Database Users

Playing video formats?

The Blackstone is the first smart/windows mobile phone i have had so after recieving my phone i tried some of my video files but (as i expected) windows media wudn't play them, i have seen on other threads that alot of people mention Core Player 1.2.5 and wondered if anyone could give answer me a few quick questions:
1. Does Core Player play most formats (im trying to play x264.mp4 and dixv .avi)
2. Where can i find Core Player?
3. is it a free program? if not how much is it in GBP?

Go to www.coreplayer.com and see for yourself. I think on their homepage they anwser pretty much all your questions.
Ascenca

Thanks - Don't know why didn't find their site!

I had this problem - Core Player 1.2.5 plays all files perfectly on the HD - commuting will never be the same again...

Which version do i need?
CorePlayer Mobile For PocketPC / Windows Mobile
CorePlayer Mobile for SmartPhone
I assume its the SmartPhone version?

This is the version you need: https://www.mobihand.com/cart1.asp?posid=130&pid=8905
(mobile/WM)

HD is a PocketPC

working
Coreplayer 2,5 works perfectly.The PocketPc version the smartphone one is for devices without touchscreen.
Its a commercial software.
Ideal is to use the Qtv display as video output.
I tried different encoded format and the best result is encode the avi files with following attributes:
dimension 640*480
Bitrate between 700 and 750
Framerate 25fps
Audio MP3
Stereo 128kps
Frecuency 44100 Hz.
You can use a higher bitrate till 1200 , but the video doen't play always very smootly then

I tried a couple widescreen (960x540) files in different formats (wmv, mov, avi) with coreplayer 2.5, and none of them would play anywhere near smoothly. the mov played with about 1.5 fps, the wmv with about 5 fps und the avi with something like 7 fps. do any of the numerous settings in coreplayer need to be changed or is the device simply not powerful enough for full native resolution video playback?

just tried some more videos, this time a 1 MBit/s 480x270 wmv file, and even that couldn't be played in any useful way:
played frames: 85
dropped: 447
did you change anything in the core player settings to achieve proper playback?

obstler said:
I tried a couple widescreen (960x540) files in different formats (wmv, mov, avi) with coreplayer 2.5, and none of them would play anywhere near smoothly. the mov played with about 1.5 fps, the wmv with about 5 fps und the avi with something like 7 fps. do any of the numerous settings in coreplayer need to be changed or is the device simply not powerful enough for full native resolution video playback?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Firstly, the issue with the video files comes from the fact that they're larger than the resolution of the screen. (your video=960x540, HD=800x460) This means that as well as decoding and playing the video, it also has to scale the video down to it's resolution. This is why it's stuttering. Full native resolution video playback is 800x640 which, incidentally, is the native resolution of DVDs, so if DVD rips have been encoded properly, should not need resizing or re-encoding to play on the HD. (feel free to be skeptical of this, I don't own a HD yet so can't confirm this)
The 1Mbps file possibly wasn't playing properly for that exact reason, it was 1Mbps. As BerreZ states, the highest bitrate to get good playback is 750Kbp

Thanks, got CorePlayer up and running now works like a dream!

I'm waiting for funds to clear so i can finally order one of these bad boys. I'm not too demanding when it comes to video playback on the phone. 700KBPS is the standard encoding of dvd rips isn't it? like, your traditional torrent movie file.So it looks like we can play them on the HD then using coreplayer? I'm not to concerned about HD quality playback and i've been using an XDA2i for 5 years, mainly for clips and such when bored at the bus station .
Maybe with a higher capacity card I might throw a movie or two on there
....IB a n e

BANE said:
I'm waiting for funds to clear so i can finally order one of these bad boys. I'm not too demanding when it comes to video playback on the phone. 700KBPS is the standard encoding of dvd rips isn't it? like, your traditional torrent movie file.So it looks like we can play them on the HD then using coreplayer? I'm not to concerned about HD quality playback and i've been using an XDA2i for 5 years, mainly for clips and such when bored at the bus station .
Maybe with a higher capacity card I might throw a movie or two on there
....IB a n e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a)Native DVD resolution is not 800x640
b)700Kbps is not the "Standard Encoding" for DVD rips.
bitrate will depend on the size of the encode, the length of the movie.

Apologies, my mistake.
...Ib a n e

Urgh -it's payware. Another cost.

Is there a decent free avi/media player?

One time, I got a cab, but lost it, with some codecs to play divx and other on the Media player. Does anyone knows something like that??

I just purchased CorePlayer. It gave me v1.3.6 not 2.5. Anyway I have tried a divx and avi film. With both I just saw a green haze for a bit and I needed to soft reset the device to recover.
I downloaded the cab not exe and installed it directly onto the device. My films are on storage.
I get a "Copy & Convert" dialogue box with "Convertion (None)" and it seems to do nothing for a while but it does seem to copy the file across ok. What that means is I can see it in explorer. That said it seems to take several runs at it and the bars never go beyond three or so.
Have I just got the wrong resolution?
Any ideas?

