Database Users

Poor TCPMP Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best bitrate for videos on Hermes?

I am stating to convert some of the movies and to be played on my hermes on the go, but eventually I found out that the movies converted thru pocketdivxencoder eventually dropping out frames.
I want to know the best setting for converting video for Hermes...
Is it better to convert to WMV at a particular bitrate than converting to DiVX?
THanks a lot.

If you're gonna use the ATI Imageeon Decoder, video bitrates can go up to 1.2MBps, but you will sure get a lot of artifacts. if you intend to use Raw Frame Buffer, video bitrate can go up to 700KBps (audio 128KBps), but also remember that Pocket PCs can play higher bitrates without dropping frames when the video is wider, e.g. playing a 16:9 movie clip is somehow easier than playing a clip with 4:3 aspect ratio.
BTW If you want to stream the audio to your BT Headset while watching a clip, a video bitrate of 410KBps (audio 128KBps) is good, but you will have to use the ATI Decoder.
Cheers!

Rockman27 said:
I am stating to convert some of the movies and to be played on my hermes on the go, but eventually I found out that the movies converted thru pocketdivxencoder eventually dropping out frames.
I want to know the best setting for converting video for Hermes...
Is it better to convert to WMV at a particular bitrate than converting to DiVX?
THanks a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to use TCPMP player and download the ATI imageon fix cab (search for it), a few adjustments and your pocketdivx converted films will play perfectly.

i use sompy media encoder, its free and has a stting for pda screen size and sound that is realy good, just load the file and away you go.

Take a look HERE ive used plenty of videos encoded this way and works a treat.
In coreplayer (aka TCPMP) i use Directdraw as ATimageON produces artifacts until they allow a non-rgb filter to be used.

mrvanx said:
Take a look HERE ive used plenty of videos encoded this way and works a treat.
In coreplayer (aka TCPMP) i use Directdraw as ATimageON produces artifacts until they allow a non-rgb filter to be used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your guideline and I have got some satisfactory conversions.. but when I switch to DirectDraw in TCPMP, it gives me black screen no matter which type of video files I am playing.
When I switch back to ATI Imageon, sometimes it will work but sometimes I will get weird screens (the whole screen got messed up and "jumping around"). The only perfectly working selection for me is RAW or GDI.
Am I doing something wrong in the setting with the directdraw and atiimageon? Thanks again.

With bitrate size there is a law of diminishing returns. After a certain bitrate you will not notice the difference on the Hermes screen.
After years of encoding/transcoding. I have settled on these paramters as the other variable is trying to fit as much onto my MicroSD as possible.
Video DivX @ 350 kbps, high quality, 2 pass.
Audio AAC 64 kbps 44 KHz (SSR profile)
Using MP4 as the container.
The quality is pin sharp. Using higher bitrates for me yield no benefit when viewed on the phone. The filesize comes out at approx 170 meg for 1 hour.
When I get back I will upload some samples of stuff I've done and I don't mind watching on the phone, typically 4:3 like The Wire and of course the Simpsons.

Wam7 said:
With bitrate size there is a law of diminishing returns. After a certain bitrate you will not notice the difference on the Hermes screen.
After years of encoding/transcoding. I have settled on these paramters as the other variable is trying to fit as much onto my MicroSD as possible.
Video DivX @ 350 kbps, high quality, 2 pass.
Audio AAC 64 kbps 44 KHz (SSR profile)
Using MP4 as the container.
The quality is pin sharp. Using higher bitrates for me yield no benefit when viewed on the phone. The filesize comes out at approx 170 meg for 1 hour.
When I get back I will upload some samples of stuff I've done and I don't mind watching on the phone, typically 4:3 like The Wire and of course the Simpsons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What program do you use to do this encoding? I would like to try out your settings on a few movies i have been waiting to encode myself.

