i have heard that qualcomm has the drivers or something to that effect, and wont release the info for programmers to take advantage of the graphics accelerator. the effect is i cant play simple videos, unless i run them through a program first to recode them
if that is the case, why would sony ericsson give them the contract, knowing this?
When do you think this problem may be cracked?
Why wouldnt sony ericsson include codecs in their media panel ( i understand this has video acceleration)
Although QTv is still not very well understood, CorePlayer can (and does) use it to accelerate video playback.
Leddy said:
Although QTv is still not very well understood, CorePlayer can (and does) use it to accelerate video playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i thought it didnt yet??
I don't know how they do it.. but coreplayer is 99.9% smooth !
only the really fast scenes in normal xvid sometimes drop a frame... but it's very acceptable.
as the others said keep an eye on the core player 2.0 release which is said to do better hardware decoding. its not bad now though .
dont know much about the details of qc driver mess as i am new here. but even if you have full proper access to the driver, applications needs to written to take advantage of the accelerated hardware to notice a performance increase.
Thanks for information
THE GRIZZ said:
as the others said keep an eye on the core player 2.0 release which is said to do better hardware decoding. its not bad now though .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is bad, real bad. My 3 years old Palm T5 plays movies 20% faster, at 100% (ie the same resolution). But then no WM device of X1 generation is any better. Faster devices only starts to appear (like new ASUS and Toshiba promised 1GHz device).
Dr.Sid said:
It is bad, real bad. My 3 years old Palm T5 plays movies 20% faster, at 100% (ie the same resolution). But then no WM device of X1 generation is any better. Faster devices only starts to appear (like new ASUS and Toshiba promised 1GHz device).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the T5 doesn't have to display all the extra pixels.
I say with no scaling .. so extra pixels should not count. I mean when the picture is small enough to fit on both displays at 100%.
When playing at fullscreen, Xperia is even slower, while not much ..
With null video the speed is more or less same. But even copying the image with no scaling seems to be slow on Xperia. On Palm 100% scale is only a bit slower then null video.
On the other hand Palm is slow at scaling. For Xperia (crystal player, qTV driver) scaling makes only little difference.
I only watch language lessons on Xperia, and only rarely. I don't need that to be perfectly fluent. And then, you can always convert the video, which should help.
I guess the reason is Palm T5 was really good at that time. The difference is it was just PDA. No wifi, no phone, no gps. It could have strong CPU. Communicators have to feed and cool all that, and they started with weaker CPUs (even communicators from Palm, or even models with WIFI (Tx) had slower CPU). Only last year communicators catch up with CPU power. But then there are many other things, like buss speed, display driver, OS support (Palm is quite simple OS).
The ultimate pocket movie player is just not here yet. T5 was a bit closer to it then Xperia (it also has bigger screen, worse colors on the other hand).
Anyone knows how is TouchHD in this aspect ?
read this
http://mobile-enthusiast.blogspot.com/2009/02/saga-of-htcs-video-performance.html
Good find ! That explains a lot. Only if I knew it earlier
Related
I have been doing a loong research on the web without luck about this. This device has a good processor for gaming,
but the god damned screen resolution screws everything up having to scale the 320x240 graphics to 640x480.
It's not only the work of having to double every pixel on screen, but also to redraw 4 times the ammount of pixels that it was meant to.
The pixel rendering rate of this graphics chip can't handle 640x480 since it has no hardware acceleration for such a task.
I keep finding that Real VGA, 96DPI, 128DPI crap arround wich doesnt actually do anything but change the sizes of the fonts/enviroment
while rettaining the same 640x480 resolution.
I'm no developer, so im sending an s.o.s. call to any dev, technician or whoever with the knowlegde to tell me if there is a possible way
to switch the video resolution to REAL 320x240 or if its possible to hack this device video driver to use 320x240 instead of 640x480.
Thanks in advance for reading.
I just realiced that maybe there is no need to modify any drivers at all, since i believe this device ati graphics chip is used on other devices running at 320x240 from htc aswell. Can someone verify this please?.