[Video] Best playback on Xperia

I think it's about time for us to clear a few things up concerning video playback on the X1.
The X1 can play most codecs using Coreplayer Mobile.
However, to optimize video's for the X1 and windows media player, a converter such as SUPER can be used.
Please note that optimizing your X1 is advised. See this thread for more information.
Now what I would like to find out is what settings work best for the X1 to playback video with a few different preset configurations.
What we need to know is the optimal:
Resolution
Framerate
Video Codec
Video Bitrate
Audio Codec
Audio Bitrate
Audio Sampling Frequency
Container
And any other/better tools to use.
To be able to better compare results I've uploaded the Crysis Warhead HD Trailer. You can download it here.
Please use this trailer to compare and post your settings in this thread.
This thread will be updated with new information as it arises. The second post contains an example of settings I used and will be updated with user posted settings that work well.
--- Important information ---
* CorePlayer is not hardware accelerated. This means that CorePlayer is more likely to play your video's choppy. The built-in media player, however, does have hardware acceleration. To get the best video performance, at this moment the built-in media player is your best choice.
* The h.264 codec is supported by the built-in media player and currently has the best compression vs quality ratio.
--- Downloads ---
Coreplayer Mobile
SUPER

--- Source file ---
Setting: HD Quality - 63.4MB @ 0hrs, 1min, 32sec.
Resolution: 1280 x 720
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: WMV9
Video Bitrate: 6090 kb/s
Audio Codec: WMA9
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: WMV
Download example here: Source file
--- Settings --- Here the optimal settings will be provided as they become available.
Configuration: Low Quality - 4.7MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 280MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 400x240
Framerate: 25
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 192 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 22050
Audio Bitrate:: 64 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Low Quality
Configuration: Medium Quality - 5.9MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 350MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 400x240
Framerate: 25
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 384 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Medium Quality
Configuration: High Quality - 10.4MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 620MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 608x368
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 768
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: High Quality
Configuration: Highest Quality - 16.8MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 1000MB for 1.5hrs of movie)
Resolution: 800x480
Framerate: 30
Video Codec: h.264
Video Bitrate: 1294 kb/s
Audio Codec: AAC
Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100
Audio Bitrate:: 128 kb/s
Container: mp4
Download example here: Highest Quality
---
When posting settings, supply the same information as I do here.

Good you have come up with this.. once we all share I think we can reach to as what best converter settings we can use for X1... After reading lot of material... I use these settings which gives me full screen decent/smooth run movies.. had no problems at all... but don't know if they are the best settings... check it out :
Xvid MPEG-4 Codec, 569 Target bitrate, 23.976 fps, Screen Size 640x384, Sound Mp3 128 to 160 kbit/s. Encoder used : TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. ( The best converter with total cut/edit features )
Let me know the results.

Nero Recode 3
AVC in MP4, 400x240, ~400kbps
HE-AAC, ~80kbps,
Runs excellent in the Mediapanel and did quite good (but worse) in the Coreplayer 1.2.5, when I still had it installed. Switched to the Panel completely for playing back my mp4 rips.
Uh, theres a template. Well then, again:
Resolution 400x240
Codec AVC/h.264
Framerate 25 or as source if lower
Video Bitrate ~400kbps
Audio Sampling as source
Audio Bitrate HE-AAC, ~80kbps

I have tried so many diff combination but still haven't found one optimal to use with the x1. This thread will be great for me to do more testing. I usually super or aimersoft. Please chime in if you use those above software to encode video.

I'm at work right now so can't be 100% sure, but as I remember (it's discussed in threads in the main SE X1 forum section) for the highest quality you can get on x1, encode the files for Baseline 1.3 h264, 800x450 max resolution, 30fps, and play them on wm media player or the media panel.
Videos will not run well at anything near that resolution on core player or tcpmp, they don't use the hardware acceleration that's available to media player and the media panel, although tcpmp and coreplayer will handle many more codecs.

Thanks for the additions people, I've uploaded a better video file to test with. It's HD by default so you can actually see the difference between high quality encoded and low/medium.
For those who post configurations, please (please!) stick to the template, I will try and reproduce the settings so I can judge them and add them to the topic.
I would like more information on the hardware acceleration topic as well;
1) Why isn't coreplayer hardware accelerated?
2) Can it be changed so it is?
3) Are there any other/better video players out there?

Because the driver specifications are not available and the hardware cant be accessed by third party programmers
CorePlayer team said in their forum they got hold of Qualcomm and are working to provide hardware acceleration for any MSM7xxx chipset having the graphics hardware in one of the next builds of the player
Better regarding what aspect?

