Database Users

Coreplayer/TCPMP Bliss...

That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks

I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.

adamelphick said:
I found that the DiVx converter from DiVx works brilliantly if you set it to 'mobile'... I dont get any of these issues that everyone else seems to have - I use the official DiVx player on the Ameo and its great full screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had tried that some months ago and wasn't that impressed, but maybe they have improved it. What version are you using?

mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
320x240 resolution with extremely high bitrates won't give you the sharpness a QVGA device can playing the same resolution.
On the Hermes with the ATI chip, they finally got a resolution/fix as there seemed to be some buffering issues regarding Audio (not entirely sure if these reports were accurate), so I've been playing with Audio codecs and lower bit-rates, to some benefit....but not enough.
The best 'in-between' results I have found till we get a fix for our Imageon hardware (if ever) is as follows.
P.S. I've tried playing with H264, X264, DivX 6.xxupwards, Mpeg 4 etc and various encoders from Virtual Dub and Guardian ... to DVDx and too many to mention to be honest (over 20-30 encoders over the last few years).
For movie clips or entire movies to look really good on a VGA screen IMHO and experience, you have to encode higher than QVGA but less than VGA unless like the Dell's you have a accelerator that actually work with TCPMP or Coreplayer. Our only works with the ATI software renderer, which is still miles better than any other option open to us.
So I now encode at:
Video: 480x320 at 850kbps
Audio: AAC @ 44100hz and 128kbps (if music video)
Audio:AAC @ 22050hz and 64kbps (for everything else)
I can only yield benchmark results of around 118% but
I've successfully played over 72500 frames with only 45 frames dropped!
Trust me..that is really good. 0 frames would be nice and very possible by encoding at 320x240 but the video looks to soft whereas at 480x320 it actually looks quite sharp indeed.
If you encode a genuine High def clip or movie at this resolution, the end result will look like the original HD clip or worst way, like a super-bit DVD.
1% frame 'droppage' = 725
45 frames dropped out of 72500 = less than 1/16th of 1% which = Bliss
You do the maths.
Depending on the source video, if it is full screen, so will the encoded video, but if it is in wide screen format, so will your encodes be.
For DVD conversion I got best results vs speed using (freeware) Handbrake v2.25 and Mpeg 4 decoder.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
For individual files (VOB files), I use Any Video Converter (yeah, that's the name of the application). Same results.
For all other video files I love Smartmovie with the same setup as outlined above, except for the encoder..I use Xvid in Smartmovie.
I'll try to upload a sample video to rapidshare or something if anyone wants to view the quality and performance...but my time is somewhat limited at the moment.
P.S. The above mentioned apps are dummy proof and not too complex for noobs, so why not try it out and let us know how you get on.
Last but not least, in Coreplayer v1.1.1 or even TCPMP , if you suffer from lipsync problems, try adjusting
Menu/Tools/Preferences/Select Page/Advanced...scroll down and adjust the 'Manual A/V offset'. Mine is currently at:
-0.200 but depending on other videos I might have to adjust to -0.600...it works wonderfully (menu navigation in TCPMP might be slightly different to Coreplayer, but the option is still there).
Good luck and if you have better results than these, please post back and share your findings. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb

The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.

fallenczar said:
Hey Mark,
A couple of things that might work...try running your video's with your advantage plugged in..
another thing...if you have 16:9 video convert it into 532x300
that consistently gives me good result...
and last but not the least...try splitting your video into smaller files...none larger than 600mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks my friend. I'll try those suggestions and let you know.

adamelphick said:
The player on my Ameo is version 0.88 andthe DivX converter is version 6. Hope that helps.
It rips straight from DVD to my Ameo SD card too.... quite quick. Although I am having problems with no subtitles at the mo the rest is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for that mate, Just downloading it now, will try it soon.

I stand by my findings...
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.

