Database Users

Need help on TCPMP performance. Now using XScale driver...

Here's what I have:
Dopod 900, with ROM Xda_Exec_Upgrade_v1.30.162.
Transcend 2GB SD (150x)
TCPMP 0.71 using RAW FrameBuffer. Not using any other TCPMP plug-ins.
Everything else left at default.
Video performance is really bad. Even in benchmark mode, I only get about 110%-120%. And at time, the frames are a bit flaky...
I had an HX4700 previously. I know the graphics performance of the Universal can't really compare to the HX4700, but I do expect it to be somewhat between than what it is now.
Is there anything I can do to improve the video performance?

No one can help out?
Am I the only one having issue with it?
Something that I missed?
Or is there no solution to gain better DivX playback performance/quality?

Do not use the raw framebuffer. Use the xscale option instead.

Thanks. Now using XScale driver and the vertical thingy option...
Much better now...but the video still has a really tiny jerk every now and then (5 seconds or so...).
Now I know the video performance isn't as good/fast as the hx4700, but can't I at least get a smooth video going on this Universal?

Glad to be of help. Try installing tcpmp on your storage card, this seems to help some people with a htc uni...

Thanks. Already storing the program on the SD card...
Is everyone happy with TCPMP on the Universal?
Am I the only one having these small issues?

Try installing version 0.66 instead.
On my Exec my benchmarks went up to between 140% and 180% just by doing that.
Also use a different setting to 'fit to screen' as that will slow playback down.

What is resolution of the video you are trying to play? Scaling the video is actually very processor intensive. If you are encoding yourself you should go for 640x something and not stretch the video, or if its 576x something else just leave it unscaled also.
Surur

Well, I'm already playing the videos at zoom 100%, speed 100%, XScale driver with that vertical thing "checked", using version 0.66, installed to SD card.
Video is one of smallville's episode downloaded off the net.
Width 624px
Height 352px
Duration 43min40secs
BitRate(audio) 189kbps
Audio format MPEG Layer-3
Framerate 23 framers/sec
Data rate (video) 135kbps
Video sample size 12 bit
Video compression XVID
Device has been hard reset and clean installation of TCPMP.
BT off, Wifi off, GSM/3G/GRPS...all off.
Hardware: Dopod 900
ROM: Dopod 900 English, latest...

Give me the URL and I'll do some benchmarking myself
Surur

It's the Season 5 Finale... Episode number 22.
I'm not sure if I can/[allow to] post torrent links here.

I get minor glitches on most videos files - these are also tv shows, films etc downloaded from torrents.
I'm using version 0.72RC1 - are you saying downgrading to 0.66 will improve performance?

Only minor...VERY minor improvement.

I encode my own video's recorded off TV @640 X 480 using pocket Divx encoder, these run almost perfectly after a fresh boot !! I only get the odd dropped frame, right now I'm sitting by the pool @ the marriott ( using my uni ) but when I get home I will try an upload a 100 MB clip and you can tell me what results you get, if it runs well then it comes down to how your video was encoded and you should try re-encoding it with pocket divx

BTW for an instant 10% boost both to your benchmark and normal playing ability you can try using Pocket Hack Master, I can reliably take my UNI to 624 MHZ and it makes a noticeable diffrence both to the performance (good) and the battery life (bad) you should also consider that the speed of your SD card may be a liiting factor !!! but I doubt it

OK as promised, a small collection of files you can use to benchmark with that I encoded @ 640 by 480 using pocket DivX the quality is stunning, I can play these with no probs
Only 50MB not 100MB and only available for 7 days
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=B98D53265D12AB52

ice_coffee
I am using TCPMP 0.71 on a Orange SPV M5000. I am trying to play a WMV downloaded from the UBISOFT Rayman Raving Rabbids page. (Bunnies Can't Play Soccer) Despite fiddling with numerous settings I can't get any decent performance at all.
Is this just because the Universal can't play a 640*480 WMV happily?
You sample videos play back perfectly happily - the boxing clip benchmarked at 130%. The Rayman WMV benchmarks at 65%
Any ideas?
Thanks
Christopher

diffrent types of Video encoding require differing amounts of CPU power to play back !!! try re-encoding your rayman clip with pocket DivX encoder
Vid quality 100 (out of 199) and audio quality 9, dont forget to choose an E800 as your device (it is VGA)

Thanks for that. I have tried that, and it does play better, but the video quality is severely degraded.
I have tried upping the quality to 199 and also experimented with other "Advanced" options but it still looks much worse than the original.
Would you expect the video image quality to degrade?

NO! especially at 199 the quality is so high that the Uni struggles to play it ( it requires 2.5 Mbits per sec but the uni maxes out at around 2.2 ~2.3 ) the quality however is stunning truly better than any HD tv on the market (comparing pixels per inch squared ) I will be unable to show you an example for around a week as I'm currently off on my hols

