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I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?
spacecat said:
I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get tcpmp downloaded.......if that doesnt improve the playback it might be the same reason why the hermes was crap at video playback.....the OS sucks!
the hermes now plays videos quite nicely on WM6.....are you still on WM5?
no I am on wm6
I read another thread and am trying some different settings so hopefully it will mprove
still for such a pricey device it should work out of the box
it is most likely the conversion software you r using or the format that its in. i use spb mobile dvd 1.2 and i convert it into wmv so i can use wmp10 and not TCPMP. if you want to try a "TRIAL " copy i can send it to you, just drop me a line.
[email protected]
irus said:
it is most likely the conversion software you r using or the format that its in. i use spb mobile dvd 1.2 and i convert it into wmv so i can use wmp10 and not TCPMP. if you want to try a "TRIAL " copy i can send it to you, just drop me a line.
[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
email has been sent
err its ok i seem to have found the TRIAL copy
nice video here i use tcmp and select the video driver ATI
run a few tests and its better but cant touch PSP AVC movies for quality
spacecat said:
I am enjoying my new toy, but compared to my PSP the movies look really crap!
this device has a 600 hz chip and yet struggles with a 640x480 25 fps movie
I downloaded the F4 silver surfer which everyone said was great but compared to a Psp movie it looked like VHS.
does anyone know why this is and will it improve?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.
I'm still on WM5 and tge movie quality is absolutely sensational. On the other hand, it is crap on both of my two PSPs! I don't bother using my PSPs. I think it is potentially possible to have quality video if I get the settings right in PSP, just like you can have quality video on thus device if your setting is right.
Be careful with the ATI fix cab. I just installed it on the Athena and now my device can not boot pass the second splashscreen
mackaby007 said:
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you said you did two test in 640x368 what software did you use. thanks
mackaby007 said:
Hi spacecat.
They are not crap at all. As another member pointed out to you...it's all about the encoding.
DVD rips (like Axxo's torrent rips) look like HQ DVD's on my Athena, but only in a widescreen format. Meaning any bigger resolution and the Athena seems to strugle with lipsync and general performance/playback speed and skipped frames, right?
I did a small test converting 2 High definition movies into 640x368...not quite 480, but the end result was truly fab!!
It still looked high def...virtually filled the entire screen...or fills it depending what player you use...TCPMP is best or Coreplayer v1.1.1 looks a tad better, but no performance issues to complain about and absolutely minimul frames dropped.
But because I don't have the time for all that now, I simply settle for torrent downloads and play them directly via TCPMP or Coreplayer. And they look the nuts. Razor sharp.
Hope it works out for you.
P.S. The only benefit IMHO in using WMP10 and WMV (MP4-ASP) video files, is that it will be accelerated by the Imageon hardware decoder, but Coreplayer and TCPMP can use the Imageon software driver to accelerate all movie formats except WMV.
So in conclusion use WMP10 for WMV and the freeware TCPMP v0.71rc with all plug-ins available for everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im gonna look into it as im sure this can be improved but why does it struggle so much at 25 fps
on my psp i cn get 29.97 fps and razor sharp definition using AVC or PMPMOD with no dropped frames at all. Everyone i have ever shown my psp movies to are blown away by the picture quality. the Athena movies look grainy and pixellated in comparison
Im sure the Athena can do more but its a pain finding out
spacecat said:
im gonna look into it as im sure this can be improved but why does it struggle so much at 25 fps
on my psp i cn get 29.97 fps and razor sharp definition using AVC or PMPMOD with no dropped frames at all. Everyone i have ever shown my psp movies to are blown away by the picture quality. the Athena movies look grainy and pixellated in comparison
Im sure the Athena can do more but its a pain finding out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The PSP was designed for multimedia exclusively. every last detail in this respect has been thought through. The Ameo serves a multitude of purposes and utilizes thirdparty software for a great deal of applications. With a few tweaks it works a treat, but its not the same thing. The PSP is an out of the box video and gaming solution and isnt really comparable. Try browsing effectively, typing a word document or sending a text or making a call on your PSP - that would impress your mates!
leoni1980 said:
The PSP was designed for multimedia exclusively. every last detail in this respect has been thought through. The Ameo serves a multitude of purposes and utilizes thirdparty software for a great deal of applications. With a few tweaks it works a treat, but its not the same thing. The PSP is an out of the box video and gaming solution and isnt really comparable. Try browsing effectively, typing a word document or sending a text or making a call on your PSP - that would impress your mates!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not denying what you are saying but I would have thought that a brand new top of the range device costing 700 pounds woud be able to out perform a 2 year old device that you can now pick up for 100 pounds.