Globalrebel said:
What program do you use to do this encoding? I would like to try out your settings on a few movies i have been waiting to encode myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a long while I was doing it manually with Virtual Dub Mod and demuxing audio etc but this can be arduous when doing a lot of stuff.
Nowadays I tend to use WinMenc .61 with the Mencoder binaries. It's not the best GUI in the world, in fact it's pretty plain and could do with updating but it gives the control I need, batch encoding, and is very fast.
I wiill link them all here when I eventually get home.
You could try PocketDivX encoder (and Lathe) which use Mencoder as well but were half the speed for me when it comes to the 2nd pass when I tested them. IIRC they don't give as much control either.

Alas no time to give links to binaries just yet but Google might help if you're in a rush. Here is a quick sample of Prison Break with the above settings.
http://www.wam77.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Prison.Break.S02E18.Clip.350kbps.mp4

Found a bit of time
Download Winmenc http://yawoogle.googlepages.com/winmenc.0.61.zip
Download MPlayer http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mplayer-rtm-svn-23169.7z
Download Mencoder http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mencoder-rtm-svn-23169.7z
Download PthreadGC2 ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/dll-latest/lib/pthreadGC2.dll
Place all in the same folder. Run Winmenc.
If you want to try my options download this http://www.wam77.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Mp4_PocketPC_DivX350_AAC_320.240.ini
and then click on load profile and point it to the file. (There are others in the default profile dir that you can play with)
This will also do Xvid, DivX, X264, mpeg2 (in .avi container) with 2 pass options. If you want ultra sharpness you can try higher bitrates but I can not tell for most things. If you also want to keep the file size fairly small I have found 350 kbps to be a good trade off. Run a few tests at different bitrates and decide for yourself.

Awesome guide Wam.
Using your setttings I have been playing with the x264 codec. It's alot more demanding on the cpu. however it does produce very noticeable far superior results over divx. It also takes a good 2x more time to encode, but nvm that the end result which counts.
Getting x264 playing on hermes appears to be a slight headache for some.
TCPMP used to support it, now doesnt.
So you have 2 options CorePlayer or old beta version of TCPMP 72RC1.exe
IIRC I remeber reading the coreplayer is newer more effeciant by approx 10% than the tpcmp x264 beta decoder. I also had a bit of a headache getting the aac audio codec working.. maybe cos I have a wm2003 device. I clicked on and installed far to many differnt things to know how I fixed it .
Also apprently the ATI ImageOn boosts performance nicely for 264 files. but causes problems with divx xvid etc.. which are commonly used.
1) get new rom ak3.. 2)install atifix + If you set zoom to 100% - artifacts dissapear.
Nice thread here. - http://70.84.52.18/corecodec.com/forum/index.php?topic=3723.msg22042#msg22042 - srry if cross forum linking isnt allowed..
I have only a dell axim x5 - maybe 5 years old now, but it has a 400mhz intel xscale cpu which I guess is comparible to what the hermes samsung cpu can do. So my testing regarding performance maybe a bit off. I can confirm though x264 codec is the way forward. All the new devices use it for good reason.. ipods. playstaion portables, blueray. hd tv's.
A little more clarifcation needs to be done. to provide us all with the ultimate setup. one thing for sure. wams settings are great. and produce fantastic results. the software he reccomends - winmec is real nice and easy to use..
I also spent a fair bit of time with MEgui front end and, it has so many more options.. which could be a bonus but was just too confusing for me. Also winmec and Megui may have shifted the timing of frames off a tiny bit.. I'll need to check on a longer file to see if there was any syncing issues.
I'll be back soon with a definative guide.

Oh yeah x264 is definitely the way to go and the improvement are easily noticed for the same bitrate.
I did a few x264 but this was back before WM6 (AKU 3.3) and the ATI fixes and I could play smooth BUT without audio which wasn't much use.
I might give them a try again when I have more time to play but for the time being DivX is giving me good results... and is quick!
Oh I am using TCPMP 0.81. I would use Coreplayer 1.04 but until they fix the negative audio sync bug I am forced to use TCPMP.