Poor TCPMP Performance

I have tried to pull the threads of the various discussions on these forums of device speed and TCPMP into one place (my brain, to be specific), but I'm still not getting the performance out of TCPMP that I really want and, frankly, expect (given that I can get better performance on my 2 year-old Tapwave Zodiac). Here are the basic details:
o) Running an O2 with WM 5.0, version 5.1.195
o) ROM version 1.30.107 WWE
o) TCPMP 0.71, "Smartphone" version, all plugins installed
o) Settings: Video at 100% (converted to 640x480 resolution); smooth zoom 50%; dithering enabled; Intel XScale enabled;
o) All applications save WM 5.0 native apps installed on a 2GB SanDisk SD card
o) All test video files installed on card as well
o) All programs closed by hand prior to running TCPMP
o) Tried files converted by DivX Converter, Lathe, Dr. DivX, and PocketDivX Encoder
o) tried both in portrait and landscape mode, with and without going to "full screen" mode
(I wanted to run Pocket Hack Master to try to tune the device prior to running TCPMP, but it causes my Exec to hang; that's covered in a separate post.)
The output is, well, okay--the image is sharp--but all panning and motion is somewhat jerky. In my experience, this generally indicates that the processor can't keep up with the demand, and one should encode using a lower video and audio bit rate until you find the optimum settings. However, I have tried (in Dr. DivX and DivX Converter) bit rates from 1000kbps down to 500kpbs, and still am seeing jerkiness.
So my questions are: has anyone else seen this behavior? And does anyone have an suggestions for improving TCPMP performance? Install the VGA hack, perhaps? Upgrade to a newer ROM version? Hope that it gets better when I perform system tuning with Pocket Hack Master (should I ever get it to work)? Overclock my device using PHM? Encode at a significantly lower bitrate? Use a different tool for encoding? I am open to suggestions.
Note: I can encode ripped DVDs (using DVDShrink) at 800-1000 kpbs video, 128 kbps audio, and have them viewable on my Tapwave Zodiac using the Palm version of TCPMP with no jerkiness or jitter.
Thanks for any help.
Doug

I have a similar problem. I have encoded a few videos at 700 kbps video and 128kbps audio that run fine when my XDA is plugged into the mains or to the computer, but jitter when it's running on battery. I tried it first thing after charging today with the battery at 98%. The video was still jittery. Tried it again plugged into the mains and it's fine!
Here's one of the files I encoded. Spoilers for Season 10 of Stargate SG1 and Season 3 of Stargate Atlantis, if you care.
(Edit: Hmm - the forum wouldn't load the file. I've a rapid share link instead)
http://rapidshare.de/files/34374785/SG1_LemonScene.rar.html
Stargate SG1 Season 10 - "The Pegasus Project", Lemon Scene, 33 seconds. Xvid 700 kbps video, Lame 128 kbps audio, Frame rate 23.976.

I had problems like this but after changing every setting in tcpmp and still having no joy, i downloaded Sompy MovieEncoder its a free program for the pc, it takes your movie files and recodes them to a smaller rate etc, file quality will decrease, but less resoures on the ppc are used when playing the movie file.
its the only solution i could find
if there is any other solution i would love to know

I have the same problems using both pocketdivxencoder and smartmovie, when I use VGA settings. I just encode everything in QVGA resolution now, and it's a bit grainy, but at least no lag.

Still zeroing in on getting this working the way I want (caveat: I am much pickier than most people about sharpness, jitter, pixilation, and the like), but I have managed to get some improvement in playback. Here's what I'm finding so far:
o) Using Pocket Hack Master (which can only be used when my device is plugged in to either the wall charger or the USB sync cable; don't ask me why), I have hard-set the system speed to 520MHz, and have set the speed for TCPMP to "maximum" so that it overclocks when I run it.
o) I converted several test files (I have a set; I'm obsessive) at 500kbps video, 80kbps audio, 40KHz audio frequency.
This gives smooth playback except when there is too much data, i.e. when there's a lot of motion in the image and its a complex image. (Trees with lots of leaves seem to be a good test case.) For example, in the scene in "The Incredibles" where Mr. Incredible is shaking a tree to get a cat out, the image freezes a bit. In the scene in "The 40 Year-old Virgin" where Our Here is biking down a tree-lined street and the camera pans up to the trees, the image freezes a bit. Images like that.
It's unfortunate that I have to ramp the bit rate down so low, although on this screen--as opposed to a QVGA screen--the images are much sharper at lower bit rates. Even so, I still want to see what other people say about, for example, using "true" VGA mode, different versions of TCPMP, and the like. It would be nice to be able to convert in the 700-800kbps range; in my past experience, that gives a good compromise between image sharpness and file size. (I personally don't mind a movie taking up a GB of space; I want that movie to look good, dammit!)
Doug

I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Good:
+ No more jerkyness in any of my divx video's. (Don't know the bitrates on them)
Bad:
- 520 MHz is a big drain on the battery.
- Some stability issues when changing CPU speeds.
Edit:
When plugged in the mains, the Uni speeds up to 520 MHz. Thats why it will play fine when plugged in, but not on battery.

Biffert said:
I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming the XCPUScalar is some kind of system performance tuning application, yes?
Doug

dougom said:
Biffert said:
I had the same problem. It got fixed when in installed XCPUScalar and cranked my Uni to 520 MHz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming the XCPUScalar is some kind of system performance tuning application, yes?
Doug
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes indeed, it allows scaling the Intel XScale CPU in the Uni to a speed of choice, or autoscale based on CPU load.
http://www.immiersoft.com/index.html
It works for me, although I have some stability issues when changing speed to often.