mackaby007 said:
1) Divx Converter Using Divx 6.6
1) adamelphick's Divx Encoder
80% Benchmark Result
Resolution 592x448 (original was lower than default VGA 640x480 Portable Profile - so kept orig. Resolution of 592x448)
over 350 frames dropped
Only 20.xxx fps vs mine @ 23.79 out of 23.975 Original
2) I Used Any Video Converter with fallenczar's recommended resolution for widescreen movies for full screen viewing
Benchmark Result 131.28% Excellent.
Resolution 532x300 (slightly vertically stretched, but very viewable)
only 9 frames dropped out of 3842! Excellent!
Superb fps playback of 23.920 out of 23.976
3)I Used Any Video Converter xvid codec!
125.11% Benchmark Result
Resolution 480x320
only 4 frames dropped out of 5690!
Superb fps playback of 23.959 out of 23.976
4)I Used Any Video Converter Mpeg4 codec. Visually not quite as good as xvid, but still very good.
123.06% Benchmark Result but the audio sounded extremely slowed down! ?!??!?
Resolution 480x320
only 5 frames dropped out of 5938!
Superb fps playback of 24.979 out of 25.000 Mpeg4 codec would not allow me to keep NTSC format & I was forced to use 25fps.
Sorry if all that info above is a bit confusing, so here's the bottom line.
I've tested the Divx Encoder and Divx Mobile Player.....sorry, but it's still seriously lacking compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP. Handheld profile encodes at low resolution unfit for VGA device if you're a quality freak.
Portable Profile seriously looks good. No doubt about it and so it should as its native resolution for encoding is VGA (640x480), but then you hit the performance issues related to non accelerated Vids on VGA devices.
Verdict? No good for Athena but probably excellent for quick encodes using QVGA devices. The Player is also only capable of handling AVI vids and the encoding specs had better match its Players ability else it won't play the file.
For Fallenczar's recommended Resolution for widescreen vids, I can only say..Nice & Thanks for the tip.
If you don't mind the original Video/movie being slightly elongated, you won't notice a performance hit at all. You'll even get slightly Benchmark results than by using my method. But the benchmark results is not the sum of its parts and should only be used as an indicator, not a 'actual playback' performance gauge.
Verdict? Great tip! I'm definitely keeping this in mind for future encodes of wide screen movies & Vids. Thanks again.
Lastly I used an application called 'Any Video Converter', but in all honesty, there are many others that can do the job as well and better if you don't mind the complexity of some of the more advanced apps. But as a quick solution, you'll be hard pushed to beat this for casual and quick video files conversion. For DVD encoding I'd definitely stick with Handbrake...it's bloody fast too and uses MSDOS and no fancy GUI for viewing the video as it encodes, hence it encodes a 90 minute movie in a third of the time of the entire movie. i.e. 90 min video encoded in just under 30mins.
As the results show in no 3 & 4, even though my benchmark results are slightly lower than with fallenczars resolution for widescreen format vids, it's hard to beat how little frames are dropped whilst retaing a visually HQ video/movie.
Verdict? I absolutely stand by my findings until someone finds a way of encoding videos at native VGA at HQ with virtually no hit on performance.
I want HQ with great performance. Don't get me wrong people, we can easily achieve benchmarks in excess of 500 - 600kbps but the quality of sound and video isn't worthy of such high end PPC's. We paid a lot of dough for these devices and I'll be damned if I can't get slick HQ video on the Athena. I refuse to get a dell or Archos or whatever just to accelerate video and games....if that was my priority I'd buy a PSP and a get myself another compact HTC Hermes.
Just wait till we get some support for our Imageon devices. Let the good times roll.
P.S. Divx Encoder can't encode whatever you throw at it, mostly AVI files. Any Video Converter and quite a few others can handle most formats including high def files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming

fallenczar said:
Hey Mark!
Since you seem to have loads of free time why don't you try converting your video to .mov, try it with a small 20-40 mb movie clip first..
if my memory serves me right then you should be able to get better results with it...though converion to mov if time consuming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blimey, I haven't used that format for years, except for downloads from Apple.com...thanks for the tip. I'll look into it once I get some more free time.

Test Clip for download...
Just in case you can't be bothered or have the time to test these settings, just download this test video and see what you think...it's about 8.5 MB in size:
DownloadLink: http://rapidshare.com/files/50811286/10000_BC_HD_xvid.avi

Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?

mackaby007 said:
That's right, blissful viewing on your VGA Athena. How?
Don't expect to run it in a full screen window, that's how. The CPU (powerful as it is) cannot handle native VGA 640x480 full screen encodes. Probably due to the many other things it has to do simultaneously.
For full screen 640x480, we need the ATI Imageon chip acceleration support, which as we all know is not yet available and ATI/AMD have not been forthcoming in helping CoreCodec in revealing the nature of their hard/software embedded implementation. Nuff said.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.

juiceppc said:
Will the Advantage play a 640x480 .wmv in Windows Media Player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.

