Develop Bugs

New to Android - Why can't I play MPG videos?

So I love the EVO, and so far I love Android, except I can't seem to figure out how to play videos on it. Sure I can view Youtube, youporn etc , but I can't seem to find a player that will play simple MPEGs. I have downloaded and tried at least 5 different video/media players from the Market, and none of them will play MPEGs correctly. Some of them will give me sound, but none will give me video. I have tried a couple of different video files that I know work on my desktop.
Am I doing something wrong? I am coming from Windows Mobile with Windows Media Player that played just about anything I threw at it. I can't imagine such a wonderful piece of hardware coupled with what seems to be an awesome OS can't do MPG/AVI.
Note: I am currently rooted+nand+bugless beast 0.3 Although I was having this trouble before I had the custom rom or NAND unlocked.

sterlinron said:
So I love the EVO, and so far I love Android, except I can't seem to figure out how to play videos on it. Sure I can view Youtube, youporn etc , but I can't seem to find a player that will play simple MPEGs. I have downloaded and tried at least 5 different video/media players from the Market, and none of them will play MPEGs correctly. Some of them will give me sound, but none will give me video. I have tried a couple of different video files that I know work on my desktop.
Am I doing something wrong? I am coming from Windows Mobile with Windows Media Player that played just about anything I threw at it. I can't imagine such a wonderful piece of hardware coupled with what seems to be an awesome OS can't do MPG/AVI.
Note: I am currently rooted+nand+bugless beast 0.3 Although I was having this trouble before I had the custom rom or NAND unlocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Curious, have you tried Meridian? I don't really play a lot of videos on my phone, but Meridian has come through on everything so far for me. YMMV

Rock player is the best video player I have ever used on Android. I can play all my divx format movies without conversion and always get 25-30 fps.
The player is in private beta now and should be released soon.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=698451

KCarpenter - yes, I downloaded Meridian last night. Just tried it again, and still no luck. Thanks for the reply.
Danknee - Thanks!

Considering that the Evo has hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding, why bother playing other formats that will destroy your CPU and battery?
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App

gbm85 said:
Considering that the Evo has hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding, why bother playing other formats that will destroy your CPU and battery?
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
Click to expand...
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It's just that I received an e-mail MPG of my nephew riding his bike without training wheels and would like to see it that's all. Not sure what H.264 decoding is or if it has my nephew riding his bike without training wheels or not. I should go search for that thanks.
I just figure I should be able to view most any file attachment that comes into me these days.

H.264 is the video encoder for MP4's. Basically, if you used a program to convert your videos to MP4 videos, you would be able to play them without a problem. The phone has hardware acceleration for H.264, so it doesn't use as much processor/battery to play vs. other formats that have to be software decoded. Handbrake works good for me, though I can't remember what file types you can put into it.

sterlinron said:
It's just that I received an e-mail MPG of my nephew riding his bike without training wheels and would like to see it that's all. Not sure what H.264 decoding is or if it has my nephew riding his bike without training wheels or not. I should go search for that thanks.
I just figure I should be able to view most any file attachment that comes into me these days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason why you cannot play those mpg files is simple. Android doesn't support them out of the box. You need to turn to third-party video players which can do it.
Rock Demo Player is one (only one?) such video player.

You can try to use the third-party video player, I read an article is about the top 5 video player apps in Android Market. Maybe it is helpful to you.

Brucew0617 said:
You can try to use the third-party video player, I read an article is about the top 5 video player apps in Android Market. Maybe it is helpful to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This thread is over a year old. I think the OP figured it out.

Thanks for your remind, I hope it can also be useful to other guys.

I use MX Player. I've only had a problem with AVI files that encode the audio with AAC.
Sent from my carrier pigeon.

Mobo player so far for me has played anything I asked it to.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

MakeMeFibonacci said:
I use MX Player. I've only had a problem with AVI files that encode the audio with AAC.
Sent from my carrier pigeon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Moboplayer most of time, it seems that MX Player also have so much supporter. Maybe I should try it later.

[Q] Best video format?

i've never really watched videos on my phones (mostly due to screen size etc) but i figure now that I have the Galaxy Nexus i could watch a few things on it..
What would be the best video format to convert things to? I dropped an avi of a tv program onto it and it worked but it lagged a bit..