I use O2 Exec with Dopod 900 latest rom with TCPMP V 0.71
it run very well in my device.
I use Pocket Divx encoder. I just set the out put to be VGA PPC resolution.
No fuzzy, slow or any bad grainy.
Or I just got lucky

i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.

skywriter said:
i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you encode with "DVD to Pocket PC" 3.6.2 @ 640x480. That's a new tool on me; do you have a pointer to it? And what video and audio bit rates are you encoding with?
Also, are you running Win2K, or XP? (Or, heaven forfend, something else?) And when you say you are using WM 10, is that on the desktop, or on the Exec?
Thanks,
Doug

dougom said:
skywriter said:
i get much better performance from WM10 encoded with DVD to Pocket PC 3.6.2 @ 640x480 wide screen (stearo bluetooth headphones) it's so good it's addicting. gives my 42 inch plasma a rest
TCPMP is jumpy for me.but you get more optiuons to play arounf with WM10 work out of the box.
i use WMV files.
i also use DVD Decrypter and Wondershare Pocket DVD Studio at 480x368. not as good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you encode with "DVD to Pocket PC" 3.6.2 @ 640x480. That's a new tool on me; do you have a pointer to it? And what video and audio bit rates are you encoding with?
Also, are you running Win2K, or XP? (Or, heaven forfend, something else?) And when you say you are using WM 10, is that on the desktop, or on the Exec?
Thanks,
Doug
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use XP. it's WM10 on the uni, WM plays no part in encoding. other than three video form factors the audio and video rates are slidersm i would have to look in the file properties.. so it's a very dumb tool that gives pretty good results.

This works great for me:
DVD Catalyst 2.1 ($24.95 USD-much less than others!) is really fantastic. It is the only decoder that not only has a great UI but really works and is fast! The developer has worked really hard to get this program to work well and he is on the way to win more awards. You can download a fully funtional trial version. Go to http://www.dvdcatalyst.com/ and give it a try.
The settings I use is:
Output: Pocket PC DivX
Screen Size: 640x480 VGA PPC
Video Quality: 500-600 Kbps (depends on length of movie and if I want one or two movies on my 1G card)
Audio Quality: 112 Stereo Kbps
I use TCPMP and under Video options have Intel XScale selected for the driver.
Best results are after a soft boot to regain leaked memory and disable automatic mail checking or anything that might run periodically in the background and suck up CPU time.
The picture and sound are great.
Regards,
Gordo

When I clock the CPU to 520 MHz (The factory maximum for the Uni CPU) I get much much better results. If I do nothing with the speed the jerkyness occurs no matter how much I tweak it.
To see if it is a solution, play a video that is jerky when you are running on battery. Plug the Uni in the mains and play the video again, you should be able to see a significant difference (Uni goes to maximum speed when plugged in)

my uni hangs above 520mhz. i don't mind a bit of occassional jerkiness. i cannot use WIFI at the same time as BT HP (any application).
what i need is way to rip my matrix DVD's to watch! they are devious. i want to teh freedom to play them on my media of choice. i've bought many 100's of both DVD's and CDs, i've played the game long enough ny now.

skywriter said:
my uni hangs above 520mhz. i don't mind a bit of occassional jerkiness. i cannot use WIFI at the same time as BT HP (any application).
what i need is way to rip my matrix DVD's to watch! they are devious. i want to teh freedom to play them on my media of choice. i've bought many 100's of both DVD's and CDs, i've played the game long enough ny now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that "Matrix: Reloaded" is an excellent test film for seeing how well conversions work. It has scenes where there is rapid regular motion, CGI, and plenty of other stuff going on that gives your CPU a good workout.
I'm still tweaking to try to get a good result. I personally *do* mind jerkiness; I can watch films converted at 800-1000kbps on my Zodiac; I would love to get the same kind of performance on my Exec. I will keep trying.
The only reason I mention the desktop/laptop OS is because my understanding is that you can get better handshaking between WM10 on the desktop and the version of WM on the Exec, and WM10 doesn't run on Win2K. Also, I may be getting some strange behavior during encoding because I'm running on Win2K rather than XP, so perhaps the codecs aren't working quite right. I don't know why that would be, but this stuff seems to be as much an art as a science. When my new laptop comes in (any day now!) I will give it a try.
Doug

For folks who are interested, I seem to have found a method for conversion and playback that works fairly consistently with a variety of films. Very little of this information is stuff that I have discovered on my own; most of it is culled from this and other newsgroups. Thanks to everyone for all their advice.
Here's my method.
Tweaking your Universal
Install Pocket Hack Master--You are going to want to set your Universal to run at 520MHz normally, and then test the other available clock settings using PHM's Speed Configuration option. I would then advise you to use the Application Speed option of PHM to force the speed of TCPMP to the highest available clock speed, overclocking your CPU if need be. Yes, this will burn battery power insanely, but if you want a smoother playback, this helps. (520MHz provides decent playback, however.)
It is worth noting that I bumped into some weirdness running PHM. Specifically, you either need to disable the Universal's built-in scaling functionality in PHM by choosing Edit > Settings > Advanced > Disable Device Built-in Scaling, or only run PHM when it is plugged into line current. Otherwise, you might experience a system hang, a screen white-out, or other irritating symptoms that can only be escaped with a soft reset.
Install Magic Button--This is not a requirement, but it helps when you are trying to make sure none of your applications are running while you run TCPMP.
Turn Off All Your Applications--Anything else running in the background will slow down your playback.
Reboot Your Universal Before Playback--This clears up any unwanted crap from your buffers.
Verify All Applications Are Off--On your Today screen on your Universal, select Start > Settings > System > Memory > Running Programs. Turn off anything that is running. Yes, I know; everything should be turned off as a result of your soft reboot, but I'm paranoid. Skip this step if you aren't as paranoid as me.
Conversion
Prior to converting my movies, I rip them using DVD Shrink, which I prefer over DVD Decoder. I don't really think it matters, though. I then encode using Dr. DivX. Here's the info:
Film clips: "Serenity" (television pilot); "Matrix Reloaded"; "The Incredibles"--this collection gives me a good cross section of animation, CGI, live action with little motion, live action with lots of motion, and live action/CGI combined
Conversion tool: Dr. DivX 1.0.7, using the latest DivX codec (6.2.5, I believe).
Video Bit Rate: 700kbps
Audio Bit Rate: 80kbps
Resolution: Make sure your width is 640; set your height based on whatever your film's aspect ratio is (For 16:9, 352 or 368 pixels; for 2.35:1, 272 pixels). It is important to use a width of 640, as TCPMP runs better when you set the Zoom to 100%.
I use two-pass encoding. I suspect that different films will require different video bit rates, probably varying between 500-800kpbs. This is just a guess, however.
Playing Your Movies
I playback with TCPMP. Personally, I haven't had a lot of luck using Windows Media, and Mitch (the author of DVD Catalyst) says that he has had better luck with *.avi format than *.wmv.
I use the following settings in TCPMP:
Speed: 100%
View > Zoom: 100%
View > Pixel Aspect Ration: Square
View > Orientation: Follow GUI
Video > Smooth Zoom (Only 50%)
Video > Dither (enabled) (To help minimize pixilation of the image)
Video > Quality > Normal
Video > Video Driver > Intel XScale
Video > Streams > Video (enabled)
All Other Settings: defalt
So there you have it. Is it a little bit of a pain? Heck yes. Is it worth it to get smoother playback? Well, it is for me; you have to decide if it's worth it for you.
Happy viewing,
Doug