Even if it was possible, real 320x240 would physically cover 320x240 px on your device and therefore leave the better area of the screen unused. I doubt that it is possible to output QVGA and stretch it to match the screen and I dare not even think about how crappy that would look... Apart from games everything runs nice and fast and the Universal is quite responsive. Videos can be played back just fine in 320x240 and run perfectly with a decent player. Which apps are causing trouble for you?
Im having a hard time with high requirement games, like Legacy 2, Raging thunder,XIII zeal, Ancient evil, *.swf flash files... not to mention demoscene intros for ppc.
About the 320x240 output, probably the lcd panel can scale it to 640x480 with its hardware just like a regular tft monitor. It wouldnt look bad at all, remember how games look. Yeah you can actually see the the pixels with pixel doubling, but even with pixel doubling it still looks good enough since the screen size isn't that big to have such a huge impact.
I still believe that if this is possible it's worth a try, atleast for users that use this device for entertainment and gaming.
This really seems like a neato computer, but I have some questions that need to be answered before I buy one:
1. Can I play Counter-strike 1.6/Condition Zero on it? What about Unreal Tournament 2004? What frame rates can I expect?
2. How responsive is the touch pad? I tried the touch pad on another laptop in a local store and it had very annoying input lag.
3. Do you think that 384 kbps would be enough to play CS 1.6 and UT2K4 online? I'm not completely sure if I can get my providers Turbo 3G service on to my sim card. Also, Shift only supports 3.6 and not 7.2 mbit right? Will a 7.2 mbit sim card work in it anyway?
4. Do you think it'd support my Trekstor DVB-T USB stick? The minimum requirement is for it is 800 mhz and DirectX 9 and I really don't like being right on the minimum. I'm guessing that I'm not going to get 800x480 fullscreen tv on it?
5. How good is it with movies and recorded TV shows? Avi, divx, mpeg, wmv etc, can it handle standard definition in full screen? Some quick examples would be avi at 576x320 and wmv at 640x480.
6. Is there any chance I could get a photo of the interpolated 1024x600 side-by-side with a photo of the native 800x480?
Thanks in advance
Do not count on a extreme gaming experience on the shift.
Counterstrike 1.6 might work, with low settings and WindowsXP installed.
Like Quake3 arena plays like a charm
MY cynergy XS USB DVB stick show full screen shows at perfect speed.
Computer is monotask during playing, using anything else will slow thinks to a crawl. But I watch TV shows on widescreen everyday. Main difficulty is to get the antenna to work...
For movies, you can play any size using coreplayer.
Unreal turnament can be palyed also with a reasonable frame rate. You will have to play on low resolution, and will have occasional lags. I suggest you look for another device for intense gaming.
I'm not looking for an extreme gaming experience on a device like this, just something besides surfing the Internet and watching videos, because I can do that just fine with my cellphone.
Was that Quake III Arena video real-time rendered on the Shift or was that just a video? I'm very suspicious because I don't see anything plugged in to the usb port and I don't see him using the touch pad.
Hasn't anyone tried playing CS 1.6/CZ? I don't think they'd be too demanding for the Shift with an 800 mhz processor as the recommended spec. Maybe even Counter-Strike: Source at the lowest settings? It has an 800 mhz minimum.
@thaihugo: The "using anything else" part makes me a bit worried since I'd like to use a card reader as well for the encrypted channels, because here in Sweden we only have one decent free tv channel. That's better than nothing I guess.
You mean UT2K4 right? I didn't see screenshots of it until today and I didn't realise that it had relatively good graphics since I assumed that it had far more primitive graphics than UT3. Definitely worth a try then. I just hope that you didn't mean UT99
Right now what I'm the most curious about is if I can play Counter-strike 1.6/CZ/Source on it, and how responsive the touch pad is. How noticeable is the delay on the touch pad? I don't expect it to be good enough for a twitch shooter but it'd be nice if it's quick and precise enough for surfing without using the touch screen to click on everything.