Thanks for your reply. I'd like to see what CorePlayer can do if they manage to get the hardware acceleration working.
Better regarding smooth playback and codec support. Perhaps there's a way to add codecs to the Winmo media player?
EDIT: Updated with new configurations, all based on h.264 (for best compression/quality ratio)
EDIT2: Added another setting, tested for quality and uploaded all examples for your viewing pleasure.
EDIT3: Tested the movies on my X1. From low to high the quality is visibly better every time, so that's a good thing. On the highest quality setting proposed above, the graphics were stunning, however, it ran choppy, it looked like my X1 couldn't keep up with that high bitrate & resolution. I'd like more opinions, who else will test them!? (Tested with windows mobile media player).

Who can help me test the highest settings?

Angelusz said:
EDIT3: Tested the movies on my X1. From low to high the quality is visibly better every time, so that's a good thing. On the highest quality setting proposed above, the graphics were stunning, however, it ran choppy, it looked like my X1 couldn't keep up with that high bitrate & resolution. I'd like more opinions, who else will test them!? (Tested with windows mobile media player).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look at my post (#31) here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=460294&page=4
especially this:
Jabe said:
2.) this one is the important one. Do not change screen resolution. Original file was 624x352 and when I set it to 800x like you suggested the playback was somewhat jerky when people were moving. So I set it to "no cnahge" and gained 2 things:
- output quality was far superior (i don't know about that if you choose smaller resolution, like converting HD to 800x)
- the conversion is much faster. before it took 1h10min, now it takes 45min. in other words, encoding speed went from 0.7x to 1.0x.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think we are talking about the same thing. I've noticed that increasing resolution does cause some problems. I use Media Panel for playing my videos.

I do use the Mediapanel as well, it might be imagination but I found it to be the best player regarding playback performance.
Upscaling a smaller source file in image size will worsen the quality massively. Think about how a codec works: upscaling means making the image look "soft" or "washed out". These soft or washed out images are then used by the codec to predict differencies and/or movements between the frames and then this data is used to render the subsequent frames. Since the whole image (being washed out) figuratively looks "all the same" (its just a soup of different unspecific colours) the codec has hardcore problems predicting movements between the single frames. Thus the prediction is bad, based on an already bad image, multiplies the bad effect onto every subsequent frame.

Display Driver Assist - Does it improve video ?
This is an interesting thread, please let me add my experience of converting and watching video on my Xperia.
Firstly this program DVD Catalyst won the top award for converting DVD to almost any format to any resolution, any bitrate.
Here is the URL : http://www.pocketdvd.ca/products/dvd catalyst 3.html
Here is the URL for SmartPhone Awards list for all the best in catagory software for video coversion for Pocket PC 2008.
http://www.smartphonemag.com/cms/awards/2008/winners_ppc_apps#CatDVD_Converters
If you download the trial of DVD Catalyst you can have 15 days of free fully functional DVD conversions, thats enough to convert almost anybodies collection. I do intend to buy this when I get round to it.
I experimineted with different formats and resolutions and here were my conclusions.
Format - Sony Media Panel seems to like the 3gp format best ( subjective )
Resolution - I use the maximum 800 X 480
Bitrate - 750 kbps though 500 is still very good.
Audio 128 kbps Stereo
All these options can easily be changed in the converter, you can set your PC Processor prioirty to high ( recommended) or highest if you not doing anything else and a complete 2 hour DVD, with high prioirty for processor will be converted and ready for copying to your X1 in about 35 - 40 mins.
Also I found my Xperia settings had an impact on video playback quality, none more so than Glyph cache, which I now have at 128kb.
I am currently experimenting with the " Display driver preloader " you can find on the thread by ell82...http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462346
In it he uses this file, libgles_cl.dll, copied into the windows directory, to add hardware acceleration to some 3D games. This as close as we have come so far in adding hardware acceleration across the board to all programs on the X1, obviously this needs some testing and benchmarking, something this thread is very good at.
This file does not replace any windows files, you can add it to WINDOWS folder and remove it at will, it doesn't hurt, over right or harm anything.
Im using it on and off, id like to see some hard data on it, it may not be the magic bullet we have all been waiting for, but it could be a move in the right direction.
View attachment 139876

Mark A Cilenti said:
Format - Sony Media Panel seems to like the 3gp format best ( subjective )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3GP is not a format, its only a container. The content, video wise, is either SP, ASP or AVC video (mostly, accepts a wide range of codecs though) and audio is AMR or AAC. In fact you don't follow the standard at all, your files are NOT 3GP COMPILANT. Since 3GP is just a simplified version of the MP4 container anyway, of which the latter is more versatile regarding possible content and resolution restrictions, I would definitely abandon 3GP and go for MP4. Of course with AVC video and a flavor of AAC audio.