Has anyone thought of running these videos through Benchmark mode (File > Benchmark in TCPMP) so that people trying to assist can get a better picture of just how jerky the video playback is?

I've the same issues here!
When plugged to the main power all the movies run smooth.
When running without chargin it becomes slow!

has anyone tried converting to .3gp since the TCPMP does support this. I have encoded most of my movies
video format = mp4
codec = CoreASP
video size = 352 x 288
frame rate = 15.000
audio = mp3
audio codec = CoreMP3
format = 48000Hz Stereo
Data Bit Rate = 128 kbit/s
sample rate = 48,000
weighs in around 700mb after compression
After I have made a backup copy of my intended movie using DVDfab HD decryptor:
http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm
which is absolutely free
...I then use DVD Decrypter, also free, which can be found here:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/dvddec-options.htm
in the "Descrambling / Ripping tools" section.
this app wont crack any current CSS keys but what it does is allow me to rip the movie to one single .vob which I then compress with Xilisoft 3gp converter.
the playback is very smooth & clear IMO.
benchmark test:
TCPMP Version 0.72RC1 Benchmark Results
Average Speed 208.60%
Video Frames 10190
Audio Samples 32725921
Amount of Data 53259 KB
Bench. Time 5:25.661
Bench. Frame Rate 31.29
Bench. Sample Rate 100495
Bench. Data Rate 1.3 Mbit/s
Original Time 11:19.333
Original Frame Rate 15.00
Original Sample Rate 48000
Original Data Rate 642 kbit/s
URL \Storage Card\VIDEO\CASINO ROYAL.3GP
Size 693721516
Platform PocketPC
OS Version 5.01
OEM Info HERM100
Clock speed 397 Mhz
Video output ATI IMAGEON 240x320 16bits Slow Lookup
Video zoom 352x288 -> 240x320
Audio output Wave Output 48000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.
BTW - I have ATT 8525

Athena 7500 too slow for media (TCPMP player)

So this documents my sad experience with XDA's culminating in a regreful decision NOT to buy the HTC Advantage.
I have bought 3 generations of past HTC based XDAs including the Wallaby, Andes and Universal.
Primarily I need a phone and a PDA in a single unit with the promise of also using it as a media player in situations where I'm without my laptop or subnote.
The fastest media player that I have used always seemed to be the TCPMP player but this was too slow to play conventional DIVX .avi or other FULL SIZE movie streams.
I dont have the time to constantly convert movies from standard 700 MB .avi format to PPC pixel size. But the Universal was simply NOT fast enough to play the uncoverted movies. (Plus the Universal has some issues when it comes to slooowly receiving and making calls .. another story)
As a standby measure I use a Fujistu Loox N560 (and Nokia 7380 combo), with a 624Mhz Xscale processor. Wiith TCPMP IT IS fast enough to play movies on its VGA screen without really any noticable skipping.
This was a temporary measure until HTC could produce a phone PDA combo that I could again use as a do-it-all device.
BUT after much monitoring xda-developers I conclude that the HTC advantage with all its other features will not do this job. I really really wanted the Advantage to work for me but post after post have indicated that it just cant cut it for displaying videos.
How difficult can it be to produce a device and software that can do this! Like I say, I dont want to spend all my waking hours converting .avi files from one format to each other, just to play the regular 700MB / 2hour standard .divx file.

The x7500 is a phone and a PDA, not a video player. Yes, it can play Videos and movies, but they need to be converted as you already stated.
So if you want to watch videos in their native format, why would you think a phone would work as a video player.
Why not just go buy a mini-video player...And if you already knew the answer and you don't want to convert to a format that can be played on a PDA......
Why did you waste our and your time explaining the obvious!