I just converted something to an HD mp4 using Permute for Mac, it bumped the filesize up about 100mb but tested it and it runs smooth in QuickPic or PlayerPro but when trying to use the built in video player (to get the true full screen) it plays for a second, stutters, then says it can't be played.. :S

has anyone managed to get moboplayer working ? says i need an arm7 neon codec - found that on their site ... followed instructions but it still wont work

Video playback may be a bit iffy until the apps are updated; one of the Diceplayer mob posted saying that it now supports HD playback for .mkv. They didn't mention .avi but that generally needs less resources than .avi so you could try your avi in Diceplayer.
The general trend in open source video development is towards .mkv, I'm trying that first.

I'd be surprised if much works well right out of the gate. The true beta is when the masses begin tinkering

vplayer seems to play avi nicely

Ill have to try it out.. downloading now

I've got the same question. And I don't mean what other player can I download to play movies. I mean what format can I encode videos in to get them to play in the native player. I did find the article below. I have tried each of these formats with no luck. Anyone know why Android can't play a movie out of the box?
http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
And I also tired MoboPlayer with no luck.

pretty much if you use a baseline .mp4 format you will be fine
basically:
h.264 video
LC-AAC audio
no CABAC
and you should be fine up to 1080p these settings work on all my android devices
just set mpeg 4 level 4 and it should take care of it by itself

noobdeagle said:
pretty much if you use a baseline .mp4 format you will be fine
basically:
h.264 video
LC-AAC audio
no CABAC
and you should be fine up to 1080p these settings work on all my android devices
just set mpeg 4 level 4 and it should take care of it by itself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks noobdeagle,
I have tired those settings on several encoders (handbrake, Adobe Media Encoder, Magic DVD ripper) and still no success. What software are you using to encode? and have you tried the movies on the galaxy nexus? Because I have never had a problem on any other Android devices. Just this one.
cj

gave up re-encoding videos.
vplayer has played everything ive thrown at it so far. the built in movie player seems very limited.

wilbur-force said:
gave up re-encoding videos.
vplayer has played everything ive thrown at it so far. the built in movie player seems very limited.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the feedback but I have two problems with this particular advice.
1 - Have you seen the permissions for that player? Why would a video player need access to my "Phone calls - Read phone status and identity" and "Your personal information - Read sensitive log data"? Really?
2 - Why the hell can't this phone play videos out of the box. <rant>I have, as I suspect a lot of us here do, a fair few friends that I would call iPhone fanboys. One of the biggest gripes I always hear about android is that every time you run into a problem on Android is the best answer is to root your phone and install cyanogen, or go get xxxx app and that will take care of it, or you should have bought this phone instead. So I get this phone and think that finally Android is going to hit the main stream and I can't even play a movie. WTF!</rant>
Like I said, I appreciate the feedback but I am still looking for a way to play a video in the default video player.
cj

chrisjaffe said:
Thanks noobdeagle,
I have tired those settings on several encoders (handbrake, Adobe Media Encoder, Magic DVD ripper) and still no success. What software are you using to encode? and have you tried the movies on the galaxy nexus? Because I have never had a problem on any other Android devices. Just this one.
cj
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no i have not tried on a galaxy nexus yet as that one week delay sim free means i wont be able to have mine in my hands untill at least next week :\,
i use mediacoder to encode videos, cant speak for the GN but ive used it for my xoom, nexus S, desire hd, htc legend and SGS 2 in the past (however SGS2 supported all codecs quite nicely anyway)
according to the android dev site the supported video list hasnt changed so this is quite strange.

noobdeagle said:
no i have not tried on a galaxy nexus yet as that one week delay sim free means i wont be able to have mine in my hands untill at least next week :\,
i use mediacoder to encode videos, cant speak for the GN but ive used it for my xoom, nexus S, desire hd, htc legend and SGS 2 in the past (however SGS2 supported all codecs quite nicely anyway)
according to the android dev site the supported video list hasnt changed so this is quite strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. I will seek out and try mediacoder.
FYI...I got my GN SIM free from Phones 4U. It was not easy though. I went in to a few stores before finding one that would sell it to me SIM free. And I think that I happened upon the manager at the store that did sell it to me. What makes it even better is that I am in the UK on business for a few months and so I can get the VAT back on my way out. Which makes it nearly 90 quid cheaper.
Thanks again,
cj

seems as if media coder works. Though that is one complicated program. You could get lost in those settings for days.
Thanks again.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

chrisjaffe said:
seems as if media coder works. Though that is one complicated program. You could get lost in those settings for days.
Thanks again.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Format factory works and it's easy as to use.

Format factory does seem to work and is a little easier to use. Thanks. And just in time too because Mediacoder was having some trouble iwth a few of the vids I had.
cj

Galaxy Nexus 1080p FULL HD and 720p MKV Video Playback Test

What do you think?