panvita said:
I discovered that TCPMP can not play full screen. As I have installed SmartMovie which can play full screen movie beautifully, therefore I do not bother to try run TCPMP to play movies, just use TCPMP to play music with enlarged lyrics appearing at the same time along with the pace of music. That is a joy forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No disrespect panvita, but you obviously have no idea what I've been talking about. Take any of those movies that you say is full screen in Smart Movie and run some test with it,(I use the latest version) and the Smartmovie converter cannot even encode at full VGA 640x480 by default and the PPC SmartMovie player doesn't like most videos encoded by other encoders (its limited).
What I'm trying to say is SmartMovie Player on the PPC is inferior by far to TCPMP and Coreplayer. Check the options in SmartMovie player to show framerate whilst a movie is playing and check the actual resolution too. I think you'll find that it is more often than not, Not real VGA res and when it is, your frame-rate will be terribly slow.
Then run the same movie file in TCPMP or Coreplayer and check your property settings after playing your movie file and you'll see again the frame rate achieved and how many frames were dropped.
Don't mean to sound arrogant or like a Mr Know-it-all, but it is pretty much common knowledge that Coreplayer and TCPMP is far superior to all other PPC based Video players on the market to date, even though 'It' still has its shortcomings.

mackaby007 said:
Possibly, if the encoding specs match that of the ones outlined in the Athena Handbook, but I believe you will get better performance from using MP4 under WMP as it will use the Imageon Hardware decoder that Coreplayer cannot use.
However from my experience, WMP is far too restrictive, hence TCPMP/Coreplayer is the best on the market. .wmv is pretty crap for PPC playback IMHO compared other formats. .wmv is fine on Full blown PC though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.

juiceppc said:
Core is good but if my main objective is to watch my movies(of which all are .wmv) full screen with no hiccups then why not just use WMP to do that. I like .wmv for it's simplicity. But that's just me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't argue with that at all. Coreplayer is crap for WMV but that is exactly the format WMP likes to play.

TCPMP on x7501
I am using the TCPMP player on my new Advantage x7501 & it works perfectly!

I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????

Try different settings...somethings wrong with yours.
hirad_sabaghian said:
I advise to use DirectDraw as an output! it's really better than that sucker ATI IMAGEON! Take a look at the configs and Benchmarks! (Configs in both benmarks are the same)
-Video
Video Output: DirectDraw
Video Quality: High
Smooth zoom: ON
Dither: • (on)
Accleration: ◘ (off)
-Buffering
Turned on to Micro Drive mode
Buffer Size: 32000kb
Start at: 2944
-Benchmark Using DirectDraw(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 183,86 % (!)
Video Frames: 8821
Audio Samples: 15598708
Amount of Data: 14443 KB
Codec: DivX
*PLZ PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHER BENCHMARK USING ATI IMAGEON AS VIDEO OUTPUT*
-Benchmark Using ATI IMAGEON(File Size: 138 mb)
Average Speed: 58,71%
Video Frames: 8776
Audio Samples: 15488972
Amount of Data: 14354 KB
HOW IS IT MARK????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooh do I detect a tone of anger or possibly sarcasm in that last statement/question? hehe
OK, the reason is probably that when you use Coreplayer or TCPMP, you have the Imageon Decoder activated...No good, NOT fixed to work with Coreplayer or TCPMP as yet.
Coreplayer: Under your video settings, ensure you have the following settings checked or enabled:
Video Output: ATI IMAGEON
Video quality: High
Smooth Zoom: On
Dither: Ticked
Acceleration: UNticked (else you'll be using the hardware decoder - no good)
Under Preferences select Direct Draw options page and select the following:
Overlay with colorkey - Ticked
Use blitting instead of overlay - Blank
Use device stretching for blitting - Blank
Overlay format - YV12
There you have it. Last but not least, don't encode videos much beyond 480x320 otherwise the Athena cannot handle it.
Try that my friend.
Same set-up for TCPMP:

What video encoder do you guys recommend?

Prefer something that is fast and easy to set? It seems even with coreplayer there are some codecs such as sorenson that still can't be handle by the player, would love to have a nice video encoder to do the job for the odd video that doesnt play on hd2.
Thanks!

im using TMPGENC EXPRESS 4.0 .
quality is very good
i have opened a video performance thread in LEO-LEO forum. please check. thanks.

I'm trying different codecs to see which would be better to use.
So far I'm using the mpeg4 standard (MPEG-4 AVC/AAC/MP4), and it works almost flawlessly when using a bit rate of about 3000kbps at 30 FPS (800x480). The videos taken using the Camera are also encoded with mpeg4.
Oh, and I'm using the HTC video player. CorePlayer's performance for the HD2 using either GDI or the raw buffer makes me cringe (and it somehow reduces colors, not sure why; compare HTC's promotional video played in the Album and in CorePlayer).
I'm encoding with MediaCoder, which is free but isn't exactly what I'd call user-friendly.
EDIT: And the performance is even better in Windows Media Player itself.
What the hell, everything's upside-down.

What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?

tnyynt said:
What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing
This one is nice too:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050
-I like the results from this one a little better than 'Video Encoding GUI'. The colors are a bit more saturated which I find nice when I watch on the go..