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the HTC Athena, with it's dedicated ATI graphics chip, might have a chance to play the same videos he's able to play on the Loox (another PPC device that uses the same 624Mhz Xscale processor).
Hopefully either the CoreCodec folks will be able to work around the buggy ATI drivers driving the Athena, or we won't have to wait long until someone releases a device with better a dedicated GPU.

i see ur point...i have converted many videos and most took no more than 15-20 mins max. but thats due to my core 2x duo processor.hopefully we see some software upgrades to solve this.

mmh,... I do not really see the point you mentioned.
The TCPMP is not able to use the Ati drivers but with the RawFramebuffer and DIVX (XVID) converted movies it runs brilliant.
I also convert DVDs to approx. 600 video and 128 audio @ res of 640x480. with this I will come up
with about 500-600 MB per movie. Excellent quality and no lags...
And what is your exact problem with converting.... Du you want to
but a DVD content auf 4GB on your MD ? uncoverted movies on a mobile
device makes no sense... or didnt I get the point here ?
Definitly I can not confirm your statement mentioned. Also standard divx movies at 700MB CD size will run like a charm.
But now some experience from my side:
I used the SPB Mobile DVD to convert files directly from DVD... a big mess... audio/video goes out of sync and if paused the whole movie
become laggy. 5-10FPS .... I was searching the Inet and also XDA Devs for this problem...
At the end I had to find out the SPB Mobile DVD converting program is SH** !!!!
Now I use Pocket-DVD Studio... converting with the newest XVID drivers. Excellent performance as mentined before...
So maybe this is your problem... give try to another converter and see what happens. (Use one with not installed codecs... use one where you can make
setting and use the system installed codecs)
So from my side: The Athena is a good mobile movie player (with TCPMP)... my opinion

errr...
Hiya people,
I must say that this is a bit confusing to me. I use the ATI driver on my Ameo (advantage) with TCMP as long as you dont use the hardware acceleration it works perfectly. There are many threads regarding this subject.
All in all, any 700-800 MB movie that I err......come accross and copy directly to my Ameo plays perfectly for me. Xvid or Divx.....
I dont do any conversions or anything. I just download and play.
Maybe I get the odd frame skipped here and there but its not an issue for me. I watch many action films...no problemo.......all standard 700 mb+ Avi files....I have Simpsons amd Resi Evil extinction on my Microdrive now...both 700MB plus..
Example my copy of RE:E 717 MB
MPEG4 Vid
608 by 256
25 FPS
After 2000 frames, I had dropped 42...
Lol maybe I am just not fussy and this is a nuisance to everyone else. I have not found an AVI that I have been unable to watch yet....
Then again, I used to watch 160 X 120 movies on my HTC Voyager using Pocket DIVX encoder which really really sucked and I thought it was cool.

I can also confirm that no convertion is needed, I have a lot of convertions which are over 2gigs, I watch these on my pc, but have watched them on my Ameo.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=308952

amouses said:
So this documents my sad experience with XDA's culminating in a regreful decision NOT to buy the HTC Advantage.
I have bought 3 generations of past HTC based XDAs including the Wallaby, Andes and Universal.
Primarily I need a phone and a PDA in a single unit with the promise of also using it as a media player in situations where I'm without my laptop or subnote.
The fastest media player that I have used always seemed to be the TCPMP player but this was too slow to play conventional DIVX .avi or other FULL SIZE movie streams.
I dont have the time to constantly convert movies from standard 700 MB .avi format to PPC pixel size. But the Universal was simply NOT fast enough to play the uncoverted movies. (Plus the Universal has some issues when it comes to slooowly receiving and making calls .. another story)
As a standby measure I use a Fujistu Loox N560 (and Nokia 7380 combo), with a 624Mhz Xscale processor. Wiith TCPMP IT IS fast enough to play movies on its VGA screen without really any noticable skipping.
This was a temporary measure until HTC could produce a phone PDA combo that I could again use as a do-it-all device.
BUT after much monitoring xda-developers I conclude that the HTC advantage with all its other features will not do this job. I really really wanted the Advantage to work for me but post after post have indicated that it just cant cut it for displaying videos.
How difficult can it be to produce a device and software that can do this! Like I say, I dont want to spend all my waking hours converting .avi files from one format to each other, just to play the regular 700MB / 2hour standard .divx file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i play "regular" 700 mb avi file on my uni without any lag.

what u smoking
dude what are u smoking video on the advantage is freaking sweeet. plus if u install projet athena 3 on it, the thing is a marvel of design and technology. they guys that made project athena put so much into it. infact i dont even need to use my hardware keyboard anymore. the teksoft keyboard works even better than the hardware one. but i digress, the tcpmp that is includded on the project athena uses the ati graphic card. i have never seen better video even better than the psp. no need to convert. i use full videos no conversion at all.

WMP & Coreplayer on X1

Hi,
Got my Xperia X1 the other day, I have got Coreplayer Mobile as well as the WMP on the phone. I have copied the videos I took with my Nokia N95 to the memory card Ive got in the Xperia.
However when it comes to playing them WMP will play them but it stutters alot with the sound being ahead of the video. In coreplayer there is no video only sound.
Any of you guys got any suggestions to get the video playing smoothly. The videos are .mp4.
Thanks

Try to set in Videosettings QTv Display, here I get a picture and it works ok, not the promissed 30 fps but arount 20 fps with a HDTV Movie.

sthoeft said:
Try to set in Videosettings QTv Display, here I get a picture and it works ok, not the promissed 30 fps but arount 20 fps with a HDTV Movie.
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I tried that. I changed to the DirectDraw option and it plays the James Bond Trailer no problem but the videos from my Nokia N95 still stutter alot

madzo2008 said:
I tried that. I changed to the DirectDraw option and it plays the James Bond Trailer no problem but the videos from my Nokia N95 still stutter alot
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Then I don't have any more ideas. Perhaps it'll help trying TCMP instead of Coreplayer?!

Found this on Coreplayers website:
CE/Windows Mobile/PocketPC/Smartphone
---------------------------------------------------------
- Does not support the Qualcomm MSM7200 QTv chipset (we only support the MSM7500)
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Is anyone running Coreplayer? Is there anything better?