Maybe noob question (I haven't got an sdhcmicro card so cannot test myself):
On my hx2790 tcpmp (ver 0.72, last version) always worked a treat on default 700-1500mb divx and xvids. You loaded lots of movies on a 8gb card and opened them with tcpmp. Some movies required AC3 sound and there was a plug in for that too. The movies played back 100% flawlessly.
Can we not just do this in the X1?

gold333 said:
Can we not just do this in the X1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, not yet.

700mb dvd rips run fine in coreplayer, but for fast scenes it lags like hell

Here's what I do:
Open PocketDivXEncoder
Select the 'HD TV' option
Resize to 400xABC (maintain aspect ratio)
Video quality = 70
Audio = max
Coreplayer runs it flawlessly and looks great, even fast scenes.
Watched the first season of both Burn Notice and Merlin with no issues in action packed scenes

totally agreed with coreplayer ! really better than movie player in the XMB Panel !!!! you can find my thread here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3093597#post3093597
Don't know why it is so slow with the XMB Panel & so better in core player !
Core Player : reverserd enginered the chipset.... really difficult thing & to be really/fully optimized but it works better than the std XMB movie player !!!! (written by who ? sony developers or htc ? or together ?, they should buy corecodec ! )

dadeadman said:
700mb dvd rips run fine in coreplayer, but for fast scenes it lags like hell
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But tcpmp 0.72 doesn't? Tcpmp was the ultimate micro footprint everything player for mobile devices.

"Perfect" HandBrake settings for TP2?

So is there such a thing as "perfect" handbrake settings for TP2?
I've been playing with it a couple of hours, and these are the settings I'm down to using:
Output Settings, Format: MP4 file
Picture Settings tab: 640 x 400 (what are you guys using?)
Video Tab: Video Codec MPEG-4 (FFmpeg), framerate 29.97, 2 pass encoding, average bitrate (kbps) 600
Audio&Subtitles tab: Automatic Source, AAC Audio Codec, Mixdown Dolby Pro Logic II, samplerate Khz Auto, Bitrate (kps) 160
I haven't really touched anything else, but with these settings I seem to be getting the slightest lag where sometimes I can perceive the frame rate, for lack of a better term. It's as if the smoothness is about 90% - 95% there, but not quite. Anything I can do about that? I tried making the width x height numbers smaller, but it didn't seem to work.
What are you guys using for handbrake settings? Are you touching any other settings than the ones I mention above?

I've tried all sorts of setting with HandBrake (including yours, just now) and there always appears to be a bit of a stutter. I've had much more luck using SUPER encoder (encoding to AVI).

I just reencoded a divx file to MP4 using x.264 compression and it plays smooth as silk using the HTC album application. That was on the latest 6.5.1 (504) Valkyrie (sp?) ROM as of a couple of days ago. I am probably going to flash to the new 28002 Energy ROM tonight so we'll see if it still works there.

Avatar28 said:
I just reencoded a divx file to MP4 using x.264 compression and it plays smooth as silk using the HTC album application. That was on the latest 6.5.1 (504) Valkyrie (sp?) ROM as of a couple of days ago. I am probably going to flash to the new 28002 Energy ROM tonight so we'll see if it still works there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What were you other settings on handbrake? I guess you selected h.264(x264) under the video tab. What did you use for avg. bitrate on the video tab and what did you use for width/height or anything else under the "picture settings" tab?
I'm not familiar with the ROM stuff you're referring to.
Thanks for the info. I'm still playing with these handbrake settings!

ualdriver said:
What were you other settings on handbrake? I guess you selected h.264(x264) under the video tab. What did you use for avg. bitrate on the video tab and what did you use for width/height or anything else under the "picture settings" tab?
I'm not familiar with the ROM stuff you're referring to.
Thanks for the info. I'm still playing with these handbrake settings!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, the site freaked out and I couldn't finish my post. Anyways, I actually used the free version of Any Video Converter and not handbrake (I got them both about the same time. That theoretically shouldn't make that much of a difference though when using the same settings. It just seems a bit easier to me to use.
I went with the original size. It might not make a difference but I have this nice, high-res screen, might as well take advantage of it, right? Original size in this case was 592x320. Video bitrate was set at 768k and the audio was 128k AAC. Windows shows them slightly lower in the file properties for whatever reason, though, 749k and 125k respectively.
My final file size was around 554 MB compared to right around 1000 MB for the original xvid. This was for an hour and a half movie.
I think you could approximate the settings by using the xbox 360 profile and changing the target bitrate for video and audio to something closer to the values I used.
Edit: This is the link to the ROM I was using. You will note that it appears to have updated D3D drivers so that might make a difference as I have heard of people having stuttering issues with WM 6.5 using the HTC album player in Manila. I point that out because the HTC player is apparently one of the only ones capable of taking advantage of the GPU accleration in the phone to handle the video decoding. Other players are more likely to stutter due to doing CPU decoding.