Yunabeco said:
EDIT: And the performance is even better in Windows Media Player itself.
What the hell, everything's upside-down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, do you mean that the performance in Windows Media Player is better than the performance in HTCAlbum?

Shasarak said:
Sorry, do you mean that the performance in Windows Media Player is better than the performance in HTCAlbum?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find it to be so (I had much less frame skips in WMP). Then again, it might depend on the video.

Try Media Coder its free and works really well.

hassan said:
Try Media Coder its free and works really well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It knows about Nvidia's CUDA . It's the best !!!

I use Handbrake:
http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
The latest version works very well - choose the iphone/ipod touch preset and increase the resolution from the puny 480x320 that the iphone can handle.

tnyynt said:
What's wrong with Video Encoding GUI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seeing as this thread has come back to life anyway: the Video Encoding GUI does a very good job of converting for a Touch HD, TP2 or TD2, but it has a maximum bit-rate of 1000kb/s, which is really not high enough for an HD2. (On lesser phones if you make the bit-rate any higher you lose smoothness of playback, but on an HD2 you don't have to make that trade-off). MP4ForHD has the same problem. It'd be nice if the author of either of those could do an HD2 version.

So, I'm not sure we've actually come to any useful conclusions in this thread. As I have an HD2 arriving tomorrow, I'm quite keen to start converting some videos for it.
What I need is:
For an original video that is <= 800x480, the resolution should remain unchanged. For a video > 800x480 it should be downscaled to fit within 800x480 with an unchanged aspect ratio. (So, for example, a 512x384 capture should be output as 512x384; 640x360 should be output as 640x360; 1280x720 should be output as 800x450. No cropping under any circumstances.)
The output frame-rate should always be the same as that of the original clip.
The output audio should have the same volume and same sampling rate as the input audio. If the input audio is > 2 channels, it should be downmixed to stereo.
It needs to support container and codec options that are optimised for playback on the HD2 using either HTCAlbum or WMP. (Not sure yet which of these will be best, and am still researching encoding options in other threads!)
The output bitrate should be appropriately reduced for lower-resolution clips automatically.
All of the above needs to be something that is retained from session to session so that you can simply point it to the input file and click "Start" without having to reselect options each time.
It needs to be able to queue up multiple files and process them one at a time.
Good output quality and smoothness of playback is obviously important.
Something that does the encoding quickly rather than slowly is a plus (but I'm stuck using a creaky old 3GHz Pentium IV with on-board GPU at the moment, so am not expecting miracles).
It should be able to handle 720p .mkv files with ac3 audio, and also lower-resolution xvid files.
Freeware would be a big plus.
I've checked out a few of the suggested applications (not all) and most of them seem to lacking at least some of this. Things like Video Encoder GUI or MP4ForHD do an excellent job for lower-spec phones, but the bit-rates are capped at a level that is far too low for optimum performance on the HD2. Some of the more sophisticated applications have some surprising omissions, such as not being able to store settings between sessions, or not being able to specify 800x450 as an output resolution, or not being able to specify 800x480 as a maximum resolution and have it choose the actual output res depending on the input res, or having no option to keep the original frame-rate or the original audio sampling rate, or bit-rate.
There must surely be something out there that covers all this?

Shasarak said:
I've checked out a few of the suggested applications (not all) and most of them seem to lacking at least some of this. Things like Video Encoder GUI or MP4ForHD do an excellent job for lower-spec phones, but the bit-rates are capped at a level that is far too low for optimum performance on the HD2. Some of the more sophisticated applications have some surprising omissions, such as not being able to store settings between sessions, or not being able to specify 800x450 as an output resolution, or not being able to specify 800x480 as a maximum resolution and have it choose the actual output res depending on the input res, or having no option to keep the original frame-rate or the original audio sampling rate, or bit-rate.
There must surely be something out there that covers all this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strangely enough, for me the HD settings on MP4ForHD for encoding did quite a good job of 300 and A Scanner Darkly. Smooth playback and an acceptable quality for a DVD rip. The only issue I faced was a bit of an audio sync issue with 300. The output sizes were approximately 600-700mb
If there could be better output or an easy way to ensure the audio syncs with the video properly, the HD2 would be golden. (I am stuck on a 3 year old laptop which has had some minor processor/hdd/ram upgrade and took 4 hours to encode a DVD for my HD2.