I've tried to find a resolution/bitrate which gives me smooth video without stuttering and dropouts. I've tested on CorePlayer with DivX and native mp4 codecs.
With a resolution of 400x240, 25fps, 1100kBit/s I get a picture without dropouts and a benchmark around 105%.
If I go higher in resolution I start getting dropouts.
I've set the CorePlayer to Microdrive mode and doubled the size of the buffer to increase the speed when reading from the memory card.
I've tried to copy the clip to the phone memory, but with the above settings I see no difference.
My conclusion is that if you want a smooth picture, don't go above the mentioned resolution. It won't give you that crisp picture, but I get more annoyed when the film is stuttering than getting a HD resolution on a 3" display.
I have no problem seeing mp4 on the CorePlayer though. But if I uncheck the "TyTN II driver mode" in QTv Display settings, I get only sound, no picture, despite the MSM7200 chipset . Don't know if the Nokia's format differs from the one I have used (Cucusoft Ultimate DVD).
Is there anyone else who manages getting a higher picture quality without any dropped frames?

Got this from the Coreplayer forums:
'We are on the verge of the v1.3 bug fix release that addresses many of the current issues including those diamond users running WM 6.1...... however it does not address the QTV issues since there is nothing we can control there other then to express our dismay to both HTC and Qualcomm for not opening up the GPU.
Hey... we've been here before.... lets hope for a more open solution soon enough.'
I wonder what SE's position is on this? Apparently it's meant to have a decent GPU but what's the use if we can't use it? I know one or two people here have contacts with SE - anybody wish to find out?

Praying for hardware supported video playback...

but they said that X1 uses ATI GPU not Qualcomm!
Another lies from SE?

Hey guys, i know this is abit off topic, but has any of you guys had the problem were you install core player, then play a video, and then you exit and go back into it and you the the message "cannot validate the serial number/user ID"? i have uninstalled and reinstalled heaps of times, tried different serial numbers, but it happens all the time use it once, and then the message comes up when you go back into it.

andyboo said:
Hey guys, i know this is abit off topic, but has any of you guys had the problem were you install core player, then play a video, and then you exit and go back into it and you the the message "cannot validate the serial number/user ID"? i have uninstalled and reinstalled heaps of times, tried different serial numbers, but it happens all the time use it once, and then the message comes up when you go back into it.
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Why do you have multiple serial numbers?
Surely it's one Serial per IMEI?

im running coreplayer latest version, and i'm playing divX files direct from my coputr, no downsample full reselution, and with 30fps usibg qtv, it's awsome!

smaberg said:
im running coreplayer latest version, and i'm playing divX files direct from my coputr, no downsample full reselution, and with 30fps usibg qtv, it's awsome!
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for real ? 640x480 24FPS at 800kbs is really laggy for me when playing in CorePlayer using QTV Video Output.

nap007 said:
but they said that X1 uses ATI GPU not Qualcomm!
Another lies from SE?
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The ATI graphics chip is a part of the qualcomm chipset.

fards said:
The ATI graphics chip is a part of the qualcomm chipset.
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Says who, I haven't seen any info about it, any links please.
Of course the qualcomm chip has indeed 3D hardware acceleration but I don't know if it is ATI.

unbelieveable how unprofessional are they! 1st the RAM debate, and now this; not to mention that bad launching and availability.

It is rather disappointing. Even the fish panel is hardly super smooth, leading me to wonder if even that uses the GPU acceleration.
I really do hope SE allow and encourage developers to tap the GPU of the X1 otherwise its little better than all the other WM phones.
I have hope that someone with a reputation like SE will see the sense supporting the developers. The "write something for the panel" is not good enough. The radio is a panel and as the panel is like the home screen, anything on it is turned off when I navigate away from it including the radio.
I really do hope they do not turn out to be as bad as networks like T-Mobile which can't be bothered to support HTC rebranded phones even if its got their name stuck on them.

after using it for 3 days it is now clear that the panels just use low res screenshots and no live data. They dont even update them, i live in germany and when accessing panels the screenshot says New York etc until it finally updates.
So for the panels just being low res screenshots (that must be only some KBs per panel) the performance is horrible and laggy. Cant believe they use any form of hardware acceleration for that either.

toxical said:
for real ? 640x480 24FPS at 800kbs is really laggy for me when playing in CorePlayer using QTV Video Output.
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If the video is encoded in H.264 it's going to be lagging full on. Half of the frame will get dropped. Playing 720x400 24FPS at 1Mbps encoded with XviD on the other hand is smooth and not a single frame is dropped. I've tested this with TP.

Does anyone know how to change the default streaming video player to Coreplayer?
It's very annoying when browsing and the Streaming Player kicks in rather than Coreplayer. I've associated 3gp, mpeg4, etc. with CP but doesn't seem to make any difference.