Presets
I haven't used Handbrake in about a month. I used 0.93 for Windows. When I converted something for my phones, I would use the Iphone/Ipod Touch preset. It's converts to a h.264 MP4 file. I would dial back the resolution for my Tilt. With my Tilt2 I raise the preset resolution to 800 instead of 640. I play it with the latest Coreplayer or TCPMP GF5500 Edition. The videos are amazing. I have been trying the GUI posted earlier because it's much faster.

bennyj71 said:
I haven't used Handbrake in about a month. I used 0.93 for Windows. When I converted something for my phones, I would use the Iphone/Ipod Touch preset. It's converts to a h.264 MP4 file. I would dial back the resolution for my Tilt. With my Tilt2 I raise the preset resolution to 800 instead of 640. I play it with the latest Coreplayer or TCPMP GF5500 Edition. The videos are amazing. I have been trying the GUI posted earlier because it's much faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!
Avatar28 said:
I went with the original size. It might not make a difference but I have this nice, high-res screen, might as well take advantage of it, right? Original size in this case was 592x320. Video bitrate was set at 768k and the audio was 128k AAC. Windows shows them slightly lower in the file properties for whatever reason, though, 749k and 125k respectively.
My final file size was around 554 MB compared to right around 1000 MB for the original xvid. This was for an hour and a half movie.
I think you could approximate the settings by using the xbox 360 profile and changing the target bitrate for video and audio to something closer to the values I used.
Edit: This is the link to the ROM I was using. You will note that it appears to have updated D3D drivers so that might make a difference as I have heard of people having stuttering issues with WM 6.5 using the HTC album player in Manila. I point that out because the HTC player is apparently one of the only ones capable of taking advantage of the GPU accleration in the phone to handle the video decoding. Other players are more likely to stutter due to doing CPU decoding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks. I'll have to try the x264 setting. I thought I tried that once with handbrake when I was playing with a 10 minute DVD trailer, but for some reason my TP2 wouldn't play it. It might have been just a bad file conversion that particular time, but I assumed at the time it was just an unusable conversion type. I have been using the MPEG4 (FFmpeg) file and that seemed to work every time. I haven't a clue what the difference is.
I think I'm still using WM 6.1. I'm relatively new to this stuff and I'm not too sure about what a ROM is. I know it means "read only memory," but how it applies to my phone or how I can modify it and what the consequences are of changing it- I don't understand.

Ive used Super to convert a DVD rip of Iron Man to my TP2 @ 720x 480 resolution @ 1200kbps in MP4 h246 and it looks sexy! you have to make sure all other apps are closed and surprisingly enough, Windows Media Player handles this file with ease(Windows media player actually works now!It only took 10 years!lol) and framerate is movie speed @29.970. Even more surprising is the fact that this is playing on a virgin device( running the stock ATT ROM till tomorrow....) and the current ROM is incredibly bloated.

"Avidemux" is an awesome program to easily convert your movies. I use "Handbrake" to RIP but I find "Avidemux" much better for movie/video conversions. it has presets but will also let you setup formats, crops, etc. anyway you want. It has enormous capability and still easy to use. I use it to convert to 640 x (?) (xvid) mp4 @ 700 kbps with 128 kbps AAC audio for use with the Album player and it is sharp with no stuttering. I am going to use it to convert to x264 mp4 @ 1000 kbps and see how WMP handles it as a test but I generally despise WMP.

Handbrake
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?

NH3MAN said:
"Avidemux" is an awesome program to easily convert your movies. I use "Handbrake" to RIP but I find "Avidemux" much better for movie/video conversions. it has presets but will also let you setup formats, crops, etc. anyway you want. It has enormous capability and still easy to use. I use it to convert to 640 x (?) (xvid) mp4 @ 700 kbps with 128 kbps AAC audio for use with the Album player and it is sharp with no stuttering. I am going to use it to convert to x264 mp4 @ 1000 kbps and see how WMP handles it as a test but I generally despise WMP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
omarmir said:
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks guys, I'll try them.

omarmir said:
I've never posted here before but after trying Core Player and its stuttering after I installed Mighty Rom i found that using the standard IPod Touch and Iphone settings showed video clear as all hell with no stutter (changed resolution - increased a little).
Try it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn! Finally. I posted about this 15 days ago. You should update to the new Handbrake. It's much faster.

The Best Settings and the best CONVERTER For TP2
In 2 weeks I've tried it all. 8 converters to be exact. The best one out there worth anyones time is a converter call AVS Video Converter 6.3(not free but reall worth it trust me). It has it all! It's pretty quick compare to the rest, but most importantly pumps out excellent video quality with smooth framerate. There's a few that's faster but most of them has bad famerates, bad quality, or both. Yes bad framerate playing on my super computer. The best settings that work for my TP2 is the following:M4vipod at 415 bitrate, 24fps, 640X384. Plays smooth looks great can't ask for more!
Converters I Tried: Handbrake 9.3 too slow
Handbrake 9.4 got sound no video?
Iwisoft choppy framerate looks very promising waiting for a newer version
Ultra mobile 3gp not enough settings file comes out to big and to slow
Any Video Converter when it works it very good, freezes to often during conversions plus to slow.
And a few others I don't remember.
Thanks hope I can help.

how come I only got the sound with no video from the H264 files I converted with Handbrake on max OS X....