I am very happy with most aspects of my Athena its a great device for many things but for movies its quite poor.
I did a conversion in spb dvd at 640x336 as recommended but it was
still poor. The only one that has looked comparable was a 640x480
conversion at 25fps. it looked good but kept skipping frames.
also if you stopped it the player stopped working .TCPMP and CORE
if anyone has a definitive programme and settings for making near dvd quality movies without skipping I would be very interested to hear
spacecat said:
I am not denying what you are saying but I would have thought that a brand new top of the range device costing 700 pounds woud be able to out perform a 2 year old device that you can now pick up for 100 pounds.
I am very happy with most aspects of my Athena its a great device for many things but for movies its quite poor.
I did a conversion in spb dvd at 640x336 as recommended but it was
still poor. The only one that has looked comparable was a 640x480
conversion at 25fps. it looked good but kept skipping frames.
also if you stopped it the player stopped working .TCPMP and CORE
if anyone has a definitive programme and settings for making near dvd quality movies without skipping I would be very interested to hear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you to a degree, although the Ameo is tied to the fact that it uses a generic OS (which automatically leaves it open to performance issue). The PSP on the other hand has an OS specifically designed for it.
I find that since i installed the HTC 001 rom i dont have any playback problems at all. I always select ATI Imageon rather than ATI imageon decoder, and also choose microdrive mode. it works for me
I just tried your settings , I was playing from the memory card
used the microdrive and the ati imageon MUCH MUCH better
no skipping . this was with a 640x336 clip .
I will see what a full 640x480 at 25fps can do tonite
cheers
here is what i use:
Player: TCPMP 0.81 with all plugins
Driver: ATi Imageon
Storage: Microdrive
Bitrate: 600kbps (benchmarked at 625, so 600 is safe )
Framerate: 25fps
Encoder: Divx 6.1
Quality: Insane
Audio: AC3, lowest bitrate etc
works a charm
Midget_1990 said:
here is what i use:
Player: TCPMP 0.81 with all plugins
Driver: ATi Imageon
Storage: Microdrive
Bitrate: 600kbps (benchmarked at 625, so 600 is safe )
Framerate: 25fps
Encoder: Divx 6.1
Quality: Insane
Audio: AC3, lowest bitrate etc
works a charm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what prog do u use to encode the movies?
spacecat said:
what prog do u use to encode the movies?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WinAVI, email me for a 'trial'
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks
I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.
adamelphick said:
I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had tried that some months ago and wasn't that impressed, but maybe they have improved it. What version are you using?
mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb
The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.
fallenczar said:
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks my friend. I'll try those suggestions and let you know.
adamelphick said:
The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for that mate, Just downloading it now, will try it soon.
I stand by my findings...
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.
mackaby007 said:
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming
fallenczar said:
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blimey, I haven't used that format for years, except for downloads from Apple.com...thanks for the tip. I'll look into it once I get some more free time.
Test Clip for download...
Just in case you can't be bothered or have the time to test these settings, just download this test video and see what you think...it's about 8.5 MB in size:
DownloadLink: http://rapidshare.com/files/50811286/10000_BC_HD_xvid.avi
Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?
mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.
juiceppc said:
Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.
panvita said:
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No disrespect panvita, but you obviously have no idea what I've been talking about. Take any of those movies that you say is full screen in Smart Movie and run some test with it,(I use the latest version) and the Smartmovie converter cannot even encode at full VGA 640x480 by default and the PPC SmartMovie player doesn't like most videos encoded by other encoders (its limited).
What I'm trying to say is SmartMovie Player on the PPC is inferior by far to TCPMP and Coreplayer. Check the options in SmartMovie player to show framerate whilst a movie is playing and check the actual resolution too. I think you'll find that it is more often than not, Not real VGA res and when it is, your frame-rate will be terribly slow.