Shasarak said:
Seeing as this thread has come back to life anyway: the Video Encoding GUI does a very good job of converting for a Touch HD, TP2 or TD2, but it has a maximum bit-rate of 1000kb/s, which is really not high enough for an HD2. (On lesser phones if you make the bit-rate any higher you lose smoothness of playback, but on an HD2 you don't have to make that trade-off). MP4ForHD has the same problem. It'd be nice if the author of either of those could do an HD2 version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.

tnyynt said:
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a perfectly valid opinion, but (having done some viewing of the output on a PC screen) it is not one that I happen to share. (Not for downscaled hi-def material, anyway).

What's with MediaCoder? Have you tried this?

seed_al said:
What's with MediaCoder? Have you tried this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I glanced at it. Having spent 10 minutes trying and failing to get it to produce 800x450 output, I gave up. Maybe I should have another go....

niknik76 said:
Nothing
This one is nice too:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478050
-I like the results from this one a little better than 'Video Encoding GUI'. The colors are a bit more saturated which I find nice when I watch on the go..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use that one aswell

tnyynt said:
Maybe going further above bitrate wise is just a waste of space and that 2 pass encoding at such bitrates from both converters just means optimal output.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tested, and for sure that downscaling HD media to a 800x480 screen requires more than 1000kbps to bring out the details.

Are you saying I can install new codecs and be able to record video with them? At the moment I use MPEG at 640x480...I can get better resolution?

Video test

Hi, Iam going through the motions of thinking about upgrading my Touch HD again, at present it is pretty much coming down to video playback.
I would be grateful if someone could download this and see how it runs on the HD2 using coreplayer, it currently pretty much wont run at all on my HD.
Thanks
http://download.bethsoft.com/trailers/fallout3/MothershipZeta-x264-6500-HD.mp4

i never was able to get coreplayer to work on my hd2, but i will say the built-in video player plays my ripped dvd mp4 files very well, with such fluidity that i dont need or want coreplayer. the only problem with the native player is the video & audio are often not perfectly synchronized, but its never bad, just barely noticeable.
i downloaded your test mp4 file, but the native player wont show the video, only the audio
all in all, the hd2 is lightyears ahead of the hd in performance. i use duttys latest 6.5.x rom, ver 23544, and with chainfires video driver, everything is perfectly fluid qnd quick. i tried a 23542 rom on my old hd and together with manila 2.5, its just too much, and brings the poor hd to its knees, and it crawls very slowly
hope this helps... if you live in the usa, get a telstra 3g model. you wont be disappointed!

It struggles a lot in TCPMP (shows possibly one frame a second) and doesn't play in Album at all.

hmm, this is not good at all, I expected no problems at all, it could be the codec though, i dont want to re-encode everthing like you have to do in the touch HD so its looks like the HD2 isnt such a good buy after all - for video anyway.

its proably the high bitrate causing the issue

Richy99 said:
its proably the high bitrate causing the issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'd like to see a mobile device properly decode 6.4mbp/s + audio!

video is as below, the res is pretty much perfect for the HD2, low bit rate as well, this should fly being an MP4? - it is x264 though...
input bit rate 704 kb/sec
codec AVc1
48000 stereo
res 864x460
frame rate 29.9700

Plays perfectly on my 3gs. Absolutely smooth with zero frame drop.
But then who wants a toy, right? ;-)

With all due respect, while I completely understand why you would want to play back high definition video clips on a phone, it's simply not going to happen; particularly not on a phone manufactured by HTC, who have a long history of shipping phones which lack adequate hardware-acceleration for video playback. It's possible you might get adequate performance from either an Acer NeoTouch or a Toshiba TG01 - the latter (and I think also the former, though I'm not certain) ships with a hardware-accelerated version of CorePlayer which is very good; but I wouldn't be at all sure even with them.
A sensible resolution and bit-rate would be 800x480 (i.e. the resolution of the screen) and a bit-rate of 2000kb/s variable, with CABAC enabled. (See, for example, the videos attached to this post, which look very good indeed on the HD2). You will not lose any playback quality re-encoding like this, though of course there is the inconvenience of transcoding.

Shasarak said:
With all due respect, while I completely understand why you would want to play back high definition video clips on a phone, it's simply not going to happen; particularly not on a phone manufactured by HTC, who have a long history of shipping phones which lack adequate hardware-acceleration for video playback. It's possible you might get adequate performance from either an Acer NeoTouch or a Toshiba TG01 - the latter (and I think also the former, though I'm not certain) ships with a hardware-accelerated version of CorePlayer which is very good; but I wouldn't be at all sure even with them.
A sensible resolution and bit-rate would be 800x480 (i.e. the resolution of the screen) and a bit-rate of 2000kb/s variable, with CABAC enabled. (See, for example, the videos attached to this post, which look very good indeed on the HD2). You will not lose any playback quality re-encoding like this, though of course there is the inconvenience of transcoding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The movie I posted is at a sensible resolution with a low bit rate, see my specs above.