I have been trying to get my new Sprint Touch Pro 2 to run movies smoothly using Windows Media Player Mobile. This is a very difficult task... I think I have just succeeded. At first, I was using Handbrake to encode my DVD using the 640 resolution setting. This worked great for playing on my home computer, but after using Mobile Device Center to Sync my TP2 and playing the MP4 in Windows Media Player Mobile, I only got video to play and NO AUDIO.
This was very frustrating for a long time. I finally solved the problem. I increased the video resolution to 720 in Handbrake (leaving the audio settings as is), and bingo....the audio and video both play using Windows Media Player Mobile. I used the 23fps, 16:9 setting and 768 bitrate and it plays pretty well. Not sure why audio is not playing using the 640 resolution...any ideas???
-Chris

So I must be doing something wrong. Im using a failry new pc (Acer Iconia Tablet PC) and I started to convert a file in Handbrake last night around 12, 8am this morning its still converting.. what is the deal here?
I am trying to convert a .m4v file to .mp4 and the issue is that the file has subtitled I need to have burned in. I typically use videora but it didn't recognize the file.
I did the settings here (iphone settings) and i actually queued up 2 versions one with ac3 audio and one with aac, not sure which one i was supposed to choose.
Everything else was standard (subtitles burned in).
the movie is a 2.5 hour movie why is it taking so long.
I wish I was better with using vlc's conversion settings.

Double post on accident

I don't know the perfect settings, but these at least get you going with good results. They require modifying a profile which is x264 level 2.1 before I found this out I had some hit and miss results with 0.9.3 occasional green screen with sound in the Album player and consistently no video in the higher versions.
I'm using 0.9.5 now. The first thing you want to do is uncheck "always use iPod friendly file extension (.m4v) for mp4" in Tools>Options>General and maybe enable Query Editor tab in Tools>Options>Advanced/Other.
Then you want to pick the level 2.1 Apple preset: iPhone & iPod Touch
Change the Audio Mixdown to Stereo, Samplerate to 48
Change the Video to Avg Bitrate 1000 for lower res, 650 for near or full 800x480
Preset>Save Preset
Minor changes to the new preset can now be saved by right clicking on it.
MDavisiw said:
So I must be doing something wrong. Im using a failry new pc (Acer Iconia Tablet PC) and I started to convert a file in Handbrake last night around 12, 8am this morning its still converting.. what is the deal here?
I am trying to convert a .m4v file to .mp4 and the issue is that the file has subtitled I need to have burned in. I typically use videora but it didn't recognize the file.
I did the settings here (iphone settings) and i actually queued up 2 versions one with ac3 audio and one with aac, not sure which one i was supposed to choose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Encoders need raw power your tablet PC has a specialised processor. I don't think you can burn in subtitles yet in Handbrake unless the source is DVD and they're VobSub (unsure about BluRay source) and the Audio must be set to AAC.
I think you will need to use Avidemux which has support for burning in many subtitle formats. I didn't have much luck with it up to now as it appears the Windows stable version r7200 is quite broken, partially rendered VobSubs, and crashing during encoding. So far so good using the latest beta r7317 hosted by Gruntster on the iPod preset.

[Q] [REQUEST] Hardware HD decoding

Hello XDA people,
I own an ePad and an HTC HD2.
When I put an MKV 720P file (probably encoded with x264) on my microSD card, the ePad plays it perfectly with Act one video player. When I try it using my HD2 its says "android media server died". And rockplayer can only software decode it, which is very slow and laggy.
Is there any way I can simply download and watch my HD TV series? The SD versions work but it's just not very sharp.
Tim

An hd movie played on the hd2 will only be 480x800, so it's still watching a sd movie in that case. >.>

That's true, however, when I grab the SD version of the TV show, it's 624x352 and a lower bitrate. So you can see a difference. Also, if I download the HD version I can still decide to watch it on my laptop and fully enjoy the resolution, rather than having to download the HD and SD version.
A friend with a Galaxy S tried to play an 720P MKV, and it plays it very well with hardware encoding, so I guess it's a driver issue?