Then run the same movie file in TCPMP or Coreplayer and check your property settings after playing your movie file and you'll see again the frame rate achieved and how many frames were dropped.
Don't mean to sound arrogant or like a Mr Know-it-all, but it is pretty much common knowledge that Coreplayer and TCPMP is far superior to all other PPC based Video players on the market to date, even though 'It' still has its shortcomings.
mackaby007 said:
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.
juiceppc said:
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't argue with that at all. Coreplayer is crap for WMV but that is exactly the format WMP likes to play.
TCPMP on x7501
I am using the TCPMP player on my new Advantage x7501 & it works perfectly!
I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????
Try different settings...somethings wrong with yours.
hirad_sabaghian said:
I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooh do I detect a tone of anger or possibly sarcasm in that last statement/question? hehe
OK, the reason is probably that when you use Coreplayer or TCPMP, you have the Imageon Decoder activated...No good, NOT fixed to work with Coreplayer or TCPMP as yet.
Coreplayer: Under your video settings, ensure you have the following settings checked or enabled:
Video Output: ATI IMAGEON
Video quality: High
Smooth Zoom: On
Dither: Ticked
Acceleration: UNticked (else you'll be using the hardware decoder - no good)
Under Preferences select Direct Draw options page and select the following:
Overlay with colorkey - Ticked
Use blitting instead of overlay - Blank
Use device stretching for blitting - Blank
Overlay format - YV12
There you have it. Last but not least, don't encode videos much beyond 480x320 otherwise the Athena cannot handle it.
Try that my friend.
Same set-up for TCPMP:
Prefer something that is fast and easy to set? It seems even with coreplayer there are some codecs such as sorenson that still can't be handle by the player, would love to have a nice video encoder to do the job for the odd video that doesnt play on hd2.
Thanks!
im using TMPGENC EXPRESS 4.0 .
quality is very good
i have opened a video performance thread in LEO-LEO forum. please check. thanks.
I'm trying different codecs to see which would be better to use.
So far I'm using the mpeg4 standard (MPEG-4 AVC/AAC/MP4), and it works almost flawlessly when using a bit rate of about 3000kbps at 30 FPS (800x480). The videos taken using the Camera are also encoded with mpeg4.
Oh, and I'm using the HTC video player. CorePlayer's performance for the HD2 using either GDI or the raw buffer makes me cringe (and it somehow reduces colors, not sure why; compare HTC's promotional video played in the Album and in CorePlayer).
I'm encoding with MediaCoder, which is free but isn't exactly what I'd call user-friendly.
EDIT: And the performance is even better in Windows Media Player itself.
What the hell, everything's upside-down.
What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?
tnyynt said:
What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing
This one is nice too:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050
-I like the results from this one a little better than 'Video Encoding GUI'. The colors are a bit more saturated which I find nice when I watch on the go..
Yunabeco said:
EDIT: And the performance is even better in Windows Media Player itself.
What the hell, everything's upside-down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, do you mean that the performance in Windows Media Player is better than the performance in HTCAlbum?
Shasarak said:
Sorry, do you mean that the performance in Windows Media Player is better than the performance in HTCAlbum?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find it to be so (I had much less frame skips in WMP). Then again, it might depend on the video.
Try Media Coder its free and works really well.
hassan said:
Try Media Coder its free and works really well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It knows about Nvidia's CUDA . It's the best !!!
I use Handbrake:
http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
The latest version works very well - choose the iphone/ipod touch preset and increase the resolution from the puny 480x320 that the iphone can handle.
tnyynt said:
What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seeing as this thread has come back to life anyway: the Video Encoding GUI does a very good job of converting for a Touch HD, TP2 or TD2, but it has a maximum bit-rate of 1000kb/s, which is really not high enough for an HD2. (On lesser phones if you make the bit-rate any higher you lose smoothness of playback, but on an HD2 you don't have to make that trade-off). MP4ForHD has the same problem. It'd be nice if the author of either of those could do an HD2 version.
So, I'm not sure we've actually come to any useful conclusions in this thread. As I have an HD2 arriving tomorrow, I'm quite keen to start converting some videos for it.