Shift is not that powerfull
if you are interested in gaming the everun note may be a choice for you. www.umpcportal.com has tested it a few days ago. But it has probably a less responsive touchscreen.
So here's my story:
I recently bought Samsung Omnia on which I did extensive tests on video playback
with CorePlayer 1.2.5 and TCPMP and with various video formats such as:
H264 Baseline 3 480x272 (originally encoded for playback in iPod Touch)
Various XviD encoded videos with resolutions varying from 640x360 to 720x400
Using DirectDraw as video output in both CorePlayer and TCPMP
the result was awful, dropped frames, awful motion and distorted colors.
However since the Omnia has the fastest CPU I know in WM Device so far,
the Marvell PXA312, 624MHz with IntelXScale acceleration,
the CorePlayer and TCPMP gives this as an option for video output the IntelXScale acceleration.
So when using this setting the video playback of any type of encoding was absolutely beautiful.
Colors were correct, performance was amazing (even in double playback speed) it was in general as smooth as it gets.
For a powerfull (hardware-wise) device such as omnia, I was very disappointed
in the resolution of the screen (240x400 - wqvga) and its size 2.8".
For this kind of device which has literally everything one would expect it
to have same screen size and resolution as the touch hd.
I rushed to buy this device I must admit and so I sold it to a friend after experimenting with it for one week.
The reason that I gave away so fast the Omnia was simply the Blackstone.
Since I am kind of perfectionist as far as it concerns screen resolutions, the touch hd is no match with any other phone/ppc device out there.
So here comes the real concern, how is the performance on video playback on the blackstone?
For a multimedia device like this one would expect that the performance
would be excellent (much like the omnia or even better if it can).
But what concerns me is the Qualcomm cpu at 528Mhz which as far as I can tell
doesn't have IntelXScale acceleration (plz correct me if i'm wrong on this)
So if it uses only DirectDraw and the results are crappy, then this would be such a turn off.
Can this CPU give a smooth video playback performance on a 640x360 XviD avi video
with "Smooth zoom: ON" and "Zoom: Fill Screen" settings on either CorePlayer or TCPMP?
And keep in mind that we are talking about realtime upsizing of the video to 800x480
which IMHO requires quite a lot of cpu power for such device.
Because really I am not willing to spend 700 euro on a multimedia phone
that can't actually perform well on multimedia.
I'd love to hear someone that has it and tested it on that matter.
Thanks for reading!
We really want to know the answer for your question, And I think that we have to wait until we see the phone on the market and get some benchmarks.
Also I think that SE in their xperia phone did what you are asking for ..! In the same beautiful screen resolution 800x480
Thank you,
Mohammed
mohdtmn said:
We really want to know the answer for your question, And I think that we have to wait until we see the phone on the market and get some benchmarks.
Also I think that SE in their xperia phone did what you are asking for ..! In the same beautiful screen resolution 800x480
Thank you,
Mohammed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More like SE said to HTC "We want an awesome phone, but we don't want you to tell us what's in it, and we'll just make Magnus make up stuff as we go, also we suck at marketing."
touch HD has a slower cpu, without xscale acceleration. but it has a dedicated graphics chip, which matters more in video play back. at the resolution you have mentioned, i have full confidence it will do just as well if not better than omnia.
buggybug0 said:
touch HD has a slower cpu, without xscale acceleration. but it has a dedicated graphics chip, which matters more in video play back. at the resolution you have mentioned, i have full confidence it will do just as well if not better than omnia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I sure hope so, because I would say I'm not so satisfied with the Touch Diamond performance. Let me explain:
Since this matter is really killing me, I need to be sure it can perform well on video (not extreme stuff, the standard-like video formats we all use).
So I decided to make a test, since i don't own a Touch Diamond (which has the same hardware), I went to a local retail store that had the device on display for ppl to see and experiment with, I installed coreplayer and sent a 40" 608x400 xvid video with ~900kbps bitrate to test it.
CorePlayer was set automatically with video mode QTv and with TytnII Driver mode enabled (which i suppose is the accelerator driver)
I made sure nothing else was running in the background and the results was not so ok. I was playing just ok, I noticed some frame skips and some "lag" in fast motion.