Video playback problems - Coreplayer, TCPMP : SOLVED/SOLUTION

PROBLEM SOLVED - CONCLUSION OF THREAD updated 9/3/10:
1). Coreplayer and TCPMP don't work well on my device when playing back avi (divx/xvid) because they don't support hardware accelaration, although others seem to have no problems which still confuses me. Playback is juddery dropping many frames. I have tried Shasaraks settings (which are the best) and all others with no luck.
2). Because WMP and the HTC player don't support avi (divx/xvid) converting to mp4 is the only option for me.
3). CONVERSION: I have tried many converters including: TMPGEnc.XPress, handbrake, xvid4psp, mediacoder and others. The ones that do work well for the HD2 all have the same problem and that is a delay in audio putting speech out of sync when played back on the device. Even when playing back avi's in coreplayer i had to manualy adjust the sync.
The only converter that works well and is fast and can put the audio in sync for playback on HD2 is winmenc available here (freeware) http://winmenc.blogspot.com/
Download my profile which has the audio sync tweak already in it (thanks to Kr00ton) and put it into the profiles folder. I have tweaked Kenkiller's original profile, see here for info: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...7&postcount=38
I have changed Kenkillers profile from 2000 to 1000 kbps to save file size and have also got rid off the 2 pass encoding to save time (and lots of it!). You also need to tick FIT TO WIDTH AND SPEED & QUALITY CONTROL AND MOVE IT TO FASTEST. I done various tests and found no noticeble difference to SD videos doing it my way. This speeds up conversion time to around 30 mins for a 700mb avi and keeps the file size about the same as the original.
If you have more time on your hands and or you are converting HD then maybe use Kenkillers original profile, although i converted HD stuff in my profile and it looked great. It all depends if file size and conversion time is an issue for you.
4). For some reason the HTC player still judders for me, i'm pretty sure it didn't do that in stock rom 1.44 but it certainly does on my 1.66 ROM leaving only WMP that performs perfectly It's a shame that it isn't very finger friendly for srolling through the video etc but i'll live with that.
I can only report my findings and experiences, you may not have the same issues i have had. Conversion may wield different reults on other OS's. I'm using windows 7 64 bit and can confirm that when i used winavimp4 converter on xp it was perfect but used on windows 7 it puts audio out of sync. Having said that it is without a doubt the fastest converter i have come accross converting a 700mb file in around 10 mins on windows 7 64 bit. It was around 30 mins on my old xp machine.
5). I can now relax and enjoy my films on my HD2, which is the main reason i bought it!
ORIGINAL 1ST POST
I bought this phone because of its screen. I watch movies on my long journeys to work and i'm getting increasingly frustrated with the phones poor performance on playback.
Coreplayer judders with many dropped frames no matter what settings (tried shasaraks direct draw settings) or version of coreplayer i use and disabling sense and using plane mode makes no difference whatsoever. It will play flawlessly for a while then judder then be ok then judder on and on...
So i decided to convert to mp4:
coreplayer still has poor performance. HTC player was ok but since upgrading to 1.66 it's performing worse than coreplayer now (yes, i did a hard reset after flashing)
The only player that works is wmp. I now have some questions:
1). Is there an option in wmp to sync the audio manualy like in coreplayer? some films are slightly out of sync.
2). are there any other players that work well on the HD2 apart from tcpmp (tried that, same results as coreplayer)
3). CONVERSION:
What are the best settings for video conversion for the HD2? If I can't use coreplayer to play avi this is my only solution and aslo solves the problem of coreplayer not supporting ac3 audio. I'm talking bitrate etc for video and audio. If you are succesfully converting video what converter and settings do you use? PLEASE!
I tried searching but couldn't see a thread dedicated to optimum conversion settings for the HD2.
4). Could the problem lie with my 16gb sandisk sd card? i noticed another thread for the blackstone where a cab was designed to speed up the cards performance by 3 times, is there something like this for the HD2 and would me formatting it to fat 32 make any difference at all to my problem?
This is really winding me up now and i've spent hours messing with settings etc, the one function i really need and it wont perform which i find very surprising for a phone that has this super fast snapdragon processor.
PLEASE HELP ME
END OF ORIGINAL POST, PROFILE FOR WINMENC BELOW

1) no
2) none even close to that
3) can't tell, as I don't really do it much, coreplayer works well for me
4) could be, as coreplayer works well for me.

jonbaker76 said:
4). Could the problem lie with my 16gb sandisk sd card? i noticed another thread for the blackstone where a cab was designed to speed up the cards performance by 3 times, is there something like this for the HD2 and would me formatting it to fat 32 make any difference at all to my problem?
This is really winding me up now and i've spent hours messing with settings etc, the one function i really need and it wont perform which i find very surprising for a phone that has this super fast snapdragon processor.
PLEASE HELP ME
many thanks...
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Could well be the card, as it sounds like it gets to the end of a buffer, buffers, then continues, causing the lags.

I know that reporting my own experience is of relatively low usefullness to you as it's not step by step instructions on how to solve your problem, anyway:
1) I use TCPMP to watch AC3 audio-encoded series like frasier
2) I use Coreplayer to watch non AC3 encoded series like sex and the city
3) tcpmp is slower than coreplayer for those videos that coreplayer CAN play, I get ~120% bench for SATC in coreplayer and ~90% in tcpmp, but nonetheless I can watch everything (...that I tried until now) in tcpmp without noticing the slightest issues, and I always "zoom to fit screen", which means the video fills the entire 800x480 resolution
4) I watched videos on my old ipaq 214 as well, sure we're talking about a different device, but we're aso talking about a device with a 600MHz cpu and without an accelerated graphics subsystem (and I do have chainfire patch for the graphics subsystme of my hd2)... well I only used tcpmp on the 214 and no issue there... and I watched the whole Death note series, crappy bench results but no issues with jumps in the video
5) I have a 16gb class 2 sandisk microsd, and despite it being class 2, I get ~7mb/s transfers both ways in the sd reader of my laptop, so if we're using the same memory card, that should not be the problem...
6) probably you watch "heavy" encoded movies?

Look at this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=5331497&postcount=38
Post Nr. 38 and download th profiles.
Use Winmenc 0.81 Beta (Freeware). Copy the downloaded profiles into Winmenc subfolder "profile".
Edit the profile like told in this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5341496#post5341496 Post Nr. 32 from krooton.
Important ist to set the audiodelay.
With this solution you can get very good *.mp4 Files with audio in sync playable with Manila album or Mediaplayer.
I tried a lot of things but this was the only way to get good video with audio in sync.
Sorry, but english is not my first language.