Yes it is a driver issue, or more like it's not built in. Our snapdragon doesn't know how to process mkv files.

timleferink said:
Hello XDA people,
I own an ePad and an HTC HD2.
When I put an MKV 720P file (probably encoded with x264) on my microSD card, the ePad plays it perfectly with Act one video player. When I try it using my HD2 its says "android media server died". And rockplayer can only software decode it, which is very slow and laggy.
Is there any way I can simply download and watch my HD TV series? The SD versions work but it's just not very sharp.
Tim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you say "properly encoded with x264", what profile are you using? I used the wrong profile in Handbrake and ended up with choppy/laggy video on my HD2. Fixing the encoding options (read the tooltips on the Advanced tab in the latest version of Handbrake) results in a larger file (because it's compressed less-aggressively, so the player doesn't need to do so much work) that plays just fine on my HD2.
I've been ripping my DVDs and making .mp4s from them in Handbrake just fine. They're encoded to 720p and all play without any problems.
(Although Handbrake seems to have problems with using the correct height, but that's a HB problem).

Hello,
Do you think it will be possible to have hardware encoding any time soon? Or wil this never work?
@Splines
I actually ment 'probably', in this case the episode was downloaded from a newsgroup.
The video Data is:
"Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=5
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 21mn 52s
Bit rate : 3 120 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.141
Stream size : 477 MiB (85%)
Writing library : x264 core 110 r1804 e89c4cf"
What player do you use to watch the video's if I may ask?

timleferink said:
Hello,
Do you think it will be possible to have hardware encoding any time soon? Or wil this never work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt it, especially because Leo is a WinMo device, not Android, which means hardware manufacturers will not provide drivers or code to achieve this.

timleferink said:
Hello,
Do you think it will be possible to have hardware encoding any time soon? Or wil this never work?
@Splines
I actually ment 'probably', in this case the episode was downloaded from a newsgroup.
The video Data is:
<snip/>
What player do you use to watch the video's if I may ask?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
(I'd linkify my links, but I"m a new users here and the forum software won't let me).
See the table here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Profile
From your video meta-data, it's encoded with the "High" profile. I'm not familiar with the H.264 decoding algorithms, but I'm willing to bet that you won't find any video player on your HD2 that can decode that video in real-time.
Most mobile devices adhere to the Baseline Profile (BP). Here's what you need to do: Go and install Handbrake. Run it and create a new device profile (click "Add" in the bottom right-hand corner).
Switch to the Advanced tab and make sure yours looks like this: i.imgur.com/AEkFf.png
Right click on the new profile you created, and click "Save Changes".
Now, you might need to muck with the picture size on the first tab, but that's not too important since you're just trying to get the video playing smoothly.
Load your source video, and encode it to a new file. It should play just perfectly on your HD2.
I've tried several video players, and when I had the encoding options wrong, the only one that worked was VitalPlayer, but I had artifacts all over the screen. With these settings, any player that actually works in my ROM loads and plays the video just fine (ironically, VitalPlayer doesn't work in the ROM I have flashed right now). The stock video player, Meridian, mVideoPlayer, Zimly, all work fine. I suspect that the majority of the video players in the app store use the same engine to decode the video.

I tried recoding the file. It now plays better, but still only 10fps and the video is running behind. No other options I guess? Recoding to 800x480 is way to much of a hastle for me.
This is a major setback, I'll see if someone with a Desire can test it.

Get a better version of RockPlayer and try again. Look at the ARMv7 links on the right...
http://rockplayer.freecoder.org/index_en.html
I found that a LOT better than the version available on the market.

Too bad, tried the latest version and got the same results.
Do you think a desire build would be better since it also has a snapdragon cpu?
Tim

[Q] Video - got conversions right but new problem

So I must admit, from a video playback issue, I've never owned a more frustrating device. That being said, because I love everything else about the XOOM, I've been willing to work to achieve good results. I have achieved great video quality with encoding times similar to what I saw when targeting my iPad, and file sizes that are totally manageable. I have attached the Handbrake profile I'm using. I hope everyone achieves similarly satisfying results. I am using Rockplayer.
OK, on to my new problem. Whenever I adjust the volume and it brings up the volume slider, the video slows though the audio continues, dropping the video out of sync. I have to jump ahead or back to bring the video back into sync. It is similar to the lag in video playback that happens when I first launch the video, but in this case, the playback corrects itself within seconds. Can anyone help with this issue?
I've messed with my XOOM like crazy since getting it, constantly installing and uninstalling applications and files. Could this be an issue?
Thanks in advance for your help!

While using RockPlayer are you using software or hardware decoding? Go to settings, scroll to the bottom and see if hardware decoding mode is checked. If not then check it, but please note you will have to uncheck the box when you want to decode non converted formats like Divx, Xvid, and MKV.
P.S. If all of your video files are properly converted H.264 videos with .mp4 containers you should be able to use use the gallery application to play all your videos, and if you don't like the gallery application for videos you can just use a file manager like astro or IO to select the videos from their folder and play them with the built in video player.