So How is the Video Playback?

I've been using the TD2 for almost a week now. Really really happy with it,but I haven't tested any videos yet,though it was one of my major priorities behind buying this phone. Actually I am bit concerned after some reviews of the phone by some websites,they stated the Video playback is not up to the mark(Like-Skipped frames,Sound cracking etc.). If this is true then the large 3.2' screen will make no sense and I would be very SAD. So please vote and input your comments.
BTW-By Video I mean AVI files(either .xvid or .divx encoded) for PC playback(VGA or above quality),please don't say anything about .mp4,3gp and Conversion of videos. Maybe CorePlayer is the option,I don't have it as it's not free.
Thanks in advance.

IME the device on its own barely plays any video formats and doesn't even play them so well. I bought CorePlayer and it plays most things and quite well too. Sometimes you just have to pay for stuff. Shame the UI is a bit ropey though.

convert the video first to smaller resolution..it will be better..and yes coreplayer is my favourite player too..

Without saying anything about certain formats we've been asked not to mention , I have converted some films (they had to be converted, they were DVDs to start with!) and have got to a place where I'm happy, extremely, very slight lip-sync issue, but watchable, and on the 3.2 screen they look great, no issues with Video, just need to get the Audio-Video sync sorted.
BTW-Haven't used an existing files, converted films specifically for TD2 (the ones converted for my XDA Orbit were a bit on the small size due to the screen size.
PS Only use HTC Album to view, WMP doesn't seem to want to play anything I give to it.

I have excellent quality with PocketDivxEncoder to make my movie smaller.
On my TD2/Topaz i use CorePlayer because it's WideScreen.
TCPMP won't run on my phone and WMP doesn't have the codecs.

Ok,so I got one thing-A conversion is a must for higher qualities. But I will not see high qualities/resolution on my TD2,I'll rather choose my 22" HD Dell monitor for that,but I thought I atleast can watch the DVD rips(the popular xvid encoded <=700mb)on my TD2 by Core player or else when I am on the go..haven't had a clear idea about it..anyways thnx for voting.

ithehappy said:
Ok,so I got one thing-A conversion is a must for higher qualities. But I will not see high qualities/resolution on my TD2,I'll rather choose my 22" HD Dell monitor for that,but I thought I atleast can watch the DVD rips(the popular xvid encoded <=700mb)on my TD2 by Core player or else when I am on the go..haven't had a clear idea about it..anyways thnx for voting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you are looking for a bit more clear answer, so I will try to give you one. The answer is - YES, you can easily watch DVD rips WITHOUT any conversion, on the go, by Coreplayer of course To me personally, any conversion at all is a misunderstanding. Sure, a phone isnt a PC, but if I pay so much for it, I demand that it can handle unconverted videos. And Topaz really does that very well As an example, I can tell you that I watch a lot of my favourite TV shows and series on the go without any compression, I just download my show (which has a resolution practially the same as DVD) and put it on my SD card. As far as You do not want to watch videos with more than 700x... resolution, you dont even have to convert anything. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my Topaz's video playback capabilities

oh and to be even more clear - all <=700MB xvid encoded movies running superb smoothly, WITHOUT any compression

jgal said:
I'm guessing you are looking for a bit more clear answer, so I will try to give you one. The answer is - YES, you can easily watch DVD rips WITHOUT any conversion, on the go, by Coreplayer of course To me personally, any conversion at all is a misunderstanding. Sure, a phone isnt a PC, but if I pay so much for it, I demand that it can handle unconverted videos. And Topaz really does that very well As an example, I can tell you that I watch a lot of my favourite TV shows and series on the go without any compression, I just download my show (which has a resolution practially the same as DVD) and put it on my SD card. As far as You do not want to watch videos with more than 700x... resolution, you dont even have to convert anything. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my Topaz's video playback capabilities
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to be clear, the ripped DVD can't just be a standard file, it has to have been converted first, even if that conversion keeps the resolution and size intact, even Coreplayer can't play vob files.

