to locate and install - you run it one time once it's installed on your device and then the Archos Video Player has access to the codecs.
I then hit my network share again and loaded the previously playable-without-audio files and it works, just as designed. Fantastic experience with this app so far, but I still have MX Player as well. I'll do more testing with various files over the next few days, but if it works as well over time as it does right now, I may just be using this as my primary Android video player from now on.
Links:
Archos Video Player Free
Archos Video All Codecs Plugin
br0adband said:
Apparently the $4.99 charge caused enough of an uproar with Archos customers and people wanting to use their Video Player (or even just test it out), so now Archos has gone and made an ad-supported version of their Video Player. As a disclaimer I have to say that I do find MX Player to be better overall in general, but I just installed this Archos Video Player (free version, obviously) and I've spent maybe 15 minutes with it on my Nexus 7 and I have to say one word:
Impressive.
Seriously, it is. No, it ain't MX Player but, as soon as I loaded it and then was able to see my network shares in a few seconds flat, then index those folders and grab the cover art - and even subtitles for some files - I was duly impressed as noted.
Second disclaimer: my Wife is deaf so pretty much everything I have already has subtitles but, it was pretty awesome to see this video player reach out for them just the same.
I'd never even heard of this video player before now and I try to keep up with Archos and their products, so I am definitely surprised with this little gem so far. I have some videos that have native DTS soundtracks and of course neither this app nor MX Player can decode DTS natively, they both require additional codecs, and I recently located the DTS codecs for MX Player and they work great. For this Archos Video Player, there's another app/installer called Archos Video All Codecs Plugin, which is also free and it's on Google Play just as well - that took all of 10 seconds to locate and install - you run it one time once it's installed on your device and then the Archos Video Player has access to the codecs.
I then hit my network share again and loaded the previously playable-without-audio files and it works, just as designed. Fantastic experience with this app so far, but I still have MX Player as well. I'll do more testing with various files over the next few days, but if it works as well over time as it does right now, I may just be using this as my primary Android video player from now on.
Links:
Archos Video Player Free
Archos Video All Codecs Plugin
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Click to collapse
are you using an UPnP server to share your movies over wifi? Your subtitles are integrated into the video files, or are external files?( .srt usually)
I'm using the SMB support in the Archos Video Player, I don't use uPNP for anything (not that I have any such devices save for my cable modem/router), pulling MKV containers directly for playback. I embed the subs inside the MKV containers, butfor one or two of the videos that I have that weren't worth putting into MKV containers (they're old AVI files using the Xvid codec) they had sub/idx style subtitles and not srt so the Archos Video Player pulled down an srt version that works just as well.
I do all my own encoding probably 99% of the time and make sure the captions or subtitles are accurate and without issues, embedded inside the MKV containers so I know certain my Wife won't have any problems.
Very nice. Thanks for the share. So far diceplayer and this (both with ffmpeg added) are the only ones to play all my MKVs correctly with hardware decoding.
Mxplayer, even with ffmpeg, fails to do HWA audio in some of my videos.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
I run a Plex server from my ancient EeeBox for streaming videos to my Roku. I hadn't bothered buying the app for Android because it was five bucks. The Archos player picked up the Plex server lickity split....yay!
Hi all,
I have been trying to stream videos from my laptop to my Note, and I haven't been able to get it running smoothly. I have tried a number of different players, but the issue is that it will either stutter like crazy or play audio without video. I can be more specific about the types of files (mkv, h264, 720p, etc.) and players (VLC for Android beta, Archos Video, MX Player, etc.).
Has ANYONE managed to stream and watch videos from their PC/laptop to this tablet successfully or is this tablet just not capable?
Many thanks!
I am running a plex server on my desktop and stream to several devices, including my note.
Another vote for plex it's pretty amazing. You can get it for free after you get some free coins from the amazon app store.
Of course the tablet is capable of streaming video smoothly. I use MX Player to stream videos from a samba server (traditional Windows share, no special software required). The MX Player is configured to use the 'HW+' decoder. It plays Full HD mkvs no problem.
no.0ne said:
Of course the tablet is capable of streaming video smoothly. I use MX Player to stream videos from a samba server (traditional Windows share, no special software required). The MX Player is configured to use the 'HW+' decoder. It plays Full HD mkvs no problem.
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+1
Junetastic said:
Hi all,
I have been trying to stream videos from my laptop to my Note, and I haven't been able to get it running smoothly. I have tried a number of different players, but the issue is that it will either stutter like crazy or play audio without video. I can be more specific about the types of files (mkv, h264, 720p, etc.) and players (VLC for Android beta, Archos Video, MX Player, etc.).