/\
So in summary:
1080p MKV:
laggy with no sound in stock player
laggy with synced sound in QQ player
MKV Scene released (torrents)
Has issues preventing playback
720p MKV:
Runs fine (stock player et al)
1080p MP4:
Runs fine (stock player et al)

I'd suggest trying MX Player instead. Probably no need for a video though.

ill just leave this here http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html

Still I'm disappointed with the performance, coming for a Galaxy S2 and all.

I had no problems at all playing a 400MB large 6 minutes long 1080p MP4 video. If there are problems with other formats, that has got to do with the application playing them or the codecs used. GN can play high definition video very well.

kristovaher said:
I had no problems at all playing a 400MB large 6 minutes long 1080p MP4 video. If there are problems with other formats, that has got to do with the application playing them or the codecs used. GN can play high definition video very well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is some people encode their stuff as mkv or download hd rips (cheeky) off the internet.
The Galaxy Nexus feels more like an iPhone now I suppose as you cannot chuck any file at it and expect it to play, perhaps I'm used to the ease of things with the GS2.

momagic said:
The problem is some people encode their stuff as mkv or download hd rips (cheeky) off the internet.
The Galaxy Nexus feels more like an iPhone now I suppose as you cannot chuck any file at it and expect it to play, perhaps I'm used to the ease of things with the GS2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But of course. You cannot chuck ANY file at it. Nothing works like that. You cannot chuck ANY file at Windows either.
Just because it has problems with high definition mkv files doesn't mean it has problems with mkv files in general. Just play lower resolution files and if it doesn't play, try out a different player that might.
Let's remember that high definition video playing is still promoted as feature on high end tablets. Tablets are a bit more powerful to begin with, phones have not caught up with your high end TV or laptop yet.

I don't feel this is an issue with the phone its application thing..
Most mkv's have an h.264 video stream which the phone can hardware decode its just the software doesn't know the container so I presume its software decoding and in which case im impressed it does as well as it does..
Vplayer might be a good app to try..

True, but with another phone (which I will not name as I may be labelled a fanboi) I chuck numerous files... and they played.
Don't get me wrong, not everyone cares if this phone is 'pure google' or if somethings not 'optimised' for it, we just want it to work.

the video doesn't help at all really
no bitrates were mentioned on the "laggy" video
no video or audio codecs were mentioned anywhere in the video
MKV can contain any number of different video and audio codecs
MP4 can contain (for example) h.263 and h.264 codecs

This is really annoying coming from a GS2. GS2 played any video file I threw at it. On the Nexus I have to use an app from the market and even then its not as fluid. I guess this is due to the older GPU. In general I am dissapointed with this phone, the S2 is much snappier.

bongadadu said:
This is really annoying coming from a GS2. GS2 played any video file I threw at it. On the Nexus I have to use an app from the market and even then its not as fluid. I guess this is due to the older GPU. In general I am dissapointed with this phone, the S2 is much snappier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry total rubbish, you are using a stock Android ICS phone, it does not come with touchwiz and other Samsung software, one of it being a video player. Please don't blame this on the phone hardware, it is nothing to do with it. If you expected everything to work out of the box I'm afraid maybe you should have got another phone! Stick on MX Player as an earlier poster suggested, also DICE player has now been updated, took all of 1 minute to get this information!

momagic said:
True, but with another phone (which I will not name as I may be labelled a fanboi) I chuck numerous files... and they played.
Don't get me wrong, not everyone cares if this phone is 'pure google' or if somethings not 'optimised' for it, we just want it to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google can only put on file formats and codecs that they have licenses for and native Android 4.0 comes with open source software and proprietary Google owned software.
Yes, it is a 'pure Google' issue even if you don't care about it. And more open than others on the market has its advantages and disadvantages. Sorry that you are disappointed, but reality is that Android Market has a number of media players that can play a lot of file formats and codecs that Android 4.0 does not natively support. No one forces you to use native players.

Using diceplayer the Galaxy Nexus can play any content I throw at it. It can play samples from Bluray rips at full bitrate so it's as good as you could possibly need it to be (unless you have higher than bluray quality material).