I just hope the Touch HD has revised hardware (if that's possible) and better drivers maybe?
I really would like to hear an answer from someone that has already his hands on the touch hd
buggybug0 said:
touch HD has a slower cpu, without xscale acceleration. but it has a dedicated graphics chip, which matters more in video play back. at the resolution you have mentioned, i have full confidence it will do just as well if not better than omnia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but htc is also notorious for not not allowing 3rd party software to use the graphic chip, that is when they do provide drivers for the chip
fallenczar said:
but htc is also notorious for not not allowing 3rd party software to use the graphic chip, that is when they do provide drivers for the chip
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so are you saying if i were to install a 3rd party video player, when i try to play video, i will see a blank screen? because this player is 3rd party and can't access the graphic chip?? :S
buggybug0 said:
so are you saying if i were to install a 3rd party video player, when i try to play video, i will see a blank screen? because this player is 3rd party and can't access the graphic chip?? :S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, i'm saying that coreplayer/TCPMP will only be able to use the default qualcomm chip, its exactly like having a graphic card in your pc with no drivers and no in built support
Thats sux
I hope Touch HD has better driver ... because the hardware is the same.
Quite a downer ...
mkMoSs said:
I sure hope so, because I would say I'm not so satisfied with the Touch Diamond performance. Let me explain:
Since this matter is really killing me, I need to be sure it can perform well on video (not extreme stuff, the standard-like video formats we all use).
So I decided to make a test, since i don't own a Touch Diamond (which has the same hardware), I went to a local retail store that had the device on display for ppl to see and experiment with, I installed coreplayer and sent a 40" 608x400 xvid video with ~900kbps bitrate to test it.
CorePlayer was set automatically with video mode QTv and with TytnII Driver mode enabled (which i suppose is the accelerator driver)
I made sure nothing else was running in the background and the results was not so ok. I was playing just ok, I noticed some frame skips and some "lag" in fast motion.
I just hope the Touch HD has revised hardware (if that's possible) and better drivers maybe?
I really would like to hear an answer from someone that has already his hands on the touch hd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fallenczar said:
No, i'm saying that coreplayer/TCPMP will only be able to use the default qualcomm chip, its exactly like having a graphic card in your pc with no drivers and no in built support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that is the case, then I dont understand it. I mean why HTC would go through all this trouble to have an extra graphics chip in their devices when no other than their own app could ever use? So they put a graphic chip with 3d capabilities and video acceleration for just their own apps like touchflo 3d ?
Isn't it just stupid?
Yes, that would be stupid. Fortunately though, there is quite some talk about the HD having an optimized chipset compared to the Diamond, even though this does not include the processor. It is already evident by the many movies that the device performs faster than the diamond even with the same processor, so I doubt you'd have exactly the same performance issues as with the diamond. Though there is only one way to be sure: wait 2 more weeks and everybody will own one.
nin2thevoid said:
.......... wait 2 more weeks and everybody will own one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hell...i cant agree with you more..almost everyone i know is either 'buying one' or 'Wants to buy one'....whatever happened to the times when there were a few geeks like me who went out and bought a winmo phone....whatever happened to the iphone??...lol
gauravdc said:
Hell...i cant agree with you more..almost everyone i know is either 'buying one' or 'Wants to buy one'....whatever happened to the times when there were a few geeks like me who went out and bought a winmo phone....whatever happened to the iphone??...lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iPhone died, blackstone killed it
Blackstone is a killer... Woohoo.. We have to send it to prison!!.. I think I might have a good prison here at my home so my blackstone, come for punishment *roarr* lol
Coreplayer 1.3.0 is said to have major improvement with QTv rendering on MSM7201A/7200A. This was promised by them on their forum about a month ago.
Head over there and hurry them up! Those guys are reeaaaalllly slow, probably too busy working on Coreplayer for stupid iPhone.
wuzy said:
Coreplayer 1.3.0 is said to have major improvement with QTv rendering on MSM7201A/7200A. This was promised by them on their forum about a month ago.