Just a friendly warning to anyone thinking of dl'ing this on their mob, its an 80 meg file. Be sure and save it to sd card!

stoolzo said:
The movie I posted is at a sensible resolution with a low bit rate, see my specs above.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, but 1280x720 is not a "sensible resolution" in this context.
EDIT: Is it possible that the link you posted doesn't link to the video that you think it links to?

stoolzo said:
video is as below, the res is pretty much perfect for the HD2, low bit rate as well, this should fly being an MP4? - it is x264 though...
input bit rate 704 kb/sec
codec AVc1
48000 stereo
res 864x460
frame rate 29.9700
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong video! Your download is 1280x720
That video doesn't work but:
input bit rate 704 kb/sec
codec AVc1
48000 stereo
res 864x460
frame rate 29.9700
works perfectly!

eaglesteve said:
Plays perfectly on my 3gs. Absolutely smooth with zero frame drop.
But then who wants a toy, right? ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't believe you!! iPhone is a toy and plays only video from iTunes, no 1280x720 because iTunes converts the video!!

stoolzo said:
The movie I posted is at a sensible resolution with a low bit rate, see my specs above.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your specs are wrong. This is what mediainfo says of your file
http://download.bethsoft.com/trailers/fallout3/MothershipZeta-x264-6500-HD.mp4
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1mn 42s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 6 406 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

sm3rtlag3l said:
I don't believe you!! iPhone is a toy and plays only video from iTunes, no 1280x720 because iTunes converts the video!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. Just have to click on the link. That brings up a screen that asked me if I want to play it direct or to download it first. In either way, it plays smoothly.
Of course it is impossible for a toy to be so good, right?

I've read articles in which the authors used an iPhone 3GS to play back 1080p video with a bit-rate of 30Mb/s - this isn't exactly stable, but it does play. 720p video would be very easy.

Shasarak; said:
I've read articles in which the authors used an iPhone 3GS to play back 1080p video with a bit-rate of 30Mb/s - this isn't exactly stable, but it does play. 720p video would be very easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not just go to a Telco or apple store to try it out yourselves? There're just too much false information about what an iPhone can or cannot do around. Lots of it on this forum.
Don't know about what you have read, but mine plays THIS video smoothly. If you click on the link and let it stream, then you may need to wait for enough of the 80+ mb to be downloaded before the player starts. If your phone is JB you have the additional option of downloading it first before playing. Video picture is sharp, completely free if pauses, jitter, or frame drops, and sound completely in sync.
Cheers.
Edit: Thought I might as well video record how well it plays for your guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAGqKYlSnHA
Sorry about the quality of the recording as I was using an old camera to do the recording rather than a proper video recorder, but still you will be able to see how smoothly it plays. Please blame my camera, not my iPhone for the poor video resolution. ;-)

eaglesteve said:
Why not just go to a Telco or apple store to try it out yourselves? There're just too much false information about what an iPhone can or cannot do around. Lots of it on this forum.
Don't know about what you have read, but mine plays THIS video smoothly. If you click on the link and let it stream, then you may need to wait for enough of the 80+ mb to be downloaded before the player starts. If your phone is JB you have the additional option of downloading it first before playing. Video picture is sharp, completely free if pauses, jitter, or frame drops, and sound completely in sync.
Cheers.
Edit: Thought I might as well video record how well it plays for your guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAGqKYlSnHA
Sorry about the quality of the recording as I was using an old camera to do the recording rather than a proper video recorder, but still you will be able to see how smoothly it plays. Please blame my camera, not my iPhone for the poor video resolution. ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, that doesnt really prove anything, you could have converted it to a lower bit to play though itunes, plus the iphone screen res is half that of he HD2.
However, who would actually bother going to those lengths to fake this?
hmmm....

Honestly, even if the Iphone could play it smoothly, does it matter here? This IS the HD2 forums, isn't it? Nothing against it, but it is getting a bit tiresome to hear about it everywhere.

High profile 720p answers.

I'm a new Xoom owner and am for the most part pleased with the device.
My only sore spot is with the inability to play high profile or even main profile h.264 720p videos. Hell it can't even play high or main profile 480p videos without a certain amount of stuttering.
All over the Xoom forums we're hearing everything from "it's impossible because of Tegra 2 limitations" to "it just needs a new codec/video player", and many people saying that the Notion Ink Adam had the same issue, but that it was solved with a firmware update.
What I'm looking for is a straight answer, from someone who both owns a Notion Ink Adam and who knows enough about h.264 to know what high profile means.
Did the Notion Ink Adam receive a FW update that allowed it to play high profile 720p video.
I saw a video of the notion ink adam playing very choppy 720p (the bird scene from Planet Earth) but that video was poorly encoded and an unrealistic benchmark for any mobile device. (9 reference frames? Come on!)