JustinL01 said:
Sorry total rubbish, you are using a stock Android ICS phone, it does not come with touchwiz and other Samsung software, one of it being a video player. Please don't blame this on the phone hardware, it is nothing to do with it. If you expected everything to work out of the box I'm afraid maybe you should have got another phone! Stick on MX Player as an earlier poster suggested, also DICE player has now been updated, took all of 1 minute to get this information!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right, I completely forgot about touchwiz, my bad. Tried dice player and had issues with my avi rips lagging, this was couple of days ago. I'll try the new dice player today.
I have been experiencing lag in the browser (pinch to zoom on heavy sites) which I didnt have in the GS2 (loved the bounce and elastic scrolling in that browser). I also sometimes get lag when loading the appdrawer (animation is laggy).
Don't know if I'm being paranoid but I think my device may be a bit messed up. When I took it out of the box, I was never greeted with the setup, just the home screen. Had to manually go to settings and add an account. Perhaps this was a returned model that I got given ?

momagic said:
True, but with another phone (which I will not name as I may be labelled a fanboi) I chuck numerous files... and they played.
Don't get me wrong, not everyone cares if this phone is 'pure google' or if somethings not 'optimised' for it, we just want it to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because samsung offers enhanced codec support on their galaxy S phones.. those phones running an AOSP build like CM 7 cannot play those formats out of the box. (last time I checked, they hadn't managed to port over samsung's codec support)

bongadadu said:
You're right, I completely forgot about touchwiz, my bad. Tried dice player and had issues with my avi rips lagging, this was couple of days ago. I'll try the new dice player today.
I have been experiencing lag in the browser (pinch to zoom on heavy sites) which I didnt have in the GS2 (loved the bounce and elastic scrolling in that browser). I also sometimes get lag when loading the appdrawer (animation is laggy).
Don't know if I'm being paranoid but I think my device may be a bit messed up. When I took it out of the box, I was never greeted with the setup, just the home screen. Had to manually go to settings and add an account. Perhaps this was a returned model that I got given ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did you get your's from? Was the box sealed? Mine was from O2, no issues at all, minimal lag if any, I also had a GS2 and I find the GN a much nicer device to use. Maybe do a full factory wipe and start again. For the video MXPlayer has just been updated for ICS and incorporates hardware decoding, best of all it's free, maybe install this one first. Also check the quality of the video's you are putting on.

JustinL01 said:
Where did you get your's from? Was the box sealed? Mine was from O2, no issues at all, minimal lag if any, I also had a GS2 and I find the GN a much nicer device to use. Maybe do a full factory wipe and start again. For the video MXPlayer has just been updated for ICS and incorporates hardware decoding, best of all it's free, maybe install this one first. Also check the quality of the video's you are putting on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Contract on O2 but bought from phones4u. They didnt have any in their local shop so they sent this guy to get it from a shop nearby. When the guy gave it to me the box was not sealed (didnt have to cut / open anything to be able to get device out). I thought they do this to show you the phone before hand.
The phone itself had a plastic cover on it's front and back. Thinking back now I'didnt have to put the battery in either, just the SIM.
This was bought 2 days ago. I have done a reset, still do get the same lag, the camera is absolute ****e as well.
I was on text chat to O2 today, told them about the volume bug and all that, and they gave me a ref number. They also said that I could take to any phones4u shop and get it swapped, I will have to do that just to keep my self from going insane with paranoia.

I just want it to work. Call me a snob but I don't really care about sense or touchwiz, as long as it works, that's fine by me.

[Q] terrible MKV playback?

So I've been searching for about a day now for a solution to this problem. I've been trying to play MKV files on my phone, but every single player i've tried (mobo, mx, rock, vlc nightly, bs, dice, and vplayer) have been really stuttery and the audio desyncs massively.
It seems that most people are able to play MKVs but for some reason I can not get it to play smoothly at all.
Has anyone come across this and know a solution?
(the file I'm trying to play is a 720p h264 mkv with aac audio. I would put up all the file information if I knew how, so I can if someone shows me)
I'm really sorry if there is an answer to this somewhere, but I tried a search here and only got a thread talking about how everyone can play MKVs smoothly

Are you running a stock Rom or one of the aokp or cm roms? With stock I haven't had an issue with any mkv even on my previous sgs and sgs2. Are all mkvs having problems or is it just the one ?
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

dude i can stream mkvs without problem
mx player by turning the software decoding on in settings
or vlc player beta

It seems like it only happens on 10bit MKVs. MX Player is the best with software decoding but there are still some dropped frames. I saw a video of someone playing 10bit perfectly fine and a thread saying the S3 can handle 10bit so I'm not exactly sure whats wrong.
I'm running TuchMi 5.0 so I might try to go back to full stock just to see if that helps.
I would try the VLC beta but US can't get it from the play store and the nightly crashes constantly for me.
EDIT: full wipe didn't help

make sure you got the 1.7 update, for me the audio would get out of sync on any anime but with H/W+ that is now solved and i got back DTS thanks to custom codecs.
Software is horrible for me it plays fine, but everything gets artifacts and colored blocks etc. At first i though it was the device that god it wasn't

I have 1.7. H/W+ works for you? it keeps telling me that I can't play the video with it. Can you give an example of and episode that works for you?