Head over there and hurry them up! Those guys are reeaaaalllly slow, probably too busy working on Coreplayer for stupid iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, if I buy the current coreplayer-version from them, do I get a free update when the 1.3.0 will arrive? Or should I wait until it comes out? This would be the most important application for me on the Touch HD.. Greez, cad^^
wuzy said:
Coreplayer 1.3.0 is said to have major improvement with QTv rendering on MSM7201A/7200A. This was promised by them on their forum about a month ago.
Head over there and hurry them up! Those guys are reeaaaalllly slow, probably too busy working on Coreplayer for stupid iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingers crossed!
They should just forget the iPhone, ppl will be finding out about blackstone and they will be throwing their iPhone from the window xD
I guess no problem with playing video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv9lLAVidgA&fmt=18
Thanks to johnkorver who own the device, create the video review, and upload it to youtube.
looks promising even though we don't have any other info on the video file except the codec used (xvid).. anyway upscaling works nice and that says much..
one more video playback demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo7I6K8U7L4
Will there be issues on video playback like all other HTC devices ?
Will leo be able to play a not converted divx ?
firiel said:
Will there be issues on video playback like all other HTC devices ?
Will leo be able to play a not converted divx ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's able to play till 480p res. videos even no exist video acceleration or drivers... It's powered by brute cpu force with snapdragon to process vid. codecs IMO...
firiel said:
Will there be issues on video playback like all other HTC devices ?
Will leo be able to play a not converted divx ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not gonna worry about that. For Touch HD, I used Total Video Converter, I used Iphone H264 MP4 best settings and play in Windows Media Player, even in Touch HD it is smooth and stunning at full 800 X 480, only that scrolling through time frames or during video startup is sluggish. And for HD2, I believe the loading time will be shortened.
Playing high quality videos have been non issue with these HTC devices, you just need to do it right.
precsmo said:
Playing high quality videos have been non issue with these HTC devices, you just need to do it right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you don't mind wasting time on conversion, that is.
From HTC website: Video supported formats: .wmv, .asf, .mp4, .3gp, .3g2, .m4v, .avi
Can't speak to quality because the phone isn't out. ;-)
Reason4444 said:
I think it's able to play till 480p res. videos even no exist video acceleration or drivers... It's powered by brute cpu force with snapdragon to process vid. codecs IMO...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which means that when a device from another manufacturer like samsung or acer grabs the snapdragon we will cry with the results, right ?
And dont have me even mention tegra
rebecker said:
From HTC website: Video supported formats: .wmv, .asf, .mp4, .3gp, .3g2, .m4v, .avi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touch Diamond2 specs also mention .avi, but it's a half-truth. I use a Topaz ROM on my Touch HD and can't view regular DivX/XVid videos with anything built-in. Maybe the FullScreen Player from HTC Album (or Windows Media Player) here can play .avis with some weird codecs, but it's absolutely irrelevant to real-life scenarios.
vangrieg said:
Touch Diamond2 specs also mention .avi, but it's a half-truth. I use a Topaz ROM on my Touch HD and can't view regular DivX/XVid videos with anything built-in. Maybe the FullScreen Player from HTC Album (or Windows Media Player) here can play .avis with some weird codecs, but it's absolutely irrelevant to real-life scenarios.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've gone back to the stock rom on my hd, after an unfortunate incident with some muggers. But Coreplayer (ver 1.3.2) seems very adept at handling any native divx/xvid files
AshHD said:
I've gone back to the stock rom on my hd, after an unfortunate incident with some muggers. But Coreplayer (ver 1.3.2) seems very adept at handling any native divx/xvid files
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then we probably have very different HDs because mine reminds me of the era of 200MHz HTC devices. Playback of unconverted is jerky with visibly very low FPS, dynamic scenes are more like slideshows than films, even with 700MB rips, 1.4GB ones are even worse. This is not to mention that CorePlayer doesn't support AC3 audio which means that half of the movies I have are mute. If this is called being "very adept at handling" then I don't know what isn't.