No its laggy at the moment, tried every mkv player out there and everyone had its own issues.. from not starting to locking, to not able to play the file to finally I had one play but it was laggy and overall not enjoyable.

I think software decoding optimized for the tegra is probably the quickest solution for now. I don't think anyone saw android moving onto tablets this quickly or people trying to playing a 2-3 gb files this quickly

Btw I would love to see a PC video player like PowetDVD make a real video player for android

no6969el said:
No its laggy at the moment, tried every mkv player out there and everyone had its own issues.. from not starting to locking, to not able to play the file to finally I had one play but it was laggy and overall not enjoyable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which ROM / NI version were you using?

joshua.lyon said:
Which ROM / NI version were you using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Utopia beta 1. I didnt do as much testing on stock roms....i saw that video vs the xoom and he was able to do it but i didnt catch what player he was using....he just set it to software decoding mode as mentioned above...
I did get one my files to play with sound but it still was laggy. High def robot chicken episode.

Just tested with the latest build NIA920040311 and the stock VideoPlayer
It plays the following H.264 720p very choppy and no sound:
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Muxing mode : Container [email protected]
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 47mn
Bit rate : 3 913 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 528 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.241
Stream size : 2.93 GiB (88%)
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 47mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 344 MiB (10%)

i played a 720p mpeg4 file from my usb 500gb hard drive and it played fine using stock video player

Can anyone read mkv files here? :-$
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

div3r5ity said:
i played a 720p mpeg4 file from my usb 500gb hard drive and it played fine using stock video player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you check with MediaInfo and post details of the media format?

If you change the extension of the file from .mkv to .avi you can see the video, but as said above the decoder to mkv is not properly optimized.

No rename is required, the stock video player read .mkv but I am not sure if it use software or hardware mode to play it. It's like slow motion and without sound for a 720p h.264 L3.1 High Profile 4000Kbps video.

Dr.Preston said:
I'm a new Xoom owner and am for the most part pleased with the device.
My only sore spot is with the inability to play high profile or even main profile h.264 720p videos. Hell it can't even play high or main profile 480p videos without a certain amount of stuttering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure about the Xoom... a buddy of mine on a video forum (Creative Cow) has a Xoom, and found it was ok with base profile 720/30p at 3Mb/s or less, but started choking much beyond that. I've only had my Adam since Friday, but grabbed a bit of handy video to test it out myself. From a plain old USB stick, the Adam did a 720/[email protected]/s file perfectly, both MP4/AVC and WMV9. I tried another file I had around, 720/[email protected]/s, but it only played at 30fps... thus, slow motion.
Dr.Preston said:
All over the Xoom forums we're hearing everything from "it's impossible because of Tegra 2 limitations" to "it just needs a new codec/video player", and many people saying that the Notion Ink Adam had the same issue, but that it was solved with a firmware update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No question the Xoom seems to have some issues, and some of that could be the incompleteness of Honeycomb fine-tuning. Given that the problems I had heard previously were seen with fairly low bitrate 720p, I would at least check the speed on your Xoom's memory (internal?). Shouldn't be an issue... SD Tools benchmarked the Adam's internal "SD Drive" at 160MB/s-200MB/s reads (10MB/s writes). Android 2.2 is still unsophisticated about devices at the GUI level -- cannot yet point the same benchmark at external flash or USB. Probably not an issue, but worth eliminating as one.
Dr.Preston said:
What I'm looking for is a straight answer, from someone who both owns a Notion Ink Adam and who knows enough about h.264 to know what high profile means.
Did the Notion Ink Adam receive a FW update that allowed it to play high profile 720p video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I made a bunch of AVC files. All come from an original AVCHD track, 1080/24p, 24Mb/s, shot on a Panasonic HMC40 camcorder. All rendering using the Sony Vegas 10 and the Sony AVC CODEC.
I rendered 720p and 1080p files, put them on a USB stick, and played them on my Adam. None of the 1080p stuff played perfectly on the Adam.... 1080/24p baseline at at 4Mb/s was just a bit off. All of the 720/24p videos did just dandy at 4Mb/s, even the High profile. Going to higher bitrates, I have some 720/24p baseline holding together at 6Mb/s, some lagging behind the audio -- sure looks like the player (NI player, Android default, and the ES File Explorer video player work identically -- they're all accessing the same OS components) doesn't drop frames when it can't keep up. So the audio walks away from the video. It gets worse at higher bitrates... presumably, more frames are not staying in sync.
So it looks jittery... just a little off from being "real". I'll wager most people would be completely happy with 6Mb/s, or even the 4Mb/s 1080p baseline, if the player did a proper job of staying in sync... you don't notice the occasional dropped frame, but at least if you're a musician, you'll be bothered by audio being off even a few milliseconds. Didn't help that my subject was my friend Pat playing guitar... pretty obvious when mouth and fingers don't match the sound... and when the sound ends, but video keeps going (the files are, of course, in sync on the PC). I started with a USB stick, but got the same results on the "external" SD Card, which on my system is a 32GB Class 10 card, plenty fast enough for this.
So I think a properly encoded 720/24-30p video at 4Mb/s or so is the sweet spot for today's Adam, and in theory other Tegra2 systems. You might manage a bit higher bitrate, but not too much. If they fix the player with a proper frame drop trick play function, higher bitrate video would probably look just dandy, even if it's dropping the occasional frame to stay in sync.