Coreplayer also doesn't support AC3 audio which is a huge limitation and disappointment This means that any video files with DD are no go.

watched the pilot of Caprica. The file was downloaded for PC viewing. was a Xvid encoded .avi file resoloution 624 x 352 and encoded with 23 fps with a data rate of 133 Kbps (It says 133kbps for audio as well, so I assume that is the total ofr both streams).
Played perfectly on Core player

Thank you guys for voting and commenting. I decided to test the topic by myself. And I am so unlucky to say that I got stunned by it. I copied a .xvid encoded .avi music video file(71mb),24fps,640*352 from my Desktop Pc to the TD2,played it with the CorePlayer 1.30(6213) and the result was TERRIBLE. It just didn't play anything at all. The sound was there but the video lagged all the way. So,what to do now? Huh,I decied that's it,as my major priority was watching video without any conversion has failed and failed so badly,so I am selling it. But except all this I liked it.
Thank you guys,bye.

I think 1.3.2 build 6909 is the current release so maybe the version you are using is a bit old. It should play xVid avis no problem at that resolution. You could alos try the free TCMP from which coreplayer was derived. http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/

ithehappy said:
Thank you guys for voting and commenting. I decided to test the topic by myself. And I am so unlucky to say that I got stunned by it. I copied a .xvid encoded .avi music video file(71mb),24fps,640*352 from my Desktop Pc to the TD2,played it with the CorePlayer 1.30(6213) and the result was TERRIBLE. It just didn't play anything at all. The sound was there but the video lagged all the way. So,what to do now? Huh,I decied that's it,as my major priority was watching video without any conversion has failed and failed so badly,so I am selling it. But except all this I liked it.
Thank you guys,bye.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What was the data rate? My version of Core is older (1.25) and the same res file flew for me. It was a 700MB file for 90 odd minutes of video.

I tried two videos(music),here are the detail:
The First one,(a Taylor Swift video),72mb
The details from my PC- Time-4 mins 37 secs,Resolution 640*352,Audio format-Lame MP3,Audio Bit rate-192kbps and Video Frame rate-23fps/sec, Video Date rate-2099kbps, Video Sample size-24bits, Video compression-FFDS
Now when I tried to play that by Core Player 1.30 on my TD2,it didn't run at all,
Now the details of the Video by Core Player-
Video- AVC aka H.264,Codec-Core AVC and I played it for first 30 seconds and it played 67 frames and Dropped 985 frames,the rate was 1.527
Now the second music video,98.6mb
Resolution-512*384,Runtime-18 mins 57 seconds, Frame rate-23fps/sec,Data rate-710kbps,Video sample size-24bits,Video compression-XVID
Now Core player played this video well,very well infact,the Details by Core player,
Video-MPEG4,Codec-Core ASP,I watched it for first 6 mins and it played 744 frames and dropped 7,Played FPS-23.88
Thanks

I'm guessing that You copied your file to the memory card. If so, did You install SDTuneUp drivers? It looks like they are a must have.

Sir,I don't know what is SD tune up driver and where to install from. BTW-I don't have a memory card on my TD2,it didn't come out of the box and so lazy to buy a seperate one.

hi, I am wondering how the performance is watching football (soccer) highlights from youtube or www.footytube.com , does anyone have any ideas? I have tried this on sony Ericsson w995 and the ball is invisible :s

I know it has been mentioned before but converting using he HTC Touch HD ‘Encoder’ program works well using HTC Album playback on my stock ROM TD2 playing back from the SD Card.
I understand that some of you are resistant to converting files and do not want to go this route but I thought it might help some of those reading this thread that smooth HQ playback from the SD card is absolutely possible without paying any money if you spend the time converting files on a PC (or Mac).
Tony

"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.