Stock ROMs are exactly the same in terms of video performance, the reason why I mentioned Topaz ROM is simply because that device boasts .avi support, which it is in fact lacking. That said, ".avi support" is pretty much a meaningless phrase since .avi is just a wrapper, there could be a full zoo of codecs inside.
firiel said:
Which means that when a device from another manufacturer like samsung or acer grabs the snapdragon we will cry with the results, right ?
And dont have me even mention tegra
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In what way do you imagine that these devices will be superior to the HD2 when it comes to video playback? If the HD2 can play back video at full screen resolution (800x480) with no dropped frames at all and support any wrapper or codec you might want, how much better can any other device really get? That (most likely) is what the HD2 running Coreplayer will deliver.
The only time there's likely to be an issue is if you expect to play back a high-definition (e.g. 1280x720) video downscaled to the screen resolution in real time. But, even if it's only for reasons of storage space, you'd probably want to downscale any clips like that to 800x480 resolution anyway.
It's possible that other devices (the ones that can use GPU acceleration when playing xvid and divx stuff) will offer better battery-life during video playback, I guess, but I doubt it'll be that big a margin.
Shasarak, it's not clear how the downscaling will work performance-wise without GPU support, and CorePlayer doesn't support AC3 sound. Not that I need to listen to AC3 on a phone, but I certainly have movies with it. So at this moment CorePlayer is definitely a mediocre solution as far as I'm concerned.
Shasharak,
Am not arguing that the device hopefully might be able to play, by CPU power 480p, but what about HTC not delivering for once again, what our money worth.
If u search for comparisons of omnia and any htc 528 based model, you will see great differences on video playback. This is unacceptable from me.
And what about gaming or 3d accelerated apps. We are getting to a new age of handheld devices, that should be (MUST BE) able to deliver video, web, audio and entertainment. And should do it with all their power.
vangrieg said:
Shasarak, it's not clear how the downscaling will work performance-wise without GPU support, and CorePlayer doesn't support AC3 sound. Not that I need to listen to AC3 on a phone, but I certainly have movies with it. So at this moment CorePlayer is definitely a mediocre solution as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, as I say, I don't imagine anyone will want to downscale video on it anyway - HD video won't look any worse if it's downscaled off-line, and it will take up far less space on the memory card than the original HD file.
Coreplayer not supporting AC3 is a problem, I'll grant you. It's possible that Coreplayer version 2 will support it. If not, then you'll have to see if you can get TCPMP running on the Leo - I expect there will be a version that does.
firiel said:
Shasharak,
Am not arguing that the device hopefully might be able to play, by CPU power 480p, but what about HTC not delivering for once again, what our money worth.
If u search for comparisons of omnia and any htc 528 based model, you will see great differences on video playback. This is unacceptable from me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but that's the point: you won't see those differences on the HD2. I own a Touch Pro2, so I understand how annoyed you are. But the difference with the HD2 is that the CPU is so powerful that it should be able to play back anything with a resolution of 800x480 or less without dropping any frames using the CPU alone - why would you care if it's using the CPU or the GPU if you can't see any difference in the playback? The Snapdragon CPU is nearly three times as powerful as the one in the TP2. Even without GPU acceleration it'll still work just fine.
firiel said:
And what about gaming or 3d accelerated apps. We are getting to a new age of handheld devices, that should be (MUST BE) able to deliver video, web, audio and entertainment. And should do it with all their power.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, we know from existing benchmarks that the Leo will deliver hardware-accelerated OpenGL ES, so that's a good start. On some 3D benchmarks it's more than 20 times as fast as a TP2. (I doubt there will be any 3D-accelerated apps for Windows Mobile, anyway - otherwise people who own cheaper, slower WinMo phones will buy them and then complain they can't run them. WinMo apps tend to be written for low-end hardware.) Web should be fine - especially once we have a version of FlashPlayer 10.1 which will be in beta before the end of the year. I wouldn't worry.