I wonder if Tegra2 processor is fast enough to decode 720p high profile in software. It's a two core 1Ghz processor - I remember that my Duron 1000 was almost certainly not able to decode h264 but Athlon 1400Mhz (one core) was close if I remember correctly. ARMs are probably much slower than Athlons but in decoding videos the difference shouldn't count as much (because it's probably straight forward computing without many conditional instructions)...

[Q] Video conversion

Hi,
Can anyone recommend any video conversion software for the nexus 7's 7 inch screen.

There's Mediacoder and hanbrake.

I second Handbrake.

Thanks!

MediaCoder is my favourite. It's really fast and has sooo many options.
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515m using xda premium

I actually like Freemake. http://www.freemake.com/
It's free lol there's presets but you can also customize the resolution.

Can anyone suggest general settings for converting videos? Googling says to use Ipod settings? 1280x800 res? Thanks for any input

Questions go in the Q&A section

AtropineNa said:
Can anyone suggest general settings for converting videos? Googling says to use Ipod settings? 1280x800 res? Thanks for any input
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on how big a file you want. Id start with 640x360 at 1.5 mbps bitrate and go from there. I find this setting to be good enough quality at a good file size
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2

I tried this MediaCoder. It is ad ridden and very slow. I'd rather just remux with Wild Media Server, it takes a few minutes.

I am using Quick media Converter, and there are roughly 1000 options,
so lets start with something simple:
What codec and output file type (format) should I choose? I am guessing 16:9 aspect ratio?
Thanks!

You'll want to keep the same aspect ratio the video you're converting has. Haven't used Quick media Converter, so can't offer any specific help for it, sorry!
Could be best to try a few different settings with a short video clip to see what works best - saves having to convert a full episode, film or whatever you're converting.

Why bother converting the video file when you can use an app like MX Player that can handle most video formats ?:silly:

sidthegreatest said:
Why bother converting the video file when you can use an app like MX Player that can handle most video formats ?:silly:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MX player is nice for a bit, but I am much more excited for vlc to drop it's beta tags. MX is to buggy and finnicky for my palate.

rmm200 said:
I am using Quick media Converter, and there are roughly 1000 options,
so lets start with something simple:
What codec and output file type (format) should I choose? I am guessing 16:9 aspect ratio?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Suggest Handbrake and start with an iPad preset then adjust as follows:
MP4 container
ACC sound (stereo)
h.264 video codec , level 4.1 or lower. Maybe level 3.x to start to check for compatibility.
Audio
I suggest 128 kbit/sec with some Dynamic range compression (x2) and audio normalization - assuming you are using a movie source
For a 1080p or 720p source I would recommend setting 1280 pixel width, keep aspect ratio, and allow the converter to adjust the (output) height to be correct.
I would suggest 1400 kbit/sec for the video encode and then try higher bit rates if you like as there may be an upper bit rate limit for the hardware decoder on the N7.

Thank you!
That really covers what I was looking for.
Converting my ripped movies will keep me busy until I get my tablet.

htcsens2 said:
Suggest Handbrake and start with an iPad preset then adjust as follows:
MP4 container
ACC sound (stereo)
h.264 video codec , level 4.1 or lower. Maybe level 3.x to start to check for compatibility.
Audio
I suggest 128 kbit/sec with some Dynamic range compression (x2) and audio normalization - assuming you are using a movie source
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was with you up until the last bit.
Avoid dynamic compression and normalisation, there's really no need.
I took Avatar from a BRD down to 37GB MKV with make MKV then used Handbrake to take that file down to a 3.69GB .MP4 file.
Took about 2 hours to do but the film looks, plays and sounds great on the N7