What I need is:
For an original video that is <= 800x480, the resolution should remain unchanged. For a video > 800x480 it should be downscaled to fit within 800x480 with an unchanged aspect ratio. (So, for example, a 512x384 capture should be output as 512x384; 640x360 should be output as 640x360; 1280x720 should be output as 800x450. No cropping under any circumstances.)
The output frame-rate should always be the same as that of the original clip.
The output audio should have the same volume and same sampling rate as the input audio. If the input audio is > 2 channels, it should be downmixed to stereo.
It needs to support container and codec options that are optimised for playback on the HD2 using either HTCAlbum or WMP. (Not sure yet which of these will be best, and am still researching encoding options in other threads!)
The output bitrate should be appropriately reduced for lower-resolution clips automatically.
All of the above needs to be something that is retained from session to session so that you can simply point it to the input file and click "Start" without having to reselect options each time.
It needs to be able to queue up multiple files and process them one at a time.
Good output quality and smoothness of playback is obviously important.
Something that does the encoding quickly rather than slowly is a plus (but I'm stuck using a creaky old 3GHz Pentium IV with on-board GPU at the moment, so am not expecting miracles).
It should be able to handle 720p .mkv files with ac3 audio, and also lower-resolution xvid files.
Freeware would be a big plus.
I've checked out a few of the suggested applications (not all) and most of them seem to lacking at least some of this. Things like Video Encoder GUI or MP4ForHD do an excellent job for lower-spec phones, but the bit-rates are capped at a level that is far too low for optimum performance on the HD2. Some of the more sophisticated applications have some surprising omissions, such as not being able to store settings between sessions, or not being able to specify 800x450 as an output resolution, or not being able to specify 800x480 as a maximum resolution and have it choose the actual output res depending on the input res, or having no option to keep the original frame-rate or the original audio sampling rate, or bit-rate.
There must surely be something out there that covers all this?
Shasarak said:
I've checked out a few of the suggested applications (not all) and most of them seem to lacking at least some of this. Things like Video Encoder GUI or MP4ForHD do an excellent job for lower-spec phones, but the bit-rates are capped at a level that is far too low for optimum performance on the HD2. Some of the more sophisticated applications have some surprising omissions, such as not being able to store settings between sessions, or not being able to specify 800x450 as an output resolution, or not being able to specify 800x480 as a maximum resolution and have it choose the actual output res depending on the input res, or having no option to keep the original frame-rate or the original audio sampling rate, or bit-rate.
There must surely be something out there that covers all this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strangely enough, for me the HD settings on MP4ForHD for encoding did quite a good job of 300 and A Scanner Darkly. Smooth playback and an acceptable quality for a DVD rip. The only issue I faced was a bit of an audio sync issue with 300. The output sizes were approximately 600-700mb
If there could be better output or an easy way to ensure the audio syncs with the video properly, the HD2 would be golden. (I am stuck on a 3 year old laptop which has had some minor processor/hdd/ram upgrade and took 4 hours to encode a DVD for my HD2.
Shasarak said:
Seeing as this thread has come back to life anyway: the Video Encoding GUI does a very good job of converting for a Touch HD, TP2 or TD2, but it has a maximum bit-rate of 1000kb/s, which is really not high enough for an HD2. (On lesser phones if you make the bit-rate any higher you lose smoothness of playback, but on an HD2 you don't have to make that trade-off). MP4ForHD has the same problem. It'd be nice if the author of either of those could do an HD2 version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.
tnyynt said:
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a perfectly valid opinion, but (having done some viewing of the output on a PC screen) it is not one that I happen to share. (Not for downscaled hi-def material, anyway).
What's with MediaCoder? Have you tried this?
seed_al said:
What's with MediaCoder? Have you tried this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I glanced at it. Having spent 10 minutes trying and failing to get it to produce 800x450 output, I gave up. Maybe I should have another go....
niknik76 said:
Nothing
This one is nice too:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050
-I like the results from this one a little better than 'Video Encoding GUI'. The colors are a bit more saturated which I find nice when I watch on the go..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use that one aswell
tnyynt said:
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tested, and for sure that downscaling HD media to a 800x480 screen requires more than 1000kbps to bring out the details.
Are you saying I can install new codecs and be able to record video with them? At the moment I use MPEG at 640x480...I can get better resolution?