Shasarak said:
Well, as I say, I don't imagine anyone will want to downscale video on it anyway - HD video won't look any worse if it's downscaled off-line, and it will take up far less space on the memory card than the original HD file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I, on the other hand, can't imagine why anyone would want to convert any videos to watch on the phone. I have a notebook with a 60GB SSD and some 1.16GHz processor - it's blazing fast for Office/internet use but it'll take forever to convert any videos. I also store files like videos on a network drive, so using the more powerful desktop is still slow. And I need to watch videos only occasionally - when going on a trip I can copy a movie or two to take with me on a plane. So space isn't a problem really while ability to watch unconverted video is.
In any case, there was a question you asked about how another device may be more powerful in video playback - I guess with proper driver support they can be, and there are use cases when this is important.
vangrieg said:
I, on the other hand, can't imagine why anyone would want to convert any videos to watch on the phone. I have a notebook with a 60GB SSD and some 1.16GHz processor - it's blazing fast for Office/internet use but it'll take forever to convert any videos. I also store files like videos on a network drive, so using the more powerful desktop is still slow. And I need to watch videos only occasionally - when going on a trip I can copy a movie or two to take with me on a plane. So space isn't a problem really while ability to watch unconverted video is.
In any case, there was a question you asked about how another device may be more powerful in video playback - I guess with proper driver support they can be, and there are use cases when this is important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a TP2 owner with a slow desktop PC I feel your pain, I really do. I'm simply pointing out that the HD2 won't suffer from this problem to anywhere near the extent that current-generation HTC phones do. My best guess is that no video clip that runs at 800x480 or lower will require conversion; it's only ones in higher resolutions that will. And the chances are that even your netbook wouldn't be able to play a 720p video smoothly, so what use is it to store the videos in hi-def format in the first place? You might as well download a lower-res version.
If you end having to convert something very occasionally then just leave it running on your desktop PC overnight - it's not that big a deal.
The key difference, here, is that a TP2 can't even get close to playing a 624x351 xvid clip without conversion, while the HD2 will play it perfectly. It'll play anything other than high definition clips perfectly without conversion - so there is exactly one use-case where GPU acceleration is relevant, and it's not an important one.
Shasarak said:
I'm simply pointing out that the HD2 won't suffer from this problem to anywhere near the extent that current-generation HTC phones do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is most certainly true. I still bought HD even though I knew about these problems, but it's still an annoyance. HD2 will be better for sure.
Shasarak said:
And the chances are that even your netbook wouldn't be able to play a 720p video smoothly,
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It's not a netbook, it's a "real" notebook, Thinkpad X300, but anyway - I don't watch movies on my computers - I use a network media server and a network player, they are streamed to my TV. So my phone is the only computer-like device that needs to be able to play videos, actually.
Shasarak said:
so what use is it to store the videos in hi-def format in the first place? You might as well download a lower-res version.
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In fact, I try to avoid downloading HD videos whenever I can as I don't care for viewing them in high resolutions even though I have a large Full HD TV. The problem is only that low-res versions aren't always available, and increasingly so. It's not my preference but rather an unfortunate trend.
So you think that the snapdragon "RAW" is enough. Enough for what ? There are no limits for what to expect.
Should HTC, continue to ignore what GPU means, we should not. once again accept it It was like 2 years ago when I complained about my TC performance, without getting any answer. And now Samsung, on their first winmo device (omnia), has really better results, using the same processor. There will be tons of snapdragon devices, or even tegra powered (hopefully) soon enough.
If Qualcomm refuses to give the guys who write CorePlayer access to their intellectual property, that isn't altogether HTC's fault. Any software actually written by HTC does use GPU acceleration - there's a limit to the extent that they can be held responsible for the deficiencies of third party software.
firiel said:
So you think that the snapdragon "RAW" is enough. Enough for what ? There are no limits for what to expect.