Coreplayer 1.3.6 Judder - stock ROM 1.48 (SOLVED)

I've done a search and read many posts about coreplayer performance on the HD2. Most have no problems but some do and i'm one of them.
I have no problem playing the files using these settings from member Shasarak (thanks mate):
Options/Video and activate Dither, then "smooth zoom always" rather than "smooth zoom 50%". You will get substantially better performance if you then go into the DirectDraw settings page, choose "YUY2" as your overlay format, leave "use device stretching" checked, and uncheck the other two boxes.
I have tried all other settings and combinations but i agree the above gives the best performance.
However, i am still experiencing occassional judder and it's annoying me.
1). would upgrading to stock ROM 1.66 make a difference?
2). is there ANYTHING else i can do to stop the judder? i've already tried disabling background tasks, wifi etc
3). The audio is also very slightly out of sync, it's delayed, it's minor but i notice it. It happens on all videos, they are all .avi I've not seen anyone complain of this before.
Thanks

With regards to uadio sync:
Menu --> Tools --> Settings
Select the 'Advanced' page
Manual A/V offset let's you adjust the audio sync

The judder is most likely due to the format the videos are encoded in just eating too much CPU. How do you encode them?

kilrah said:
The judder is most likely due to the format the videos are encoded in just eating too much CPU. How do you encode them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't encode them, just downloaded movies in the common divx/xvid format. I played movies on my old N96but re-encoded them to mp4 as it didn't play avi and i never tried coreplayer on it.
Perhaps i should try re-encoding, but don't see why this phone couldn't handle a standard 700mb divx avi.

kr00t0n said:
With regards to uadio sync:
Menu --> Tools --> Settings
Select the 'Advanced' page
Manual A/V offset let's you adjust the audio sync
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers mate, you are the man! putting a -0.300 has made it much better, not sure why it would be out like that on all movies? I'm very happy with that What do the other 2 settings do - soft drop tolerance & hard drop tolerance?
now just to fix the juddering.
I've found, and i think someone else suggested this in another thread, that if you pause it for a moment it sorts itself out. Would rather not have to do that but i don't see a way around it

jonbaker76 said:
Perhaps i should try re-encoding, but don't see why this phone couldn't handle a standard 700mb divx avi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The standard ~1h30 700MB divx movies I've tried to play all worked nicely. But sorter ones of the same size (meaning more bitrate) could start being too much load. Just try and do a benchmark in coreplayer with a video that causes problems, if you have less than about 150% average playing speed you might start getting drops.

It may help to put the phone in "Airplane Mode"; if it's checking for email messages in the background while playing it will judder like crazy. Use the task manager to kill off any other running applications as well....

I come to the conclusion that this phone just can not handle playing divx/xvid in avi very well, and i'm not sure why it can't.
I have gone back to my old ways of converting the video to mp4 using winavi mp4 converter, this also cures the problem of any files that have ac3 audio as it converts that as well.
On my 8 year old computer it would take 30 mins to convert a 700mb film, i have since bought a quad core Dell running 64 bit windows 7 and it converts in less than 10 mins!!
Smooth as butter now but a shame i have to go back to doing this. But at least the files will play in coreplayer, windows media and htc's player so plenty of choice
If anyone wants the settings i use for winavi mp4 converter then just ask away. It's not free but mine was if you get what i mean
EDIT:
I HAVE FOUND THE REAL PROBLEM, IT'S MY COREPLAYER! IT STARTED STUTTERING THE MP4 FILE THIS MORNING, WHEN I SWITCHED TO WINDOWS MEDIA OR HTC PLAYER IT WAS FINE 9OBVIOUSLY COULDN'T DO THIS BEFORE AS NEITHER OF THOSE PLAYERS SUPPORT AVI)
I JUST TRIED COREPLAYER AGAIN AND IT'S PLAYINNG THE SAME MP4 FILE FINE NOW, MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY COREPLAYER, WILL GET ANOTHER VERSION.
WHAT A DRAMA AND SORRY FOR BORING YOU ALL WITH IT LOL