Hewy peeps, ive got a core player and was wonder hwo to get a seamless picture when i play an AVI movie.. something like tango an cash or somthing.. it get pixelated in fast action screens.. is Divx any better or does it to the same thing
Tango and Cash? That's so random, lol.
The biggest issue is that Coreplayer does not support the hardware video acceleration afforded by the TP2, and Core has still not addressed this issue.
There are different ways to attack the issue. The best results will probably come from re-encoding your video to a resolution, bitrate, etc. that is more friendly to the TP2. The resolution of your videos is probably simply too much for the phone to handle. But personally, I can't be bothered to re-encode every video I want to watch on my phone. I like being able to watch the same file on my desktop and mobile device.
I've gotten Coreplayer to be somewhat tolerable by tweaking the settings. It seems that lots of people like the QTv video output (under Menu>Tools>Preferences>Video). It runs at a decent frame rate, but has what appears like "tearing", where it looks like one part of the screen is not in sync with the rest. This may or may not be what you call "pixelation", I'm not sure.
To me, the GDI output mode looks better, but seems to slow down the frame rate. I've been able to mitigate that somewhat by playing around with the buffer (also under Menu>Tools>Preferences). The framerate is not great, and once in a while the picture will freeze for a second or 2. But to me, its watchable overall.
c0nv1ct77 said:
Hewy peeps, ive got a core player and was wonder hwo to get a seamless picture when i play an AVI movie.. something like tango an cash or somthing.. it get pixelated in fast action screens.. is Divx any better or does it to the same thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've honestly never used coreplayer for videos like that...I've always had great results using Divx (/Xvid/.avi) files with the player provided by the DivX group themselves...it's not the prettiest player, and it only does vids, but it's done very well even playing files that I haven't bothered to "mobile-optimize". I just rip my DVD's to a .avi file ~700MB in size, and just the amount of compression used to get it to that smaller size is enough for the DivX player to be able to handle it clearly and nearly stutter-free on my TP2.
As a proud owner of both a HD2 and a GoPro Hero HD helmet cam, I was wondering whether there's a WM video player that can handle 1080p H.264 encoded mp4 files.
I'm not asking for fluid playback, obviously, just a stuttering preview of picture quality while I'm away from a real computer.
Coreplayer has a 1008p limit hardcoded into it, from what I understand, so that's not an option. TCPMP didn't work either when I tried.
Any thoughts?
Forget it straight away. Even a 1.2GHz core 2 duo (which is already easily 10 times more powerful, if any comparison is possible) can't even play 1080p h264 at half speed...
The HD2 can barely play DVD res MPEG2.
1080 on HD2? useless... nonsense
as kilrah said... forget it
but one point is not true u can run 1080p X264 movies smooth on a pc with 1.2Ghz Dual Core.. now comes the point! IF... u have a graficcard that supports VDPAU. so even a loosy GeForce 9400 can do that.
XBMC installing as OS. turn VPDAU on.. e voila. smooth HD movies.
on my mom's AsRock ION330 (Atom CPU) with ION GPU (Equal to GeForce 9400M). 1080p movie with x264 in MKV container run's smooth.
and CPU usage is at 12-40% depends on.
have fun
Have you try the "Remote Desktop Mobile" feature....? Which is not "directly" playing on HD2...
I'm not sure if you fully read my original question:
I don't want smooth playback, I know I can't have that,
but simply a way to view stills out of a large h.264 file.
I don't care if rendering one frame takes several seconds.
Have you try the "Remote Desktop Mobile" feature....? Which is not "directly" playing on HD2...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the video files are on my phone, I don't see how Remote
Desktop Mobile is going to help me. Or did I misunderstand
what you are saying?
Yes we did fully read... But do you really think a developer would spend time making a WM program to open and decode a format that no existing device could play?
It's actually something the WM port of vlc could do, if it hadn't been discontinued in 2006 before it could play h264... It had the same capabilities as on other platforms.
@jisin: Of course if you cheat with hardware acceleration But my example was meant to put things on the same level, as the HD2 has none.
Nobody is talking about a seperate program - at least I wasn't. I would think
any player capable of decoding h.264 should handle 1080p, at least in theory.