For coreplayer i'm using v 1.3.5 build 7340 but the newer 1.3.6 build 7427 also performs the same.
What version are you guys using?
Failing that i'll format the card to fat32 to see if that makes a difference and have a look at that winmenc.
Any other suggestions are very welcome

ephestione said:
6) probably you watch "heavy" encoded movies?
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defo not this. I converted a film to the lowest spec audio and video wise and it resulted in 350mb file... It played the same as the 1.2g original!

I used handbreak to convert to MP4 and then used the built in player in sense.
Seemed to be HW accelerated as 45minutes of playback took about 8% of the battery charge and I would expect doing soft decode of H264 would take more than that.
Only downside was waiting 15minutes to go from 720p to iPhone profile in handbreak. I am going to experiment with remuxing
Jim

I have created a preset in handbrake specifically for the HD2 - Let me get home and post it back for you.
have been using this - converted about 20 movies and loaded up around 10 on the HD2 for a trip. All of them played perfectly in HTC album (Looks like it's hardware accelerated). Approx 4-5 hours on a single full charge (around 2 1/2 movies back to back).
Best part - converstion takes about an hour on a 4 yr old laptop - should happen much quicker on new ones.
Source files are all mkv (for Blu-ray rips) or iso (for standard DVD)

vivek310 said:
I have created a preset in handbrake specifically for the HD2 - Let me get home and post it back for you.
have been using this - converted about 20 movies and loaded up around 10 on the HD2 for a trip. All of them played perfectly in HTC album (Looks like it's hardware accelerated). Approx 4-5 hours on a single full charge (around 2 1/2 movies back to back).
Best part - converstion takes about an hour on a 4 yr old laptop - should happen much quicker on new ones.
Source files are all mkv (for Blu-ray rips) or iso (for standard DVD)
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Click to collapse
please do mate, looks like a nice converter, if you post the sttings you are using i'll give it a bash tonight.
I don't know what is going on with coreplayer, i used it a while ago and it played lovely, about 2 drops in 10 mins. I just tried again, 11 drops in 10 seconds what does this tell us!?!?!?!?

Could also be that you have something running in the background that's using the CPU badly...

This thread is worth checking out for video settings: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=582122
A converter that is reasonably idiot-proof (although its maximum bitrate is a teensy bit too low, IMO) is MP4ForHD, which you can find here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050 I think it lets you incorporate an audio delay into the video (thus negating the need to do it in the player).

I've bought Core PLayer and Kinoma PLay but the only one i use to play my videos and series is TCMP, its litter and complete doing its tasks.
I prefeer TCMP.

kilrah said:
Could also be that you have something running in the background that's using the CPU badly...
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Is what i thought but no, everything is shut down. Does the same after a soft reset. Disabling sense and using plane mode also makes no difference.
But like i say, soemtimes it works and sometimes it drops like a mother f*****
it's completely random
what i will try is another sd card, i got the 2gig one indoors, i'll put the same vid on that and report back... all rather boring but it's doing my head in and i don't like being beaten

Shasarak said:
This thread is worth checking out for video settings: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=582122
A converter that is reasonably idiot-proof (although its maximum bitrate is a teensy bit too low, IMO) is MP4ForHD, which you can find here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050 I think it lets you incorporate an audio delay into the video (thus negating the need to do it in the player).
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thanks, will take a look

I just don't see the point in encoding especially for a mobile device.
That's iphone madness, not ours
I've been watching videos encoded for proper pc's since when I had my ipaq hx2400 back then, after that I kept doing it with my ipaq 214, and now I am happily doing the same on the HD2. I am sure there's something that's preventing jonbaker from watchgin movies normally, and using an alternate encoder is not a "solution" but a complication. Occam would say the same.
More specific info on file size/length/codec/bitrate/tcpmp-coreplayer bench results/microsd transfer rate (tested with read/write operation in usb disk mode) would be useful.

If memory card access is causing the problem with CorePlayer then you could try increasing the amount of memory CorePlayer uses to buffer. You could also try out these registry settings which sometimes improve SD card performance: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=5547319&postcount=8

Shasarak said:
If memory card access is causing the problem with CorePlayer then you could try increasing the amount of memory CorePlayer uses to buffer. You could also try out these registry settings which sometimes improve SD card performance: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=5547319&postcount=8
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any chance you can suggest what i increase the settings to in the coreplayer memory buffer? not sure what im doing there! wouldnt mind giving that a go.

jonbaker76 said:
any chance you can suggest what i increase the settings to in the coreplayer memory buffer? not sure what im doing there! wouldnt mind giving that a go.
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I'm operating entirely on guesswork, so no, no chance at all!!! I guess it needs to still be small enough that there is no danger of running out of memory on the phone, but larger than the default value. Might not make any difference, of course, depends on what's causing the bottleneck.
Have you tried getting CorePlayer to play video and audio in the background and then opening up the task manager to see what the CPU usage is doing? That might at least tell you whether it's a lack of processing power as opposed to something else.

Shasarak said:
Have you tried getting CorePlayer to play video and audio in the background and then opening up the task manager to see what the CPU usage is doing? That might at least tell you whether it's a lack of processing power as opposed to something else.
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RIGHT i set coreplayer to play in background: BUILT IN TASK MANAGER:
mem - 7.94m CPU sitting around 45 - 65%, then will drop to around 20% then back up to 60%
RESCO TASK MANAGER:
mem - reports 2.68m
don't know why they give different results memory wise don't think resco task manger gives cpu usage
is all that normal?