Actually I'm curious about this too. Just tried to stream Planet Earth from my PC and I had huge lag because if you are streaming on MKV it uses software decoding...
To be fair I might have to push up my VSEL values...but I really doubt that's the case. Another thing I'm going to try is PS3media server which TRANSCODES (meaning your computer does the coding) for all media files...so it is streaming everything converted for your phone. The annoying thing about it though is that it won't automatically start with my computer
A third alternative is to setup a vlc media player server.

Unsupported audio codec??

My videos in stock player play fine, but I get this error message "unsupported audio codec" - and I have no sound.
They play ok in Galaxy Note 2, and everywhere else. Tried MX player, same thing. Video is ok but with no sound.
Any solution to this?

carlitos66 said:
My videos in stock player play fine, but I get this error message "unsupported audio codec" - and I have no sound.
They play ok in Galaxy Note 2, and everywhere else. Tried MX player, same thing. Video is ok but with no sound.
Any solution to this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your video probably comes with DTS stream that cannot be decoded. Google MX player DTS you wull find the proper codec.

If you are using Mx player you need to check off the audio codec in the settings. I would keep it that way forever.
Sent from my HTC One using XDA Premium HD app

I actually loved the stock samsung player on th gn10.1 2012. it played everything. the first vid I tried to play on this one and it won't play ac3 audio. so I've started using archos and the old bs player again.

Bsplayer got hit with ac3 problem when dolby demanded royalty fees, maybe samsung did to?

+1 for mxplayer

Speaking of players, can this thing play 4K videos?

madsquabbles said:
I actually loved the stock samsung player on th gn10.1 2012. it played everything. the first vid I tried to play on this one and it won't play ac3 audio. so I've started using archos and the old bs player again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
me too, weird why Samsung changed this. One of my main reason to buy this tablet - put anything on SD card and play without converting with Hand Brake etc...

carlitos66 said:
me too, weird why Samsung changed this. One of my main reason to buy this tablet - put anything on SD card and play without converting with Hand Brake etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it was due to legal issues.

SlimJ87D said:
I believe it was due to legal issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for a $600 there shouldn't be any legal issues. pay the royalty and be done with it.

madsquabbles said:
for a $600 there shouldn't be any legal issues. pay the royalty and be done with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bet from a business standpoint, the amount the royalties cost per a device wouldn't have been worth it compared to the actual amount of people that would really take advantage of it. But yes, it would be cool to have had it out of the box. But I believe it works fine with MX Player from my testing, and it really wasn't that hard to get MX Player.

I had the same issue with unsupported audio codec, solved with VLC player.

I've paid. for just about every player, mobo, dice, bs.. right now my favorite is archos. it's a mix of mizuu and bs. I havent had a single video that it couldnt play yet.

Are those your recommended players to watch most content? I really want to buy one but in the past have ran into audio issues.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

I like archos because it can download movie info, tv series info, and play about everything. I use he archos free codecs and everything plays fine. I've always liked archos media player from when I used to have the archos 101.

I know you can use other media players, but the point of using stock player is that it plays videos with the help of hardware, thus less battery consumption, versus if you use software decoding by other apps. Or at least It was like that on Nexus 10.

Has anyone tried to contact Samsung about this? My old galaxy 7.7has ac3 support.

carlitos66 said:
I know you can use other media players, but the point of using stock player is that it plays videos with the help of hardware, thus less battery consumption, versus if you use software decoding by other apps. Or at least It was like that on Nexus 10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the other media player can use hardware decoding if available. archos does ac3 fine with hardware decoding. i'd supposed the old bs player will to but i've not used it yet.
but it was nice having a great player that played everything built into the system.

SlimJ87D said:
If you are using Mx player you need to check off the audio codec in the settings. I would keep it that way forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you download MX Player's NeoN-driver (you'll find the download link to the .zip in the settings), you can use HW+ for video and audio (DTS supported). Using this you are in audio/video heaven with the new Note 10.1. You can even play 2 full HD movies, one with MX Player and one with the built-in player (in pop-up mode) at the same time without any hickup. And if you so desire, open up an internet or file browser while you are at it - screen area allowing.
I see so much talk of lag and other supposed deficiencies here, while so far I have been in honeymoon state for 8 days solid.

lord69 said:
Speaking of players, can this thing play 4K videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes with mx player