Has ANYONE managed to stream and watch videos from their PC/laptop to this tablet successfully or is this tablet just not capable?
Many thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.
gilani7 said:
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.
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Thanks! This resolved my issues!
gilani7 said:
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.
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Click to collapse
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)
no.0ne said:
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)
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I usually just have to use the software decoder for the Audio. Didn't really know it would take a hit on the battery. How much more will it really take? I have gone through many media players and found this to be the easiest solution.
gilani7 said:
I usually just have to use the software decoder for the Audio. Didn't really know it would take a hit on the battery. How much more will it really take? I have gone through many media players and found this to be the easiest solution.
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Click to collapse
Oh, I don't think you have to worry about battery life if you software decode just the audio. It's the video that takes a lot of work to decode. From what I seem to remember, software decoding of HD video can drain the battery up to several times faster (depending on brightness and other settings, which can change the relative energy consuption of the decoding process).
no.0ne said:
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)
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Click to collapse
I just downloaded one file (Suzumiya) and it didn't work with H/W+ Decoder; however, I was successful in streaming some episodes of Silicon Valley from my PC with it (and using S/W decoder for audio).
Junetastic said:
I just downloaded one file (Suzumiya) and it didn't work with H/W+ Decoder; however, I was successful in streaming some episodes of Silicon Valley from my PC with it (and using S/W decoder for audio).
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Ok, I think I know where the problem comes from - I bet you have P600, the Exynos version right?
no.0ne said:
Ok, I think I know where the problem comes from - I bet you have P600, the Exynos version right?
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Yeah. Am I out of luck?
Junetastic said:
Yeah. Am I out of luck?
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I have the P600. I downloaded all of the video clips to my desktop. When I stream them directly using MX player, I do get some lag and stutter. However, when I add them to my Plex library I can play all of them just fine. The Plex server handles all the transcode that is needed and I just have to click play. I don't need to worry about formats or bitrates (unless I want to). It is so simple my 5yo can use it to watch videos on her tablet. She can even sync videos for offline viewing on car trips.
Junetastic said:
Yeah. Am I out of luck?
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Well, it seems that the hardware decoders are quite different on the Snapdragon vs. Exynos and since Samsung is very sparse with documentation, the MX Player developers didn't manage to optimize their software for the Exynos (this is just my guess). So you might try a different player, perhaps some will work fine. But then again, it might not. In which case you might have to abandon universal streaming and either transcode your videos or use an application that will do it for you on the fly (e.g. Plex as WJThomas proposed). The downside is you have to use a computer (and often a paid app as is the case with Plex) and can't stream your content from a NAS.
no.0ne said:
In which case you might have to abandon universal streaming and either transcode your videos or use an application that will do it for you on the fly (e.g. Plex as WJThomas proposed). The downside is you have to use a computer (and often a paid app as is the case with Plex) and can't stream your content from a NAS.
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The upside is that you don't have to worry about which device supports which formats, and that you can stream content from some NAS's without a computer. If you subscribe to PlexPass the app is free, and you can use the app to sync media to your device (and then you can even stream from device to device)
Can someone please explain how they're playing .mkv files without playback stopping after a few seconds?
What I'm trying to do is play full bit-rate Blu-ray .mkv rips. I am using ES File Explorer to navigate to shared folders on my Windows PC, and what happens is that the video will eventually start playing but then stop after 5 or so seconds of playback and never continue again. I've tried accessing the files via DNLA software like Servio, but I get the exact same result each time.
And bandwidth is not the problem, as I was able to stream uncompressed content just fine when I had my Surface Pro 2.
Megalith said:
Can someone please explain how they're playing .mkv files without playback stopping after a few seconds?
What I'm trying to do is play full bit-rate Blu-ray .mkv rips. I am using ES File Explorer to navigate to shared folders on my Windows PC, and what happens is that the video will eventually start playing but then stop after 5 or so seconds of playback and never continue again. I've tried accessing the files via DNLA software like Servio, but I get the exact same result each time.
And bandwidth is not the problem, as I was able to stream uncompressed content just fine when I had my Surface Pro 2.
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I use ES File Explorer to browse a 3TB networked hard drive and stream Blu-Ray .mkv files to my tablet with no problem. I use MX Player Pro (H/W decoder, H/W+ causes MX Player to force close on KitKat). No issues with playback.