For example, I don't understand why CorePlayer has a limit at such an arbitrary
number built into it, otherwise it would probably work just fine for my purposes.
TCPMP is witchcraft, as far as I'm concerned, so I don't readily know why it
won't play HD videos.
AFAIK the profiles used to encode HD h.264 are different from the simple ones used for SD videos, and thus need explicit support. The difference between AVC and AVCHD.
For example in VLC, support for HD h.264 has only come last year, long after SD one. Before that, trying to read one would just give you a couple of crippled frames and crash the player.
Just to clarify, AVC and H.264 are the same, or rather AVC is part of H.264.
AVCHD is an extension of H.264/AVC. That's what you meant, right?
In any case, my videos are AVC and not AVCHD encoded.
I really don't see how decoding a higher definition variant of a video codec can
be any different from standard definition, other than the stress on the hardware
of course.
If not coreplayer, then I think nothing.
bayowar said:
As a proud owner of both a HD2 and a GoPro Hero HD helmet cam, I was wondering whether there's a WM video player that can handle 1080p H.264 encoded mp4 files.
I'm not asking for fluid playback, obviously, just a stuttering preview of picture quality while I'm away from a real computer.
Coreplayer has a 1008p limit hardcoded into it, from what I understand, so that's not an option. TCPMP didn't work either when I tried.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coreplayer's limit is 1008 horizontal pixels, I think, so it can't even play 720p, let alone anything higher.
I have a 720p video clip on my phone which will play in HTCAlbum or Pocket Media Player. It's jerky as hell and completely unwatchable, but it does play. You might find a 1080p clip would play in it too, I don't know. But it wouldn't give you any kind of meaningful preview.
I dont understand why you would want to try and view the image quality of a 1080p file on a 800 x 480 screen? It's never going to look any better than a similarly encoded 480p file. I would agree that it's handier to not have to re-encode files, but most 1080p files are downloaded as mkv anyway, which means that you would need to reencode into MP4. You may aswell reduce the resolution to 800 x 480 and save loads of memory while your at it.
Ad-james said:
which means that you would need to reencode into MP4. You may aswell reduce the resolution to 800 x 480 and save loads of memory while your at it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't get the point. He has a camcorder that doesn't have a screen. He wants to put its memory card in the HD2 and have a glimpse of what he just shot could have been like.
But yes, it would only allow checking framing if it took several seconds to load each frame, not much more...
WMP plays the sound, not the video, HTC Album came up with an error I think.
And yes, kilrah, that's exactly it. Should have mentioned that the camcorder
doesn't have a screen.
Shasarak said:
Coreplayer's limit is 1008 horizontal pixels, I think, so it can't even play 720p, let alone anything higher.
I have a 720p video clip on my phone which will play in HTCAlbum or Pocket Media Player. It's jerky as hell and completely unwatchable, but it does play. You might find a 1080p clip would play in it too, I don't know. But it wouldn't give you any kind of meaningful preview.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the main problem is the lake of drivers in windows mobile 6 series as hd2 processor is mentiond to support 720p videos at 30 frame /sec
kilrah said:
Forget it straight away. Even a 1.2GHz core 2 duo (which is already easily 10 times more powerful, if any comparison is possible) can't even play 1080p h264 at half speed...
The HD2 can barely play DVD res MPEG2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think it depends on the codec and bitrate... i can run 1080p h.264 fine on my 1ghz athlon using coreavc
Is there any codec which make possible to view h.264 stream in windows media player?
I can get stream from my internet aceess box which are very smooth with CorePlayer but I would like to know if there is any codec which make it possible with the native multimedia player!
Thanks
i downloade ttansformers hd (1080p) from youtube and coreplayer played that completely O.K. but i couldn't got it to play almost most .mp4 ones. it plays some .mp4 but doesn't many. also plays raw 640x480 videos from my digital camera not smooth but acceptable.
Camcorder that doesnt have a screen???
720p dont play in hd2 forget about 1080, it cant handle the resolution or the bitrates.
I don't know why Microsoft/HTC didnt done things right.
I have HD2 dual boot with Android.
where WM unable to play 720P but Android on same HD2 play 1080 smooth and crisp with out any frame delay/skip.
I think Microsoft has to optimize there graphics driver to come at par with Android.
Thanks
Pawan