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I set down very precise limits in my prediction: CPU-only video decoding will (IMO) be adequate for all videos with a resolution of 800x480 or lower. Any video with higher resolution may require transcoding - but it obviously couldn't look any better than an 800x480 video if it's being played back on an 800x480 screen.
firiel said:
Should HTC, continue to ignore what GPU means, we should not. once again accept it
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And how exactly should we "not accept it"? I am also pissed off at HTC, but I don't think we can do anything except buying something else, but there are also reasons not to (all of them very individual).
Shasarak said:
If Qualcomm refuses to give the guys who write CorePlayer access to their intellectual property, that isn't altogether HTC's fault.
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True, with a BUT: they (HTC) could enable their software to play real-life video formats. Samsung's Touch Player does that. And a smaller "but": they could also provide generic driver that would provide DirectX/OpenGL interfaces for Qualcomm's quirky technologies. Both options would cost them money I guess, so they chose not to.
I cant seem to find a single video player in the Market that plays a range of formats, primarily wmv and avi that I have downloaded.
Any suggestions?
I have to make the commute to work a little more bearable since I broke my Sony e-reader...
i know that the 'rock player' plays avi and mkv files, have you tried that one?
Thanks for your reply, I just checked out rock player and it doesn't seem to work.... opens the video for a split second before closing it again...
I guess I'll keep looking.
Any dev looking to port VLC over to android?
BoogWeed said:
Thanks for your reply, I just checked out rock player and it doesn't seem to work.... opens the video for a split second before closing it again...
I guess I'll keep looking.
Any dev looking to port VLC over to android?
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oh thats strange, it works on my hero (they have different versions for different devices, make sure you downloaded the ARMv6 one)
but tbh its not great because theres a lag between the video and the audio, most probably because of the hero's slower processor. i'm looking for a good video player as well
Hmm.. Rock Player started to work by itself.. kinda.
Plays the video for about 15 seconds (very choppy, even after all tasks killed and using a blank Sense Scene) and then freezes the phone, have to remove the battery..
Have u overclocked?
My hero wouldnt run RockPlayer on 691MHz as MAX. Had to down it to 652.
in the end i deleted it, since the video was choppy. i guess the processor just isnt up to handling large video + i hate ruining films on a small screen.
there are some forum posts on VLC Forum about porting to Android... i think the conclusion was that it wasnt going to happen?
My phone is indeed overclocked, to 672Mhz.
I'll try messing around with the OC settings and see if it makes a difference.
I know the processor is *only* 528MHz (stock), but I remember watching videos perfectly well on my Packard Bell 166Mhz, 32mb RAM, 2mb Video card pc...
I think Android should be doing a LOT better with with handling Video, see my post in the "Android 2.3?" thread...
BoogWeed said:
I know the processor is *only* 528MHz (stock), but I remember watching videos perfectly well on my Packard Bell 166Mhz, 32mb RAM, 2mb Video card pc...
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There is a significant difference between the low quality avi files of the past and the h264 mkv content of today. Some of the recent files require a minimum of a 2GHz processor to run (understandably 1080p content, but still). And lets not forget about the instruction sets which provide desktop cpu's with a boost in those areas. Furthermore, considering your phone only has a cpu and no dedicated or otherwise gpu it isn't all that surprising.
Even running an average quality dvd rip avi file my CPU is running at between 15-25% and I have an overclocked dual core 3.33GHz intel cpu E7300 (25% is roughly 833MHz). Not to mention GPU usage, which at this time I can't be bothered to record.
I understand that this is not definitive evidence but I am using it to show that you are simplifying the problem. TV shows and movies that are ripped now have much higher quality resolutions and bitrates than those of the past, it is not surprising that they require higher processing power. Realistically a 528MHz low power phone cpu is unlikely to be able to keep up with these improvements. Just like the low power Intel Atom desktop chips fail to run 1080p video (even the dual core one) running somewhere in excess of 1GHz (think its 1.6GHz).
That wasn't meant to be such a huge rant...
HAHA! I know I totally simplified it but I guess I was just trying to say that a smart phone in 2010 should be able to handle video with no problems...
My upgrade is due in January, so new handset here I come!
Will be funny to see the (still awesome, despite my rant) HTC Hero become my backup phone...