I personally use Total video converter & I have no problems with my video or audio.handbrake just wasn't what I was looking for.total video converter works flawlessly.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

CJNYC said:
OK, on to my new problem. Whenever I adjust the volume and it brings up the volume slider, the video slows though the audio continues, dropping the video out of sync. I have to jump ahead or back to bring the video back into sync. It is similar to the lag in video playback that happens when I first launch the video, but in this case, the playback corrects itself within seconds. Can anyone help with this issue?
I've messed with my XOOM like crazy since getting it, constantly installing and uninstalling applications and files. Could this be an issue?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some people have reported similar issues when using HB for various Droid models.
Personally I use the build-in Gallery for video playback, because it makes use of the hardware acceleration.
If you are interested, I have a few samples of 720p and 1080p video files on my website that play perfectly on the Xoom. Links on the site will stream as well.

Yes, I'm using hardware decoding in Rockplayer and I always used Handbrake for my iPad and Epic without issue. When I use the native gallery video player, the problem is worse, as the video starts to lag just from bringing up the playback controls. This is very frustrating. I will try some different converters and see how that goes.
Dvdcatalyst, I will give a few of your videos a try and report back.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

DVD Catalyst works great. I use the stock player and haven't had a single problem.
(Change the video quality to 1750 kbs in the Xoom preset).

i have no problem switching to DVD Catalyst but have one question...does it have the ability to monitor a folder? One thing that is so attractive to me about Handbrake is the ability to use Dropfolders to monitor my DVR folder, automatically convert recordings and dump them into my Dropbox. This makes all my recordings instantly available when I'm on the road.
Thanks

CJNYC said:
Yes, I'm using hardware decoding in Rockplayer and I always used Handbrake for my iPad and Epic without issue. When I use the native gallery video player, the problem is worse, as the video starts to lag just from bringing up the playback controls. This is very frustrating. I will try some different converters and see how that goes.
Dvdcatalyst, I will give a few of your videos a try and report back.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
I tried RockPlayer a couple of months ago, and when it was still in beta, but I always come back to the default Gallery. I have never experienced sync or playback issues on the Augen Gentouch, Nookcolor, Droid X and the Xoom, but have heard numerous reports from people for all of these devices (and others) regarding other methods.
For the settings I use in my own software, for all devices it has profiles for) I make sure it plays as it should without the need of installing a different video player. Only for a few older iPaqs and Palm devices do I recommend the install of something else (TCPMP), but for Android, Gallery (or a player like Act1 which acts as a layer around the Gallery player to add new functionality) never gave me playback issues.

Sorry, when I use DVD Catalyst with the XOOM profile, the video comes out a stuttering mess. Here's the info on the files I'm looking to convert...
General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : L:\Sage TV\VideoQueue\1298603107274_CSICrimeSceneInvestigation-TurnOnTuneInDropDead-852346-0.ts
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 2.82 GiB
Duration : 1h 4mn
Overall bit rate : 6 229 Kbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps
Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=32
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1h 4mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 533 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.100
Stream size : 2.51 GiB (89%)
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177
Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1h 4mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -50ms
Stream size : 178 MiB (6%)

CJNYC said:
Sorry, when I use DVD Catalyst with the XOOM profile, the video comes out a stuttering mess. Here's the info on the files I'm looking to convert...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks liek for some reason the framerate of the created file isn't processed correctly.
I noticed you used a SageTV Recording, could you create a small recording and email it to me, or maybe PM me a download link for a small (1-2 minute) clip?

dvdcatalyst said:
It looks liek for some reason the framerate of the created file isn't processed correctly.
I noticed you used a SageTV Recording, could you create a small recording and email it to me, or maybe PM me a download link for a small (1-2 minute) clip?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PM'd you a link to download a sample.
Thanks!

Additional detail
Additional detail regarding my problem - what I've discovered is that the video plays fine but it's only when the controls from Honeycomb are overlaid that the video playback begins to lag. In Rockplayer, bringing up the playback controls don't cause the video to lag, only the volume controls which are native to Honeycomb. Any additional thoughts? I'm thinking about wiping the system and starting from scratch to see if that makes a difference.
Thanks

thanks, I'll have a look at it in the morning. I am working on a small update that includes new Xoom profiles (the settings mentioned on my website) and will take this along in the process as well.

dvdcatalyst said:
thanks, I'll have a look at it in the morning. I am working on a small update that includes new Xoom profiles (the settings mentioned on my website) and will take this along in the process as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you!

Shocked but I think I figured it out
OK, I'm shocked that I've actually figured out where I was going wrong. The files I was converting and having issues with were recorded using SageTV from a cable box set at 720p. 720p is 60 frames per second and Handbrake was set for FPS to be same as source. When I changed it to 29.97 FPS, I no longer experience issues with video lagging the audio when I adjust the volume or bring up the playback controls. I don't know if this is an important find, but I don't think it's a limitation limited to the XOOM, as I noticed my conversions using the iPad preset are also limited to 29.97 FPS.
I think I can go to sleep now